Early Morning!

  Early morning for me! I haven't blogged in a while and have had the itch too.  I took two amazing weeks off from cakes and spent it with my family.  We went camping for 4 days, and Jason and I celebrated our 6th year wedding anniversary.  It was so great to spend time with them all.
 
  We have lots going on.  The kids are well growing too fast.  Reese and Dallas are about to start school, September 8th and 9th.  We are hoping Dallas gets accepted into ABA therapy to start that as well.  Our little Slater has been getting lots of teeth, and CRANKY!  I think we have found our little wild child.  He has such an attitude of his own.  Watching him eat is better than any other sort of entertainment.  He's our big boy that's for sure.  Knowing both my kids are starting school is bitter sweet.  Reese is so excited.  I think and hope it will be great for her.  I feel the same way for Dallas, but I am very scared and concerned of course.  He has been showing a good effort to help get dressed it's been so cute.  He also has been getting into everything like crazy.  He likes to put everything up on the table and rearrange it.  I still can't believe he will be 3 soon.  That little boy wears my heart on him. 

  We have been slowly doing some improvement's to our house and landscaping some.  It's so hard to keep up on with our busy schedule.  This weekend we rebarked the front planter space.  I planted some mums.  Jason hung a new Cowboys flag I got him.  I am also finally having my chance to get rid of clutter.  My sister and I are having a yard sale.  I am excited for this because we have soo much of the kids stuff that isn't being used.  And also to do it all before Christmas is a plus. 

  It's nearing my FAVORITE time of year again.  I am so in love with FALL and CHRISTMAS.  Jason always thinks I'm crazy for how into I get.  I vow this year to get some sort of awesome Christmas apparel, maybe a cool sweater or vest.  I think it's getting more exciting too as Reese is getting more into SANTA and all the Holidays!  I am just about over all this hot weather.  Which is crazy because I know I will then complain of how long its been cold during that time. 

  With our last camping trip and feeling like summer is ending, I really am happy with all the time we got to spend together.  As a family we took 2 camping trip and went to Disneyland.  We didn't make it to the Zoo but that's okay, we are thinking spring for that.  Jason and I are heading to Vegas in October.  Our once a year kid free trip, it is so needed. 

  This week is full of Appoinments, Cakes and yardsale!

Every time..

  Evaluations...assessment's...paperwork..


  Every time an evaluation or assessment is done I cry.  I just got out of a 2 hour long assessment.  Every single question she asked me I replied "NO".  2 hours long of questions of "if" my son does "this".  And my answer was "NO".  To the sweet lady, our case worker to help us get more services from the Developmental Disability Assistance, YOU ARE SO KIND.  Kind because you don't know in depth or kind because you do and are so helpful?  Either way I am so grateful for her help.  I know these questions must be asked and I know that she doesn't have to be so kind and sweet about each one.  She was :).  I want help yes, but I also want to scream and tell her all the things he CAN do and how much FUN he is.  And even though on paper your telling me I provide every single moment of care for him I DON'T CARE.  I LOVE IT AND HATE IT.  Hate because I wish he could do these things.  I also wish I could tell her how far he has come.  How he used to walk around crying and screaming ALL NIGHT LONG.  And now he says little words.  The assessment scared me.  What if I am still doing this same assessment when he's 16??  How would I hid the things like I do sometimes now.  He's small people could figure he's even younger, but not when he's 16!  These times come very few.  Not often I get off task and the plan and get caught up in negative thoughts.  I think it's a process.  Little break down after this very nice lady left. 


  On to very good positive thoughts.  My sweet Slater just turned 1.  He is my sweet boy.  I often catch myself waiting for a sign of something wrong.  Dallas started to show signs around this time.  I rest assure because he is so different.  And I am not going to waste this worry less time with him.  He loves his daddy.  He's close to furniture walking, and then we are in trouble.  Reese is still miss attitude.  She is too smart for her own good.  I can not wait to see how she does in school.  She wants to go sooo bad.   Her hair is so long and pretty again.  She lets me braid it sometimes.  I look back on her baby pictures and wish I hadn't of worked that 1st year of her life.  Stayed home and got the one on one time with her.  My goal for the next two months before she starts school
1. Play barbies with her twice a week
2. Do her nails (even though she picks them off) once a week
3. Take her for a mom/daughter date twice a month
4. Get new board games to play
5. Camp with her in the back yard


SO just a few things I want to do with her.

Husband and I are heading up to a cabin for a night ALONE.  Can't believe it.  Def looking forward to it ::))

A REAL morning.

  I haven't blogged since I announced that Dallas has Autism.  The time that has past since has been the happiest and the saddest.  We got our diagnosis, and my world turned upside down AGAIN.  I was upset with myself for allowing that.  I thought I had prepared.  I know now, you really can't prepare for that.  It was great timing for some of his therapy to take a nice little break.  I found it hard to put a smile on without tears.  It was a great time to enjoy our Dallas, without running around figuring out how to squeeze everything in a week.  And then we went to DISNEYLAND :)).  As hard as it was at times, I am so thankful for this trip.  My family had so much fun.  NO doctor appointments or work.  We woke up and enjoyed each other (and had our grouchy moments).  It was a lot of work taking care of three little one's on a 9 day vacation.  Arriving on the out skirts of California brought tears to my eyes.  I have never driven.  We went about once a year since I was 11 for softball.  Meaning every time I was there, so was my dad.  Also my dad was born there.  I remember him showing us (I have pictures) his name he drew in the concrete before it dried.  Telling us his positive way of making a rough rough up bringing a good one.  The softball, Disneyland, the stories, his memories.  All of that came to when we arrived.  I was getting to spend this time here with my family, like he once did.  An amazing trip with amazing memories.  It was great.


  Summer is upon us and we have been filling our time now with projects and plans.  Jason was away for 10 days.  We are getting back to our routine and moving onto new things.  This last week has been tough.  Even though I embrace my son's diagnosis, its still the hardest thing I have ever gone through.  This last year has changed me.  Though at times I feel over emotional about it, I feel I provide a great out look on it for my family and most importantly Dallas.  With the truth being I am still grieving, I have learned a lot.  At times I get this trapped feeling.  A lot of times people have busy weeks, rough times and that feeling of knowing it will pass is comforting.  Well here's the deal.  I feel this urgency to give our son a better life, with therapy, new treatment's (if any), programs, diets.  I feel like I am in constant over time to keep ahead of the game and learn things myself so I can help him the best way.  Its exhausting, and then I have days where I am just sad about it.   I never like to say this out loud, but its really hard.  Every single aspect of it is hard.  I don't like to say that because I love my son.  I am always making sure others don't think of him as a burden because I know he is not.  Yes this is hard.  But I love our son, I love who he is.  I hate Autism yes.   I hate it soo much.  I embrace my son, NOT Autism.  I don't believe he is stuck like this, I believe in recovery of some form that will make his life easier for him.  I don't care if I have to communicate via IPAD with him.  I would LOVE LOVE for him to show me something though a picture ANYTHING.  I just want to hear from him.  I want him to share his wants, needs and feelings.  I just want to know he's not hurting and he's happy.  We have some great things in the future planned for Dallas and his recovery.  We believe in him so much.  All of the wonderful progress he has made makes us so proud and happy for him.  I know the hard times will not pass for good.  The real part of this is that it is so very HARD and so very rewarding all at once.


  This was such a REAL morning :)).  I like REAL.  I woke up around 5:40 with little Slater who was ready for a diaper change, bottle and some play.  Next was Dallas around 6:15.  We watched Cake Boss for a few while I drank some coffee.  Reese woke around 6:45 and I started breakfast.  As the kids ate their breakfast, it was time to get some reading in.  I read 3 short books while they ate.  Reese was eating her yogurt, while Slater looked like he was in a pigs food dish. Dallas eating his usual, eggs and sausage.  They all love books.  I was so tired from my workout the night before, a broken out face from stress and wearing my husbands oversized shirt.  I def have black under my eyes with no makeup and my hair was still thrown up in a damp bun.  A few min after breakfast Dallas brought his diaper he was supposed to be wearing lol.   My life is so imperfectly real and I am learning to really like it this way.


  I love this picture of Reese.  She is and always will be a daddy's girl.   She is the most beautiful little thing.  Her natural beauty is something I am very jealous of.

 

Pics

Until All The Pieces Fit

     I remember finding out I was pregnant with my sweet Dallas.  My exciting happy time quickly turned into a heart wrenching worry. The ultrasound tech in a quiet voice told me "its very very faint and ya know..at this point should be a lot stronger.  It's hard to say, I think it could go either way."  She was referring to his heart beat.  I figured she was probably right and in a weeks time I would go back to not find it at all.  I was wrong :).  In a week I went back and not only got to see but hear my little baby's heart.  It was real and stronger.  I went on and continued with all the early birth defect/ fetal detection test.  He passed them, they told me I had a healthy baby.  My most concerning thing before having children was that I would have a child with down syndrome or a birth defect.  In fact a doctor asked me "would you terminate this pregnancy if downs was shown?" I replied yes.  We did the tests and of course no markers on his ultrasound and nothing in blood work.    Yes I can admit that.  

     At 12 weeks into my pregnancy, we lost my dad.  As hard as that was, I call Dallas my miracle baby.  Feeling literally as if the world was ending, I saw my belly growing.  Ultrasounds, appointment's and planning his birth quickly gave me hope and something positive to look forward to.  I really don't know how things would have went without my sweet baby in my belly.  I remember I was in town when I text my dad about my 2nd pregnancy.  He stopped by my sisters house.  With a smile said "wow your are going to be busy, congrats!". 


    His birth was long.. 8am induced to attempt a VBAC.  8pm he was born via csection.  A terrible painful csection resulted in me being heavily sedated in and out of even being  awake.  My first words "is he okay, is my baby ok?" The nurse next to me looked at me funny, why was I so worried type of look.  She said "Of course he's okay, you have a beautiful baby boy..perfect."  It was hours later I first got to meet him.  He had this skin that was so soft it didn't look real in pictures.  He had this cute little lip that over hung his bottom lip, he looked at me with the sweetest most peaceful eyes.  Cried? No...he was so easy seemed peaceful wrapped in his blankets with his hat.  I stayed up most the night with him.  As I at my first meal in 2 days I had him on my lap.  It was early morning around 3 am that I fell in love with him.  I undressed him to look at his arms, legs and feet.  Nurses said he was the only boy that night, and getting very spoiled in the nursery.


    Skipping forward...2 weeks prior to his 2nd birthday came.  With a new doctor (kadlec) I was ready for some questions to be answered.  We went as a family, he was very upset that day.  We talked about the concerns.  She filled out a few tests forms.  She looked at us and said "He did not pass the m-chat..he failed on all of it"  I knew what the m-chat was.  It was a brief form for Autism red flags they filled out.  It was a blurr..but she started talking to her nurse.."okay..lets get all the specialist on board. Speech, Occupational, Neurology, vision check, hearing check."  I remember her thick accent I can still barely understand.  Tears filled my eyes because I knew this was coming.  Almost 7 months of pure hell.  No answers..we often heard "if its autism...sensory needs...therapy..blah blah blah.." The words and theories every different doctor/therapist eventually all pointed in one direction.  We researched everything about autism and any sort of treatments/recovery's. We didn't even understand the definition.  We cried every single day for weeks..  This couldn't be happening..not to us. Not to our baby boy. What's going to happen? Nobody understands..  After months of basically a grieving process we joined in (researched) an aimed our frustration and hopes to a word non of these specialist ever seem to say.  RECOVERY.  We researched ABA therapy, special diets, biomedical treatment and watched kids who once had autism BEAT IT.  They became "normal" in the eye of society.  Their brain was reset and working differently.  Seems easy? NO this would mean days of therapy, correcting repetitive behavior and a learning cause and affect that in a way tricked their minds. Jason showed me many articles he read.  Its not for everyone, in fact some people don't believe in it at all. It took us 6 months to get our evaluation at CADET.  Lead doctor was DR. GREW but a team of 5 I believe.


    On March 8th 2015 we walked into our final meeting with DR GREW.  Listening to him speak was easy.  He is without a doubt one of the most well spoken people I have ever talked to.  He's compassionate and speaks with it in his tone.  We told him (because he asked) that we wanted to get straight to the point and then go from there with the details, scoring, plan all that.  Holding back tears I listened but had to shift my eyes a lot because his face was going blurry.  To be honest I zoned out a couple times. Sad that whatever we thought he was about say was real and no more hope of it just being something else.  I even had my last few seconds of hope.  I kept waiting for him to get to the point as we asked.  A moment of zoning out and something caught my attention again.  "Wait, so we are saying Autism?" I interrupted. "Yes, he confirmed."  He watched tears fill my eyes, the painful swallow after that for sure.  I asked the severity and Jason asked other very honest questions from parents who loved their kid.  I went home and cried for everyone.  I cried for my husband who has always taken this positively one day at a time.  He's always been this giant voice to help me get through the bad moments. Encouraging me to move forward to our next step. A dark sadness last night was.

   My son has Autism and we plan for recovery.  My son struggles every single day, but we push forward.  We have therapy sessions about 4 times a week. We are so busy sometimes we can't fit it all in.  Some good and some bad.  To be honest this has taken over our lives and changed it.  Dallas has taught me the true meaning of unconditional love.  I used to be stuck up in a way that kids or people with disabilities didn't mesh with me.  I have become so accepting to find their struggles beautiful.  I know now, I would answer the pregnancy termination question differently.  He is very intelligent, though he doesn't always get a chance to show it.  We are working on that.  He does things differently and we accommodate that.  Different isn't bad, but it depends on who is viewing it.  I have heard a lot of from others.  Its tough for me to hear reactions that well seem stupid.  Especially from those who don't live this.  I don't expect others to understand fully because you can't unless you live in it.  We have met some very great resourceful people.  Others who know this, seem to be a easy choice at times.  I am thankful for his therapist.  I tend to see them more than others I think, we have built relationships with a couple of them.  We plan for recovery, because we believe it's real.  Our son has Autism..for now.  We have a huge tough road ahead of us and we know that.  This is our son's journey to a better life for him and we won't stop.  I haven't been the best friend or family member.  There are good days and days where I don't want to talk to anybody.  It's a roller coaster of ups and downs.  I am sure I am not done crying..but we are moving forward to this new journey.  And we are so happy to be on it with our boy.  He's happy and we want to be sure he stays that way.


    So please accept what you may not understand.  You may not know the struggle's of the person  you are about to criticize or judge.  CARE and show SYMPATHY because it may be the little hope that helps someone.  We won't stop until all the pieces fit...for our sweet Dallas we love you <3

  




   

   

Too long..

  It's been way too long since I blogged.  Instead of blogging during the moments I can, I have been resting or something else.  Busy yes..but I have been so tired.  My feet hurt when I wake up in the morning.  Result of lots of standing/chasing the kids all day, cake work and then the gym too.  We celebrated Easter yesterday.  Saturday is when we went to a big egg hunt/event.  It was very crowded but the kids did very well so it was fun.  We also haven't had Jason home very much because of his over time right now.  So relaxing at home yesterday was great.  We had my sister and my mother in law Tamie over for dinner.  I made Ham, garlic mashed potatoes, homemade mac salad, corn on the cobb and rolls.  I was going to make a cheesecake but after a hellish weekend with cakes we were at Fred Myers and got an apple pie.  It actually was good. Also had mimosas for drinks.  It's hectic at our house during meals, I hope to get that under control. Dallas gets very excited but usually won't leave the person he's aiming it towards alone.  We also need a bigger table, which Jason is building.

  Slater is basically crawling.  It's so cute to see.  Also sad.  I watched from a distance as Dallas noticed Slater getting closer and closer to him and his toys.  He had a funny look on his face.  When Slater did get close enough, Dallas didn't want him to touch his toys.  He did however give him back hugs (gently), tried to hold his hand and even gave him a kiss on the head.  It was so cute.  It gave me validation of how sweet and affectionate Dallas can be.  And to have love for his little brother was so cute.

   I have never seen Reese so excited for a holiday.  Even more than Christmas.  I think it's starting to sink in, so I can only imagine how Christmas will be next year :)) I am sooo excited.  I am just waiting for someone to be as excited and into Christmas as me.  I have to train her lol.  She could not wait for the Easter bunny to come get his eggs we painted for him, and leave her a basket of course.  She went straight to bed the night before and woke up early to wake us for it. It was very cute.  Dallas went straight for his basket when he came out of his room.  Before he even got his glasses on lol.  He saw his new little "dusty" a plane from the Disney movie.

  This week it's Mya and my niece Felecity birthday. I can't believe how old either of them are. I remember when they were first born.  I am really hoping to be able to get a cake made for Mya.  We also have our final appointment for results for Dallas. I have been stressed for too long, at this point I am just facing it.  Nothing would ever change my love for my sweet Dallas.. No one would ever get him like I do.  I don't even care about that anymore.  I felt this strong desire to try to make others understand him BUT I don't anymore.  I also have a couple of cakes due this weekend and I am hoping to get some relaxing in. 

I am off to feed my little ones... Nutella waffles for them!

Pics