Beautiful

 

If you click on the individual pictures, you can see them better.

 

 

I found the perfect fishing spot, you could even see fish swimming

around down there on the sand bar. Some time we will have to find a babysitter,

 and than hike down along this river and spend an evening fishing. 

 

 

It is so hard to get kids to sit still and smile for a picture. I have ten or more pictures of this shot, and this is the only one where all three of us are sort of smiling and sitting still. Ethan was very unsure about sitting on the dirt... probably because of the snake we saw early on in the hike, as well as my thinking I got a tick on my arm (I brushed it off, but Ethan was sure every bug thereafter was a tick... though I refrained from explaining exactly what a tick was because then he would REALLY obsess over it, lol). He loved hiking back down from the falls, he ran pretty much the whole way pretending to be a ninja/iron man/batman/transformer the whole way down, and exclaiming after every jump off a rock "wasn't I awesome?!"

 

kerplop

I was bending over the creek, pulling the hoses through the trees on the other side of the creek, when a branch snagged my glasses and kerplop! they were gone. No time to react, just gone. I panicked and dropped down to feel the creek bed, hoping they sank, but as soon as I plunged my arms into the cold water I knew that the current had swept them away.

I ran up and down the creek to the storm drain, hoping I would see them through the murky water. You know, without the aid of my glasses to see through the murky water. I realized I would have to walk up and down the entire creek bed feeling with my hands, and hoping and praying that they snagged on something. It was not pleasant.

After going up and down it twice, I finally found them under the gate that separates the front yard from the back yard (the second time I had searched under there). I was reaching far under and felt a piece of them and about burst into tears.

I'm grateful that my prayer was answered. With the amount of things that I have lost over the years, with the same kerplop type suddenness, it was nice to find that important item when I prayed for it. Especially when you can't afford to replace them.

staying put

In anticipation of our home selling, we starting to look for a slightly bigger place to rent than our current basement apartment. I can not find anything. At all. Yesterday, we went to look at a trailer home that was supposed to be in an ideal location up in the canyon, with plenty of "lawn" for the kids to run around, and was 3 bedroom. After going through the trailer, both Ryan and I agreed that we had an ominous feeling about the place. Perhaps it was the broken doors (or lack of in the case of the kids room)... or the duct tape holding things together... or the "lawn" that really was weeds. And they wanted 900. We both decided we would rather be in a tiny, basement apartment for 3-5 years if it meant we could save enough to build our dream home.

So, here is what we are thinking for our dream home, and no, it will not be western themed inside:

 this one seems pretty practical.

this one is just awesome.

 

I love the open, centrally focused floor plans of log style homes. I also like how they are efficient in their use of space, and have such a simple beauty to them. Our plan is to save enough for a 20%+ down payment on a 15 year mortgage, and have the monthly payments be 25% of our monthly take home. Yes. I follow Dave Ramsey. :)

A final diagnoses

I took Ethan into Salt Lake on Tuesday for a three hour appointment at the Autism Spectrum Clinic at the University of Utah,  and they diagnosed him with Autism (most people know it as Aspergers, but apparently the scientific community is trying to get away from that title, and instead prefer to say that they register on the autism spectrum). They also think that he additionally does have ADD, but that we just need to try out other medicines (and in very small doses).

I am overwhelmed at the moment with all that we will need to teach him, but it is comforting to know that we can and will do it. Before we had hoped he would eventually pick things up on his own, with some teaching and coaching, but now we know he needs intense instruction done the correct way.

He struggles mainly in the social functioning area, so my biggest concern is bullying--from kids as well as adults. It is inevitable, and has already begun. It makes me happy to know that most adults who have worked one on one with Ethan absolutely love him--what's not to love? He is so sweet and cuddly (it is sweet and funny when he sits next to woman with long hair [so far luckily it has only been family members], leans on them and absent-mindedly plays with their hair. it often takes them by surprise), and he is happy and endearing. His laugh is so contagious.

However, there have been some adults who treat him like he is a bad kid, a nuisance, or deficient as a result of what we now know is autism. Some have even treated him like he was slow in intelligence, or mentally handicapped.

I love my sister Heather, because her response to that is the best, "you shouldn't treat anyone that way, even kids who ARE mentally handicapped". EXACTLY!! There are also kids who are starting to pick up on the strange things he does, and have begun being mean or excluding him as a result.

So, my goals are that I'm going to write down a list of everything he struggles with, and put it in order of priority.

Off the top of my head, friends and speech therapy are at the top of the list.

The psychologist told me she felt that the speech people at school needed to stop focusing on pronunciation, and work more on sentence structure and grammar--so that he can carry on conversations with adults and peers. He has come a long way in speech, however he still struggles with communicating, and most adults and peers can not understand him very well. It is very frustrating for him wanting to communicate and not being able to.

I have also decided I am going to do everything in my power to get him a group of friends, just by setting up different play dates throughout the summer. We don't have room right now in our apartment to have anyone over, but I figured we could do other things like invite several boys to go to the movies, etc.

There are so many little things that are big that go in line with just these two goals, though, like helping Ethan learn social etiquette, personal space, helping him learn adult's and kid's names, etc. (It took him until the end of the school year to tell me a couple names of kids in his class, and he still has no clue who is in church class).

I have also started doing P90X every day with him, and he loves it and has been so happy a result. I stop during every exercise and work with him with his balance and coordination, etc. because he really struggles doing basic exercises most kids can do. I plan on working at teaching him how to do sports (he has done sports, but he needs focused instruction), because I think sports offer a chance at friendship and social interaction that he needs.

At least we won't have to worry about them removing him from his IEP like they were going to do in Burley right before we left.

I will be contacting the schools to see what options we have for therapy. I'm also going to make sure his second grade teacher is the best one for him.

I don't know why it takes me by surprise, but I really do find it very interesting to see how each child develops differently from each other even when placed in the same situations and environment. Violet has amazing handwriting, though she has started to get a bit lazy on it since it isn't a challenge. She has even memorized how to write her name, though sometimes the letters are mixed up or sometimes she inserts her own gibberish of lines and squiggles. She has held writing/drawing utensils correctly since the first day she picked one up. She is very interactive with her environment, and such a happy girl. Most of the time she is content as long as she is near me. However, she is three years old and still can not seem to get the numbers in the right order (even just doing 1-3), and she does not know her alphabet. I have started trying to spend more time teaching her, though it is much different than it was with Ethan. Ethan picks everything up the first time you tell him. At this age Ethan would walk around Grandpa Anderson's yard counting flowers. Lately he has started getting into board games, and will play Risk, Monopoly, Ticket to Ride, and other games with Ryan and I, or by himself. Sometimes he plays correctly by himself, other times he makes up his own game. He also excelled at math and reading in school, getting a High to High/Average in both categories. At the same time, though, he still can not hold a pencil, fork, etc. correctly and I have to constantly remind him not to eat with his hands, and his writing is horrible, and he still struggles tying his shoes. And, at Violets age he definitely did not come close to writing his name. He didn't even like drawing or writing at all unless there was a purpose (still the same today). It reinforces in my mind the truth that it doesn't matter what each kid excels at in comparison to other kids, because each kid has their own skills and talents, and as parents and teachers I think we need to recognize and celebrate that more often than we do.

more doctor visits

Ethan had an adverse reaction to his ADD medicine (he has been SUPER emotional lately), and it did not actually help him at all. I have been watching him closely, and researching, and I have realized that I was probably wrong in discounting the autism diagnosis. I had thought that in order to have Autism or Aspergers you had to have the majority of the symptoms, but I guess you can have several of the symptoms and still have it. His doctor thinks it is very likely he has high functioning autism, or Aspergers, rather than ADD, and I think he is right. He said that high functioning Autism actually often looks like ADD and is misdiagnosed as such. I had put off taking him to specialists, because I had wanted to try out the ADD route and see if that was what it was. I will go ahead and get him into a pediatric psychologist in Salt Lake, if I can. I am worried about what this all means, but I know that he is such a sweet, smart boy, and everything will work out.

And.... the poor kid has a dentist appointment tomorrow. His 6 year molars came in with zero enamel on them, probably caused by when he was really sick and had the febral seizures around 14 months old. So, they are rotting and will eventually need to be pulled. The dentist is going in tomorrow to see how bad they are, and if they need to be pulled now or if they can wait. Ethan is not happy about seeing the dentist, because he knows they are going to be giving him shots in the mouth. I'm trying to help him prepare and not be upset and scared, but it isn't working so far. fun stuff.

Pictures

Fishing and picnic trip we took this morning up in the mountains. It was very hard to take pictures of Violet, because she is never still long enough, and she almost always refuses to look at the camera. She was very happy collecting sticks and rocks, and Ethan had fun fishing with Dad. You can click on each picture to see it more clearly.