Walk?

 
Mike and Anthony, going for a walk. He had a pretty good week, even though he was up every damned night. It can be very upsetting to listen to him in there. I try to ignore it and even if I listen, he does sound like he's enjoying himself, most of the time, but man. It's difficult. I worry about what will happen when we put Vernoica in with Maria, what if she can't sleep through that noise? But it's stupid to worry, I'm sure it will all change up here soon. We are going to school Halloween party today, it will be our first social outing with Anthony's schoolmates. I'm looking forward to it and I don't have that normal feeling of dread when we go somewhere, because all the kids will be autistic, all the parents will be parents of an autistic child, and I won't have to worry about Anthony seeming so different. Because he won't be!

4

 
He got a 4 today, in the morning and the afternoon. So that's better! He also fell asleep on the way home, so he is now upstairs at 9:30, banging the hell out of his room. Oh well. We all had dinner together tonight, he ate pizza and about a million grapes and ginger cookies. He ate his whole lunch today. BOY this is boring, huh? Boring is good, for now.

2

 
Anthony got a '2' this morning AND afternoon in school, a '1' is the worst and a '5' is the best. So. Not great. He seems tortured, to me, a lot lately. But just now when we were outside, he was running and tripped and I said "be careful, Anthony" and he said "Careful!"

He did eat a whole hot dog for lunch today, which was good, as he hasn't been eating much of anything. We have to get him to eat something besides hot dogs as his only source of protein, he's off cheese right now. It's amazing how annoying things are to me, now. Like he has forever liked this cheese stick, made by Sargento, it's a colby and jack cheese or something. He doesn't like other cheese sticks, just this one. But a few weeks ago, it started sucking - I don't know what the hell they've done, it's just bad - it's hard and ... bad. So now he hates it and I have no hope, it would seem, of him liking any cheese ever again. I knew a mom from Anthony's old school whose son would only eat sour cream and onion potato chips and I used to think, well, at least he eats cheese. And green beans. And kosher hot dogs! But he's eating less and less. I hope, like everything else, it's a phase. We're making a better effort to sit at the tables for meals, all of us, and it's going well. He is up to eight + minutes at the table. Maybe next will come a more refined pallate. :)

God Knows

 
I don't know what he was looking at here, probably Maria. She drives him nuts and I assume someday it's going to be good for him, but right now I think he just thinks what we all do - QUIET DOWN, Maria! :)

Sunday

 
Anthony is having kind of a fussy day today. He's always out of sorts a little bit on the weekends, but we can all get back to it tomorrow, I told him! In the meantime, it's a beautiful day, so we're trying to get outside as much as possible.

Autism is not the boss

Here's an interesting website for friends and family to peruse. I just found out about it on Twitter and have been reading it.

Grown

 
Doesn't he seem so grown up, lately? I never want time to go slow, I always want these kids to not be babies anymore, but I don't feel that way about Anthony. I ... I'm not scared of him getting older, but I just - I want him to do better while he's still four. I used to say "he's only three!" and now I'm saying "four!". He is making such great progress, but I do worry that we didn't start early enough with him. He's still a baby, to me, in a lot of ways, which is how I like it.

Sweet

 
He looks like Veronica, to me, in this shot. He's tired, today. He was CRAZY last night and God knows when he went to sleep. I hope that means he'll sleep well tonight. I read about some kids with autism that are awake for like 21 hours straight, and who sleep like two hours a night. I hope that's never us. He's been having great days at school and today his therapist brought out a bag of clothes for us, from another Mom at school. Her son had outgrown them and he's an only child, so she gave them to Anthony. I'm embarrassed because one day last week, one of his therapists put a rope around his waist to keep up his new pants, so I'm afraid the mom thinks we don't know how to dress him! It was very nice of her, of course, she's the same mom who advised me about the insurance for Anthony's school.

I also talked to the Special Ed person in the town that Anthony goes to school. The director of Special Ed at Anthony's school from last year told me that now that Anthony goes to school in another county, he has to get services from there. Of course it's not true, we didn't think it was, because where Anthony goes isn't really a school. It's the worst kind of runaround, but I am determined to see it through because Anthony is entitled to those therapies and I just feel like we should get in the habit of getting him what he is entitled to. So we'll see what happens.

Great

What's So Great About Anthony?

Well. I mean, what isn't, these days? We are incredibly proud of him and impressed by all the work that he does every school day, and I do mean work. He always seems so happy to see me when I go pick him up, but he doesn't seem desperate or anything. He seems very trusting, which is something I never thought I'd see from him. Some things that I'd put on this list two years ago, I can't put on here now. Like he's not really a great dancer anymore, but he used to be. He doesn't like to dance so much now, but maybe it's still in there, deep down? Anyways. Here's what's so great about Anthony:

He has a high threshold for pain, which I am realizing came in very handy when he was teething. His sisters seem like big WUSSIES in comparison.
He is very sweet and loving.
He is incredibly social - his therapists are very impressed by that, it's unusual, I think, and is serving him well at school.
He's gorgeous. Really, I think he is perfect.
He's smart and has a great memory.
He is learning things every day that must blow his mind, but he remains our sweet Anthony at home.
He's loud - I could never lose him in a crowd.
He's good at listening to us - when I go for a walk with him and Maria, she is always the one I have to worry about leaving me and running off.
He's very photogenic.
He's started to ask for food by name and sometimes add "please". Polite!
He's so, so SO patient with Maria. He is nicer than I am. This morning, she was practically WHIPPING him around and he just takes it. For NOW he takes it, I tell Maria.
He loves to sing. It's not always pretty, and sometimes it's downright scary in the car, but he loves it.
He inspires me to be faithful - I mean, I am a faithful person, but Anthony makes me want to believe all that crap about all things being possible. He makes me believe it. I really think he'll be okay, that we all will. If we can just survive Maria! Ha!

New Clothes

 
Here's Anthony, Wednesday morning before school, in his new clothes. He woke up at 3:30 this morning, I heard him when I was up with the baby. He wasn't super loud or crazy, but he didn't go back to sleep, either. Mike told me he fell asleep for a while on the way to school. He had a good morning in spite of it, though, he asked for "pears" every time he wanted some. He said "hi" to his therapist and "bye" to Mike. I'm sure he'll nap this afternoon and tonight might be rough but overall, he is feeling better, so I'm not going to complain. His clothes are adorable, right? They are, naturally, too big on him but hopefully he'll have another growth spurt here soon and get right in them.

Five Minutes

 
 
We're doing this thing, on the recommendation of his therapists, where we set a timer and sit for five minutes at a time while eating. It's going pretty good! It's just been one night. I really do think that he enjoys the organization of it all. He looks happy anyway!

Cookies

 
Anthony is home sick for the second day in a row. IN A ROW. :) I made cookies to cheer us all up but I am not eating sweets through the week (although the way this week is going is really pushing me over the edge) but the kids have both eaten several. So someone is getting cheered up, anyway!

Ha

 
He is sticking his finger in my belly button here. I am still in my pajamas and he is taking advantage!

Dreamboat

 
Isn't he gorgeous? He is breaking my heart, though, just like a real dreamboat. He's feeling better, although he's still home today, since he had a fever yesterday and they like you to be 24 hours fever free before you go back to school. But before, he was crying and crying in the kitchen. I came in and wiped his face and asked him what was wrong and he was kind of choking and sobbing and he said "Mommy" and "Owee". Oh, I can't stand it - it's so, so hard to not know what is wrong with him and just be asking over and over, crying myself, what I can do to help. Thank God for Maria, because she at least adds a little comedy to these sad moments by stepping on my bare feet while I am trying to tend to Anthony. Anyways, here he is outside playing and eating some garlic bread. He's getting better.

Oh! And also talking more. Yesterday, his AM therapist wrote under speech "Said "What's your name?"" I saw it and couldn't BELIEVE it, he never talks like that, that many words. But Mike was saying it to him earlier and he sure does say it. He's not really asking, he doesn't care what your name is, but we'll take it. Baby steps.

Floor Food

 
They love floor food, but they'll take grass food too. Maria kept offering him potatoes and then running away. Finally, he knocked them to the ground and then it was a free-for-all.

Background

 
That brick of the hous next to us is a good background, right? That's how the sellers of it should think, to cheer themselves up. They should think of it as a $600K brick background for our pictures. Ha.

Hiding

 
Ha, we can totally see you, Anthony! He and Maria have been outside a lot today. Mike and the kids were out front earlier, then out back and then I just took Anthony and Maria for a walk. We only went around the alley, we were all walking, so I didn't want to go far. They did very well, though.

Friday

 
Another good week at school. He has been sleeping all night, but doesn't fall asleep until he bangs around in his room for 90 minutes or so. I assume we'll settle into some kind of a pattern soon, in the meantime this is okay. I mean, I do not enjoy hearing him in there, but he is sleeping all the important times of the night and not waking anyone up, so we'll take it. He has been saying "Bye!" and "Bye, Daddy!" to Mike in the mornings. He still refuses to say "Hi!" to me, but someday soon, I bet.

I had a TERRIBLE experience last week in Maria's Toddler and Me class. Ha, part of it was terrible because I was chasing Maria around and then at the end of it we sang "Where is Thumbkin?", which we used to sing at the end of class when I took it with Anthony, several years ago. I hadn't thought about it in a long time, but he used to LOVE that song. Mike or I would sing it for him when he was in the tub and he'd go crazy with happiness about it. And I just - it came on me, kind of all at once, that he is not that happy little boy anymore. I don't think we lost him, in some sort of autism way, but it's just his life is so much more complicated now - he has to work SO hard every day at learning what comes to others so easily. I really feel for him, and I guess that's what made me cry when I heard that song. It was very embarassing, but it wasn't the most embarassed I was all morning, thanks to Maria. Ha!

All Three

 
Ha. A rare family portrait.