Mother's Day

Despite getting snow for the second Mother's Day in a row, it was a pretty great day with my crew. After breakfast and homemade cards, we went to church and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the afternoon. We had a low key evening at home and a fun Skype chat with Grandma and Grandpa Gilbert to round out the day.

My People - this was the best we could do.

I am so grateful to be the mama of three amazing kids, but couldn't be so without my own amazing mama. Thank you, Mom, for the example you've set, and your constant love and support.

Life is Brutiful

A couple situations have occurred recently (two just this morning) that serve as good examples of daily life with Myles. I want to document them to increase others’ understanding of our life, but more so for a future reminder to myself. As Myles makes progress, which he is continually doing, situations like these may become a thing of the past, and I like to remind myself how far we have come.

While Myles is our heart and soul, and such an amazing kid, living life with him can be frustrating, for both him and us. Some of it is due to his cognitive disability, decreased impulse control, and limited executive functioning. But most of it stems from communication struggles, which have less to do with his cognition, and much more to do with his delayed expressive language. Myles is a smart kid trapped inside a body and mind that won’t always work the way he wants them to. Although he knows what he is trying to communicate, the message can’t make its way clearly from his brain to his mouth, leaving him with no words. He has augmented his communication to include approximations, signs, gestures, and still uses his electronic communication device, but none of these other strategies can completely fill the void of having such limited ability to talk.

At breakfast this morning I dished up Myles his usual vanilla yogurt (he has vanilla yogurt and toast everyday), and gave Sydney and Ryker a container of flavored yogurt. It’s somewhat unusual for me to buy individual containers of yogurt, as we typically just get a bulk container and scoop them out a bowl of the same kind. Historically, Myles has not liked the flavored varieties, so I gave him vanilla while the others got their own container. Myles refused to come to the counter and pushed the yogurt away to the point that it almost fell onto the floor. Cue Not-Happy-Mama. I thought Myles was frustrated that I wasn’t allowing him to have the iPad during breakfast. This would be a typical thing he would be annoyed with, and a typical response would be to refuse to come to the table. I harped on him many times to sit and eat. Eventually, after Sydney and Ryker were finished, and I had instructed Myles over and over to come, he picked up Ryker’s spoon and started to scrape the remaining flavored yogurt out to eat. It clicked then as it often does in a simple moment. Myles wanted the same yogurt as his siblings. Cue the Feeling-Guilty-Mama. I apologized to Myles that I didn’t understand what he wanted (the part that always makes me want to cry), and opened up another container of the flavored variety, which Myles happily sat for, and he proceeded to finish his whole breakfast without incident. I was a little surprised that Myles didn’t indicate earlier that he wanted the other yogurt variety. Even with limited language, he can be a very effective communicator. But I think he gets tired and frustrated with it too, and sometimes it’s easier to sit and be sad than it is to be persistent (especially when your mom is harping on you).

Awhile later, Gilby had left with the younger two and Myles and I were waiting for the school bus. After he was all ready to go, he wandered back up to his room. I asked him a few different times to come down as I expected the bus to arrive any minute. At one point, he came out of his room with a pair of shorts and held them up as if to tell me what he was doing. I assumed he was changing clothes, because again, that would be a typical Myles thing to do. I yelled up that he needed to stay in pants because it was too cold for shorts, and he had to come down now before the bus arrived. I reminded him to be a good listener, yada yada yada. He still didn’t come, so I went up to redirect him back downstairs as I assumed he just wasn’t listening to me (par for the course with him). When I got up to his room, I realized he had taken a pile of his clean, folded clothes from our room and was putting them away in his dresser, even in all of the right drawers. He was actually being extremely sweet, independent, and helpful. I praised him for being a good helper, but still felt guilty that just a moment earlier I couldn’t understand my own child. With a simple statement like, “Coming Mom, I’m putting my clothes away first,” that I’m not sure when or if Myles will ever be able to say, the whole situation would have been different.

And a third example - a bit more lighthearted and comical. These types of situations happen all the time and I have to laugh, just because. Myles has given me a gift in helping me to not take anything in life too seriously, even myself, or my attempts to keep my house clean and the paper towels on the actual paper towel holder...

See the drop of water on the booster seat in the top picture? Myles wanted to help clean it up, so he went to grab a paper towel, or two, or even just the whole roll. Whatever works, Buddy.

This sort of thing actually makes up most of our days. Stories we can look back on that become funny, even if they didn't seem so in the moment. 

At times, parenting each of my kids is hard, exhausting, leaves me impatient, selfish, worried, anxious, and guilt-ridden, but parenting Myles has taken each of those things to a greater level. As I have stated before, the journey may never be easy, but it is always worth it. An author I like says that life is both Beautiful and Brutal, it’s Brutiful.

Myles in Kindergarten

Kindergarten 

2014-2015

Teacher: Mrs. Collier

Special Ed Teacher: Mrs. Davis

Best Friends: Jasper & Paige

Favorite Subjects: library, PE, music, recess

Overall Myles had a great year with a lot of maturity as a learner. He is still a somewhat reluctant student, but cheerful, friendly, and well behaved. He was included in his general education class 100% of the time and had a para assistant available to him as needed. Myles was well received by his classmates and made gains socially with some strong peer role models. He is excellent at being independent with the school and classroom routine, but needs his academic work modified and benefits from having an adult to help him stay on task at times or redirect him to what he supposed to be doing. While he enjoys being at school, Myles would almost always prefer to spend the day at home with family! We are so glad that we chose to retain Myles in kindergarten for a second year in a full day class, and feel that he is much better prepared for first grade. We are proud of our boy!

Movie Night

Homemade pizza and a movie on a Friday night. It's the small things...

All About April

So I managed to go the whole month of April without blogging. Oops! It was a very busy month, and we ended up slightly over-committed and worn out. But, with May comes a lighter schedule and more scheduled family time. Yay!

Some sweet and fun moments in April...

Big brother pushing little brother on the swing.

Mancation 2.0: Will, Gilby, Todd and Greg. A weekend up in the mountains for these old friends skiing, shooting, eating meat, watching movies, and spending quality man-time together. Gilby knows them all from his days leading The Ascent youth group in Golden. Todd and Greg were regular volunteers and Will was one of the youth who we met when he was only 12. He's now 22!

 
When Ryker started shooting this ball at the park I just couldn't stop thinking about how tall he'd be someday. Our littlest guy is growing up so fast.

A typical spring day in Colorado, snow in the morning and sunny and 50 degrees by afternoon.

Sydney snuggled up with a book and her "Great Grandma blankie," which is what she calls this special blanket my grandma made for her when she was born.

Sydney and my mom's conversation recently that had Grandma cracking up -

Sydney: "I can count to the last number."
Grandma: "Guess what, they say numbers go on forever. That's call infinite."
Sydney: "Not this time."

And a cute story about the outfit above. After Sydney had put it on, she came downstairs and asked me, "Does this look cute, Mom?" "So cute, Sydney." "I know, I was laughing the whole time I was putting it on!" It made me chuckle. She has such a fun personality and doesn't take life too seriously. 

More updates to come in May!

Easter 2015

A low key Easter with our family at church, lunch with Grandma and Grandpa, fun with multiple egg hunts, and joy in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus. A blessed day!