Sunday

I didn't take any pictures this weekend, I can't wait until the weather is a little bit better, so we can get outside into some decent light. I wanted to post about Anthony's week because he had a very good one, he had a few days of "5's" at school, and his speech therapist at school seems to think he is doing very well. His occupational therapist writes very technical notes home, she never says how CUTE he is or how much she LIKES him, which of course I would like to see, but she does say a lot about all the work she does with him and how he responds, so what can you do?

We had our moments of tears this week, which of course I hate, but honestly, he cries less than I do, so that's good, right? He has been sleeping fine, he's up for quite a while after he goes to bed but he sleeps mostly all night. I can't believe I am typing that, but I don't believe in jinxes. Mostly I don't.

Tomorrow is March and it is going to be above 40 toward the end of the week, so I anticipate things will start to look up around here. Anthony is so thirsty in the mornings - yesterday he drank like THREE giant cups of water, Mike and I both noticed. Then I thought, well, *I* am as dry as a BONE when I wake up in the morning, we have had our heat on for MONTHS, of course he's thirsty! Wretched winter. We are thinking spring around here.

Happier

 

ROUGH

 
Poor Anthony, he is having a rough day. He started crying when Mike picked him up from school and kind of hasn't stopped since. He seems much happier after playing in the shaving cream, though. Maybe he thinks his days at school are too short? God knows he's not telling me.

Sunday

 
Now Maria can pull a chair over and get up on the counter herself. Today Mike found them both upstairs in our bathroom sink, digging in the medicine cabinet. We just got back for a walk - yesterday Anthony never even got dressed, it's so crappy out we never go anywhere. Of course, once we got everyone dressed and slung, it was raining when we walked outside. But we went once around the alley anyway, which was hard but worth it. Anthony really seemed happy to be outside. None of our jerkstore neighbors seem to believe in the Social Contract of shoveling their walks, so it made it pretty scary to walk on some of the ice, but we made it. Mike pushed Maria in the stroller, which is hard, and I appreciate it. Anyways, Anthony - he is doing well today and he seems happy. Last night he was crying in his room and Mike went up to try and calm him down. I told Mike and it's true - I don't care if he lives with us forever, I don't care if he never gets a job or whatever the hell - I would just like to be able to communicate enough with him to tell him that it's okay, that it's all going to be okay. That he can just go to sleep when he's tired and that if there's something we can do to help him, we will. I hope I hope I hope.

Smirk

 
He was laughing a little bit, but he tries to do it on the down low, so I don't know he can hear me. He had a pretty good week. He is consistently saying 'good night' and 'I you' when we say good night and I love you to him at bedtime. He had a great time at speech at his Tuesday school and he had a "5" this morning at school. Not bad!

Best Hair #1

 
Ha, they sent this home from school yesterday. His hair is looking excellent lately.

Gorgeous

 

salute

 
He's not really saluting here, although it looks like it, right? He is whacking that rolled up painting against his head. Whatever floats your boat, Anthony. His speech therapist at school wrote a nice note about him yesterday, she is really making progress with him. She always writes me right after she sees him, and of course, she seems to really like him. Thank God he is so loveable!

Sweet

 
Can you see how sweet he is, in this picture? I can.

He totally looks like he doesn't even know those girls

 

Sick

I am taking a break from posting to these blogs, as I am sick and it is taking all my energy to not kill myself or Maria.

He looks sad here ...

 
...but I don't think he is, he was just eating grapes. He had a good week but we had some highs and lows. We had his dentist visit, which sucked, but now it's over and he got through it great. He had a great day yesterday and his new, male therapist (Anthony likes men to be his therapists, I think it's because they can be a little rougher with him) wrote in his book "I love Thursday afternoons!", meaning with Anthony, so that's great. But he had a rough day today, he only got a 2 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, and they said he cried for no reason at lunch. I hate, HATE to think of him crying when he is away from me. They're so sweet about him at his school, I don't have any reason to worry. His MWF afternoon therapist told me on Wednesday that he had a great day, she said they are working on his receptive instruction and they tell him to 'give me a hug'. She said they are all LOVING it because they love to hug him. I totally get that - he's very "come to me", as my friend Susie would say, and it feels like a dream come true when he pays you some attention.

Dentist

 
Well, we've had our teeth filled now, we can cross that off. It was a very unpleasant trip and I felt awful about it but it was over pretty fast. The dentist was fantastic and Anthony was able to get his cavities filled and that's the point, right? I hated it, but he recovered fast. He had a milkshake about an hour after we left, then he ate a bunch of pizza for lunch, grapes, you name it. He slept like a rock last night, to no one's surprise. I hope we never have to do it again.

Siting on the Table

 
...where he is NOT supposed to sit. Tuesdays are incredibly challenging days around here. It is physically very hard to be all the places I need to be to make sure that Veronica is safe and happy, Maria is not climbing on Veronica, Anthony isn't moving the RIDICULOUS wall that we have set up in front of the washer and dryer so he can climb in the washer, no one is banging the hell out of the furnace, it's just ... it's insane and every Tuesday I do not think I am going to make it. Ha, Mike's not even home yet so maybe today will be the day! I'll keep you posted!

Friday

This picture is from yesterday, in the car after school. Lord, GOD, did he have a bad night. He tore his room apart, broke a sweet bear that my cousin made for him, tore his mattress off his box spring (which he eventually slept on, the poor stupid baby), and generally made a mess until 11:00 or something. He was *very* weepy this morning, I don't know what the hell is going on. We're going to duct tape his mattress to his box spring and clear off his dresser. He covered up his cd player with everything, pillows, his small rug, etc., so we think maybe he doesn't want his sleep cd on anymore? It is hard to know.

Throwback Thursday

 
Here's Anthony, a year ago today. I want to cry when I look at him, and think about how sick he was this time last year. We went to the dentist yesterday and it was ROUGH, people. The only thing that I am proud of is that I didn't cry until I dropped him off at school. It all went so badly, kind of. It was a great office and the lady at the desk was so nice. Then we went in and I had to hold him on my lap, facing me, and dump him back into the dentist's lap and then hold his hands with both of mine and all the strength I had because he was fuh-reaking out. I realized as soon as he put his head back that he had a dirty diaper, so that was ... awesome. :( She counted his teeth and found three cavities and then we spent the rest of the time talking about the sedation and restraint necessary for filling those cavities. It's awful - I know that lots of little kids don't like the dentist, but man. We have to give him an anti-histamine type thing at home and then he'll have laughing gas when we get there, and be in a papoose blanket, they call it, even though I might call it what it is, which is a straight jacket in a nice blue color. It's on 2/2 that we go, and I am trying not to think about it too much until then.

Monday

I haven't really taken any pictures lately but I wanted to post and note that Anthony is doing much better in school. He was really backsliding after Christmas break and his therapists seemed worried, which made US worried, but Friday and today he did really well. He was very reluctant to speak and stingy with the two word requests, but he is getting better. One day last week, his therapist came out and told me I'd notice there was a lot of his lunch left in his lunch box because he wouldn't ask for it. She seemed to think maybe I'd have a problem with this, but I know if he were hungry and really wanted it, he'd have asked for it.

He is sleeping now, it's about 8:30 and he probably has been quiet for a half hour or so. I always just hope and pray that he'll sleep all night when he goes to sleep this early. The last two nights, he has been getting mad in the tub because I or Mike are sitting too close. I was worried but I realized tonight, I think he just doesn't want us to brush his teeth! He is going to the dentist for the second time on Wednesday. I am scared. I think I'll take him, I took him the first time and I would just rather be there than not. I am afraid he has a cavity, I don't know what we'll do. When I took him last time, he got very upset. This is a special-needs dentist, she came to his school, so I know she'll be okay, but man. I am just worried.

What else? His hair is getting long and crazy. Laura got him a silky pillowcase for Christmas and he loves it. He and Maria have been taking their bath together at night and it's super cute, except when it's kind of creepy because he likes to rub up against Maria. But it's mostly cute. Like him. Mostly cute but sometimes creepy. Ha!

Sunday

 
In his cute pajamas (well, half of them) that he got from Mike's mom for Christmas. He slept all night last night, for the first time in a long time. Hopefully this week will be better than last, he slept badly, was not very verbal at school, etc. He had a few sad weepy episodes yesterday but overall it was a good day.

One Year Ago

 
Here's Anthony, one year ago today. He was probably back at school, or maybe he was still home sick. It was right around this time last year that he had his first ear infection. Now he's in a different school, he hasn't been so sick since, and he looks a lot older, right? He still looks like kind of a baby to me in this picture. Now he is so long an lean, he looks like a teenager. Probably next year I will look back and he'll seem young again.

His speech therapist at his old school writes to me every week and tells me what they've worked on. She is doing really well with him, she seems to like him a lot and he her. I think he lost a little bit being on vacation for so long from school. His ABA therapist told me yesterday that they are re-doing a lot of stuff for him that he was doing fine before. I think this summer we will maybe try to find a camp or something when he's off from school, to sort of keep him engaged.

I've subscribed to a lot of autism people on Twitter and it's so funny, but there are so many things I never think of, when it comes to Anthony having autism. One article I saw recently was about kids on the spectrum DRIVING and I couldn't believe it! Anthony, driving? I can't imagine it. I can't imagine him being toilet trained, let alone driving a car! Also, there are all these articles about states laws for seclusion and restraint and I ... well, I just never think about that. Here in town, recently, there was a teacher fired because she gave an autistic student of hers a candy bar that he was allergic to, in hopes that he wouldn't go on a field trip. Thank GOD, the kid wouldn't eat strange looking food (there's those ticks working FOR you!), so he didn't ingest the peanuts which could have KILLED him. I think they should have arrested her for attempted murder, but they didn't. When I think about this - about Anthony's future maybe involving driving, or being restrained, or someone trying to kill him - well, obviously it's too much. If he isn't meant to be mainstreamed, he'll just be homeschooled forever. I could not put him in that position. Can you imagine? There's a $7 Million limit on his insurance and I guess we'll use it all before I send him to a school where I'd have to worry about something like that happening to him.

This is ending on kind of a bummer right? Sorry! Here's a weather report, it's snowing like the dickens here and it took Mike like 90 minutes to get Anthony to school today. Mike is coming home so I don't have to take the girls to go get Anthony this afternoon, it's too wretched out. Wish me luck! The snow is pretty but it's like 20 degrees out, too cold to play in, in my opinion.

Together

 
Laura was over for dinner last night, so while she went to get the pizza, we bathed the kiddies together so we could save time. They enjoy it, Anthony loves to hug Maria and Maria loves to be there with Anthony. It can feel kind of crazy, the four of us in this tiny bathroom, but it's sweet and it makes for nice pictures.