Christmas Mircales

I sort of had a 3 part Christmas miracle.  The first part happened on Christmas Eve.  I called my mother to check in and see if she still needed me to run an errand for her.  She proceeded to snap at me for not already having completed the errand.  I told her not to yell at me, and she promptly hung up the phone.  "Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without Rosalie snapping at someone " I remarked to Steve.  And then it happened, she called me back a few minutes later and apologized.  I think that is the first time in my entire life that she did that.  I was shocked.  No tears.  Just amazement.

Christmas Eve was spent with friends first, and then family.  We celebrate a sort of Polish style Christmas Eve (Wagilia).  We don't do all the customs, but we don't eat meat, we do eat cardboard, I mean oplatek, which is a piece of bread pressed with a holy picture on the surface and 11 other vegetarian dishes (apple rice, potato puff, potatoe pierogi, sauerkraut pierogi, babka,  fried fish, shrimp cocktail, salmon croquettes, carrot souffle, spinach balls, cole slaw); a dish for each apostle.  The oplatek is broken amongst all the guests and we say something in Polish when doing so that I can neither pronounce, spell, or remember at this time. We eat, exchange gifts, and sing happy birthday to the hostess.  Yeah - you got it, for my sister's birthday, we allow her to host our semi-formal dinner for around 25 of us.  We're such considerate folk.  It was a pleasant evening, and Sophia and Zach enjoyed receiving their presents from their cousins.

Christmas day we went to Church for the first time in a long time as a family, and it was a beautiful.  The priest who did our prayer service made a b-line for us, I think he was surprised to see us.  I have been having a hard time feeling motivated to go, since Steve doesn't go.  But he went yesterday, and it was such a wonderful gift to give me, and thus my Christmas miracle #2. 

The service was nice. The service was fairly crowded, as most holy day services are at any church, and the homily was about belief.  Sophia initially tried to have a conversation with me, I told her to hush, and she asked me why we cannot talk in Church.  I told her we were supposed to listen to the priest.  She went on to quietly play with her Molly American Girl doll (fresh from Santa's stash of goodies left at the house.) The priest referred to Virginia O'Hanlon's letter to the New York Sun back in 1897.   When the priest quoted this famous quote: "Is there a Santa Claus?", Sophia showed me that she certainly did as I told her.  The question, asked rhetorically, was responded to by my little blue eyed girl petting her Molly doll, with a clear as a bell, and audible to all "YES!!!!".  The congregation all looked around, found the originator, and went on to applaud her.  I  laughed at the fact that she did what I told her.  Perhaps this is a miracle too?  Father Greg's momentum was sort of ruined.  But it was the best service I had ever been to, for personal reasons of course.

The kids were extremely well behaved throughout the rest of the service.  Zach looked over at me during one part of the Mass and requested "milk" spontaneously.  I was so excited that he requested an item he wanted when it wasn't in sight.  A HUGE deal - and reportable to the psychologist at his school for sure.  Unfortunately it was not in sight, nor was it in church at all - I had braved the Christian service world by not bringing any snacks to Church - including drinks.  Alas, he was OK with that.    Amen.

It was a terrific Christmas.   Hope yours was too.

Christmas at our house- Part III: Cookies and Syringes

The making of the Christmas cookies has always been a forte of Steven's. One year, he made almost 500 cookies! The gluten free casein free diet Zach is on, would have made me think prior to all this diet nonsense, that cookies would be off limits - but indeed they aren't!

We have a decent flour substitute, and there is GFCF margarine and chocolate - so we are off. Buckeyes, Gingerbread, Sugar Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes, Fruit Drops - he did good! We scaled back this year since we won't be having the company we usually have.

The irony of this is that Zach, was throwing up about a week ago, while eating these cookies. The association of the puke and the cookies has made them not desirable to him whatsoever - so here are the rest of us eating them up! We went on to realize the nausea was from Zach's really severe ear infection. *sigh*

We have managed to get several doses of medication into him - using ABAish type stuff (start playing a computer game, and turn off the monitor mid game with the syringe filled with pink gooey stuff at hand) , and then fading back until he just accepts it. The first dose took approximately an hour and a half to get into him, the second dose, about 20 minutes, and it has gradually become easier. A relief for sure! But a commitment - an hour and a half of trying to get Zach to take medicine was a bit stifling mentally. This is one item for those of you with typical kids to take note, a lot of things that are commonplace are not with our ASD kids. Things that should take 10 minutes, take hours sometimes. A parent to a kid with an ASD lives on patience and persistence. I think of all the things I should be anticipating in the future to help prepare him. I want Zach exposed to as much of the world as possible. I do not want him set into some firm, schedule that will result in a meltdown if broken. What things will be expected of him in the future that I should expose him to now? School - I think I have that one down. I am now considering giving him fish oil twice daily using the syringe in order of keeping him in the habit of taking things this way so that future medications will not require as much commitment. I am also thinking I should get those pullups on him soon. Potty training exhausts me just thinking about it. Doctor says he is still young - I know that if I don't have some expectations of him, and exposure to him now, I could hurt my chances in the future.

Anyhow - we sure have a lot of GFCF cookies in the house.

Christmas at our house- Part II : The Story of the Toilet Brush

Our terrific lighting scheme (albeit far from the evenly spaced lumens I had hoped for) was no match for the next event: putting up the tree. Yes, we have a fake tree in our house, and I like it. So backoff. Now, for years, we were unable to have a real tree in the house due to our precious dog Buddy's allergies. Yes, only we would own a dog who was allergic to just about every species of tree native to North America. So, the fake tree would have to do.

I have yet to have this discussion, but I am one to try and reclaim a nickel if I can. When Mom upgraded her fake tree to a pre-lit variety, I gladly grabbed her old tree. Much like others out there, I hated stringing the lights on the stinking tree- so one year, I just left them on, and stuffed the thing up into our attic, lights still on, and voila- made myself a pre-lit tree. Steve was not in love with this tree nor the storage method. He affectionately nicknamed this little tree of my parents "the toilet brush" and soon, I was afraid I had to agree that the aesthetic presence of our little tree was waning. I proceeded to cut out my Michael's coupon and purchased a nice meant to be pre-lit tree (with colors since that's what I preferred as a kid and figured that's what my kids would want.)

When we moved, we never anticipated that our ceilings would be lower in a newer home, but we ended up having to fit this tree in our family room where the ceilings are vaulted. You will note that the breakable ornaments magically gravitate to the top of the tree. I cannot take all the credit for this lovely tree, indeed Sophia and Zach have decided to redecorate the tree to their own liking on nearly an every day basis.

You will also notice the attempt made to pose the kids in front of the tree for a nice holiday shot to send out as a card. This resulted in Sophia quickly donning a hula skirt and pink sunglasses, and Zach refusing to look towards me regardless of what crazy noise I was able to conjure up outta my mouth. Around here, we have learned you have to take the shots when given the chance, and give up on any posed/purposed shots. I like to think there is someone else calling the shots around here, and it aint us.

Christmas at our house- Part I : A Husband has no fear

Editor's Note: No husbands were hurt in the making of these pictures.

As a child, I always loved this time of the year. Up here where the snow flies often, we try to begin to decorate before that. Some years that means August. Well, we had an unusually warm November this year, so after Thanksgiving I decided that this was going to be the year, the year that I get the house decorated like in my childhood dreams.

I began by scouring the local home stores for appropriate lighting. Whoa - anyone checkout the prices on those stinking LED lights? I thought about digging out my ol' electronics set and making my own lights, afterall, I do have those handy dandy degrees in electrical engineering, right? Lets not forget that there is a big difference between and electrician and an electrical engineer, and furthermore, a young Chinese line worker who actually assembles those lights in a dimly lit factory somewhere in Zhong Shan.

WalMart came to my rescue and in combination with some fancy schmancy lights I picked up at Lowe's, I was off. When Steve heard about my plans to climb up on the roof and get those bad boys strung, he promptly intervened. I said "yes" he said "no" back and forth a few times. In the end, I said I would call someone to install, and Steve promptly pulled the ol' ladder out of storage and hopped onto one roof, onto another roof, and finally settled onto the final roof where he managed to get them hung, although not completely to my satisfaction since I had bought these special clips so the lights would all line up the same way, and he quickly told me to pound salt. Now, Steve's version of the story may vary, his going along the lines of I was going to go up there, and he trumped me with a larger life insurance policy, and off he went. Either way, after risking dear Steve's life to make my wishes come true, I am quite sure we managed to confirm our neighbors feelings that we are indeed mentally unstable.

A neighbor stopped by to drop off a poinsettia plant (that is quite beautiful I must say and whose sales proceeds go to the Syracuse Children's Chorus - ha ha Missy!) and asked how we managed to get the lights up since apparently, our rumors of our insanity have not made their way through the neighborhood. When we told him, this very bright doctor remarked with a "Wow". This "wow" had a tone of "are you nuts" to it. He also sounded a tad jealous - come to find out, this gentleman's daughters loved our lights and asked him to do something similar to their house. Ha ha - I don't know about Steve, but I now felt redemption in our attempts to create a visage of light around our house. Children were talking about our lights! No greater compliment than that.

The husband hasn't asked for a divorce yet, so I suppose I am still within the limits of life risking adventures that I ask of him. He can be such a good guy I tell you!

Always running late but ending with a bang

Sophia was sick last week, and when I sent in some food items the day after she went back as contributions to the charity work the class was doing, they were returned to me because they were late.  I am now labeled the world's worst mother in the eyes of the East Hill  kindergarten staff, of course.  News has probably made it up to the principal who is probably writing a note to the superintendent as I write this.  I hate that I even care about this. Of course, I know that I have a lot going on, and that Sophia was sick the day the stuff was due, but in the back of my mind I keep on thinking, well if I had planned more appropriately, I would have sent the items in ahead of time.  Thus the drama ensues in my mind of how they all think I suck so much.  Truth be known, I probably feel worse about it than they do, if they even really cared.  I guess the one lingering thing in my crazy head is - will the faults of the mother be taken out on the innocent daughter?  I wonder if Mrs. B might not lavish Sophia with the praise that Little Suzie will get because her mom cleared out all the canned produce from Wegmans.  Of course, Little Suzie's mom probably has her in laws and parents fighting to babysit her kids while her and her husband go off on a romantic weekend after completing all the holiday shopping, which I hate still have yet to do. I can't help it - this is what my brain does.

I guess I have to face it, right now, we are a bit of a charity case.   Things will not get done, things might not be attended to as I wish.  I am so grateful to the parents groups that I attend to hear how other mothers keep things moving, especially at this time of the year.  Some of them have it way more together than I do, some of them have more support, some of them have more serious issues to contend with, too.  We are all in this world together, and even if I didn't get the tuna fish delivered to Mrs. B's charity event, they make me feel OK about it without even knowing they are doing it.

Zach's teachers had noticed that Zach was a little under the weather.  We had a neighbor who is an internist come over briefly over the weekend to listen to him and Sophia because we were fearing bronchitis because of this occasional phlegmy cough.  No bronchitis.  Phew.  OK - well, he had been throwing up quite a bit - once daily.  What the heck - GFCF not cutting it anymore?  uughh.  Crusty eyes reported on Wednesday so off to the doctors we went thinking pink eye.  Turns out the little bugger has a pretty bad ear infection, again, and is likely causing all the other stuff.  He gave us absolutely no indication I might add.  No ear tugging or major fussiness.  

I then discuss with Dr. N. medication.  I know this won't be pretty.  Zach's last ear infection and the lovely pink liquid I tried to force on him, did manage it's way down, and then back up again onto furniture and light colored carpeting.  Freaking red dye.  Can someone give me any good reason they add this crap into medications?  It serves no purpose other than to support the carpet cleaning industry in this house.  Plus, the lovely cherry flavoring makes it impossible to mix in with apple sauce or the like.  Dr. N then discusses the chewable format - I am excited about this one.  So off to the pharmacist hubby goes while I bring Zach into his next round of therapy.  Hubby arrives home, and steam is emanating from every orifice on his body.  No, the pharmacist said there are no chewables, furthermore, after Steve once again talked about coloring, and the pharmacist showed him a white bottle of gunk, when actually dispersed, there was the pink junk we were trying to avoid all along.  Steve being the vocal antagonist that he is, promptly left the pharmacy, after throwing the charges on the Visa, and came home to snip at all those not connected with the incident.  I couldn't blame him for being upset.  This stuff gets my goat too.

Whatever would we have done without Al Gore, because I love love love the Internet.  While on facebook last night, I was talking to another mother with a young child dxed and she said "Have you ever tried a compounding pharmacy?"  I had never heard of such a thing, and of course she had because she is a pharmacist.  Apparently, there is a pharmacy in the New Jersey area that can make the Rxs without additives/possible allergens.  It takes a little longer to get to you of course, but it's an option.  Glad to know that.  Right now, we decided to pursue the route of taking Zach back in for a ear check in a few days, and see if we can manage the pink crud into his system somehow. 


After a lovely evening of chilling around the house, chatting on the Internet, husband playing with the kids, I had the most welcome surprise.  As Daddy was getting pajamas on Sophia, Zach was watching a Thomas the Tank movie and playing with a few toys.  The movie ended, and I heard "Bye bye".  I looked up from my laptop to see Zach looking at the TV screen, and he then said it again "Bye bye."  I was so freaking excited! 
Spontaneous use of language that is appropriate - but also something we have never worked on!  I did the happy dance and then promptly fell asleep along the side of Sophia while putting her to bed. 

Calling all mothers of nontypical/neurodiverse/autistic/developmentally challenged/special needs children

I need your opinions. I know there are a million and one intervention/therapy/treatment options. I don't care what you use.

What I want to know is, how do/did you handle it when you tell someone your child is nontypical/neurodiverse/autistic/developmentally challenged/special needs and they respond with something to the effect:

"He's fine. He's too young. I know someone, my [niece/brother/uncle/son/friend/ friend's niece/friend's brother/friend's uncle/friend's son/friend's friend] and they were a late talker and now they are an [astronaut/astrophysicist/aerospace engineer/ Avon lady] ."

When I go on to explain stimming and sensory issues, non-receptive language, possible behavioral issues being more of a concern than his being non-verbal - I feel like I get blank stares. I sometimes want to go into the clinical diagnosis criteria of th DSM-IV and sometimes I want to say p*ss off. I think what I should actually do is somewhere in between, but I haven't nailed it yet. Suggestions?

And yes, I know that one option might be to just smile and walk away too...

Sophia's First Ballet Gig

Here is Sophia's ballet class. She had to convince me to do ballet (I was thinking karate would be a better fit) and we started taking dance classes in October. It was so much fun to watch the little end of semester recital. Sophia refused to look at the teacher for direction, claiming she wanted to look at me. I think she just wanted to check herself out in the mirror.

Zach loved watching the concert and rocked back and forth to the beat of the music. It was terribly crowded when we arrived, which Zach first had difficulty with, but quickly acclimated by spinning in circles for around 2 minutes, and then proceeded to check the place out. Sophia seems to really love this class. I am so glad she has something she enjoys so much. I never took dance, and have no way to guide her. She will be on her own for this journey, with me on the sidelines, cheering. Hope you enjoy the video!