Alive and Kicking

Sorry to all of you who keeping checking this blog, only to find that the blogging well has been dry for quite a while.

To be honest I haven't felt like blogging at all.  In a way that is sort of a good thing.  This blog started its life as a way to keep in touch with family and friends far away.  It then became my outlet to vent and process the day to day difficulties and reflections that related to our son Cole, and his eventual diagnosis of High Functioning Autism Spectrum disorder.  The last post I left you with, Cole was beginning the year in Junior Kindergarten.

Cole has had an exceptional year.  He has progressed so well socially, verbally, and with his various motor skills.  Cole loves school, and I'm sure all the interaction and challenges he gets there has really helped him to excel.  He also attended a social skills playgroup in the fall, and after Christmas Cole took part in a swim program for special needs kids for 10 weeks.\

As of right now, Cole has been discharged from the Child Development Centre and all therapy associated with it.  His final speech assessment last week puts him at the average level for his age.  After several years of perseverance and persistence, Cole is finally potty trained.  He only wears pull ups to school, but we are finding he is now using them more out of laziness.  So as of the end of the school year we will no longer be buying them for him.  Even though scissors are still a challenge for him, Cole can now write his name and we have figured out that he is right handed (he had us and his OTs stumped for a while).  Cole has finally begun to colour and this week for Father's Day, Cole drew his very first picture, his favourite Moshi Monster, for his Daddy.  Cole has taught himself to read over the last year.  He can sight read pretty much anything and reads me entire Dr. Seuss book on his own.  This has been a huge help with his communication barriers.

Sure there are still signs of his autism, but day to day life has become a functioning well oiled machine for our family.  There are still challenges, but I no longer find myself up endless nights trying to come up with strategies to help my son communicate and learn.  No needing to get all those thoughts out  onto the computer screen in order to get some peace of mind and as a result sleep.  So I guess that's why this blog has been silent for so long.  That's a good thing right?!  Dear God, please don't take this as a challenge ... ok? ... ok!  :)

P.S.  Kendall is doing fine as a VERY active and verbose 3 year old.  She's a free spirit who like the wind in her hair, the dirt between her toes, has a HUGE sweet tooth, and chats all day long with a vivid imagination.  She's extremely bright, loves helping out, and considers everyone she meets her "best friend".  On the other hand she can throw one of the best temper tantrums you've ever seen, even though mom and dad don't give in to them one bit.  However, she is quick to apologize after.  We like to call every facet of her personality as "passionate".

At Cole last assessment by the developmental pediatrician, she observed "that I definitely had my hands full with that one", and she was not referring to my ASD child but rather Kendall, who had tagged along and been playing and chatting to herself during the whole appointment!

Welcome Fall

Sorry its been quiet all summer.  The desire to blog seems to come and go and this summer ended up being a dry spell.

But, its a new season full of fresh starts.

Cole started Jr. Kindergarten this week.  He goes full days, Tuesdays, Thursdays and the occasional Friday.  I'd be lying if I wasn't anxious for him.  I don't think the boy has eaten lunch ever in his entire life without either myself, his dad or his Grandma looking after him.  Over 1 year later, and we're STILL working on the potty training thing, so that's also a concern.  Oh, and we were working with the speech pathologist this spring specifically getting Cole to use words to request things.  BUT ...  I remind myself that teachers everywhere deal tonnes of kids like Cole, some with more or less needs, every year all year long.  They seem confident and so should I.  So far he loves school, especially computer time.

This fall has also been the start of ABA (Applied Behaviour Analysis) therapy for Cole.  Dave and I are attending sessions for parents and Cole will be attending a group after school on Tuesdays.  He did fantastic during his first session, especially considering it had also been his first full day at school.  Needless to say he's one busy 4 year old.

Not to leave Kendall out, her and I are taking a Tall and Small gymnastics class every Thursday.  The girl's got energy and definitely needs an outlet.  If you ask her what her favourite part of gymnastics in she'll tell you the "trampoline!".  Cole's first day of school was the longest the two siblings have been apart.  Kendall likes to keep busy, so without her brother to play with, Mommy was quite in demand.  Of course with only one child around that meant NO fighting and squabbling.  I have to admit that was a huge treat.

Here are a few pictures of how Kendall spent her first day without her brother:

Making soup

Colouring a picture

Helping Mommy with the laundry

Going for a walk

Taking the babies for a slide

 

Hanging out in the playhouse

 

Quiet time

Broken toes, diamonds, hives, paint fumes and a Graduation.

I think you can get the gist from the title of this post that the last couple weeks have been pretty busy.

It all started out with me breaking my toe.  Well at least we think I broke it.  That's the whole thing with broken toes.  If you only fractured the toe and nothing more serious (say as well as some other bone in your foot) there is nothing you can really do for it.  First aid includes buddy taping to the neighbouring toe, staying off the toe when you can, and wearing a supportive shoe if you must walk on it.  So even though I saw the doctor, an x-ray is never taken since the prognosis is the same, given whether it is broken or not.  So we assumed my baby toe was broken.  I'm saying very likely considering it bruised up nicely and was painful to walk on for a week.  Even now if I'm on it too much it feels a bit swollen.  I was suddenly very conscious of how many times I go up and down the stairs in a day, since we live in a 4-level side split. 

Like most personal injuries, I have no cool story involving extreme stunting or heroic.  It was of course done in a mundane, stupid kind of way.  I was simply talking to my son in the hallway upstairs when my daughter called to me from the bottom of the stairs.  As I turned around, I stepped forward at the same time and caught my baby toe on a piece of molding on the corner of our baseboards.  I heard a pop or a snap, and instantly began the furious hopping and cursing under your breath (yeah I'll admit it), that always accompanies when one stubs their toe.   I had the instincts to tape it instantly.  Dave had work appointments all day and we only have 1 vehicle, so Kendall and I went to the after hours clinic later that night.  She had a blast even though we had to wait over an hour.  For the last week, every time I go to the leave the house she asks me if I "hurt-ed my toe".  It's really cute.  So maybe this was my first broken bone ever, if it was actually broken.

2 days after my injury, Dave and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.  We agreed that since finances were tight, we'd just pay a babysitter and go out and skip buying each other gifts.  Of course Dave lied (I guess you can do that when you oversee the finances) and got me a dozen roses and some expensive jewelry.  This explained "that look" Dave had for a while after we had to replace the bumper on our car, followed by the break down of our air conditioner, since he would have already have bought the diamonds.  Regardless, we're not the jewelry buying type, so it was very sweet and appreciated.  Dave mumbled something about having to have some kind of equity for all our spent money.  I love his sense of humour. 

Originally for our "hot" date, we were going to go shopping for some desperately need summer clothing, followed by dinner. Hey, when you have preschool aged kids, you take any opportunity you can to go shopping alone, even your celebration of a decade of marriage.  However, since I wasn't too mobile with my gimped up foot.  We decided to see a movie instead.  It's really sad when you can't remember the last movie you saw as a couple, because it had been too many YEARS.  I want to say WALL-E, but I really don't know.  Now I know nothing expresses the sentiments of 10 years of marriage to the love of your life like a good comic book, action flick, but we really wanted to see The Avengers.  Sure everyone else in the theatre was either a mid-thirties single guy or a 12 year old boy, but we enjoyed ourselves and the movie was good.  Of course it was the first time we got to see a movie in 3D considering movies weren't using that kind of technology way back when we saw our last movie.  Instead of a romantic dinner we gorged ourselves on high priced movie food and popcorn, but we were okay with that too.

Last week Cole had his very last day of Preschool.  Next year he will attend Jr. Kindergarten 2 full days a week and every other Friday.  The parents attended the last half hour of class for cake. Kendall thought this was fabulous.  Cole was blessed to have fantastic teachers this year, who genuinely loved and cared for him.  Releasing him could have been much more difficult if it were for these fabulous ladies. 

2 days later Cole finally had an appointment for allergy testing that we had been waiting for, for well over a year.  Cole was very brave and did so well considering the whole unpleasant and foreign process.  The fact that Daddy brought a few presents probably didn't hurt.  During this session Cole was only tested with two possible allergens, peanuts which he's had a previous reaction and blood work done for, and birch (which can possible be related).  The skin test showed a definite reaction to the peanuts and nothing to the birch.  In another 3 months we will go back and they will discuss the blood work results and then test for tree nuts.  Nothing we didn't already know, but at least the ball is rolling.

And finally, if we hadn't been busy enough already (with these things, and everything else I haven't mentioned), we decided to tackle a painting project.  Until this point our front entrance and upstairs hallway have been a display of patchwork and 2 toned paint (a different colour had been used over the patching).  After many months of our front entrance acting as a test canvas, I finally picked a paint colour (I know, I can't believe it either!) and we decided it was time to tackle the project.  That and Kendall kept scraping at the poly filler and licking it off her fingers!  I also decided to paint the new closet doors we purchased.  We keep looking at the two tiny walls we've painted so far with great satisfaction.  Why did we live so long long with what was there before?  Isn't that always the way?

Next on the agenda ... Dave and I are headed to Winnipeg for a week for some meeting and leaving the kids with my mom.  1 week in a hotel with no kids, catching up with friends ... it going to be glorious.



They are cute, aren't they?!

31 Kisses

Before going to bed, the kids like to give each other a hug and a kiss good night.  Recently Cole has decided not to give Kendall just one kiss, but 31 kisses.  In Cole's mind 31 is an rather large number.  So I'm not sure whether he just really loves his sister and is showering her with generous kisses, or merely prolonging his departure to bed.  Either way, it's still pretty cute as we count each kiss out loud.

The Importance of Water Safety

Not sure about you ... but apparently Kendall is concerned about scraping up her elbows in the pool.