Winter/Spring Flip

This is how my kitchen looked yesterday, as I attempted to put away winter coats, hats, boots, and slippers.

This is how my boys looked as I was pulling out and trying on various spring and summer time jackets, sneakers, sandals, and hats.

I remember dreading this time of year when I was a child. I hated trying everything on, and finding out my favorite sweater no longer fit me, but fit one of my younger sisters. It took ALL day. Well, nothing has changed. I still don't enjoy it. Especially since I'm now on the buying end of things. Fortunately for us, our children don't grow very fast, but the many friends, and relatives, and in some cases very giving strangers' kids do...so we have LOTS of hand-me-downs. LOVE THAT!! Unfortunately, I still have all of their clothes to do. If you don't hear from me for awhile, I may be buried under a large mountain of kids clothes, and unable to move. Gotta love the change of seasons! :)

Happy Easter!

Easter was celebrated a little differently at our house this year. When I say different, I mean due to some food issues...we didn't do a lot of stuff we did last year.

First of all there was breakfast. I think that if I were a first time mother, I might be appalled at the thought of what it was that these kiddos ate for breakfast. But since I'm not, and we have so many limitations now in their diets, we figured it wouldn't kill them to break the rules when it comes to a "traditional breakfast".

Ahhh...breakfast of champions!

Yes, that would be a plate with a purple bunny Peep, some Starburst Jelly Beans, and yes, an incredibly delicious chocolate covered donut. Mmmmmm....yummy! Did I mention that they also had some slices of ham immediately following the sugar breakfast? And, before we left for church, I did make sure their belly's were full of bananas and apples, so if you are the candy patrol...back off! :)

We traveled to my brother-in-laws house for dinner this year as it is the last holiday we will be spending with them before they move to Ireland for at least 2 years! So, we did like we did for Thanksgiving, and just made our entire dinner before we went over, and just had to warm it up and eat. It works out so much easier, because I don't have to question everyone about everything they did to their food, before my children can consume it.

All-in-all, it was a very tiring, but truly wonderful Easter for us. Ethan is going to have a difficult time when his cousins and Aunt and Uncle leave the country, so hopefully we will have this memory to carry him through a little while.

(We're finding Ethan to be the more difficult one to photograph now!)

IFSP

For those of you who aren't familiar with Early Intervention (EI), IFSP stands for Individualized Family Support Plan...and we now have one for Joshua.

Upon a recommendation from Ethan's OT, as well as our own observations, we decided to have Joshua evaluated for sensory issues and developmental delays. He will be 3 yrs. old in July, so as far as EI goes, we don't have a lot of time. However, after going through what we have with Ethan, the earlier when can intervene the better it will be for Joshua in the long run.

It was hard for us to decide to have him evaluated because we just didn't want to "jump the gun" every time one of kids seems to have an issue. Since Ethan's development was anything but typical it has been hard for us to determine whether or not Josh's development was right on track or a little behind. Mostly because in so many ways the issues that Josh has are completely opposite of what Ethan had.

For example, Ethan was talking quite clearly and "intelligently" before he was 2 years old. Joshua is really difficult to understand by just about everyone else, except me...and even then, I struggle with understanding what it is he is trying to communicate to me. Ethan has slept through the night since he was 4 mos. old, Joshua hasn't slept through the night since the day he was born...(okay, maybe 5-6 times since then!) Ethan has/had many issues with upper arm strength, Joshua has issues with lower leg/foot strength. It took him much longer to walk, and still he's just gained confidence in doing some more jumping and running...inside.

That's just a few...and I know that many people may look at it saying..."well not all kids are the same"...but when you are in a family that has experience with sensory and developmental issues, it's never far from the realm of possibility that other children may have similar issues.

We saw Ethan's neurologist last week, and she's been following him because she is doing research in the area of connections between gluten and neurological problems. She found Ethan's case intriguing and wasn't surprised that we were having Josh evaluated as she pointed out his speech delay before I said anything. She also said she wasn't surprised because Josh had been on gluten for the first 10 months of his life, and it may have caused enough of an upset in his digestive system to throw off some of his neurological developmental. Obviously, not to the extent of his brother who went three years on gluten!

So, now we have a plan written up to help work on Joshua's speech issues, and motor planning. They feel that his speech issues may have to deal with low oral sensory input...which would explain the pocketing of food, over stuffing his mouth and then not swallowing or spitting it out, as well as his speech. As for the motor planning...they believe he has it all up in his head, he just can't make the smaller muscles in his body do what his brain is telling them to do. In testing him, he flew through the tests up to 24 mos. old. But once they added in another step to bring him up to a 24-30 month old, he started to fail the testing...he is 32 mos. old. Again, not far off...but enough that if we don't intervene early (see Early Intervention), that testing gap may get bigger. They also noticed he has low to normal muscle tone in his lower leg and feet muscles. This may explain why he walks and stands toed in all the time...it could also explain why it has taken him longer to achieve some climbing, jumping, and walking milestones.

Besides all that, they will be looking into some sensory issues like tactile and vestibular motor problems. After a few weeks of therapy they are hoping to give us a better picture of exactly where he stands...is it developmental...is it sensory...is it something else...or is it all of the above. At least, for now, thanks to EI, they come to us to do his therapy. Currently, Ethan goes out on Monday for OT, Tuesday for Speech Therapy, and Saturday for a Social and Communication Class. I am ever grateful, at least for a little while, that they will be coming to me.

As Requested...

I was asked today to post some more video of the kids doing stuff...more specifically, Rebekah walking. I think some of her "Aunties", (more specifically Jaime), enjoy watching their little girl growing up! So, enjoy!

First Quarter Review

Yippeeee!! We successfully completed the first quarter of Kindergarten! Ethan did excellent. I submitted his grades and other than a B in Science/Health and Art, he had all A's. Pretty simple grading system really, and I'm so proud of his success. It took us 16 weeks to complete the 10 week lesson plans, but keep in mind we had a week for potty training, Christmas, New Year's, as well as various sick and snow days. All in all, not a bad timeline.

His new schoolroom is working out well also. One of Mike's coworkers donated the old wooden school desk, and Ethan's Tripp Trapp chair fits perfectly. He loves to store all of his "scissor work" inside the cubby of the desk!

We now look forward to starting the second quarter work next week. I'd like to finish up before the summer even though I know Ethan may want to continue to do his schoolwork. I'm hoping that once we get rid of the snow, and start seeing some warm weather and ground, he may change his mind about sitting at his desk to learn his numbers and letters! :) We have plenty of time though because he technically doesn't begin Kindergarten until September and Seton gives you up to 2 years to complete the program anyway. By the time we get through everything it should time out just right for him to begin 1st grade in September of next year if not sooner.

Notice Anything Different...??

Pictures...As Promised

Emma has an overnight!

The Potty Training Prize...a farm tractor (shocked I know!)

This little girl is crazy about her beans!

All bundled up for a snow day...nice and warm.

My nephew Jack...on guard!

Joshua...lounging...it's a lot of work walking around in that suit.

See...I think we found E.T.!

"The Snow Boyz"

Potty Training Diary...Catch Up

The reason I haven't posted in a few days isn't because of potty training. Nope...not at all. Actually, it's because the "morning" sickness I've been having has been down right nasty. To the point where I'm having some difficulty being vertical for too long!! Thank God for my husband. He's been great!! Since he's been home, I've been able to take advantage of some much needed rest. In fact, on Thursday I slept for a large part of the day. The only time I don't feel nauseous is when I'm laying down or asleep. Other than that, it pretty much feels like I'm coming down with the flu every minute of every day. To make it even worse, I'm starving! All I want however is red meat, fruits and vegetables. Nothing too salty. My only other craving has been peanut butter cups...by the hand fulls...can't seem to get enough. Anyway, it's been interesting. Again, thankfully, my Mike has been absolutely awesome with everything!!

As for the potty training...it has gone much better than we anticipated. Ethan has just been awesome about it. He absolutely refuses to be in a diaper now, and for the first time on Wednesday, he actually did a BM. I gave him three choices...big toilet, little potty, or the diaper. He flat out refused the diaper, but was struggling with the big toilet. So, I told him to try using the little potty. It worked. I think it was a matter of body positioning. He's still pretty small, and his knees and feet don't really have any where to go on the big toilet to help him out. Now, he's been using the big toilet for urinating, and the little potty for BM.

Mike took him out on Wednesday, so we put a pull up on him. He came home dry! We were amazed. Not so amazed that we will be putting him in the car without a pull up on quite yet, because he does tend to fall asleep in the car and I know he can't hold it while he's sleeping.

Josh has no interest at all. Not even for choc. chips. That's okay...I think he'll change his mind in a few months...he's not quite three, and I'm not worried about him right now. It's actually easier for me to keep track of one "underwear boy", right now rather than two.

All-in-all...we will call this week a success. I know we will still have our ups and downs, but it's great to see my little guy really grow up and make some progress this week. He's had a lot of struggles with everything that is bathroom/diaper related that this is long overdue.

I'll post some pictures later...must go eat the red meat that my hunter-gather brought home...from Outback...mmmm

In Other News...

Rebekah has been doing an incredible job with walking. She has done it much sooner than her brothers, (Ethan was 15 mos. and Joshua was 16 mos) as she is not quite 14 months old. She's been taking a few steps since Valentine's Day, but this past week has just started to take off. She should be walking all over her brother's in no time...they'd better watch out, she is a force to be reckon with.

The Potty Training Diary...Day 3

Another great day!! Ethan is doing really well, despite a couple of accidents he had today. Both accidents were more a result of mommy and daddy not paying attention to time and place, rather than Ethan just not going. So, that's good news. He LOVES wearing his cute little dinosaur underwear. He has some Thomas, Cars, and Spider Man underwear but the spidy ones chafe him on the inner thigh. We'll see how the others do after a good washing.

However, if he's focused on an activity...like using his play dough...he won't think to stop and take a break in the bathroom. Which is what happened today. It taught Mike and I that we need to make sure he's used the bathroom before such activities, as well as give him a 15-20 min. bathroom check during his activity.

Unfortunately, we haven't had another successful BM since Sunday afternoon. We are getting concerned about him holding it for so long, because he does constipate easily. We've even offered him the "diaper-out" like the behaviourist suggested, so that he can at least go like he did before in the bathroom. But, he actually refuses to go back into diapers...which is great...but he still needs to go to the bathroom. So, we are going to up his laxative dose tomorrow and see if that helps to move things along!

As for Josh...hehehehe...he's not doing so well. He yells at me when I remind him it's time to use the potty, and doesn't like being disturbed from his playtime now. I'd say the novelty has worn off for him. However, we are keeping him in pull ups during the day, so that if he asks to use it, we can let him try. Who knows, maybe he'll show more interest once Ethan is doing a more regular job.

The Potty Training Diary...Day 2

Sooo, potty training day number 2 was...to say the least...interesting. I bet no one can guess just how interesting. No matter how many of you have been through this potty training thing, I'm willing to bet none of you have dealt with what we had to deal with today!!! Pretty confident, hun? Let me tell you why...

First a little back story here...we've been having some "issues" with our toilet for the past couple of months. It's been slow to flush, and would occasionally, (1-3 times a month) get clogged up...usually over nothing really. I figured that maybe one of my little angels had flushed some paper, or cloth or something, and eventually it would dissolve and pass through. Well, on Saturday we had the equivalent of Mount St. Helens in our bathroom. Okay, minus the exploding ash, and hot lava...but still quite an overflow of liquid pouring out of our toilet. Needless to say, I called Heritage to come out and take a look. No problem, they came first thing this morning.

After talking to the plumber regarding what was wrong with our 41 year old toilet, and trying a few cheaper options with no luck, we had the pleasure of replacing our toilet...this morning...while potty training...with a very nauseous mommy (icky morning sickness)...and relatives visiting..(thankfully it was only Lee Anne and Pete, but still). Did I mention it is our ONLY toilet...besides the little kid potty!!! Good times, good times.

Amazingly, Ethan did quite well through it all. Unfortunately, we've discovered, that he's too tall for the little potty, and whenever he'd try to pee on it, it would just end up all over the floor. He was also quite attached to the old toilet, (oddly enough since he rarely used it!) and had a difficult time dealing with it being hauled off to that special toilet trash heap. Once the new toilet was installed it took everything in him not to push the plumber out of the way so he could flush it and watch the new way the water would go down the hole. At least it kept him interested in using it...which he did about 50 times today. Probably a good thing we replaced the toilet. I'm not sure it would have been able to keep up with our kids. We've already replaced the innards to that toilet about 3 or 4 times since we've lived here...it would have never survived.

Josh on the other hand managed to fill his underwear twice, completely, while we were distracted by either the plumber, the visitors leaving, or anything else that took our eyes off his little butt for 10 seconds!! So, he was placed into some pull ups...much to his dismay. (He loves his underwear) We were done and it wasn't even noon time!!

We'll see what tomorrow brings...but it can't be worse than having to replace the one toilet in the house...can it???

The Potty Training Diary

We officially began our week long effort of training our two boys on using the potty. And boy are we in for it!! We decided to start today after church, because I knew we were going to go through a "novelty" stage of using the toilet...and boy did we ever. I've never seen so much activity in our tiny little bathroom before. And for those of you who have been to our house, you know how very tiny our ONE little bathroom is!

Let me tell you, I was tempted to break out the camera. We have a little potty, and of course the regular toilet with one of those little seats on it. (Our boys have very tiny bum-bums!) At one point, Ethan was on the big one, Josh was on the little one, and I was sitting on the floor trying to keep Rebekah out! (She is very unhappy that she isn't part of the "party in the bathroom"!) Despite the crowd in the bathroom, we had decent success today. Of course getting a handful of mini choc. chips afterwards never hurts your chances at success. (We can't do M&M's because they have dairy in them...so we found these mini chips by Enjoy Life that are dairy, soy, gluten, and nut free...and VERY tasty!) For the very first time today, Ethan actually did a BM on the toilet. He has NEVER had success with this. Maybe all the prep we did before hand actually paid off. He has been awesome at going into the bathroom every single time he needed to go, even though he was still going in his diaper. Even Josh, did pretty well. A couple of times we caught him standing with his little legs crossed saying..."oh-oh, water"...as it drips down his little leg.

I'm not sure what they were happiest about: being virtually naked from the waist down...except for those cute little boy underwear; being allowed to eat handfuls of choc. chips at every successful use of the toilet; or being able to sit down on one of the toilets and be cheered on to do what they needed to do!

So, for the next week, I will try to post the good, the bad, and the ugly of our potty training event, praying that we will have at least one diaper less child when all is said and done. And I know, that we will have our setbacks, etc....but it will be a really great start in the right direction!

Cooperation

About 30 seconds of playtime peace...

Potty Training Prep

Yes, I did say prep. In other words preparing Ethan for the inevitable end to diapers. Just the mention of such a world changing event to him, instantly brings him either to tears, or defiance. Very frustrating. So, we spoke to the behaviourist that he's been seeing on Saturdays during his Social and Communication class.

We've been bringing him to this class for the past three weekends, and we have three more to attend. Then, since it seems to be going well...they have 4-5 kids in the group...we will have a break in between and start up again with another 6 week session. The "class" is set up as a sort of playdate with planned activities and lots of room to "teach" the kids how to be a part of a peer group...eg: turn taking, preventing/resolving conflicts appropriately, recognizing and expressing feelings, making friends, and school/community routines.

Ethan LOVES it, and talks about his new friends most of the week.

So, I spoke with Linda, a behaviour specialist, after his class this past Saturday to pick her brain about suggestions, tips, advice, whatever she could share, to help us with potty training Ethan. Mike plans on taking the week off at the end of February to help in this endeavor, because we decided that if we are potty training Ethan we might as well work on Josh too. Especially since Josh is showing signs of interest...telling me he has a dirty diaper, "using" the kid potty when he goes into the bathroom...all stuff Ethan never, and still doesn't, do.

The preparation part? Well, we are "training" Ethan to recognize his need to use the potty. So, every time he feels the need to go, he has to go into the bathroom to do it...in his diaper. He's done a great job over the past two days, except for when he's playing upstairs. We only have one bathroom and it's on the first floor. He doesn't seem to notice when he has to urinate yet, so we're hoping the whole "run around naked except for your underwear" during the last week of Feb. will help with that. We will only put a pull up on at bedtime, and a diaper on around 6ish at night for him to do a BM in if he refuses to do so on the toilet. She wants us to deny him that "out" for a BM during the day, in the hope that he will stop fighting it, and use the toilet instead of holding out until nightime. Unfortunately, due to the laxative that Ethan is still on, he will do a BM several times a day, with no regulation. We have been advised not to take him off of the laxative however, until he is potty trained to prevent any constipation issues with the whole power struggle end of potty training. (See why I need Mike around for that week?)

It has been tough to do mostly because there may be an issue with his ability to "sense" the need to go in time. Linda suggested we try her method for a week or so, and at that point we should be able to tell whether it's sensory or behaviour. In the meantime, Mike and I get to prepare ourselves for what we hope will be a rewarding week. I'll be happy to get even one out of diapers. The savings in the cost of diapers alone would be a silver lining!!

p.s. if you notice any spelling errors I'm sorry, the blogger spellcheck isn't working today!!

WOW!

She slept through the night. Rebekah really slept through the night! And when I say "slept through", I mean 7pm-7am kind of sleep. The kind where you wake up and say to yourself, "did I get up to nurse her at all last night...I must have...no, no I don't think I did...wow".

Rebekah has always been a great nurser. She has done it the best and the longest compared to her brothers. Ethan weaned himself the week of his first birthday, but he was such a difficult nurser, I was relieved. Joshua, weaned himself by 11 mos. old, but I think that was partly due to the conception of his sister when he was 9 mos. old. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised when he weaned so early. But, Rebekah has been going strong about 3-5 times a day...up until recently. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed she was down to about 2-3 times a day, and it was only before her nap, nightime bed, and once in the middle of the night, that she was nursing. It makes me wonder if it's because she's getting older and eating a lot more food throughout the day, or is it because of Baby Ouellette #4 on the way...??? Hmmmmm.....

Autism Speaks

I received this link from a friend who knows some of what we go through with Ethan. Obviously his level of autism is extremely high functioning, however it is still there. I was finally able to watch the video...a warning...it may make you cry...it's just so beautiful.

Then I saw the very same link on another blog that I visit frequently, Danielle Bean. So, I figured I would post the link here as well, so that when you can spare a moment of your time, you can watch this beautiful video. It is an easy way to do something for children with autism.

The band Five for Fighting will donate 40 cents to children's autism research for each time this video is viewed online: What Kind of World Do You Want This is for real. Who knows whose life you could change in just a few minutes.

Thank you.

Five Firsts

We've been going through some great...and not so great...changes here in the Ouellette family. My kiddos are all growing up so fast, it's hard to keep up with all the changes. So, here are a few of the most recent "firsts" for some of those changes...enjoy!

1. Rebekah is standing and cruising. She will stand right up in the middle of a room, and shake her little butt, with the biggest, proudest smile on her face. If she is holding onto furniture, or a wall, she'll cruise, but hasn't dared to step out on her own...although she isn't far away. You can see it in her face...she knows what is next, but can't quite figure out how to make her legs move like everyone else. At the rate she's going she will still beat our her brothers who were 15 mos. (Ethan) and 16 mos. (Joshua) old before they began to walk...slugs! :)

2. For the first time in months, Mike and I were able to sleep in our bed...by ourselves. Granted it only lasted until 1 am, but it's a start. I'm not complaining about Joshua being in our bed all these months, he's been a nice bed warmer on these cold nights!! However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep Ethan in his own bed, when he knows his brother is "allowed" to sleep with mommy and daddy. The words "it's not fair" keep ringing in the air, and I know it's just the beginning. Needless to say, we decided to take up on an offer of a crib mattress that was being given away by a friend, and place it on the floor between the bed and the wall in our room. It fits perfectly, and Josh was very excited about his little nest...until around 1 am, where in my groggyness I vaguely remember the words, "mommy, up, up, up, up, bed, bed, bed...pwwwease??" We'll see how tonight goes, but it's a great start in the right direction.

3. One word for you...THUNDERSTICKS. Yup! We "won" a bunch of them at Hannaford last week when we were trying to pick up a few things with all three kiddos. At least my hubby was there to witness first hand, why I don't take them grocery shopping anymore!! :) Anyway, they absolutely loved the idea of being allowed to beat these two sticks together to make an awesome noise. Of course, they figured out you could make similar, if not better, noises by beating the sticks on each other...but we knew that going in...and they are now only allowed to use them for 10 minutes at at time. Can we say over stimulation??

4. Joshua is discovering his imagination. He's never been a big fan of having anything on his feet, and the first time we tried putting these monster slippers on him, he screamed!! That's why it was so surprising when I turned around to see him strutting his stuff, with monster feet. The trick?? He put them on over his other slippers. That's the only thing I can think of. However, he thought it was great to stomp around the house, and growl...because that's what you do with monster feet...right??

5. And the best first ever...Ethan actually helped me make play dough!! He's never really been interested in "cooking" past the initial dumping one cup of something into a bowl...then he'd be done. He not only dumped into the bowl, but helped to measure out all of the dry ingredients. (We still won't let him near the stove!!) Anyhow, Ethan was the only one who ever really used play dough and that was before we were gluten free. But since we were diagnosed, we gave away or sold all of our play dough as well as the "tools" that go along with it. For those of you who don't know play dough is made with wheat flour, and even though most kids won't eat it, it gets under their finger nails, so that when they do eat something, or put their fingers in their mouths, they will then ingest it. So, I finally took the recipe and made it gluten free! Ethan couldn't wait to get his hands on it...Josh wanted nothing to do with getting his hands on it. He wouldn't touch it, until I gave him a spoon, which he then used to beat it, and scoop it up to move it around. We'll see how well it stores for, but I plan on making some green and blue as well.

GI Checkups

It's hard to believe that another 8 weeks (well more than that due to snow storms and rescheduled appointments) has come and gone since their last medical checkup with Dr. Hofley. None-the-less it was a good day/bad day kind of appointment.

Joshua is doing awesome now. At his last check up he was at 22.5 lbs. but has jumped up to a whopping 24.03 lbs!! That's huge for him...generally he gains ounces to maybe A pound. Plus he grew a little more in height by almost an inch. We both believe it is largely due to the lack of dairy in his diet...to the point that she wants him 100% dairy free for at least the next month. We want to see if it further helps his sleeping issues, and diaper issues, as well as continue to add to the weight gain. He's had some really nasty, foul diapers which could be due to a number of things. We replaced his soy milk so that won't be the issue anymore, but he's still having enough dairy that although his asthma is at bay, it may still be enough to cause some digestive issues, or sleep issues. Not to mention that fact that he just survived yet another ear infection. In any case, we will do some blood work on Monday to check his CBC, zinc, TTg (celiac blood test) check for lead and Hep B. I guess some kiddos with digestive issues are having problems with their vaccines "sticking". We are also able to wean him off his Prevacid with hopes of weaning him off Zyrtec as well. It will be nice to continue to drop off some of the meds he's been on.

Ethan, not so good. He didn't gain any weight or grow any taller since his last visit. And for the first time ever, I had a small glimpse into what life may be like for people with low functioning autism. Throughout most of the appointment today, I had to restrain Ethan, full body, due to his yelling, hitting me, head butting, pushing his brother, and other extremely over stimulated activity. Even Dr. Hofley noted that he was much worse today than ever in the past. We've noticed more autistic behaviour in the past couple of weeks as well, rigidity, anxiety, lining up all of his vehicles in nice straight rows, (for those of you who know Ethan he's a rather destructive player, piling up toys so he can scoop and dump them...everywhere), and falling apart at the seams over a change in his schedule. Basically, all of the progress we had made over the past several months, falling apart in the past couple of weeks. Thank God, we have Dr. Hofley...she pointed out to this very exasperated mother that dairy may have a part in all of this. Ironically, Ethan has increased his dairy intake over the last couple of weeks. He's been eating at least 2 bowls of cereal with whole milk for breakfast, lots of cheese, and asking for a cup of milk with his dinner every night. We were psyched because he's NEVER been a big milk drinker and were happy that maybe he would really start some serious weight gain. Hehehe, no more. He will also be 100% dairy free for the next month. She wants to see if we notice any change, and if we don't we can participate in a double blind study she's been providing for families to determine if milk is really the issue with regards to behavior. Interestingly I mentioned that when we started Rebekah with yogurt we began to notice that she would cough repeatedly every time afterwards. Dr. Hofley wasn't surprised and said that since we now know that Joshua definitely has a problem with milk, it isn't out of the realm of possibilities that the other kiddos will have their own issues with it as well.

So, where is the silver lining in all of this?? Well, fortunately for us, most of our gluten free packaged foods happen to be dairy/casein free as well. The only problems we run into now are cheese and milk substitutes. A few of their favorite snacks like pirate booty, and their arrowroot cookies will have to go as they have a lot of milk ingredients. Our fall back lunch-on-the-go of cheese sticks wrapped in turkey/ham slices will also be a thing of the past. Plus, it's going to be real tough if not impossible to find any kind of substitute for mac and cheese...the "if all else fails we can make mac and cheese for all three kiddos" kind of meal. But, since we've been doing a mostly dairy free diet for Josh, we don't have to make too many changes. It just makes things that much tougher when we go somewhere. That whole "at least we can have the veggies, sour cream dip, and cheese slices" when we go to someones house has now become "mmm...veggies".

Growing Pains

It may be tough to see, but it was a little project we did this past Friday. I wanted to see how all of their hands compared to each other, and to "make their mark" in time so to speak. It is simply amazing how fast children grow...even the "slow growers" like my kiddos.

We have noticed a big difference in Joshua's growth since we cut out dairy. He is an eating machine now. I can't keep that kid full! He will have a waffle, and 2-3 bowls of cereal for breakfast now!! We stopped using soy milk, thankfully (I'm not a big fan of soy products) and have switched him over to almond milk. He still hasn't needed to use his nebulizer, but we've also noticed, due to his sudden interest in eating us out of house and home, he is putting on some weight at an astonishing rate. (Again, astonishing for my kids!) We will see just how much on Thursday at his GI check up, but he not only feels heavier, he looks a little chunkier!

He's even beginning to catch up in clothing sizes. He's around the 18-24 month mark in clothes, which is still smaller than his "age size" of 30 months...but much further ahead than before. Just last month he was still wearing 12-18 month pajamas!!

We're still having some bowel issues that his primary care doc. tells me is normal...but I can't see how having "blow through your clothes" diarrhea every other day, several times a day is normal...but hey, I'm just a mom! :) Needless to say, it is a question we'll be asking his GI on Thursday. It is one of the reasons we cut out the soy in his diet. It is known to cause diarrhea. He hasn't had soy milk for well over a week now, but still the bowel issues...we'll see.

In any case, my incredibly white, pizza faced, smiling boy is an amazing kiddo, and we are constantly astonished at the new things he is learning to do. His vocabulary has become quite impressive, although we still find it hard to understand what it is he's saying. He still has some sleeping issues, but at least we can put him to bed (in our bed) and still go downstairs and enjoy some adult time without him banging his head until it's black and blue or screaming so loud he could wake dogs in the next town over.

It makes us wonder what challenges Rebekah will bring to the table for us...hmmmm :

Epiphany

Happy New Year to all of you! We welcome 2008 with great joy and excitement for whatever may come.

As I had mentioned before, we were waiting to decorate our tree until Christmas Eve. So, on Monday night, before we went to Mass, we decorated. The kids loved hanging the ornaments on the trees, and even Rebekah had her little hand in it. Granted it was mostly with UNdecorating the tree, but she was still participating.

Ethan really enjoyed seeing all of his ornaments. Being 5 years old, he has received one from us every year of his life. However, he also has some on the tree from his godparents, friends and relatives. He was quite content trying to hang them all in one place. He kept calling it "Ethan's branch". Good thing it's an artificial tree, otherwise it many not have held up under the weight!

Anyhow, we are now at the end of our Christmas celebration as today is the Epiphany of the Lord. We have been able to light our tree and enjoy it's beauty for the past 12 days, and even though I'm sad that we have to take it down, it's nice to be able to do a little winter cleaning.

Ethan is having a hard time with not only putting the tree away, but also with putting the advent wreath away. We've been using it up until last night, but with 4 white candles to help him understand that we've still been celebrating Christmas...that it isn't just one day. (We put away all of the decorations yesterday except for the tree, which will come down today after Mass) I think he enjoyed the lighting and blowing out of the candles more than the meaning behind them, but we hope to continue the tradition to instill in him the true meaning of the season.

"Epiphany Day itself commemorates the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem to worship the Messiah and bring Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh (Matthew 2:1-12). Since the earliest days of the church, these wise men have been considered to be representatives of all the peoples of the earth. By means of a miraculous star, God showed them that Jesus was born to be not only the King of the Jews, but the Lord and Savior of all nations." - www.stpaulskingsville.org/epiphany.htm

I have a hard time grasping a lot of the meanings of the season, and am still learning myself. It's been a blessing to have the opportunity to learn more about our Catholicism while homeschooling Ethan. Most children can grasp the unimaginable pretty easily, I think. However, someone with Asperger Syndrome may struggle with the abstract more than others, and instead can deal much better with the literal world. So, Mike and I have been trying to find ways to teach Ethan many abstracts in a literal fashion. It's a challenge to say the least, but it's so rewarding. For example we always say grace before our meal, but during these past 12 days we've been adding a prayer in celebration of Jesus birth. Even though our Advent wreath has been put away, Ethan still shouted out at the end of grace last night, "Rejoice, Jesus is born!"