backgroud

Friday, July 25, 2008

How Gabe sees it...

We see a screen door. Gabe is more amazed at how it feels. Running his fingers across the screen feels so neat. We see a TV that's turned off. Gabe see's a wonderful opertunity to paint it with his tongue. We see a match box car. Gabe see's every tiny detail right down to the little number 3 on the door or the flames on the hood. Water coming out of a sprinkler looks awesome if you bend down to just the right level. A cupcake should never be cut in half. And spinning in a circle on Grandma's office chair is amazing as the different colors zoom by.

What's so wrong with running your fingers across the screen door? Or spinning around in a chair for 20min at a time? I don't know. But some people find that weird. Me, I am amazed by how much Gabe see's that we don't. Every feather on a bird, the detail in a painting, the perfect shadown on the wall, the way you can line up toy cars in just the right way to make a square.

Gabe is one neat kid. I am so proud to call him my son. He has been so great the past two days. I almost forgot he was autistic until tonight. We went to my dad's for dinner and there were more people there then I knew were coming. If there are going to be a lot of people I usually tell Gabe. Today I didn't know. He burried his head so far into my leg I thought we were going to need the jaws of life to get him out. He refused to stay on the deck with these strange people. He spent most of the evening on the grass. Finally he came up on the deck with us but he spent a lot of his time in his little world. My dad would talk to him but there was no responce. He just sat and blew the pinwheel my step mom gave him. Of course there were fleeting moments of coherent Gabe but they were quickly lost. I could see the look on my dad's neighbors face when she tried to give Gabe sunglasses. He turned completly away from her with a blank look on his face. And in that split second I read her mind and it said, "wonder what's wrong with him?". And my heart broke.

Autism isn't like cerbral palsy. No one can see it. Gabe is the little boy that doesn't talk well, is bad, doesn't listen, can't sit still, and even worse dumb. The sad thing is he can talk in his head. He knows what he wants to say. But he can't say it. He does listen but he doesn't always hear everything that we are saying. Sitting still isn't easy when the world if full of exciting and wonderful things. And he is definatly not a dumb child. Sometimes I feel like yelling to the world...please be patient...Gabe has autism...but would the world really listen?....

This is a long road...but Gabe is going to do great things...I just know it...

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Going to the beach

Gabe watches Noggin all the time. And all summer long it has been a beach theme. So, this weekend we are taking Gabe to the beach. Just a one day thing nothing big. I can't wait to see what he does when he gets in the sand! Oh those senses will love that. Mr. Sensory Seeker should be so happy. The last time he was at the beach he was about 18 months old and he didn't really care for the sand or the ocean. Wonder how he will do this time?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Our SpringBoard arrived

Yay!! Gabe's new talker to try out has finally arrived. We have been waiting for awhile now. This time I set it up so has to make sentences with his talker. Before he only had to hunt pictures. Now he has to do some real digging to get what he wants. The amazing thing is he already made a senstence. "I like swimming" was his first sentence he made with no help from me. I don't know how he picks up on this stuff so quickly. I can't wait to see all the things he does with it. We get to keep this talker till Sept. So we have some time to play and figure things out.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Happy Birthday

Today is Jasmine's birthday. The big 17! I can't believe that. I am getting so old. She was 9 when Matt and I started dating. July is a busy month for birthdays in our family. My sister in law shares a bday with Jasmine and my bday is on the
18th. What a busy month.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Tip toe...tip toe....

I have noticed that Gabe has been up on his tip toes a lot this week. This is something we don't see very often. I am wondering if his sensory issues are really bothering him. He ran around the pool today way up on those toes when he wasn't in the water. He LOVES the pool so much. He finally jumps in all by himself. That's good and bad becasue now he has no fear anymore so we have to keep an extra close eye on him. My family is great at helping watch for Gabe. My mom and Aunt get paranoid even if he is two inches away. It is nice having the extra eyes around.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

and the frustration mounts...

We had to send back the demo Vantage that we were using for Gabe. He has been horrible since sending his device back. He tries desperatly to tell us what he wants but ends up screaming and crying when we don't understand. I knew the talker was helping but jeeze I didn't realise it was helping that much. I am kind of glad to see the difference because it will help us decide if we should really buy a device or not.

Yesterday was so bad for Gabe. He spent most of the day crying and telling me no, no, no. It didn't matter what I tried to do for him he just was unhappy. Today isn't turning out any better. I made him peanut butter toast this morning and he ate one piece and told me more. He still had one piece left on his plate but refused to eat it. Then he decided it would be a good idea to put the toast on the floor and roll it under his feet. So I threw the yucky toast away and started to make more. For some reason the piece on his plate was "contaminated" and he wasn't eating it. But when I threw it away he screamed bloody murder. Needless to say I was loosing my cool. So I made him a new piece and said "This is it, you don't eat this one and there is no more." He ate it...ugh...what was wrong with that other piece? I will never know. Sometimes I just don't get it...why couldn't he eat that other piece before he played footsies with it?

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Tomato Soup

We had tomato soup and toasted cheese for dinner tonight. Gabe decided it would be fun to crunch all of his crackers in his soup but not eat either. He then decided his brand new car would love to take a "bath" in his cracker mushed tomato soup. Ugh. He also thought shoving an entire half of a toasted cheese in his mouth would be a great idea. It doesn't matter if you can breathe, right? I am always amazed at the elasticity of Gabe's mouth. And that we haven't had to call 911 for choking. Today I caught Gabe with woody wood pecker in his mouth, a car, and one of his word whacker letters. Nothing in the house is safe. Not even the cat.

Gabe spent two hours today playing with a new toy his aunt got him. It is a car maze. The cars go around and around up the hill and back down. He loves to lay on the floor and just watch the cars going around. He played with it for hours yesterday. He finally stopped playing with after lunch today. But he has to hold the little cars for it all the time. They took a bath with him and went ot the store with him today. I wonder if he will start kindy with having to take a car with him. Better yet I wonder if he will be a grown man and still carrying around a little car?

All about my monkey family

I have three monkey's in my house and one monkey on the way. The first monkey is the oldest monkey...his name is Matt aka daddy. Monkey number two is going to be 17 soon and her name is Jasmine. The third monkey is Gabe and probably more monkey then the rest of them. I am Jessie...and some days I really do feel like I am in a zoo!!

I have known Matt for more then 7 years now. He is the greatest dad in the world. He loves his children and life. Matt is an avid guitar player. He plays acoustic guitar as well as electric. He also plays piano and records music. Along with being a great musician comes those artistic traits. My mother always warned me to stay away from musicians :-). I can't imagine life without Matt.

Jasmine is my step daughter who is also very artistic. She can draw very well. Jasmine has bipolar disorder which is something that took me a long time to understand. Despite having a hard time with her disorder she has shined through the fog. I couldn't be more proud of her. She loves dolphins and I would love to take her to swim with the dolphins. She always wants to help everyone and wears her heart on her sleeve. Not always a good thing in this world we live in.

Gabriel is my three year old little monkey that loves to climb, climb, climb. There isn't much he is afraid of these days. Gabe loves everything cars, powdered doughnuts, and chocolate milk. He is also turning out to be a little artist. Definitely a trait from his daddy. Gabe has sensory processing disorder, apraxia of speech, and autism spectrum disorder. He is truly an amazing kid. There is never a dull moment in our house. NEVER.

Now onto the monkey in progress. I am 3 months prego with my second child. I am very excited and sending out pink baby dust in the hopes for a little girl. I just want to buy baby dolls and little cute dresses. I am tired of cars and iron man!

There is also another member in our family. Mr. Milo the cat...who thinks he is the master of this house. Milo has some sensory issues of his own. He can't eat any other cat food beside IAMS kitten food even though he will be turning two in October. He also is obsessed with my hair ties. He hides them under the couch. One day I was cleaning under the couches and I found at least 30 hair ties under it!! Milo is also madly in love with a stuffed Kermit the frog. It use to be Gabe's Kermit but Milo took ownership.

Oh, and I guess I should add a little about me. I play violin and I am not near as talented at music as Matt. But I love to play none the less. Some days I feel insane dealing with all of Gabe's therapy, Jasmines issues, Matt's artistic ways, and the cat doing the dirty with Kermit! There are times when I could pull my hair out. But at the end of the day I sit back and look at my wonderful family and all they have to offer...and I realize I am one of the luckiest mom's in the world. I love all my monkeys...and my zoo!!