Who I Want To Be When I Grow Up

There is a little-old lady that I see almost every weekday on my way up to the church. I always see this lady on my way up the hill. She's about 4 ft. nothing and about 75 lbs. She's a tiny little thing. It doesn't matter if its summer or winter, I usually see her. She bundles up in a puffy down coat when its cold. She has jet-black hair that she clearly has done about once a week. She often wears these gray camouflage pants which I find hilarious. It shows a bit of spunk. She appears to be in her 80's although I can't be certain about that. I know where she lives because I see her out cleaning up leaves and sweeping/shoveling snow off of her walks. She goes for a walk every morning. She usually carries a walking stick. She looks like she is walking just as fast as her little body will carry her. She always stops to regain her balance and catch her breath along the fence by the cemetery. She stops for a moment holding on to the fence and then off she goes. I think she's amazing. The walk is clearly a struggle for her, but she keeps at it. She has a lot of drive to keep on keeping on. I love this. I want to be just like her when I get to be her age. She's on the go. She stays active. She's great! I don't want to curl up in my rocking chair when I reach my golden years. I want to be a busy, healthy, active person in camouflage pants. Which means I should probably start now so I will look as good as this lady in another 40 years.

We Received Guy's Official Diagnosis Today

So drumroll please . . . The formal diagnosis goes something like this . . . A Typical Autism - more specifically some variant of PPD-NOS with a secondary diagnosis of a Cognitive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified which is not Mental Retardation (say that three times fast). So now we know what we already knew but have it on paper for all of the agencies that require such a thing. Our boy is just as unique and interesting as we have always believed him to be. ;)

There are other more specific things we were told and specific recommendations for school and such. For instance he processes information very slowly. He will always do so. But, we can make appropriate accommodations for that. In some areas he is very delayed but he can and will improve with the appropriate interventions. He already receives a lot of the help he needs. It will just need to be adjusted and fine tuned.

He has very low verbal cognition but average non-verbal cognition. So less talk and much more visual presentation. We will have to stop talking the poor boy to death as this isn't very useful. All these years of him looking at us like WTF? now makes much more sense. Poor kid. We will have to come up with more visual and hands on stuff. We must also break information down into bite sized tidbits if we want him to remember it. Too much input at one time and he pretty much stops processing. Go figure. We have also discovered that if we make information personally relevant he will retain it with incredible recall and detail. (Seriously the kid can remember an infinite amount of crap from when he was two years old.) However, if we just shovel in novel information and it has no meaning to him personally, he doesn't have the ability to even store it, let alone recall it. This last bit we didn't realize. We will have to come up with new strategies to get the mundane information into that handsome head of his.

I really find this all quite fascinating from a psychological stand point. The brain is amazing.

And the Grand Baby Turns One!!!

Our grand daughter, P.J. turned one on Sunday, October 18, 2009. It feels like we've had her forever, and yet it seems like she was born yesterday. A conundrum for sure! We adore her, and she just gets better the older she gets. She enjoyed her little cake although it ruined her cute little dress so she attended the remainder of her party only partially clothed. Who cares. She's cute as a bug anyway.

New Beginnings

Our church has gotten a new Interim Minister this week after a 10-month absence of a minister. It's hard to be a church without a minister. We've done it enough times, but its certainly not the preference. On one hand, we sometimes need the break to reflect on our community to see what the next best step is. On the other hand, too much time alone can result in apathy, disinterest, or worse, over involvement to fill in the gaps.

I'm not a bible thumping, literalistic, religious zealot by any means. I'm on the liberal end of the spectrum and happily so. For me church is a place to practice my spirituality, connect with others with a similar theology, and to some degree a place to volunteer and put into practice the act of putting others over self. I definitely need to do more of the that.

Here's to new beginnings. Here's to grieving what was lost. Here's to a new day.

Best of luck to our new pastor and to ourselves that we might find a common seed from which to begin the growth of something new. Transformation. May we all find a way to continually transform over the course of our lives. Much like the Phoenix rising from the ashes.

My Boy

I found the poem below on an Autism website. It's such an accurate description of Guy that it made me cry.



The Misunderstood Child
A poem about children with hidden disabilities

by Kathy Winters

I am the child that looks healthy and fine.
I was born with ten fingers and toes.
But something is different, somewhere in my mind,
And what it is, nobody knows.

I am the child that struggles in school,
Though they say that I'm perfectly smart.
They tell me I'm lazy -- can learn if I try --
But I don't seem to know where to start.

I am the child that won't wear the clothes
Which hurt me or bother my feet.
I dread sudden noises, can't handle most smells,
And tastes -- there are few foods I'll eat.

I am the child that can't catch the ball
And runs with an awkward gait.
I am the one chosen last on the team
And I cringe as I stand there and wait.

I am the child with whom no one will play --
The one that gets bullied and teased.
I try to fit in and I want to be liked,
But nothing I do seems to please.

I am the child that tantrums and freaks
Over things that seem petty and trite.
You'll never know how I panic inside,
When I'm lost in my anger and fright.

I am the child that fidgets and squirms
Though I'm told to sit still and be good.
Do you think that I choose to be out of control?
Don't you know that I would if I could?

I am the child with the broken heart
Though I act like I don't really care.
Perhaps there's a reason God made me this way --
Some message he sent me to share.

For I am the child that needs to be loved
And accepted and valued too.
I am the child that is misunderstood.
I am different - but look just like you.


The author of this poem has two kids with autism.

Purple Sweater

The other day I made baby P.J. a little purple sweater. It was fun to make, and I love purple. I thought it needed a little something extra so I added the buttons. It fits her really good except she won't leave the buttons alone of course. It took forever to take the pictures because she was far too busy playing with the bright buttons.

One Year Ago . . .

One year ago yesterday my brother in law was killed riding his bicycle. He was riding his bike along a bike path and a semi truck pulled out of the pipeyard across the bike path and hit and killed him. The driver had meth and oxycotin in his system. It was a horrible tragedy. We miss him terribly. We commemorated the day by visiting the accident site wearing memorial tee shirts. The shirts are actually a PSA for drivers to share the road with cyclists and pedestrians. Such a sad day.

Rest in peace Steve . . .

Not to terribly exciting post.

So the last few days have been pretty uneventful. The family is in various stages of some kind of cold/flu bug. Whatever it is, it hangs around for a really long time. I'm tired of it. It can go away now. This household is tired of our little pandemic, swine or otherwise.

The girls played softball last night. It was a good game. Megan pitched a good game and Tiffany made a bunch of good plays at third base. They have city tournament left and then the season is over. Too bad the weather hasn't been very cooperative this season.

Guy is totally fed up with the weather. He told me to email the weatherman yesterday and tell him that he (Guy) wants nice weather. He was deadly serious. I told him I didn't know the weatherman's email address but I would see what I could do. I really love that kid.

While some folks think its silly or stupid to keep track of a baby's age using months instead of years, we like it and make a big deal out of it. Miss P.J. turned 8 months old yesterday. We sang to her and everything (because we're dorks).

Unexciting but sometimes thats life.

Granite Hot Springs

We took a trip to Granite Hot Springs last weekend. Granite is a swimming pool located in the Wyoming mountains. The pool is fed by a hot spring. I've been going to this place since I was a little kid. It's still just as much fun as it was then. Folks ride snow machines in during the winter and swim surrounded by snow. The pool is even hotter in the winter months. It's a beautiful place! It's about 30 minutes south of Jackson Hole. It rained a lot while were there. It was a bit cold, but the rain made everything so green. We did get rained on in the pool but that really doesn't matter. We were snowed on in the pool last June! It was a great weekend with the family (or most of the family anyway).

I really like this picture of Chris. :)

World Wide Knit in Public Day Of Course

If you aren't interested in things that involve yarn, feel free to move along . . . . :)

Saturday was World Wide Knit in Public Day. When I say World Wide, it really is. It happens the second Saturday of June each year. Groups gather all over the world to knit. A public display of craftiness if you will. A small gang of us gathered early at the local Starbucks and then joined a larger gang for the better part of the day at the local craft store. It was a fun day with some lovely ladies. Fun, laughter, knitting, good weather, and prizes! What's not to love?

My First Post

I keep thinking I need to start a blog but I've been too lazy for years to do anything about it. Well today, I decided to take the plunge. Here it is. Nothing special really but a way for me to keep track of my life. And most importantly, a way for me to post pictures of the people and stuff that I love. And for my very first photo debut on this not so exciting blog I give you my very favorite tiny human. My grandbaby P.J.! Oh and P.J. is a girl despite what you might have thought by her camo outfit.