Life in a Snowglobe.

Yes, I feel as though we live in a snowglobe. It has basically been snowing non-stop here since Thanksgiving. Honestly, I'm tired of it. We got 6 inches today and are expecting 7-8 more overnight. And yes, I have to be at work at 5 am tomorrow - so driving in ought to be nothing less than a treat.

Mary's first week of third grade is behind us, and overall I think I went fairly well. It is going to be an adjustment for awhile...but I still think we made the right decision. Hopefully things will only continue to improve.

Katie is loving school. She actually did very well at therapy yesterday and we didn't have any self-harming incidents, so that made it a great day. Her therapist was really pleased with her progress since our last visit (which had to be all the way back in November). I'm going to try and be more committed to her speech therapy -- and hopeful that it will continue to yield excellent results for Katie - especially when it is combined with her excellent classroom situation this year!

I am glad to be entering back into some level of normalcy. Happy to have the girls back into school and adjusting - relieved to be getting some decent sleep - and thrilled to actually be crossing many things off of my 'to-do' list which seems to be at an all-time length as of late. Always so much to do -- so many post holiday errands and organizational things that kept getting postponed. It feels good to have cleaned closets, thrown away papers, and to be making progress to a more clutter-free life (which is really the only thing I have that is even close to a New Year's Resolution this year).

Well I should go to bed soon...3:30 am will feel like the middle of the night (because it is!).

First Fruits

I believe that we have entered the "lazy days of summer" -- at least at our house we have. Katie continues to spend countless hours in the pool (that was the best gift the girls have ever received -- thanks Pa Pa & Grandmoo --) Mary and I have been focusing on the garden which has now begun to bear it's first fruits. We have had a handful of jalapeno peppers and in the picture Mary is holding the first pickle and first banana pepper. The tomatoes are coming, too -- which is for me the best part of the garden. We are still holding out hope for the corn....We'll keep you posted.

We actually were able to do speech therapy twice this week -- therapy is the part of summer which is definitely not 'lazy' - its a lot of work, even at home. We are concentrating this week on having Katie point to objects that she wants and not giving them to her until she points and says the first sound of the word. Easier said than done in the world of autism...but the consistency seems to be paying off.

Well, I'm off to enjoy my lazy day.....

P.S. -- Yes, Katie really is THAT tan...it's unbelievable actually. One of the therapists at the hospital actually asked me if we had her hair highlighted (LOL)...nope...she just lives in the pool. (Like she would sit to have her hair highlighted -- she doesn't even sit for a haircut. Grandmoo cuts it while Katie is in the bathtub :)

Weekend Update - Holiday Edition

Well, it's been quite the week....

Mary & I went to see Wall-E on Monday while Katie was at respite. Cute movie with a good 'earth-friendly' message. We will definitely buy the DVD ....so if you get a chance to take a child (or even by yourself) go see it!

Wednesday brought a massive rain/hail/thunderstorm to our area. We were without power from dinner time Wednesday until noon on Thursday. Autism and no electricity don't really go very well together (I think I have blogged on that previously -- as in last summer when we were without power for 4 days). About 2 hours after the power had gone out, Katie was so crazy..she was beside herself b/c her precious videos wouldn't play. I literally sat at the table with her curled around my legs. I was rubbing her back and I prayed, "Lord, I need you to take over here. Please either turn the power back on or do something to help Katie." Within 15 minutes she was asleep, and she slept all night. Thank-you God.

The other good thing that came out of the storm is our new generator. My parents bought us a generator as an early/late birthday, anniversary, Christmas present. They know that with Katie, it is too difficult for her to not be able to watch TV and to not have lights on. She is very OCD and she has to have lights on/off at specific times. Autism is (as I always say) such a complicated illness. So now, we are all set for future power outages (and I won't lose the food in my fridge/freezer, as we have a deep freeze that I use to stock up on meat when it goes on sale..so we really didn't want to lose that either.) Thanks Mom & Dad.

The power came back on and we had a good Thursday. Katie didn't get to go to speech either time this week which was kind of a bummer. Ruth was sick on Tuesday and on Thursday we were without power and trying to get the generation situation under control. She goes back Monday before respite. I'm hoping to get an update on how Ruth thinks she 's doing with the blending of the two different vowel sounds. I'm not too overly optimistic as I personally have not seen a lot of improvement with that at home....

Gas continues to hover anywhere from 4.04 to 4.19 in our area....thank goodness for Bill's motorcycle. It's saving our gas budget in a big way!

Oh, and by the way HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!!!!!

P.S. The tooth fairy also came this week - I'm not sure how I forgot that. Earrings were the "prize"...good thing the tooth fairy is so educated about what children want when their teeth fall out that she keeps a supply on hand.....

Katie Update

I am so excited to share an update on Katie's speech progress after a great session with her speech therapist, Ruth, this morning. Katie is now imitating almost every sound that you can imagine. That is a huge step. The next thing she needs to do is start repeating a sequence of two sounds (like ooh-ahh == want) and then we can progress to words like "want" that have a blended vowel sound. It is much harder for her to repeat a sound twice, or to repeat two different sounds than it is to just repeat one, so this will be a little bit of a process. Ruth said to give it two weeks. I think she is incredibly optimistic...but she's been right before...so I'll try to rembmer to update you in two weeks :)

Tuesday, Tuesday.... Gas is 3.99

Well, it's Tuesday. Therapy day for Katie --and it was a hard one this morning. Because Katie is now learning to speak words through imitation, she is struggling to find the words for herself when she doesn't hear the word to repeat. She and I were both crying this morning. Katie out of frustration - and me, because I would trade places with her in a heartbeat if I could. It is hard to watch your child so trapped in themself. But that is the evil-ness of autism. Watching your child caught within themselves with no easy way out. The blessing is that Katie has a phenomenal speech therapist who is truly gifted and has a fabulous connection with Katie... this is an older picture of Ruth (the therapist) and Katie. (This was taken about 5 months ago...just before Katie started to connect a little more with being photographed -- so we weren't able to get a good shot of her looking at the camera.)

As you can see by the title of this post, my other big news is that gas here has now crested the 3.99 mark. I never dreamed that in my lifetime (or at least in my 30's) we would see gas at this price. I was talking with a friend of mine this morning -- and we were talking about how we don't know how anyone (including ourselves) can absorb the increased gas prices as well as the resulting increased grocery prices, utility charges, etc. I remember a little over a year ago that gas here was actually 1.99 for a few weeks. (Yes, that is the bonus of living in rural Michigan). I don't anticipate gas under 3.00 a gallon ever again. I guess we'll be doing a lot of walking this summer. :) What does gas cost where you live? And how are you compensating for the increased costs? We are definitely trying to drive less...and I am hoping to alter my work schedule so that I am not driving 20 miles each way more that 2 or 3 days a week. There comes a point where (when you are working short shifts especially) it isn't profitable to go to work. And that is a sad point that this nation is coming t0. What happens when people can't afford to work?