Shaun took his first Accelerated Reader Test at school today. Because of his learning disability, his teacher allowed him to listen to a recording of the story while following along in the book. Shaun scored a 1oo on his test! Whoo hoo! This is SUCH good news. I was so proud that I actually started crying. His teacher is also extremely proud. He has really been struggling with his reading. It is really a blessing to get some good news. Thanks, God!
Halloween was hectic this year. Jordan was cranky due to not having a nap and hated his costume. Shaun was a wild man. He must have consumed too much sugar at school. We went to the Fall Festival at Free Chapel. I have never seen so many children in my life. Seriously- they were everywhere. We had fun, though. Chris' band played and they were awesome, as usual. There were many inflatable jumping thingies, lots of games, a hayride, and of course-- FREE CANDY! Now the children have crashed and are sleeping soundly. I love to watch them sleep. They look so peaceful and innocent. Speaking of sleep, I better go get some myself.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Lunch Date
I've got a hot lunch date today at Mt. Vernon Elementary School. That's right, I'm finally getting to go have lunch with Shaun today. I have instructions to go pick up Subway sandwhiches before I get there. He can be so demanding :)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Old School
Today I was a substitute teacher at my old elementary school. It was a little weird. A lot of the same staff/teachers are still there. Only now they treated me like a grownup...which I am...but it was still strange. I also saw my friend Megan, who I used to go to church with. Not only was it great to see her, but she agreed to have a Girls Nite Our for my The Body Shop at Home Business. Yay! I need all the business I can get!
I missed Jordan while I worked today. A lot. More than I thought. I'm glad I get to stay home with him tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, its Halloween. Shaun will be a pirate and Jordan will either be a dinosaur or a lion, depending on the weather. I guess I will go as a stressed-out mom. We're not doing the trick-or-treat thing this year. We'll be at our church's Fall Festival instead. They'll have a concert, inflatables, tons of candy, etc. Should be fun.
I think Shaun is finally catching on in math. His regular ed teacher sent home a worksheet tonight, and he did it pretty much on his own. He receives resource education in Math since he's below grade level, so it was great to see him doing stuff the "normal" class is doing. Baby steps- always baby-steps. Its hard to be patient about things like this. He's not getting his tutoring sessions in this week, either. Mrs. Kirk, his tutor, had a death in her family and is out of town. Say a prayer for her, she was extremely upset when she phoned me yesterday.
I missed Jordan while I worked today. A lot. More than I thought. I'm glad I get to stay home with him tomorrow. Speaking of tomorrow, its Halloween. Shaun will be a pirate and Jordan will either be a dinosaur or a lion, depending on the weather. I guess I will go as a stressed-out mom. We're not doing the trick-or-treat thing this year. We'll be at our church's Fall Festival instead. They'll have a concert, inflatables, tons of candy, etc. Should be fun.
I think Shaun is finally catching on in math. His regular ed teacher sent home a worksheet tonight, and he did it pretty much on his own. He receives resource education in Math since he's below grade level, so it was great to see him doing stuff the "normal" class is doing. Baby steps- always baby-steps. Its hard to be patient about things like this. He's not getting his tutoring sessions in this week, either. Mrs. Kirk, his tutor, had a death in her family and is out of town. Say a prayer for her, she was extremely upset when she phoned me yesterday.
Monday, October 29, 2007
The Simple Things
Its nice to let the simple things in life make you smile at the end of a hectic day...
I am cooking dinner/checking email and my husband and kids are coloring together at the kitchen table. Their conversations crack me up. I love to hear them interact together. Alright, enough cheesy-ness. Must go check on the green beans.
I am cooking dinner/checking email and my husband and kids are coloring together at the kitchen table. Their conversations crack me up. I love to hear them interact together. Alright, enough cheesy-ness. Must go check on the green beans.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Shaunster the Monster
Seriously, he's not really a monster...most of the time, anyway! Shaun is my oldest child. My first baby. And he always will be, even though he's almost 8 years old. We gave him this nickname when he was a toddler and loved to growl like a monster. Shaun had a rough start. He had a stroke when I was in labor with him, which caused him to have cerebral palsy. It actually sounds worse than it is. He can walk, run, play. He just earned his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do. He has severe left-sided weakness-- little to no use of his left hand and arm and his left leg and foot are also weak.
I'm not sure if I can put into words what its like to find out that your child will be "different". I lived my whole life with a certain idea of what my children would be like. From the time I was a little girl, I imagined myself happily married, getting pregnant (in that order!), rushing to the hospital and giving birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Yes, it was always a girl in my fantasies. Probably because there are no girls in my immediate family. My sister and I have all girl cousins, and my mom has only sisters. Anyway, after the baby was born the two of us would lounge around in our hospital room while friends and family came by to brag about how beautiful she was and bring us presents. After a few days, we would all go home and the baby would sleep through the night from day one. Things would go smoothly. My husband and I would take our baby to church, out shopping, etc and life would be normal, the way my life was growing up.
Well, things did NOT work out that way. First of all, Shaun was born via c-section when I was a newly-married 19 year old. Secondly, when he was born, the first thing I noticed was that he didn't cry. It was so quiet in the room. I even remember telling my husband that he wasn't crying. He finally cried a few weak cries before the nurses ran out of the room with him. I was in the recovery room when we got the news that he had stopped breathing in the NICU. I was not able to process all of this. I think I was just too tired after being in labor all day and then the stress of the c-section. Finally, the NICU doctor came into my room and told us all that our baby was "very very sick". My doctor allowed me to get up in a wheelchair so that I could go down and see him. He was not breathing on his own, tubes were everywhere. It was the worst moment of my life. No one new what was wrong yet, so all we could do was wait. The next morning the docs told us about the stroke, and that brain damage was a possibility. Still, I was not able to process this. I remember thinking that this was a dream, not happening at all. After about a week, he was able to breathe on his own, and then after another week he came home. We still didn't know what we were dealing with. When babies are so new, its hard to tell if they have brain damage and how severe it will be. So, for the longest time, we didn't know if he would ever walk or talk or feed himself. The list went on and on. He began receiving physical therapy to strengthen his muscles, and the doctors appointments were endless. We say neurologists, cardiologists, therapists. The hardest part for me was being around people who had "normal" babies. I felt so cheated. I know sometimes I was rude, but I truly did not know how to handle myself. I put myself on "auto-pilot" so that I could function, and I kept telling myself that it wasn't real. Not healthy at all, I know. But eventually, with lots of prayer, I came to terms with everything.
Things went smoothly for a few years. Then when Shaun was 5, he was diagnosed with ADHD. My husband and I weren't thrilled about medicating him, but we dealt with it and even admitted that the meds helped him. So we trudged along. Things were going great. We even had another baby- our son Jordan. Then, last fall, things really hit the fan, so to speak. In September 2006, Shaun started having severe mood swings. I'm not talking about your typical 6 year old tantrums. He would fly off the handle for no reason at all, he became violent, he had no impulse control whatsover. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, he would be back to his normal self. This went on for some time. It is hard for me to talk about that time. My husband was working all the time, I had a new baby, and my older son was out of control. I honestly dreaded coming home every afternoon. I had been seeing a counselor for serveral years, and I described Shaun's behavior to her. She referred me to a child psychiatrist, who determined that Shaun was bipolar. So we began medicating him. The meds were somewhat helpful, but I still didn't feel like we had our son back. In January, we had an annual visit to Shaun's neurologist. During this visit, Shaun kind of stared off to the left side- he had always done this and we thought nothing of it. It turned out that the staring spells were actually seizures- Shaun had Epilepsy. We had an EEG done and found out that the seizures were occurring in the frontal lobe of the brain- the part of the brain that controls behavior and impulse. Everything made sense now! We were actually relieved to get this diagnosis. For the first time, we knew what we were dealing with. It took awhile, but we finally found the right mix of meds, and Shaun was back to normal.
That brings me to the present. At the beginning of the month we found out that Shaun has a learning disorder. He has a "processing problem". It has a clinical name, but I can never remember it. I had a REALLY hard time when I learned this information. School was always so easy for me. I don't want him to struggle. I wanted at least one area of his life to be uneventful. He had been seeing a special needs tutor for the past month, and his teachers say its helping. I love the tutor, but she is outrageously expensive. This is hard on our finances since we became a single-income family last December when I was laid off from my job. I have began to do some substitute teaching, but there is no way I can work a full-time job right now, with all of the kids' issues.
So, now you see why I call my blog "Trials and Smiles". We have definitely seen some trials this year. I can honestly say it has been the worst year of my life. I am praying for 2008 to be better. But for every bad thing, there are 10 good things in my life. I was thinking of some of the great things today:
1. Hearing my children play and laugh together.
2. Lying in bed with Shaun at night while we snuggle and read.
3. Being unable to work full-time: this enables me to stay home with Jordan. He is such a joy.
4. Watching Shaun master his Tae Kwon Do kicks.
5. Seeing the pride in Shaun's face when he finally learned to "count up" in Math.
6. Getting kissed right on the lips by Jordan.
7. Watching as Shaun sings and raises his hands during praise and worship at church, even after all he's been through.
8. Seeing the sheer delight in both of my boys' eyes when they saw the ocean for the first time.
So you see, there really are smiles that go hand in hand with our trials. I thank God for getting me through this year.
I'm not sure if I can put into words what its like to find out that your child will be "different". I lived my whole life with a certain idea of what my children would be like. From the time I was a little girl, I imagined myself happily married, getting pregnant (in that order!), rushing to the hospital and giving birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl. Yes, it was always a girl in my fantasies. Probably because there are no girls in my immediate family. My sister and I have all girl cousins, and my mom has only sisters. Anyway, after the baby was born the two of us would lounge around in our hospital room while friends and family came by to brag about how beautiful she was and bring us presents. After a few days, we would all go home and the baby would sleep through the night from day one. Things would go smoothly. My husband and I would take our baby to church, out shopping, etc and life would be normal, the way my life was growing up.
Well, things did NOT work out that way. First of all, Shaun was born via c-section when I was a newly-married 19 year old. Secondly, when he was born, the first thing I noticed was that he didn't cry. It was so quiet in the room. I even remember telling my husband that he wasn't crying. He finally cried a few weak cries before the nurses ran out of the room with him. I was in the recovery room when we got the news that he had stopped breathing in the NICU. I was not able to process all of this. I think I was just too tired after being in labor all day and then the stress of the c-section. Finally, the NICU doctor came into my room and told us all that our baby was "very very sick". My doctor allowed me to get up in a wheelchair so that I could go down and see him. He was not breathing on his own, tubes were everywhere. It was the worst moment of my life. No one new what was wrong yet, so all we could do was wait. The next morning the docs told us about the stroke, and that brain damage was a possibility. Still, I was not able to process this. I remember thinking that this was a dream, not happening at all. After about a week, he was able to breathe on his own, and then after another week he came home. We still didn't know what we were dealing with. When babies are so new, its hard to tell if they have brain damage and how severe it will be. So, for the longest time, we didn't know if he would ever walk or talk or feed himself. The list went on and on. He began receiving physical therapy to strengthen his muscles, and the doctors appointments were endless. We say neurologists, cardiologists, therapists. The hardest part for me was being around people who had "normal" babies. I felt so cheated. I know sometimes I was rude, but I truly did not know how to handle myself. I put myself on "auto-pilot" so that I could function, and I kept telling myself that it wasn't real. Not healthy at all, I know. But eventually, with lots of prayer, I came to terms with everything.
Things went smoothly for a few years. Then when Shaun was 5, he was diagnosed with ADHD. My husband and I weren't thrilled about medicating him, but we dealt with it and even admitted that the meds helped him. So we trudged along. Things were going great. We even had another baby- our son Jordan. Then, last fall, things really hit the fan, so to speak. In September 2006, Shaun started having severe mood swings. I'm not talking about your typical 6 year old tantrums. He would fly off the handle for no reason at all, he became violent, he had no impulse control whatsover. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, he would be back to his normal self. This went on for some time. It is hard for me to talk about that time. My husband was working all the time, I had a new baby, and my older son was out of control. I honestly dreaded coming home every afternoon. I had been seeing a counselor for serveral years, and I described Shaun's behavior to her. She referred me to a child psychiatrist, who determined that Shaun was bipolar. So we began medicating him. The meds were somewhat helpful, but I still didn't feel like we had our son back. In January, we had an annual visit to Shaun's neurologist. During this visit, Shaun kind of stared off to the left side- he had always done this and we thought nothing of it. It turned out that the staring spells were actually seizures- Shaun had Epilepsy. We had an EEG done and found out that the seizures were occurring in the frontal lobe of the brain- the part of the brain that controls behavior and impulse. Everything made sense now! We were actually relieved to get this diagnosis. For the first time, we knew what we were dealing with. It took awhile, but we finally found the right mix of meds, and Shaun was back to normal.
That brings me to the present. At the beginning of the month we found out that Shaun has a learning disorder. He has a "processing problem". It has a clinical name, but I can never remember it. I had a REALLY hard time when I learned this information. School was always so easy for me. I don't want him to struggle. I wanted at least one area of his life to be uneventful. He had been seeing a special needs tutor for the past month, and his teachers say its helping. I love the tutor, but she is outrageously expensive. This is hard on our finances since we became a single-income family last December when I was laid off from my job. I have began to do some substitute teaching, but there is no way I can work a full-time job right now, with all of the kids' issues.
So, now you see why I call my blog "Trials and Smiles". We have definitely seen some trials this year. I can honestly say it has been the worst year of my life. I am praying for 2008 to be better. But for every bad thing, there are 10 good things in my life. I was thinking of some of the great things today:
1. Hearing my children play and laugh together.
2. Lying in bed with Shaun at night while we snuggle and read.
3. Being unable to work full-time: this enables me to stay home with Jordan. He is such a joy.
4. Watching Shaun master his Tae Kwon Do kicks.
5. Seeing the pride in Shaun's face when he finally learned to "count up" in Math.
6. Getting kissed right on the lips by Jordan.
7. Watching as Shaun sings and raises his hands during praise and worship at church, even after all he's been through.
8. Seeing the sheer delight in both of my boys' eyes when they saw the ocean for the first time.
So you see, there really are smiles that go hand in hand with our trials. I thank God for getting me through this year.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Beginner's Blog
So, this is the first blog I've ever had. I decided to start blogging because I believe it will be therapeutic for me. An outlet. There are so many stressors in my life right now,and sometimes I just need to let it all out without bothering my family... again. Anyone know what I mean? Another reason I started a blog- to gain support. I have two special needs children and would love to hear from others who are dealing with some of the same issues my husband are facing. I also wanted to blog for my children- so that one day they'll have something to read that states how much I love them and love being their mother. Yes, we've had an extremely rough life together so far and for some our circumstances will seem pretty bleak. Life has definitely dealt us some huge blows. But we keep going. At least, we don't wallow in our feelings for very long. I'll post some details about us later on. For now, a hot bath is calling my name.
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