So much has happened

AAAAHHHHH!

Where has the time gone? I turned around and it has been almost a month since I posted. So let's see what has happened in the last 4 weeks (in no particular order):

• John went from 2 teeth to 6 teeth in about 2 weeks;
• Dave and I went to the DAN! Conference and learned an awful lot of amazing info;
• James has almost completely stopped napping (let's pause for a moment of silence...);

I know, you're wondering what about Kayla??? What did she do this past month? Well, really there isn't much she isn't doing. She is our amazing blessing. She is so much more mature than her age. (Is that right? Dad, help me out with the grammar here.) She loves school and her teachers can't say enough about how wonderful she is. She wants very badly to read like her big brother and tries hard every day to read just a little more. She loves playing with John. She is so good at watching out for him and just the sight of her makes him light up like the Fourth of July fireworks.

In other news, John's first two teeth (on the bottom) came quite awhile ago. Like the twins they came pretty close together. The twins also got the rest of their teeth in pairs. This was great because they would teethe really bad for a few days and then have two more teeth. Well, John started getting really cranky and was drooling like a leaky faucet. Then they started coming. Now he has 4 teeth on the bottom and 2 on top and once again he is as happy as can be again!

A couple of weeks ago Dave and I spent 2 days straight up to our eyeballs in seminars and workshops about biomedical intervention designed to treat Autism. WOW is all I can say. We were completely unprepared for how much info it would be. But it really made an impression on both of us. We not only learned about the typical things you might expect (GFCF diets, vitamins and supplements) but also about toxins and other things that may have contaminated our possibly already compromised kiddos. We also learned about working to prevent harm to our next kiddos. Sooooo, we came home and threw out all of our Teflon coated pans, food storage containers, plastic plates and cups. In their place we purchased new Rubbermaid containers, started using our cast iron pots and pans more often and invested in Corelle plates and cups for the kiddos.

Yes, I know some of you don't completely understand the sadness I am feeling about James's abandonment of naps but I coveted that time when the twins (and sometimes John, too) would nap and the house would be quiet and the time would be mine. I am not trying to sound selfish but I REALLY need that time. It is time when I can make important phone calls without major interruptions or respond to an important email or (heaven-forbid) take a nap myself. So now we are trying something a bit different. Some days we go out and do something fun after James gets off the bus (go to the playground, go see Mr. RAY) then the next day I let the twins know that today will be a resting day and Voila! Kayla and James both take a nap! Granted Kayla would nap everyday for at least 2 hours if I would let her but I think that this is better for everybody (at least for now).

Transitions Part 2

For all of you who were wondering how James has faired after a week of the "new plan" I thought that I would send out a followup post. Tuesday and Wednesday were extremely difficult. I don't think that we could have ever been prepared for the struggle that James had. Yes, he had many transition "inspired" meltdowns in the past but those are almost completely gone and when he does have difficulty with a transition or change now he can usually navigate through it with much more ease. I reread my post about Tuesday and I don't think that I was able to capture the extreme level of difficulty that he had and I am still not sure that I could. The frustration and meltdowns continued on Wednesday. His exhaustion worsened and on Thursday he was soooo exhausted that after returning from picking Kayla up from school he just lost it. He burst into tears and couldn't even stand up. I asked him if he wanted to eat lunch (our new normal time) and he just sobbed "No!" So now I am panicking because it is 11:15 and his bus comes some time between 11:50 and noon. What does he want? What do I need to do to make this easier? So I asked him if he wanted to take a nap or eat lunch and go to school. He screamed nap. So I reminded him that if he took a nap that he wouldn't go to school and he just pointed to his room. So I put him to bed without lunch and called the bus company and his school to let them know that he was not coming to school. He took a somewhat short nap but it definitely helped. The of course there was no school Friday because we got about 6 inches of snow!

So Friday night Dave and I went into crisis recovery mode and decided on a new schedule. (I should also mention that Kayla was soooo much less than pleased with this new schedule. She didn't like the idea that she was napping by herself and I think that she was jealous that James was getting one-on-one time with me while she was at school and while he was at school she was having to nap.) Now James gets special Mommy Time in the morning while Kayla is at school. Then after we pick her up we have lunch and hang out until the bus comes. Once he comes home we unpack and read a story and then everyone gets a nap - including John. Kayla loves this new nap time. She is always tired by then (3 pm). James doesn't always nap but he has to rest in his darkened quiet room. And Mommy gets a much needed respite from the crazies!

It means an adjustment on my part and rethinking the way that we used to do certain things. It is also going to require us (Dave and me) to think about when and how we participate in certain events. But I think that this will be the best thing that we can do for everyone in our family.

Crazy, Crazier and Craziest

Dave's Grandpop has been really sick - he has been in and out of the hospital a bunch of times over the past couple of months. (PLEASE PRAY!) So he and his dad decided to take a trip to FL to visit him (perhaps for the last time). (= a little crazy) Dave flew out at the ***-crack of dawn on Friday morning. Thankfully Kathy (Dave's mom) was able to come Friday morning to help get the twins ready for school. And God love her she did a ton of laundry! Oh, but I forgot to mention that I didn't get to bed until about 2 am Thursday night and was up at 6 am with James. (I'll help with the math. I got 4 hours of sleep.) Then while the twins are at school John broke through his first tooth. (Yea, the screaming should subside for awhile.)

Kayla has had this cough for a few days but what Preschooler doesn't have a cough from November through March??? So when she had trouble sleeping we weren't surprised. (= a little crazier) But then Sunday night she got up at about midnight complaining that her ears hurt and upon further investigation we found that her throat was swollen to almost twice its size. (= even crazier) She wouldn't go to sleep without my sitting by her side so at 2 am when she was still awake and I was practically falling asleep sitting up I took some cushions off the couch and slept on her floor. I got about 4-5 hours of sleep.

While all of this is going on in her room... I can hear John wailing in my room with David. I want to go help but then I would have a second crying kid. The next morning I found out that John had cut his second tooth! (The twins got most of their teeth early and in pairs, too.)

I took Kayla to the Doctor yesterday morning and the rapid strep test came back negative the Dr said he thinks that it is a viral infection which will probably get worse before it gets better and will probably take 4-5 days to clear up. She showed a little bit of fluid in her right ear but no infection. We are waiting to hear back from the throat culture (on Wed) whether or not it really is strep throat (which is very uncommon at this age). So Kayla will be home probably all week from school trying to get better. (=craziest)

Though it may sound strange please pray that she might have strep because then it can be treated with antibiotics and can be healed faster.

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...

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.