spt and a little awareness

April 2nd is Autism Awareness day.

If you are a long-time reader of the Chaos you know that Autism has touched our family. The first post I did about Ham and Autism is here.

For a few years Autism ruled our lives. There were things we couldn’t do and places we couldn’t go because of how it affected Ham. We didn’t dare go to a movie as a family because it would cause such a reaction for Ham. When they built a Target close to our house I couldn’t figure out why the rocking and acting out would happen, until I figured out that Target has super-bright lights and a very shiny floor. It was just too much for him. And the library? Who knew such a quiet and calm place would have an opposite reaction on him.

But things have changed drastically for Ham. He is in a regular kindergarten classroom and is doing great academically. The last evaluation he had for school he didn’t show any autistic signs. He can be around all the noise and chaos of our family and he doesn’t even notice it, in fact I think he might be the cause of the majority of it. He doesn’t have any issues going to Target or the Library, both used to be huge triggers for him. We still have a few sensory triggers that we deal with. Heaven help us all if the toe of his sock is a little crooked in his shoe. His shoes have to be tied just right, not too loose or too tight. If there is a loose string anywhere on his clothes it is a tragedy. The difference now is that we can fix what is wrong and he is able to reset and have a good day.

There was a time when I heard the word Autism and it made my heart ache for my little boy.

I don’t know if it was the early intervention and all of the therapy or the partial gluten-free diet, but something made a difference in Ham. I don’t look at him and wonder if I will ever really know what is going on in his little brain. He doesn’t have any problem telling you what he’s thinking or feeling. He is affectionate and kind. He is a little bit of a miracle.

And he is all mine.

SPT–One Little Word

When it came time to pick my One Little Word for this year I looked at back at some of the words I picked in the past.

Be

Cherish

Live

I couldn’t believe that my favorite word wasn’t on that list?!? Well it’s time to change that.

For this year my One Little Word is:

Bliss

It's good to be just plain happy;

it's a little better to know that you're happy;

but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how...and still be happy,

be happy in the being and the knowing,

well that is beyond happiness,

that is bliss.

Do you have One Little Word?

Crazy Hair Day and a SPT

Today is my favorite day of the school year…Crazy Hair Day for the girlies.

Last night we used all 46 Curlformers on Roo. She was not a happy camper since she doesn’t like to sleep in them. I tried to explain to her that as women we have to sacrifice for beauty. She still wasn’t too happy…

But look at how it turned out.

The only way to top over-the-top curls is with an over-the-top bow.

I love it.

With LaLa’s hair we took a different approach.

We used a bowl like the one she is holding to form the shape.

Add a great flower and it looks great.

I used this same idea 4 years ago on Roo, but they sure turned out different.

I had to take a couple of pictures inside to show the pièce de résistance…their hair is covered in glitter.

You can’t see it as well on Roo’s hair, but those curls are killing me.

And I may or may not have used a couple of sprays of glitter on my own hair.

Which may or may not be a good idea since I used it for crazy hair day on the girlies, but every day is Crazy Momma Day at Casa de Chaos.

***update***

I was worried the hair wouldn’t last through a day of school.

It did.

SPT–The Highlight of My Day

I spent part of my day like this:

And now I feel pretty again.

SPT–What Time Is It?

This is what I look like:

1. After having lunch with a friend
2. And spending a couple of hours talking and catching up
3. And losing track of time
4. And realizing I should’ve left about 10 minutes earlier to pick the girlies up from school
5. And having to speed across the desert
6. And being thankful that I didn’t see any police 

spt = self-portrait Tuesday

SPT–If You Need Me…

I like to read.

Lately I have been in a reading funk. I think it has been a problem with my last three book choices. They weren’t just quick, easy reads. “The House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton kicked my can.

So today I took myself to the local biblioteca for a stack o’ books to get me back in the swing.

If you need me I will be curled up in a corner reading.

SPT–Alone

SPT–First Day of Summer

SPT–Breaking the Mold

I come from a line of amazing women.

They do however have a major flaw. They don’t have the best history when it comes to their hearts.

My Grandma passed away when she was very young and left behind five young children.

My Mom passed away way too early. She had raised her five children, but we weren’t done needing her.

This is my sister last year as she was getting ready for her heart transplant.

As a Mom of 5 young children I knew I had a responsibility to take care of myself to be here for my kids.

So a month ago I scheduled an appointment with my cardiologist. It had been 10 years since I had been to see him. With such a horrible family history the Dr immediately scheduled a stress/echo test. I wasn’t really worried. I figured with my life I would slam dunk a STRESS test. Unfortunately there was slight problem with the test. I was a lot little bit upset. I knew there wasn’t going to be a problem and there was… What the?!?

After the stress/echo the Dr wanted an angiogram and the speed at which he wanted it done made me more nervous. If I wasn’t going to have a heart attack before, I was while I was stressing out about the tests. So early Friday morning Big Daddy and I headed to the hospital. Dang I hate hospitals.

So they get me all prepped and ready for this silly, little test and the wheel me into the cath lab. I was so freaked out I didn’t even really pay attention to the pictures of my heart. The Dr told me everything looked great and there isn’t a problem with my heart and the stress test was wrong. Talk about blessed good news.

And then the problems started. As they were finishing the test I started bleeding internally at the incision site and my blood pressure crashed. Not a great way to end the test. They finally got me stable and back in the recovery for my 3 hours of bed rest. But being the overachiever that I am the Dr decided that I should probably stay down for 6 hours. Flat on my back. Not being able to get up for anything. The nurses would come in a check my bleed…by putting pressure on it and causing me to want to punch them in the face. They also were kind enough to give me pain medication. Unfortunately I wasn’t dealing well with the pain medication and had the nurse a little nervous. So between the bleed and not waking up from the pain meds I earned a night at the hospital. YUCK.

Finally about 7pm on Saturday I was released from the hospital…with a pretty impressive bruising and stupid pain.

So for the last few days I have been taking it easy and letting Big Daddy take up the slack and letting neighbors help out.

And wondering when I just suck it up and get back to my regular life…

with my PERFECT heart!

SPT – The New Diet

My kitchen is CLEAN.

Now to break the bad news to my family…We won’t be eating again so it stays that way.

Of course my family room looks like this:

I think I have had enough of the spring break family room sleepovers.

And after looking at this picture I realized there are still Valentine’s decorations hanging on the drawers of my TV stand. Maybe I should put those away now?

SPT–Here Comes the Suns

Yesterday morning I got a phone call from my brother. He had tickets to the Suns game that night and wanted to know if Big Daddy and I wanted to go with them. Um….yes.

We got to arena and were pleasantly surprised with how great the seats were.

I am really not much of a Suns fan, but I do love my Utah Jazz. Even without Jerry Sloan at the helm.

It was really at great game. The score was back and forth and always within a few points. But in the end the Suns pulled out the win.

It was a really fun night and as we were leaving I thought it would be fun to bring the kidlets to a game, but then after looking at my ticket stub I decided they will be just fine without seeing the Suns from such great seats.

Oh and the obligitory SPT from such a fun night.

And since the Suns scored over 99 points I got a free lunch out of it for today.

 

And yes I do know that today is actually Wednesday and not Tuesday. Which is kind of ironic since the first thing I had to ask my brother after he asked if we wanted to go with him was what day it was.

This stay-at-home Mom gig gets a little confusing at times.

Potty Talk and an SPT

Starting in March 1998 I started on a path…a path of pee and poop. My first child was born and with him came the unavoidable diaper duty.

Before Big J was potty trained Einstein was here and I had 2 littles in diapers. As soon as Big J was ready, he potty trained quickly. It literally took 1 day to train him, but only because I waited until he was ready. I was willing to be patient to avoid the power struggle. Then before Einstein was potty trained Roo was born and I was back to 2 littles in diapers. Again Einstein was just as easy to potty train as Big J but not until he was old enough to be ready. In one day he was done. And everyone always said girls were easier to potty train so I was ready to get Roo out of diapers. Well everyone lies. She wasn’t very easy to train. And I was pregnant with LaLa and desperate to have Roo out of diapers before I was back to double duty…again. The delivery countdown was coming close to the end and finally Roo was out of diapers. I had about a month with no diaper. Then it all started again when LaLa was born. Back to diapers and all that crap. And soon there was Ham and again double diaper duty. I knew with the problems potty training Roo there was no way that LaLa was going to be easy. But I was wrong and it wasn’t that hard to get LaLa potty trained. I just had to wait forever for her to cooperate with me. And I was down to just one in diapers. And I knew there wasn’t going to be another baby coming. I knew that the days of diapers would finally end. Unfortunately with all of Ham’s sensory issues potty training was going to be way down the list of things we would be taking on. But sweet fancy Moses the kid is four. Do you know what kind of things a four year old eats? Well I do and it wasn’t pretty. I also realized that he was finally “getting” it. And it was time. I have to admit it wasn’t flawless. There have been accidents and incidents but I stuck it out and was patient and calm. Which for me right now is saying a lot…

And finally…

Finally…

He has done it.

Ham is completely potty trained.

And now we are left with some leftover pull-ups.

So we decided they make great Potty hats.

I try not to think of the amount of money that we have spent on diapers. I can’t even imagine the sheer numbers of diapers I have changed.

I am just glad it is done before I need diapers for myself!

Good News…and an SPT

The call we have been waiting for finally came.

The GI doctor called with the results from Roo’s tests and there is no sign of celiac. Yay!

He also said there results for Crohn’s and colitis came back negative also. Double Yay!

There are a couple of minor results we are still waiting for who cares when the big things are off the table.

Esophagogastroduodenoscopy with an SPT on the Side

Yesterday morning started dark and early for Roo and I.

On Friday afternoon the GI doctor called and said they had time on the schedule Monday morning for Roo to have her upper endoscopy…or esophagogstroduodenoscopy. Since there wasn’t school and I would have built in babysitters for the littles I set up the appointment.

There wasn’t much conversation on the drive to Phoenix Children’s, neither one of us are morning people and are pretty quite until we really wake up. Once we got to the hospital she was a little more talkative. I asked her if she was nervous and she said not really. I think talking to Einstein had her calm and ready for what was ahead.

She was excited for the cute hospital outfit. Einstein didn’t think it was fair that she got pants.

And even more excited about the Beanie Baby they gave her.

I think the nerves finally hit while we were waiting…

and waiting…

and still waiting.

It is so hard to leave the exam room after they put them under anesthesia. They seem so helpless and little.

And I was sent to the waiting room…to wait some more. There isn’t a book in the world that is good enough to make that time pass quickly.

She was awake before I got back to the recovery room. I think she was happy to see me, but not nearly as happy when they took her IV out. Poor little thing.

The procedure went well. She had one little bleed that they were able to take care of. Her insides looked normal, nothing like Einstein’s. So now we wait for the results of the biopsy and hope we can figure out why her tummy hurts all the time.

SPT – Word of the Year

Every year since I started my blog I pick a Word of the Year.

This year I have struggled deciding which word to pick. In the past couple of years they just came to me without much effort. This year not so much. Or maybe the word that keeps popping in my head feels like it might BE too much work.

I want to BE me…just better.

SPT – Vote

Today was Election Day…finally. I am so tired of the campaign ads. The he said/she said of the campaigns. Reading and trying to really understand the propositions. Trying to make some sense of it all. And don’t even get me started on the judges.

I usually vote by mail. I have had my ballot for a few weeks. But I was having a hard time making my mind up on a few candidates. And honestly I was have difficulty with one of the propositions that we were voting on. Not that it matters since the 9th Circuit Court doesn’t think we have a right to choose anyway.

So finally this morning I made my mind up and filled out my ballot.

I loaded up these two crazies.

And headed here.

And handed over my ballot. The one that I was still questioning the issues.

Maybe that is why I was having a difficult time voting…because I know my voice isn’t heard or listened to.

Did you vote today?

SPT – Before and After

There are a couple of people in our family who have been desperate for haircuts.

Guess who?

I took the razor to Einstein and he looks so handsome.

And I made a visit to the salon.

That is much better!