I finally got my birth story for Jamie all written out. Its 4 months after he was born and its ridiculously long. Also, my first draft contained an obscene amount of OH!s, quotation marks and capital letters. I thought of changing this, but decided, what is labor about if its not about yelling OH! and stuff?
If you are so inclined, you can read the whole kit and kaboodle here.
The Hubs put some pics of our family up on our website. Take a look and see the people behind the blog.
The Worst:
1. We are extremely happy that Christmas is over. The last two days were some of the hardest yet for us as parents of a special needs child. When you are a kid Christmas is supposed to be something you look forward to all year… endless presents, loads of baked goodies, making fun of what “Santa” put in your stocking (gummy breakfast items! nothing better than a gummy fried egg to go along with your gummy sausage link!), you name it.
For Charlie, Christmas is quite different. Long story short, he wasn’t present at any of our celebratory events. A different Child came in his place. One who doesn’t talk or smile, can only offer a blank stare (or a pained look as he cries or tantrums). One who won’t look at you and refuses to be in any pictures, wear any clothes or let you comb his hair. One who cries when the whole group laughs at the same time, screaming “No No No!” because its just so loud and scary to him. One who gets extremely over-stimulated by simply opening presents, but wants to open every present in the room (his and others’) obsessively until every present is unwrapped, so don’t even think about suggesting anything otherwise. This Child can’t enjoy Christmas. Its just too much.
Thankfully, as of tonight, the fog is lifting and Charlie is slowly coming back. The other Child is retreating back into his dark corner inside the heart of gold that is Charlie. My son is laughing again, interacting with us and talking. You never realize how natural it is for children to talk, laugh and smile all the time-until they don’t. It was a hard Christmas for us, but we are hopeful Christmas will get better from here on out. Charlie’s different therapies will be starting up in the next few weeks, and all the “professionals” are optimistic. So, we are too.
2. I wanted to write a meaningful Christmas post all about why this time of year is so precious to me, to my soul. As you can tell, THAT never happened. Thanks to a certain kid, said deep and profoundly meaningful post didn’t get done, along with about 345,679 other things I needed to do but had to “let go”.
3. To top it all off, our Christmas tree was totally dead by the time Christmas Day rolled around. Oy with the poodles already! We are just going to wait until all the ornaments fall on the floor, instead of taking them off ourselves. Half way there, we’re making great time.
The Best:
1. And this is really THE BEST. I became an aunt! After 48 hours of labor (with no drugs!), my poor sister in law finally gave birth to our new nephew on Christmas Day. His name is Chaz and he looks like his daddy. We live in the Los Angeles area and they live in Manhattan so, as you can imagine, we are missing them (but not the snow they are getting) and are so thrilled everything went well. I couldn’t sleep for the two nights she was in labor, so GEEZ I need sleep. Chaz slept for 7 hours his first night of life. Let the fact that life is totally unfair commence to start.
2. I made cinnamon rolls and mimosas for Christmas brunch. Like YUM.
3. Monkeys are leaving comments on my blog. I’m so popular!
Charlie wakes up.
Charlie screams and insists on having a Little Debbie Christmas Cake for breakfast.
Charlie schmears the cake all over the floor and himself while I’m changing Baby in the other room (who made me a special explosive poo diaper #1).
Charlie makes special explosive poo #2.
Charlie sits down in the living room and takes off said SEP #2 and wipes his fingers in it and then on his shirt.
Charlie melts down while I’m changing SEP #2 as if I’m cutting off his right arm.
Charlie melts down while I’m wiping cake out of his hair as if I’m cutting off his head.
Charlie melts down while I’m taking off his poo poo shirt (which he melted down when I put it on) as if I’m cutting off his left arm and his head at the same time.
Charlie somehow gets the nail scissors I have stupidly hidden in the diaper bag and proceeds to cut open his squishy pillow spilling millions of tiny white beads all over the place that have some kind of mystical static cling so that they cannot be easily vacuumed up…while I’m changing SEP #3 made by Baby.
Charlie kicks over my drink I stupidly left on the floor while I’m nursing Baby leaving a huge stain on our new area rug.
Charlie makes SEP #4.
Charlie runs around screaming refusing to be changed while Baby makes SEP #5.
Charlie finally let’s me change SEP #4 but while I’m changing SEP #5 schmears a big piece of Christmas Cake all over his room (the piece he had apparently hidden away for future torture, earlier in the day).
Charlie dumps out red juice all over his bedroom floor after I finally gave him a sport bottle full because I stupidly had begun to “trust him”.
Charlie somehow injures Baby with his toy motorcyle so badly that Baby criess as if his Charlie is cutting off his leg (including blue faced breath holding).
Charlie begins crying because its all so dramatic and of course then…
Charlie makes SEP #6.
Charlie refuses to be changed until I give him the “incentive” (not bribe!) of a lollipop so I can change him and no longer be held hostage by the horrific stench of SEP #6.
Charlie screams to be able to get a bagel by himself and then so helpfully notifies me Baby has been woken up once again.
Charlie watches me change SEP #7 made by Baby while I ponder why I’m still in my pajamas and why every diaper today has literally been a SEP diaper and how I will never again have two in diapers and why I was surprised I needed therapy and…
I’m finally getting around to informing you, Internet, about the latest on our special needs two year old son, Charlie. Other than being one of the 3 cutest little boys on the planet (the others being Charlie’s 3 month old brother Jamie and the boy who plays “Peter” in Finding Neverland), Charlie was diagnosed last week with Asperger’s Syndrome as well as PDD-NOS. Both are mild (high-functioning) forms of Autism.
This diagnosis is not news, the Hubs and I have suspected this for a while but we were not taken seriously by our pediatrician, Dr. Loser, et. al. All I can say is, if you know in your gut that something is wrong, seek help. Ignore people who say “Oh that’s totally normal” and do research and educate yourself. We will be getting Charlie into various therapies and schools, and are still considered to be in the “early intervention” stage, but we seriously knew about this a year ago, if not from birth.
Despite the fact that we knew about this, its still been a major shock hearing the actual words come out of an actual professional’s mouth. As long as no one diagnosed him, it was as if it wasn’t really happening or would just go away. Denial is a safe place to be sometimes.
As for me, the developmental psychologist who diagnosed Charlie is also recommending therapy for me. She has this silly idea that being 3 months postpartum and parenting an autistic child might be stressful. I’ve been having depression and anxiety and been hoping it would just go away. Maybe I was just PMS’ing? Maybe I was tired? Apparently not. Its going to be very hard getting used to opening up to a total stranger, but I’ll deal.
Thanks everyone for all the amazing support we’ve gotten in the last few days. You guys are gold.
Its 1am and I just begged the Hubs to go get me some therapy.
Mike’s Hard Lemonade and chocolate.
Dude, The Baby was up till 11pm and The Kid was up till 12am. If I want to wind down before dawn I need a little help.
We hosted Thanksgiving at our house for the first time ever. I tried some new recipes and everything came together pretty seamlessly. It was a lot of fun and I’m so happy that my family agreed to be crammed into my tiny bungalow like sardines.
On a day that I would normally be stressed out trying to get everything done, I was relaxed and almost peaceful. I found that my life lately has been so full of stress and worry, that the stuffing not getting done was no big deal. My sister spilling half the potato au gratin cream all over the floor? Barely a blip on the radar. How could Thanksgiving possibly be overwhelming when I’ve been dealing with a special needs son? Nope. Not this year.
Actual Thanksgiving Day Conversations or Goings-On:
Skunk Sex. A conversation questioning the exact meaning of “musk” (fragrance or yucky body smell?) somehow turned into comments about skunk sex. You see, one or more skunks live under our house (ask me how i know!) and one evening two were seen out in our front yard having skunk sex. Well, they were “arguing”, so you know they had to have make-up sex later.
My 80 year old grandma was drinking coffee from a mug that read “INITECH”. If you know why that’s funny you’re SO my friend.
I created a new blog for my brother and for my dad. I was in such a blog-spawning mood I was looking for more victims but the only people left either were too old or too stupid (don’t be offended, you guys know who I mean).
Whilst speaking of my blog I had to whisper since the in-laws were in the room. I also had to pretend that my new pretty doesn’t exist because, can you just say, judge much? Oh and I also “didn’t” recently join a gym.
In-laws did NOT ONCE utter a word about the fabulous new job the Hubs just secured. They like to pretend things don’t exist when they get miffy.
I stayed up all night the evening (yes that means I never went to bed!) before Thanksgiving getting our house ready for company, mostly for the in-laws who hadn’t seen our place yet. When they came over they barely said anything about it at all. What a waste.
I am so tired I don’t think I’ll ever recover. I’m already becoming an insomniac from being so sleep deprived from getting up at night with two different kids. Next time I won’t care so much. All I can think about is my bed and now nice and comfy it is. Even when its full of boys (age 27, 2 and 3 months, of course).
Well, I know there was a lot more funny and interesting stuff that happened but Blogger was being a byotch and wouldn’t let me log in for the past 2 days.
Merry December!
