Big Boy Bed

I should start this post by telling you that Kayla has been in a toddler bed (Big Girl Bed) for several months now (since May) and James has still been in his crib. We had been noticing the past few weeks that their crib blankets had not really been cutting it in terms of keeping the twins warm at night. So we decided that for Christmas we would get them each new bedding for their beds. Then we thought maybe we should just bite the bullet and move James out of his crib when we put on his new bedding.

We gave them their new bedding on Christmas morning and they were (to our surprise) very excited. I say that we were surprised because James is very attached to his Green Blanket (kinda Linus-like). But he was definitely excited to have these new sheet and comforter. So the next morning we took apart his crib and moved it to the attic and brought out his new Big Boy Bed (identical to Kayla's - thank you Wagners). He watched David and me set it all up and was very excited to have it.

At nap time that day he came out of his room about a dozen or so times and we were worried that he might not nap ever again. But then that night he only came out of his room 2 or 3 times and then slept really well. The next day my mom was going to be here with the twins during nap time and I was certain that he would take advantage of that but she said that he only came out once. Okay, this might actually work.

And it has!!! He basically stays in his bed once we put him down for a nap or nighttime. He loves it and we are so proud. I have heard so many stories of autistic or spd kids who sleep in their cribs till they max out the weight limitations. We thought that this might be James. He loved his crib so much and loved to get in it. But we have made a few other changes too (new night light because the old one was shining very brightly right in his eyes) and he go down without a fight and stays in bed. (Still can't say that this is completely true of Kayla yet.) I will keep ou posted...

Update on Kayla

Here they are the much-anticipated nails!

Aunt Day

I think a monster has been created... For Christmas my sisters gave the twins "Aunt Day" - a special day just for the 3 aunts and the designated child. Today was Kayla's Aunt Day. Lets just say that it was awesome for her (and I think for them, too). They took her to the mall and she got to get a Build-a-Bear. She chose a hot pink teddy bear that has magnets in her hands and face so that she can look like she is blowing kisses. She also has a heart on her tummy and on the bottom of one of her feet. After making the bear they let her "dress" her newly born friend - named Wish. She chose the identical matching outfit to her Halloween costume - Tinkerbell! Complete with magic wand and pink sequined sneakers (the same shoes she wore with her costume). But it wouldn't be complete without the Hello Kitty pjs. Yes, that's right she got Hello Kitty pjs for her new friend. I think that they might have let her buy anything and everything if she had known to ask!

Then they took her down stairs to the nail salon. Yes, that's right, my 3 year old had her first visit to the nail salon. She chose a polish color that matched the fur color of her new bear. Of course the ladies in the salon couldn't get enough of this grown up toddler and gave her the Star treatment. They gave her a sparkly top coat and diamonds on one finger of each hand.

Next she got to "ride" on all the mechanical rides before they took her to Wendy's for dinner. She got her own Kids Meal (we usually go ala carte and share) and then her aunt Kat shared an Oreo shake with her.

As you can imagine she was so excited when she got home and couldn't wait to tell/show us all the things that she had done. Then she pulls out a book and says, "Here James I got this for you." Little did I know but her aunts had taken her to the toy store in the mall and she was able to pick out some new toys and she chose something for her brother. It doesn't get much better than that.

Needless to say next time we go to the mall she is going to have some strong opinions about what we do and where we go. I will add though that she does not like the way that the nail polish chipped off and she informed that she "never, ever wants to get her nails polished again, ever." But I am sure that will change! **I will post some pics as soon as I can. I was able to shoot a few of her sparkle nails before they completely chipped off.

Dedication

On Saturday my dad and step mom came into town (from St Charles, IL) to visit. We hadn't seen them since July 2006. The kids were excited and so was I! Because this was such a special time - hadn't seen my dad in awhile, first time they were seeing John - we decided that this was a perfect opportunity to have John dedicated.

What does that mean???? Some churches do infant baptism but ours dedicates their babies. All of us stand before the congregation and present John. Our pastor asks us some important questions: Do we promise to raise him to know and love the Lord? Do we dedicate him back to the Lord knowing that he is a gift from God? Then he asks the congregation if they commit to coming alongside us in bringing him up to know and love the Lord?

My favorite part was being able to give testimony about John. I wanted to share with all of you what I shared (to the best of my recollection).

Many of you know that we had difficulty getting pregnant with the twins and were told by the doctors that we would not be able to have more children without medical assistance. So last winter when we found out we were pregnant we were surprised to say the least. We decided to name him John which means God has been gracious. This was a very fitting name. During my pregnancy we went through a few months of difficult transitioning James from Early Intervention to public preschool. Through it all I was feeling good and remained healthy. No morning sickness really and a decent amount of energy. Having a boy also meant that we could pass on the name David. Along with being my husband's name it is also the name of David's dad's brother who passed away as a teenager. It is a special family name and we were glad to be able to pass it on. It is also a tradition in our family to give our children two middle names. So we decided to give John the name Charles after a very dear friend. He has been like a brother to both me and David. He is a special man of God who has been there with us both on our walk with the Lord.

The last thing that our pastor does during a dedication is present the child with a verse. Our pastor chose John 3:30 "He must increase, but I must decrease." Fitting for a life lived to glorify the Lord.

Uncharted Waters

Today I took James to see a new doctor. Her name is Dr Ginsburg and she is what some might call a bit "crunchy" and out-there. But she comes highly recommended. She specializes in autism and women's health and her "thing" is alternative bio-medical treatments. It was overall a great visit. She was encouraging and had lots of suggestions. We are starting Melatonin supplements tonight and will possibly start Methyl B-12 shots in a few weeks. Melatonin is the hormone that your body naturally makes to make you sleepy. Some kids who have sleep problems (this includes James) respond well to Melatonin and we are hoping that James will get better sleep and therefore have better days as a result. The B-12 shots are a bit more controversial and could have a negative effect instead of a positive result. There are a lot of critics out there who think that you shouldn't give your kids anything that isn't approved by the FDA. Funny though some of those are the same people who say we should question the government and big corporations and not just do "what they tell us." So we shall see... There are others who think that you shouldn't inject your kids with needles (even the tiny insulin needles required for B-12 shots) and I say, "If your child had diabetes and needed insulin shots multiple times a day you wouldn't hesitate. So why now?" My feeling is this: Autism is scary because there is no beaten path. No two kids seem to respond to the same course(s) of treatment and so there is no "norm." And for me I have to ask myself, "Have I done enough to try to help my son get better?"

After we have tried the shots for a couple of months she wants us to put James on a gluten free-casein free-soy free diet! He is already casein free and I am super scared about this one because I know that most of the work and adjustment is going to be on our (mine and David's) part. Learning how to cook and shop all over again. But again if it means steps forward for James I am willing and getting ready!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...

So I realized a couple of days ago that I haven't really shared much of the "entertaining" things that Kayla does. And then yesterday morning it happened...

I was sitting in the living room feeding John and trying to remotely get the twins ready for school. I sent Kayla to the bathroom (the reason now escapes me) and I was trying to keep an ear out for her to make sure that she stayed on task. Then I heard this little voice start singing, "Washed a lot plates in Memphis, Pumped a lit of pain down in New Orleans, But I never saw the good side of the city, Till I hitched a ride on the river boat queen. Big wheel keeps on turning Proud Mary keeps on burning. Rollin, rollin, rollin on the river. If you come down to the river, Betcha gonna find some people who live, You don't have to worry cause you got no money, People on the river are happy to give. Big wheel keeps on turnin Proud Mary keeps on burnin. Rollin, Rollin, Rollin on the river [this time complete with arm movements ala Tina Turner]."

When was the last time you saw a 3 and a half year old channeling the spirit of Tina Turner. Thanks Grandpop and Poppy for exposing our kids to such great cultural elements. She already identifies the Beatles when they are played over the PA at the mall. What next???

What the...?

So I woke up this morning to SNOW! Can you believe it? Not just flurries of little tiny flakes but big, fat golf ball sized flakes. The kids (especially Kayla) were so excited. All they could talk about was the fact that it was winter. I had the hardest time explaining that just because it was snowing didn't make it winter.

But seriously 8 years ago tomorrow Dave and I got married and it was 72 degrees and everyone was wearing short sleeves. Now today it was about 34 degrees and SNOWING!

The last time I remember it snowing here before Thanksgiving was like 86 or 87. I remember because my Dad had come up for Thanksgiving and we were at my aunt's house playing in like a foot of snow. Does anyone else remember that?

Well, it seems to have finally stopped and it only really stuck to the grass but still... what the...?

The End of a Tunnel

Yes, that is right. I feel like we have reached the end of one the many tunnels we have been traveling through. The carpet "guys" just left and we now have a carpet in our new PLAYROOM! Yea! I can't tell you how exciting this is. (Although some of you can probably understand.) The twins have been "living" in the kitchen and living room for the last 3 years and it is really driving us crazy. So now they have their own space and we get ours back! Now I can begin to really enjoy my new kitchen (that is a tunnel we have yet to see the end of). Also I can get my LR bookcases back when I empty them of kids books, videos, CDs and puzzles. We packed up all our (adult) books last year before doing the kitchen and I haven't been able to unpack most of them... yet! Let the reading resume!

Now on to the exciting task of moving and rearranging all their toys. I can't wait to see what we find hiding under couches and behind bookcases! With Christmas coming this is going to give us a great reason to purge.

It seems, though, that since we have lived here (3.5 years) there has always been a major "project" going on (either planning or implementing) and now I don't know what we are going to do with ourselves. What will we worry about if we don't have construction going on?? : )

Don't worry everybody I can think of at least a dozen tunnels that we have entered over the past 3+ years that we have yet to see the end of!

Louder Than Words

Amanda bought me Jenny McCarthy's latest book, Louder Than Words, for my birthday and I can't put it down. For those that don't know Jenny has a son who was diagnosed with autism. He also has a severe seizure disorder. But I digress...

When James was first diagnosed I was definitely feeling overwhelmed with info and underwhelmed with support. I was watching how Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) had taken over the front page of the news. It seemed like to be hip and cool on the morning show circuit you had to do a special at least every 2 weeks on ASD. The View even devoted an entire episode to ASD. But those weren't really for me. I knew pretty much everything they were saying and I understood that they were just trying to raise awareness. But I became increasing jealous when I would see celebrities come on TV to talk about how their child (usually a son) had been diagnosed with some form of ASD. They would describe the struggle to understand and the initial shock of the diagnosis. But then they would talk about how someone from Autism Speaks would call them personally to offer help and assistance. They would get immediately connected to some of the best doctors in the country and here I was having to fight every inch of the way to get James just the minimum of care. When venting this to someone once she said that it behooves groups like Autism Speaks to connect with celebrity parents of kids with ASD because they become almost like a celebrity spokesperson for the group. But I kept thinking that I needed help more than they did. They had all that money and could get any and all the help they needed. It was poor stay at home moms that needed a little extra something.

Well, fast-forward to the sometimes foul-mouthed Jenny McCarthy and her incredible memoir of her journey into the abyss of autism and her struggle to "find a window" out. My opinion had obviously been changing from my previous "me" centered martyrdom to a growing joy for the incredible strides that James was making. But then Jenny let me into her world and I really began to realize how incredibly fortunate I (we) really are. It is such a wake up call to hear of her anguish over "idiot" doctors, hasty diagnoses and experimental treatments.

Bottom line it really isn't about me or James or anybody else it really is about support and finding the mysterious missing piece to this already too big puzzle.

(I highly encourage everyone to read this book. It is a very fast read, although I should warn that Jenny is foul-mouthed and doesn't refrain from it in her book. But if you can get past that, and I recommend that you try, you will see what I finally see - All the parents of ASD kids need the same things: love, support and most importantly love!)

S-L-E-E-P

That's right... sleep! We have been getting it and it feels great. For the last 3 nights John has slept for 7 hours or more each night. I think that maybe we found the answer in the right formula. Nestle Good Start. We had been giving him Similac because we had gotten tons of free samples from the hospital but we noticed that he was spitting up a lot and kind of fussy. Then I did some investigating and found out that Similac formula is mostly corn syrup solids. That's right, can you believe it??? So then I looked into all the brands and found that Nestle is mostly whey from milk. That makes more sense to me. So we had some samples of that and switched to that exclusively. (We had been using whatever samples we grabbed first therefore mixing and matching since we thought that they were all pretty much the same.) He is now not fussy AT ALL unless he needs one of three things: food, sleep or a clean diaper. He is sleeping better during the day too. It is true what they say: The better a child sleeps the better a child sleeps.

2nd Grade

James had an appointment with his developmental pediatrician yesterday. It went really well. Unfortunately Dave couldn't be there with us because he had to come home to be with Kayla and John but James and I managed. I have to just say that I love this doctor and her staff. We haven't been there since January and her assistant recognized James immediately and commented on how much he has grown.

Some of the more interesting/exciting things that came out of this meeting:
She wants to leave James's diagnosis as Autism Spectrum Disorder for now. I asked her about the possibility of Aspergers Syndrome (AS - the very high end of the spectrum) and she hesitates to give that diagnosis so young for a bunch of reasons. She isn't ruling it out completely yet but said that when he is a bit older she can administer some IQ tests that will help her get a better determination. My understanding is that kids with AS don't generally have language loss (which James had) and usually are on par verbally by age three. They generally just have extreme social delays. So we will see.

James is NOT hyperlexic. I know, I know... I have been hard core thinking this but I learned something very interesting yesterday in this area. Hyperlexics don't read with or for comprehension. They are simply decoding symbols (ie letters and numbers) and producing a string of words. Which leads me to my next point...

James is performing academically (in her opinion) at a 2nd grade level. Yes, you read that correctly. James read her a short story which was just printed words on a page. Then she asked him some basic questions which required some abstract thinking. (The story was a bout a yellow cat and what he likes and dislikes. So being able to answer questions about someone/thing that isn't actually there requires abstract thinking.) Then she asked him to do some basic addition and subtraction through a verbal word problem and he got that right too. (If mommy gives you a cookie and I give you a cookie, how many cookies will you have? Then if daddy gives you another cookie, how many cookies will you have? If you eat one of the cookies haw many will you have? etc.) So I of course said what are you recommendations for harnessing this power for good and not evil? ( a phrase I use a lot when referring to James) She said we could either have him moved up to the second grade where he would be on par academically with his peers but very socially delayed or we could amend his IEP to include one on one instruction in reading and writing. Oh, I forgot to mention that he is writing even more now. He demonstrated this for her by writing MOMMMY and JAMeS (his spelling choices).

So once I have something in writing from her we are going to go into the school and make some serious changes. They probably aren't going to like this but they are required to give him and appropriate education and I think that this is what we need to do. She mentioned some other things but over ll she was very pleased with the gains he has made in the last year and is encouraged for his future.

2 Months!

John had his 2 month checkup today. You would never know that this was a kid who had difficulty gaining weight those first few weeks. John tipped the scales today at 10.5 lbs and 22.5 inches! (At Birth: 7.5 lbs and 20 inches)

He was so funny at the doctor's office too. He was definitely showing off his mad skills. He showed the doctor how he can hold his own head up and how close he is to rolling over. Then when she tried to look in his eyes, ears, etc he started whacking her in the face!

In general he is a great baby. He is starting to get into a good sleeping rhythm. He eats a lot (evident in his extreme weight gain) and loves life. He smiles all the time and is cooing a lot. He recognizes the voices of me and Dad and Kayla. (James doesn't pay him enough attention for John to recognize his voice.)

Welcome John David

John David was born today at 11:03 am. He was 7.5 lbs. and 20 inches. But let me back up a bit...

We have had a particularly easy pregnancy. I had very little "morning sickness" which consisted mainly of a bit of nausea in month 2. (This by the way is what prompted the pregnancy test in the first place!) He was a very active little bugger. It was at about 8 1/2 months that we had an ultrasound and discovered that he was no longer head down. This prompted us to schedule a c-section for Monday, August 20. (This date would have been great since our anniversary is November 20 and the twins b-day is May 20.) We had talked with the doctor who was going to do the surgery and she said that before we do the surgery she wanted to just do a quick scan to make sure that he was still head up. So we go to the hospital that morning and they get me all prepped for surgery - and I mean all prepped! I had the IV started, the catheter in and had been shaved! (Was that TMI?) The anesthesiologist had come in to talk with us and we were told we were heading into surgery in about 5 minutes. I reminded the nurse that the doc had wanted to do a scan before the surgery so the doc came in with the US machine and wouldn't you know that he had completely turned and was now head down again.

So we decided since we were already there and only 4 days from our due date that we would try to induce labor. The put me on a pitocin drip and I laid in that hospital room for approximately 7 hours. After all that time had passed and I still wasn't having any real labor we decided to go home. That was an interesting arrival home. We had told the twins that we were going to have the baby that day and then we came hoe with nothing! So we tried to explain to them that the baby wasn't ready to come out of mommy yet.

I went back to the doctor for a check up a couple of days alter and he was still head down and so we waited for labor to begin naturally. By the Monday after his due date (8/27) he was still not here and I wasn't anywhere near labor so we decided (for a bunch of other reasons that I won't get into) to have the c-section. Cause lets face it when you are that pregnant and it is that hot all you want is for that baby to be out of you!

So we scheduled the surgery for Wednesday morning and this time I wasn't coming home without my boy! So we headed to the hospital that morning and a couple of hours later we had our sweet, sweet boy in our arms. Let me just say that this time the surgery and recovery were SOOOOO much easier than last time. With the twins I couldn't get out of bed for 2 days this time I was out of bed by dinner time the same day. With the twins I stayed in the hospital as long as possible 4 days. With John I was home in just over 48 hours. I had a shorter recovery time in the recovery room, a better response to the anesthesia and this time I actually had some success breastfeeding.

My mom stayed with me in the hospital the first night so that Dave could be home to put the twins to bed - we wanted to try to maintain some normalcy for them. Then Dave came to the hospital Thursday morning for a few hours and then went to work! (We had so few vacation days left and wanted to use them wisely.) My friends Mary and Amy and my mother in law Kathy came at various points that day to keep me company and then Dave returned to the hospital that night after putting the twins to bed. He stayed with me that night and then left the next morning pretty early so that he could be home when the twins got up. Dave stayed home to play with the twins and my step dad and sister Kat came to the hospital to help me pack up - I was going home whether the doctors liked it or not. Then around 5pm Dave and the twins came to the hospital. This was the first time that the twins were meeting the baby. We got some great pictures and video. Then we ALL went back to our house where my other sisters and my mom all came over for dinner. It was a nice home coming!