Our son went into a fog called Autism. Every day, we are finding him.
Three days ago, Jackson entered the bathroom on his own initiative, grabbed his potty seat, and placed it on the potty while singing in a soft, whispery voice, “Jackson put your poopies in the potty.” He proceeded to take the advice of Mommy’s soft-rock ballad created in a moment of desperation during our weekend “Potty Party” over a month ago. Continue reading “Victory in the bathroom”
Sorry we haven’t posted in a while. I have been down in Texas this week with the laptop. But I’m back home with the fam again, and I wanted to throw this in before I let Sara out of the kitchen (Oh come one, it’s a joke! But she really is in the kitchen…)
Jack’s waves of progress and regress have numbed me a little over the past year. He learns new words. We get excited. People tell us “Yah! He’s getting better! God is healing him!” And I smile politely. Maybe. I hope they’re right. But they don’t understand that the downs always follow the ups. If the pattern serves, he will lose those words in a week or two, and we’ll wonder where he has gone again. It’s happened so many times, my expectations now oscillate a safe distance between jadedness and denial. For better or for worse, that’s the way it is. Continue reading “A Careful Sort of Hope”
We’ve worked long and hard at getting Jackson to connect with us and figured out several things that are rewarding and motivating. We feel like we’ve laid a great groundwork for getting Jackson to follow directions. This has turned out to be a bigger challenge than I ever imagined.
Reality began sinking in one day about a year ago when I looked up and saw that Jackson had left a trail of at least ten strawberry tops winding across the living room carpet. Not wanting to miss a teachable moment, I decided to have him pick each one up and feed it to the guinea pigs. Cleaning up and connecting with pets at the same time! Whoo hoo! Continue reading “Following directions through the haze of autism”
Jackson stanchly refuses to ingest vegetables and anything green. The “Green Tree” incident (his sisters’ code name) will go down in history as perhaps our most dismal food failure: Trying to convince Jackson that we could outwit and outwait his opposition to broccoli. Continue reading “Expanding his diet: Food tolerance”
Mother’s Day…homemade cards from my kids and hubby, dark chocolate, a picnic at the park, skipping rocks in the river, and extra kisses…I love it. Mother’s Day was such a great invention. One day, set aside to recognize Mom. Yes even on Mother’s Day, Jackson still poops in his pants and wakes up too early, and Samuel is right now shrieking from his high chair, “OWWW DONE! OWWWW DONE!” (All done), demanding Mommy. But Mother’s Day, for me, is a day to count these things as blessings…I have four little ones who need me, want me, and love me. And frankly I need them, want them, and love them more every day. I am becoming…a mother. Continue reading “Mother’s Day”