Tonight we attended a visitation for a family friend who passed away from a heart attack at the early age of 52. His visitation was like none other Ive ever seen. It was scheduled to be 4 hrs long from 4-8 and we left at 9:30 with around an hrs worth of line still behind us. Now granted there was a lot of family and church goers but still I bet there was well around 1000 people who showed up on this cold rainy night to give their condolences to the family and say their goodbyes to Joe. Which brings me to my point. There were a few outsiders. Who obviously aren't from small towns. At least not ones like El Paso IL. One girl in particular looked a little overwhelmed with the "so and so and I grew up together because our moms used to work together before we born and now his mom works for my father in law and him and my husband were born on the same day" conversations. And that was only the 30 seconds I talked to one of the sons. :)
Another girl who is married into the family works with my sister in law and greets me with a "oh so YOU'RE Graham's mom" haha got to love small towns!
At Graham's Christmas concert- his cheering section for his 10 minute concert included his Dad and Bella and I, his grandma blue, his aunt Tiffany, uncle T dawg, cousins Wylie, Lana and Dax, Pa paw mark, Aunt Mary Beth, his great grandma Roberts, his great aunt Debbie, his great uncle John and great aunt Mindy and cousins Nick and Camilla. That's just who came to see JUST G.
That does not include 4 of my cousins who also have children/nieces in the same pre-k, two aunts of mine, and multiple distant cousins,etc. it's like a family reunion everywhere we go.
Anyway, I am praising God tonight to be from this incredibly small town where everybody knows you in some way shape or form! What an amazing testimony to Joe's life that so many showed up tonight. And how lucky are my children to have so many close by to support their every doing?
Tonight in thankful to live in a small town.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Take a deep breath and regroup.
Today was G's first OT appointment. I'm an OTA. So this bugs me extra. Shouldn't all of this have been done already? Don't I know what needs implemented and how to do it? And every single time I started to think about all we NEED to get started for him to be better off, I started breathing faster and my chest for tight and I started to freak out. And I know I should schedule some family counseling for us and maybe get back on some anxiety meds and yet I'm so focused on him I haven't yet made the calls.
When I'm home and they're busy I'm sitting, mind racing so I get on Facebook and get sucked into others lives. What does so and so have going on thats worse than what I'm dealing with here? And then I see people asking questions I don't care to answer but I'm not trying to hide. Just steering away front that unwanted advice or judgement that I feel I'm getting when I read between the lines. People that just give off that feeling that they're not there for support, just to be nosy and tell you how they feel you should be handling things or that what you're doing is wrong. I just can't handle it right now in my life. I need to take a breather. Relax and focus on family. I did a lot of thinking while out today. I decided I wanted to deactivate my FB account. Why do I need so badly for 344 people to know my personal business everyday? I will dearly miss those I don't get to see often, like all my NC friends and their gorgeous babies. But I need this worse. I need time to get my crap together. To get my butt in gear. Those whom I'm close to I will still be in touch with.
In the meantime, I will be working on visual schedules for G to help with transitions and some sensory stuff as well! We also have his domain meeting on Thursday am to determine whether or not he will get into school and if so what extra evals they want to do to determine what services they will provide for him. I hope to potty train BR in the near future if G starts school and we get that schedule down. :) I also hope to have a TON of time on my hands to organize my house to be more efficient for us! I've already started in the kids' rooms! Yay!
I love ya all! I hope to keep in touch via email. Brrr1984@yahoo.com
When I'm home and they're busy I'm sitting, mind racing so I get on Facebook and get sucked into others lives. What does so and so have going on thats worse than what I'm dealing with here? And then I see people asking questions I don't care to answer but I'm not trying to hide. Just steering away front that unwanted advice or judgement that I feel I'm getting when I read between the lines. People that just give off that feeling that they're not there for support, just to be nosy and tell you how they feel you should be handling things or that what you're doing is wrong. I just can't handle it right now in my life. I need to take a breather. Relax and focus on family. I did a lot of thinking while out today. I decided I wanted to deactivate my FB account. Why do I need so badly for 344 people to know my personal business everyday? I will dearly miss those I don't get to see often, like all my NC friends and their gorgeous babies. But I need this worse. I need time to get my crap together. To get my butt in gear. Those whom I'm close to I will still be in touch with.
In the meantime, I will be working on visual schedules for G to help with transitions and some sensory stuff as well! We also have his domain meeting on Thursday am to determine whether or not he will get into school and if so what extra evals they want to do to determine what services they will provide for him. I hope to potty train BR in the near future if G starts school and we get that schedule down. :) I also hope to have a TON of time on my hands to organize my house to be more efficient for us! I've already started in the kids' rooms! Yay!
I love ya all! I hope to keep in touch via email. Brrr1984@yahoo.com
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Autism. A scary word.
It keeps hitting me at odd times. Autism. Sensory Processing Disorder. Things I've suspected for a while. But something about hearing them out loud makes me want to crawl under a rock and hide. Now while his case is very mild compared to some it will still affect his every day. Out every day. And it just keeps hitting me.
I'm planning outfits for pictures today and have a nice button down shirt with collar I'd love for Graham to wear. But Graham won't often wear shirts with collars because they "hurt" or "itch" or "bug me". I'm laying in bed reciting our day tomorrow over and over in my head. Because, Graham has to be prepared, especially if there's some thing out of routine that we will be doing. And even then on several occasions we have had to change plans last minute because he can't handle it. We go to see Santa and have lunch but there's a line 55 thousand million people long and it's loud, hot and crowded and he immediately starts shaking his head and shutting down. So we forgo those plans. Gaggles of kids play while Graham sits on the side lines and shows no interest of joining in. Bella has a stinky diaper and he goes into melt down mode because to him smells are magnified. He comes off as quirky and sometimes out right awkward and even though I LOVE him this way, it won't be easy making friends.
It makes me so sad for him. Life won't come as easily to him. This diagnosis makes me feel like I've somehow failed him. And it's embarrassing to talk about out loud sometimes. I always feel I'm being judged as a mother. Like other people don't see it as much. Or think he's just a bratty kid and we're not adequate parents.
It hits me that we'll have to fight for his rights in school. We'll have to take him to social groups and OT to help him learn to better do things that are hard for him. That we will most likely have more fights with him to get him to start being less dependent on us.
But he has so much going for him, I know he will fare just fine. He's intelligent, funny, charismatic, creative, inventive, talented, polite, and caring. And he has parents who are prepared for the battle! We will see this through and years from now we won't even remember what the fuss was all about.
I'm planning outfits for pictures today and have a nice button down shirt with collar I'd love for Graham to wear. But Graham won't often wear shirts with collars because they "hurt" or "itch" or "bug me". I'm laying in bed reciting our day tomorrow over and over in my head. Because, Graham has to be prepared, especially if there's some thing out of routine that we will be doing. And even then on several occasions we have had to change plans last minute because he can't handle it. We go to see Santa and have lunch but there's a line 55 thousand million people long and it's loud, hot and crowded and he immediately starts shaking his head and shutting down. So we forgo those plans. Gaggles of kids play while Graham sits on the side lines and shows no interest of joining in. Bella has a stinky diaper and he goes into melt down mode because to him smells are magnified. He comes off as quirky and sometimes out right awkward and even though I LOVE him this way, it won't be easy making friends.
It makes me so sad for him. Life won't come as easily to him. This diagnosis makes me feel like I've somehow failed him. And it's embarrassing to talk about out loud sometimes. I always feel I'm being judged as a mother. Like other people don't see it as much. Or think he's just a bratty kid and we're not adequate parents.
It hits me that we'll have to fight for his rights in school. We'll have to take him to social groups and OT to help him learn to better do things that are hard for him. That we will most likely have more fights with him to get him to start being less dependent on us.
But he has so much going for him, I know he will fare just fine. He's intelligent, funny, charismatic, creative, inventive, talented, polite, and caring. And he has parents who are prepared for the battle! We will see this through and years from now we won't even remember what the fuss was all about.
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