Sad news from Irving, TX

I just read the news story about the Irving, TX woman who took the lives of her two autistic children. It's so sad... i assume she had underlying psychiatric problems already, but I can't help wonder how much sleep she was getting, how much she could get out of the house and how isolated she was. I don't mean to make excuses for her-- it's a terrible tragedy and I wish it could have somehow been prevented.

Meanwhile I feel so thankful for the support we get from so many wonderful people. First and foremost, our extended family, and also all sorts of friends, therapists and even casual acquaintances.

Resolving to take more pictures

Here's one of my first attempts:

Brainstorming school ideas

For the first time this year, G. is going to ESY for six weeks. His goals are things like taking off his shoes, walking from one activity to another, looking up from an activity when someone calls his name.

Meanwhile at home he is reading sight words, memorizing Dr. Suess books and trying to order us around all day long.

I've made some progress in recent IEP meetings, but I'm starting to think up a combination of public school and homeschooling that I believe could work. This fall he will be in a self-contained class with kids with all sorts of disabilities (in this district, anyone who can't be mainstreamed is stuck into the same class together, no matter the disability) I like the teacher, but I still think the focus will be on functional skills, which G. is pretty bad at. They seem to get so stuck on things like taking off your shoes that they don't have time for reading, computer skills, etc.

Meanwhile, B. is singing all day long, and actually talking a little less. I think it'll sort itself out with time. At ABA he's working on letters and numbers and many other challenging things. He's not going to public school until I get really organized and recruit a really good advocate!

And J. is as social as ever. I feel like his personal assistant, setting up playdates and pool get-togethers every day!

Spring

J. is wrapping up his kindergarten year. It's hard for me to imagine I'll be the mom of a first-grader and two kindergarteners next year. That is, if we put B. back in public school. I have a good feeling about the self-contained class' teacher, so it just may happen.


One thing that is keeping me (close-to) sane this spring has been gardening. My focus is on non-toxic plants, due to our Pica issues. G. in particular sees the backyard as a grazing ground. I've planted beans, sweet peppers, lettuce, thyme, basil, mint and a jalapeno pepper plant (if anyone reading this knows that one of these plants is actually toxic, let me know!). The first day that my relatively huge basil plant was in the ground, every single leaf disappeared, and G. had unusually pungeant breath. The plant survived and is putting out some new little leaves. Maybe a wise metaphor is in there somewhere, but I'm too sleepy to try to nail it down.

We are trying to go down to Galveston this weekend for some ocean swimming. The boys are like little seals in the waves. This time I'll bring life jackets for the twins, so we can relax a little more. Last time I wouldn't let them get deeper than six inches or so. So sad about the oil spill. I hope that the attempt to cap the well works.

We are still here... spending a lot of time doing potty related things. Also expanding our food repertoire (!) Grapes, rigatoni, baby spinach.
B. is still singing a lot, and occasionally coming out with a phrase, which is always a shock.
We finally got rid of G's orange sippy cup, which is making for a lot of milk puddles, but I think it's worth it. If I could get him to drink out of a straw, we'd really be sitting pretty in the drink department.

Ordered a big (twin sized) bed tent... hope it works because they are about to burst out of their cribs.

G. knocked over our Imac and made it un-useable. Hoping we can recover the hard drive with all of our photos!

J. is six now and seems like a little grown up to me sometimes. He does my "Dancing with the Stars" Latin Cardio work out with me. He is also going through an intense Junie B. Jones obsession. Not your typical kindergarten boy, but always entertaining.

Singing

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but since Thanksgiving (well, that was the SeaWorld trip, and I haven't posted since then!), B. has been singing up a storm. At first it was Christmas songs. Frosty, Rudolph, and according to his therapists, even George Michael's "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart".

Now it's anyone's guess what he'll be singing. Yesterday, on a whim I had put a Signing Time CD in the car, and we were on the song I quote in my blog's sidebar, "Maybe we won't find easy, but baby we found the good". That song was such a tear-jerker for me, but I actually have come to dislike it. It reminds me of the hardest time so far in my life, the year or so after I realized the twins had autism and was floundering around about how to help.

So we had arrived at the clinic where the twins had an appointment, and I turned off the car. From the back seat I heard B's voice singing "My hands did so MUCH MORE" very loudly and clearly. It still startles me to hear him singing sometimes, and this one really got me. I never listen to Signing Time music any more, so he was remembering it from back then. Back when I wondered what he could take in, and what he was getting out of all our attempts to connect. He can remember the lyrics to a song from when he was two! To be honest, he's must have heard it a few times since then, but not much.

The twins really boggle my mind... there are so many basic things that are so hard for them, but then they come out with these wonderful surprises.

Best Vacation Ever!

First of all, I would like to thank my sister, Riley, for making our Thanksgiving vacation imaginable, and then making it a great success. It was our first trip that was not a visit to relatives or a hurricane evacuation. We drove about four hours to San Antonio, stayed in a family-friendly Hilton, and spent a day at SeaWorld.

The twins get so loud at night at home that I couldn't imagine staying in a hotel with them. I figured worse come to worse, I would drive them around in the van if necessary. But zipping them into individual tents and putting a DVD on "repeat play" did the trick. There was a lot of quiet singing, but nothing that would disturb anyone.

The first day was a little tough with B., who was very excited about the Christmas tree in the lobby, and did a total flop on the floor and kept "combat crawling" back towards it as I tried to drag him away. When he did get to it, he was very fast about taking glittery ornaments off and chewing on them. My sister was good at quickly child-proofing the hotel room, which mostly meant putting almost everything on top of the TV cabinet. I was happy to find that the Hilton securely bolts all of the artwork to the wall. G. was entertained for a long time by washing his hands in the bathroom sink and even said "Wash hands" over and over to himself. It was only after a while that I realized he was also washing his hands in the toilet bowl.

The big hit, other than Sea World itself, were the outdoor heated pools. Not many people braved them, but we really got our money's worth. At night the hotel lit a bunch of outdoor fire pits and many kids were out there roasting marshmallows (we didn't include the twins on that one). SeaWorld was interesting, uncrowded and pretty well-designed for a family with two giant jogging strollers. They have a huge playground with climbing nets, a pirate ship and big slides. The boys, Dad and my sister loved it, but I have to admit it gave me vertigo. I thought I might have to be rescued off of one of the big nets.

Maybe I'll write more about the vacation later, but I've got to go.