Feeling blessed.

Some nights, when I'm feeling nostalgic, I find myself perusing old blog posts.

This blog is pretty old. It was created B.A. (before autism). Crazy, right? It's been here through the diagnosis, the 'tough years' (to put it incredibly lightly) and the awesome progress that we have been privileged to see.

A couple of things struck me tonight.

First, it's *amazing* what we forget. Things that seemed SO HUGE back then, the horrible stuff... I don't even remember it now. Without this blog to remind me, it's like it never even happened. This is stuff I thought I'd never make it through, and now it's nothing. That is crazy. Screaming spells. Knocking things off walls and flipping furniture. The Hubs and I were talking about how weird it is that we didn't remember it until I re-read it, or we didn't remember it at all. Supports the whole autism/PTSD theory!

Looking through those old posts, I realized how far JT has come. He is nothing short of phenomenal.

Never talk? Intellectual disability? WRONG. JT is slowly phasing out of his self-contained classroom with the goal being him in a mainstream classroom all day. His teacher has said she sees him not needing special education in a few years.

How nuts is that? Our kid was diagnosed as moderate/severe, and he is in a mainstream classroom or the resource room most of his day. He went to regular summer camp this year and did great. He is taking gymnastics at a gym that has zero experience with special needs kids, but the instructor says he'd love to have JT in his class because he did 'fantastic'.

We are blessed. Lucky. Beyond measure.

JT is a miracle in progress. All it takes is one night browsing old posts to remind me how far he has come, and how bright his future really is.

When things don't go as planned.

This past week, we signed Audrey up for taekwondo. We also agreed on a 2-week trial for JT.

Last week he did decent in class. There were some instances where he had to be redirected, but nothing huge.

Fast forward to today. Things did not even go semi-okay. He wasn't listening at all. Doing random stuff while the instructor attempted to teach.

Finally he started rolling on the floor.

I went and got him and walked him to the back of the room. It was a mortifying 'walk of shame' to the front of the room in front of all the parents sitting in the back watching their 3-5 year olds participate.

This time I didn't cry. I clenched my jaw and took a deep breath. When I got him to the back of the room, I calmly explained he would not be doing karate again, and we discussed what good listening skills.

I'm not stressing about it as much as I once would have. The moment is over. It's done. We won't have to do it again.

I'm just hoping gymnastics tomorrow goes better for Mr. JT. He is so excited about it, he has been begging to go. They have never dealt with special needs kids, though, so I'm a little worried about that. He will have to behave well in order for them to allow him to continue after his trial tomorrow.

So cross your fingers for us, pray, send us positive vibes... We can REALLY use them.

Week 1 of Back to School - SUCCESS

HOORAY!!!

Week 1 of the kids' school is done, and we are settling into our routine. We have martial arts 2 nights (for Audrey, JT is trying for 2 weeks to see if he'll do well in the class), Audrey has gymnastics 1 night, and I have class 2 nights.


In a news flash, grad school is really freaking hard. I LOVE it, and the material is awesome. But it is very difficult.

I start work in the pre-k class next week, and I am SUPER excited. We seriously have the cutest, sweetest kids ever in there. It will be a fun year!

Audrey loves gymnastics. She is really good at it. At her class last week, The Hubs sent me a text that said, "We should have never dropped gymnastics for her. She's good at this." She had a BLAST, too.
She ROCKS at martial arts. The guy doing their new student evaluations asked if she'd been trained somewhere else. She was really THAT good. I was super proud.

JT is a crazy hilarious kid. At their new student eval he preferred to take the craziest approach possible to hit a pad. However, the majority of the time he did listen and try to comply. I think he will do exponentially better in a group class when other kids are all performing the same things. I made the call to put JT in the 3-5 year old class (instead of the 6-8 year old). He acts more like the lower age group, and when I asked insisted he wanted to be in the little kid class. It will help him because he won't feel out of place (believe it or not) and

the instructors will be accustomed to his behavior in the lower age range classes, too. He's not out of control, just immature.

Hopefully it works out, if not, it wasn't mean to be... we'll just find something else JT would like to do. We did find something else Audrey LOVES in the process (you have never seen a kid hit a pad with so much enthusiasm as she did I promise you), and something that will help with her self-confidence for sure.

Sibling Love.

Updates :)

This fall, Audrey will be starting gymnastics and swim lessons (to get her proficient in Olympic strokes in preparation for swim team in Spring).

JT will be doing some sort of martial arts.

Add to it a crazy grad school schedule (did you know that 12+ hours of study is the norm per week for each course? That means I will be spending 24 hours a week on classwork!) and TD and 1st grade and we are going to be in for a wild (but fun!) ride.

I've completed my first week of classes, and I will definitely be challenged by my schoolwork. However, I am VERY excited to get started. The material is so interesting and fun to me.

In other news, we got the kids' teacher assignments today.

Audrey's class seems to be very TD (gifted) oriented, which will be awesome for her.
JT's teacher is new to the school. She has a double Bachelor's in elementary ed and special ed (awesome). She has a Master's in Literacy (double awesome, that's where he really struggles!).

It should be a wonderful school year for all of us!

New beginning... tomorrow!!!

Tomorrow is the beginning of my Graduate career.

I am SO excited to start on my MAT in Special Education. SO. EXCITED.

For 5+ years I've been saying I want to do this, but never had 'the right time'.

The right time is here, and the hard work begins!

Cross your fingers and send positive thoughts!

My amazing daughter, the environmentalist.

image found here

Audrey is Audrey.

I've never met anyone remotely like her.

She is strong willed, stubborn (okay, like me) and very determined to make this world a better place.

Thursday, walking into Target we saw a ton of paper trash along the sidewalk into the store.

As we're walking in, she starts picking it up.

I'll admit, my first reaction was, "Audrey, put that down. It's trash." I may have been slightly mortified she was holding trash.

She responded, "It's trash that doesn't belong here. I want to make the world a better place momma."

{I should mention here that trash is one of her big pet peeves... she is so concerned with the environment and animals.}

You can't argue with that.

As I approached the trash can at the entrance of Target, I had also picked up a ton of trash to toss in. Audrey had more. We couldn't get it all, but we grabbed what we could.

The bigger story is the people who were right behind us. They were fairly close; close enough to hear our discussion and Audrey's insistence on bettering the world (and to hear my nervous giggles about picking up trash).

As we walked in, I turned around and watched as they dropped handfuls of trash in the bins.

They smiled at us and nodded. They were doing the right thing because of my 8 year old.

She makes me a better person. She makes strangers better people.

She is amazing Audrey.

I am so blessed.