Bits N Pieces

I spend a lot of time awake at night, writing blog posts. Of course, the reality of my life is that I almost never get five minutes to myself to actually sit down and type anything. Oh well.....but you all don't know what you're missing, I've "written" some really good stuff! LOL

Random thoughts.....

Thanks to all of you for your concern about Ab. She's doing better as far as going regularly again, but unfortunately she has not had a single BM in the toilet since all of this started. She has transferred her fear of pain to fear of going on the toilet. So, we're back to having messy poops in her pants every day. Honestly, my relief that her pain is better is so much that I don't care about cleaning her up like this. Yet. I think we can get her bowel training back, it's just going to take a while. Too bad the folks bent on closing down her autism center don't "get" this....that skills a child with autism gain are oh so fragile and easily lost. It took us 10 years to bowel train her, and about 3 days to lose it. I'm not allowing myself to think about what we're going to do with her once it closes. We'll figure something out, it's not the end of the world. Coincidentally, 2 of our 3 employees that work with her here in our house gave their notice this week. I'm so burnt out on hiring and training people (it's been over 12 years of continuously doing this!) that I am not worried about hiring new folks. I just don't care right now. We'll get by.

I still haven't been paid. Nice, huh? I'm working on updating my resume. They owe me for all of the work I've done since last August. I am so bitter about it at this point. Holding my 6 year old while she cried because we couldn't send her to gymnastics anymore.....bitter. Realizing I can't sign her up for any fun "camps" this summer.....bitter. Missing out on getting some professional pictures of my baby....bitter. I need to work on all these bitter feelings, don't I? I'll try, I promise.

I still haven't written my birth story for Ian yet. I have part of it done, but not all of it. I've realized that I have a mental block to writing it because I feel that a part of me failed during the birth. I hit a rough patch and was yelling in pain (LOUDLY). I was begging them to help me. I wasn't at all the strong, quiet woman I wanted to be. I feel that I failed myself and that when you hold me up against other women who birth at home, that I am/was weak. So, no story written.

Speaking of Ian though....ah, he heals my soul. Just like Anna does. Just today I am seeing a marked increase in his ability to purposefully reach for and grab things. He's been *trying* for a few weeks, but today I can really see it happening. He's gotten my hair, my dad's glasses, and several toys all today. It's so neat to see. He rolled over yesterday from his back to his tummy, too. He hasn't done it again since, but he could if he WANTED to. He just doesn't want to. lol. He's the smiliest baby I have ever seen....he is almost always happy. Such a little love bucket. With drool. I am vigilant watching for signs of autism. I don't see any alarming symptoms, but there are some thing he isn't doing that I wish he would. Overall, he's very socially connected though and has great eye contact. Today my stepmom and dad were here and he "talked" to them, watched them and grinned at them almost constantly. So, that's a good sign. His eyes are still blue, which is so odd. When will they start to turn brown? Both girls were pretty much brown from birth, so I don't know what to expect from this blue-eyed stuff.

Annalise is doing great too. She loves school. She has mastered the entire list of words that she was supposed to know how to write/spell by the end of the year. It's about 100 words. She's still working on knowing all of her math facts too, but she's getting there. She is reading chapter books like Henry and Mudge and loving them all. :-D So cute. She's decided that she wants to be a scientist. She says she may grow up to study autism so she can try to help Abby. Awwwww. :*)