Visit

Speaking of house guests, my mom is coming tomorrow! She'll be here until Friday, and I am so excited. I told Nate today that Mimi is coming over tomorrow after church, and though he probably doesn't get the "tomorrow" thing, he has been saying "Mimi" randomly throughout the day. (He says it correctly now. And speaking of that, he is saying more and more every single day, including correctly pronouncing words he has thought he was saying correctly for weeks or months.)

My cousin, Hallie, posted some devastating information about what's in some of the vaccines we give our kids. I've been thinking about posting some of what I've been learning about vaccines, so I'll try to put something together soon.

Motivation

I love having guests to the house because it's my best motivation to do a good house cleaning. We're hosting a dinner tonight, so I've swept, mopped, dusted, cleaned bathrooms, and tidied our junk piles (kitchen counter and computer desk). I like having the house picked up and clean all of the time, but things do pile up. I'd love to be the mom who can keep a pristine house and play with her children too, but if it comes down to either or, I choose to be the mom whose house sometimes shows evidence that she just spent time with the kids that day!

Exersaucer

Nate at around 5 months and Lucy today (she'll be 6 months next week):

Explosion

Nate must be in the middle of a language explosion. He is saying so many more things just in the past week, including the actual words for yes, no, on, off, hi, and bye. He also started saying Daddy instead of Dada. It is so fun!

Oh no!

We woke up today to two sick children. I'd been thinking Lucy might be getting a cold for a couple of days, only because she had been sneezing. I was right, and Nate woke up with the same thing. At least they're only colds.

Progress

I feel like it's time for another inventory of all the progress Nate is making.

- He started saying bye bye (not just waving) about a month ago, and just in the past couple of days has started saying hi. (Both at appropriate times.) He pronounces "hi" very well, and then sometimes he is overzealous and it sounds like a karate chop "hi-ya!"
- A couple of weeks ago, Jon and I realized that Nate has stopped making his "signature" grunting noise--a loud, annoying noise he made when he was frustrated or not getting his way and that would get worse if we told him to stop. As he acquires more ways to communicate, he doesn't need that frustration noise anymore.
- In the past several days, he has started to put two words together (sporadically): bye bye Mama, bye bye snack (this afternoon), hi Dada, and all done (though I'm sure he thinks of "all done" as one word).
- He can jump really well (no more head-banger bouncing!), and it's cute too.
- He is sleeping so well--not waking at night and not crying in the morning. Months ago, he slept fine most nights, but at least one or two nights a week would involve waking and crying in the middle of the night. Also, he usually makes noise when he first wakes up in the morning now. He used to just sit/lie there in his crib for up to an hour just sort of waiting.
- He is eating a tiny bit better. He ate several blueberries for me at several meals this past week, though he refused the other new foods I tried to give. Food is just one of those battles that's really hard to win as a parent, since I am physically unable to make him eat something.

-This isn't necessarily progress, just a positive thing I'm always happy about: Nate is always gentle with others, especially children (and Lucy). I really love his gentle spirit. It's nice not to have to worry or interfere/referee if he is around other kids.

I'm sure there are more things, but it's time to get going to AWANA--the first night of the fall!

Good job, Nate!

Funny event this afternoon:

Couch

Here's a dimly lit picture of our new couch. It's a chocolate brown color, and the fabric is microsuede (very soft). It also has a sleeper. I like it!

The ottoman is new, too (ebay).

Weekend pics

Lucy on our new couch

The guys on the old one

A favorite time of day

That first hour after nap time is always so happy! Nate and I have gotten into the routine of reading several books together after he gets up. This works well because Lucy is usually still asleep; by the time we're done, she's often awake, so we go down together and say hi to her. I love this video.

Lucy - 5 months

Lucy is over five months old already! She has a fun personality and a very sweet disposition. She smiles a lot at Nate, and although he doesn't really get that, he still enjoys kissing her. She usually transitions from fully asleep straight to big smile. She still can roll from her stomach to her back and has almost rolled back to stomach but isn't quite there. She started chewing on her toes this past week. She usually catnaps in the morning since we are often out doing things or at therapy, and she takes a long afternoon nap around 12:30 or 1:00. She often still needs an evening catnap but doesn't easily go to sleep on her own at that time, so sometimes she's fussy. She doesn't laugh a big laugh like Nate did at this age; she does more of a cough-laugh, which is so cute. If she's smiling big, she opens her mouth really wide and gets a sparkle in her eye. She almost never spits up now (that change happened around 6 weeks to 2 months ago).

I think the rice cereal is upsetting Lucy's stomach a little bit, because she has woken up crying a few times during naps and also was awake six or seven times last night. (I'm tired!) I'm going to stop doing the cereal for a few weeks and then try again; I might just end up doing what I did with Nate, which is skip the cereal and go straight to baby food.

Bummer

I took Nate to get his cast off today! But, after an hour in the waiting room (and therefore a falling-to-pieces child), they took off his cast, took x-rays, and decided his bones aren't healed. They put on a new cast, but at least this one is under his elbow... and at least it doesn't smell (yet)! The entire ordeal was tiring but not too traumatic (even with the saw/vacuum thing they use to take off casts). I'm disappointed that we have another three weeks of no swimming, more difficult park-going, and no fountains at the Spectrum, but I want his arm to heal correctly, so that's OK!

Quick

The Zyme Prime arrived two days ago, so Nate is getting back to normal. It's nice to know what we're doing is having some effect!

Today in my parent meeting at Cornerstone, the head ABA therapist mentioned specifically that Nate is doing really well. He's interacting well, took turns well today, and is vocalizing a lot. :)

Revelation

I ordered more enzymes for Nate last week, as I have done several times, and they were set to arrive just before I ran out of the ones I had. The package came with only Peptizyde (not Zyme Prime) and a notification that Zyme Prime is backordered. I was out of Zyme Prime. I gave him just Peptizyde for a day or so until I could go to the local natural foods store and find a substitute "broad spectrum" enzyme to use until the ZP got here. The substitute I found has a much lower concentration of the various enzymes, but apparently a much worse taste (Nate takes it but then rubs his tongue to try to get the taste off), so I'm not even giving him a full capsule. Because of the low concentration of this replacement enzyme blend, I'm thinking it might be just above giving him nothing. Anyway, for the past three days or so, Nate has been very whiny and also very stimmy (turning in circles/spinning and doing lots of tip-toe walking, both things he hasn't done in months). It's a very obvious change. So, I guess it's nice to know the enzymes are really working well, but it's also really frustrating having the ZP backordered and not knowing when we'll get it. If it's going to be more than a couple more days, I need to go back to the store and find a better (more expensive, higher concentration) replacement.

Fun with Lulu

My sister helped me give Lucy her first rice cereal on Friday evening... She wasn't quite sure what to think!

Woowoo

My sister is here for the weekend! Nate saw her this morning and gave her a hug. He is calling her Woowoo (Lulu). :)

The motherhood club

I used to think that motherhood was like a club; once you had children, other mothers would exchange a knowing nod and smile, a sort of "Isn't this cool?" What I find generally in the real world, though, is an air of judgment. Even though that mother's child was probably screaming in the store last week (or thirty years ago), she still tsks at the other poor woman who is just trying to buy some groceries and keep her children quiet for five more minutes. Where is the mercy, the grace? The help?

Sometimes I catch myself wanting to look and seem put together, like I have it all figured out. But that is just so far from the truth! What I genuinely want, though, is to be transparent, for other mothers to see that I struggle too and ultimately need to rely on God.

Amy Scott posted some great thoughts recently:

Motherhood is not a competition but a calling. We are too needful of one another to be so short-suffering. Sometimes we concentrate on small things and miss the greater thing; sometimes we think a perfect method is a good substitute for genuine love.

Now that I'm also a mother of a child with autism, I believe that God has put this circumstance in my life so that I can learn from it and encourage and help other moms in similar situations. Mothering any child is a challenge, and I believe mothering a child with autism has some particular challenges that perhaps other moms don't understand. I've been praying to find (or form) a group of Christian moms with special needs children, because we all could use some judgment-free love!

Rejoice!

We are unpacked! The house is not clean, but we are unpacked. :) Jon worked a lot in the very hot garage over the weekend, and all of our things to store (maternity clothes, toys, etc.) are up on the shelves, so the car is now parked in there. I have a bit more organizing and putting away to do inside, but there isn't too much to do since I tried to do as much of that as possible while I unpacked. The only main decorating type thing I have left on my list is the guest bathroom, which is still lavender. Mama is going to help me wallpaper when she comes at the end of this month. Here's the wallpaper we got (I love it), though I found it for much less on a different website.

I'm off to fold laundry while Lucy naps and Nate is at therapy.

Fun weekend

Nate finally knows what I mean when I tell him to smile for the camera. I love the cheesy grin!


He also likes me to put him in Lucy's crib with her after her naps, and just this week he started thinking it was cool to "hold" her. (Whenever I'd put her on his lap in the past, he didn't like it.)


I had my hair done on Saturday--red again, but this time it's what I wanted.


Nate has a fun daddy.