Making it Official

Over the course of this past year, we have been operating under the assumption that Binker has autism. All of the signs and symptoms are there, and it seems to be the general consensus of two pediatricians, his speech therapist, the school's child psychologist, as well as Binker's preschool teachers. The reason we don't have an official diagnosis yet is because the process of getting one is a little more involved than just one appointment with your child's regular practitioner, it usually requires multiple appointments with specialists in the topic.

Last April, Binker's pediatrician referred us to the Autism Center at Seattle Children's Hospital. We were told it would be about a six month wait before we could expect to get an appointment. September rolled around, and then October. No phone call. November and December passed, and I honestly assumed the hospital had forgotten about us. 

I really wasn't concerned. In fact, I really didn't care. From what I'd been told, getting a diagnosis with them would be just that - a diagnosis. A label. They probably wouldn't offer us any new services, they would simply tell us what we already knew, and send us on our way.

And then, last week, they called me.

Nine months after I initially contacted them, we finally have an appointment for this Wednesday.

I decided to go ahead with it for a few reasons. I know that at some point down the line we will probably need proof of his condition to continue receiving his private services through our health insurance. Also, it will be important to show the military, so that we can ensure our family will never be transferred out of the country, so that Binker always has access to the best therapies and schools. I didn't feel like turning down this appointment, only to have to wait another nine months later on down the road.

I have mixed feelings about the appointment this week. On one hand, I am anxious. I would love to go there, and have them say Binker is developing typically and that they have no concerns whatsoever that he is on the spectrum. I know that won't happen. 

So, I am preparing myself to be told the obvious. And in that way, I am looking forward to what they have to say. I know it may be several appointments before they are able to tell us anything substantive, but when they do, I am looking at it as being more information we will have about our son, and how we can work with him and help him. Hopefully they will tell us we are on the right path, and perhaps they will have suggestions of additional things we can do.

Either way, it should be interesting to see how this all plays out, and exactly what the evaluation and diagnosing process involves. I'm sure this will be an interesting part of our journey, stay tuned.

Strong-Willed Child

When my brother and I were teenagers my dad used to tease us that when we turned 13 aliens came and abducted us and would return us to our bodies at 19, meaning that teenagers can seem moody,  difficult, and unrecognizable to their parents. 

I would have to disagree though. I think the aliens take over during age two. 

Bug has been particularly challenging for us. He is very strong-willed, always doing what he wants, on his own schedule. He doesn't respond much to discipline. When he gets in trouble, he will cry, but a few minutes later he is disobeying again. I wrote about Binker when he was going through his difficult phase, but Ryan takes the cake. He will throw tantrums when he gets in trouble, or knee the couch, (I know, what?!), and then he will look at us for our reaction. He is constantly pushing us, wanting to see how far he can go. While I get frustrated with him and his defiant nature, I also can't help but be quietly amused by his antics. I find it amazing that each child is born with their own personality, and as challenging as Bug can be at times he is wonderful in so many ways.

Bug is so sweet and lovable, he always has been. When I stick out my arms he gets the biggest smile, runs over, jumps in my lap and gives the best hugs. He also loves to help out. Whether we're feeding the baby, changing a diaper, or assembling a new toy, he is always right there, intently watching and learning. In fact, we gave him his own tool belt for Christmas because he follows Husband around whenever he is fixing something with a screwdriver or hammer. Now Bug has his very own set. He runs from room to room, hammering the windowsills, and door knobs, and then he will take his "screwdriver" and turn it against the door frame and say "I fixing the door!"

I can't wait to see where his desire to learn and to help takes him. 

That's assuming, of course, that I survive the remainder of the Twos.

See Ya Later Alligator

A cute video I shot of Binker today. Sorry it's so dark, the boys don't have a light in their room right now.

Señora in the Moon

I have to say that I consider myself pretty lucky as far as husbands go. Mine never asks to go out to the bar with the boys, he doesn't go hunting, or off to sports games, leaving me at home to take care of the kids. As long as we've been together, if he is not at work, he is at home, with me. 

His hobby is playing video games, which, as nice as it is having him consistently be just down the hall, I admit that I do at times feel like I'm married to a teenage boy. Aside from Mario Brothers 2, I've never understood the allure of video games or how they are entertaining enough to play for hours on end. 

Husband has always been good about making time for me though. Clearly, we had three children in four years. But we think it's important that our relationship be a priority, and so we try to get alone time together whenever we can. Our main activities though, were watching movies on Netflix, and making babies.

Until now.

     So baby, I think we need to do some kind of an activity together. You know, 
     join a class like mountain climbing or cage fighting, or something. I'm open.

    ....That's really not my thing. Plus, I'm pretty sure this is just those two glasses
     of wine you had talking.

     No, no, I'm for real. I want to spend more time with you, and I think it would 
     be good for us to try something new. Ok, so it doesn't have to be self defense, 
     what if we...learned a foreign language together? 

That sounded much more my style. Learning a new language with my husband? I imagined us out for a romantic dinner, gazing into each other's eyes, speaking in some romantic tongue like Italian, or French, or maybe even Hebrew. Something different and exotic. Yes, very romantic. I was on board.

I pulled up the Rosetta Stone website, and Husband and I began going over their list of languages offered. 

     Now, we could do French, that's a very lovely, romantic language. Or, we could
     take Italian, since we want to go to Italy someday, and I can't think of anything
     more romantic than walking through the streets of Italy, speaking the native
     language to one another. What do you think, my darling?

     No, no, no...hmmm. We need something useful, something that can be used to 
     our advantage against our enemies in battle. Now we could always take 
     Russian, but I think that Chinese would be better suited here. I mean, no one 
     knows Chinese. Think of what an asset I would be to the Navy if I learned 
     Chinese! Or we could always do Tagalog. Some guy on my ship was Filipino 
     and he taught me a swear word, so I've already got a little background in the 
     language.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some Chinese Buffet, but hard as I tried, I could not picture anything romantic about Richard and me speaking Chinese back and forth to one another. We discussed it a bit more, and in the end, we decided on Spanish. I know, not exactly exciting, but we figured we would be able to get the most use out of that language. I mean, we're only a few blocks away from a Mexican restaurant, where we can test out our new language. 

Plus, I love margaritas and tamales, so, added bonus right there.

     Okay, so we're agreed on Spanish. Order that shiz, baby!

     All right...but are you sure you want to do this? I mean, it's not cheap. So I
     don't want you to wake up in the morning and be all, yeah, that was the wine
     talking, I didn't mean for you to spend almost $200 on materials to learn
     another language.

     No way Jose, I am down to learn some español! See? I already sound like a 
     natural. Let's do this!

So this should be fun, getting to spend some time, every night together, learning a new skill. I am really excited.

I just hope Husband doesn't wake up tomorrow and change his mind, otherwise we'll have a ton of Spanish learning materials that will just sit in our house collecting dust, and I'll be stuck ordering Mexican food in boring old English for the rest of my life.

Figuring it Out

I pulled into the parking spot, and that's when I saw her. A woman standing behind a table with the words Autism Awareness on a large sign. She was collecting donations for the cause.

I could feel my heart beating faster. In the past, I would have had no problem giving a quick, polite smile and hurrying into the store, or simply avoiding eye contact like I do with the Girl Scouts every year when it's cookie season time. But something inside me said I couldn't ignore her, as all of the other patrons appeared to be doing. I knew I had to go talk to her.

I approached her table, and she started softly rattling off her memorized lines that she had probably said to a dozen people that evening, without any response. 

When she finished, I smiled and said, "My son has autism". I could hear my voice shaking as the words came out. I forced myself to take a deep breath, to steady myself.

I have literally said those words a handful of times. And definitely never to a stranger. I think those words every day; I live them. Still, they sounded foreign coming out of my mouth, stopping me in my tracks.

The woman's eyes brightened a bit. She handed me a pamphlet on autism, and asked if I had read it. I told her no, and took it, although I knew what it would say. I've read dozens of pamphlets and internet articles on autism; I would be surprised to learn something new at this point. I spotted a donation box filled with some dollar bills, and I told her I would see if I could get some cash while in the store.

Even though I finally opened up about Binker's diagnosis on my blog here, I know that I still keep a lot of it internalized. I don't walk around with a sign on me that reads, "I have a child with autism". To most, I smile and say everything is great, and, honestly, as I wrote about, things are very good. The progress he made this past year is amazing, and I know he will continue to do so, but there are difficult days - when he is overly tired, when he gets frustrated at a toy, or scared in the night but is unable to explain why - and then everything just melts down. During those times, I feel like I am walking on egg shells around my child. Trying so hard to stay one step ahead of him - trying to anticipate what he will want - so that he doesn't get even more upset. 

I feel uncomfortable when we're out in public and strangers will try to talk to him. They ask him questions, like how old he is, how many siblings he has, is he excited about the new baby, what's his name. They always look a bit perplexed when Binker doesn't answer, or he repeats the question they just asked, or he answers by saying something like, "The light is on!" While looking at the ceiling lights. I always try to answer for him, or make some excuse about him being shy.  

On one hand, it would be so easy to just tell everyone we come in contact with up front that Binker has autism, but on the other hand, I don't want that to be the first thing people know about him.

We left Binker's first pediatrician, who initially got us on this path, because I did not appreciate his bed side manner with Jacob, or the way in which he handled the situation as a whole, but there was one thing he told us that I have tried to keep as my mantra this past year. When we were in his office, and we knew we would have to wait to get in to see the speech therapist, and any specialists, I felt so helpless. There is nothing worse than wanting to help your child, and not being able to take immediate action. I asked the doctor what we should do in the meantime. His answer: Treat him like a typical kid, just as you would if he didn't have autism. 

I have done my best to treat him the same as I treat his brothers. Obviously there are times when I cut him some slack, when I don't think he fully understands what it is we're telling him, or asking of him, but for the most part, he is treated just like any typical three year old boy. That's how I see him, too. To me, he is my sweet, funny, bright, lovable firstborn son. Who just happens to have autism.

It was nice to be able to open up to that woman at the store, almost cathartic in a way. But at the end of the day, I want the world to see Binker the way I see him. Just wonderful and awesome, the way God made him. 

I guess I'm still figuring this all out as we go.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all...

...And to all a good night.

Elf on a Shelf

Christmas was always magical for me as a kid. My parents went all out in talking up Santa and his elves. I have written about our own personal Santa, who was so believable and awesome that I literally believed in Santa until I was 10. In fact, if my mom hadn't told me the truth I would probably still believe in him today.

Not only did we have our own Santa though, but we had our own elf. Ohhh yes. His name was Elmo, and, according to my dad, (who claimed he saw him once, OMG!), Elmo had red hair and very red cheeks. We never saw Elmo, ourselves, but every December, it never failed, we would hear this high-pitched, delirious giggle ring through the house, and my mom would tell us we needed to hide because Elmo was at our house, and we weren't allowed to see him. So we would hide, and a few minutes later, my mom would give us the all clear, and then we would go through the house looking for the little presents he would leave for us.

It was never anything big, usually something like a toothbrush or toothpaste, but the fact that Elmo, Santa's Elf brought it for us all the way from the North Pole, made it that much more special.

I like to think that our family was unique in that we had our own elf, but nowadays, any kid can have one: it's called Elf on a Shelf. And it kind of makes me wonder why my own parents didn't invent it themselves. It's a small elf doll, that arrives every December to keep an eye on the kids in the house. Every night he reports back to Santa on whether the kids are being good or bad, and since the elf leaves every night, when he arrives back the next morning, he, of course, needs to be in a new location.

Every family gets to name their elf. Ours is Sprinkles.

He's been in some funny places this month. I'll admit there have been a few mornings where I think Sprinkles got a little lazy and forgot to move to a new location, so he would covertly jump to a new place while the kids ate breakfast.

Our boys are still a little young to fully understand all of this Santa/Elf stuff, but they enjoy looking for Sprinkles each morning, in fact, that's usually the first thing they ask me. "Where's Sprinkles?!" And then they race around the house until they find him.

Here are a few places the boys have awakened to find Sprinkles this month:

On a picture frame

Hanging outside their bedroom door

On the TV

On the coat rack

On a curtain rod

On the Christmas tree

In a stocking

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the chandelier

 The boys have really had a better understanding of Christmastime, and opening presents this season. Sprinkles has played a big part in encouraging them to be interactive in the festivities. It makes me that much more excited for next year, I think they will really be into all the fun and magic that Christmas has to offer.

Now I'm off to drink my weight in egg nog and peppermint white chocolate martinis while it is still socially acceptable for a few more days. Merry Christmas, everyone!