BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY

I remember pretty vividly the day Coleman was born. My water broke in the middle of the night, my sweet friend Dacy who was on call, came over to be with my other two kids. And it was a blizzard of snow outside. It took us at least double the time to get to the hospital. Everything went well and easy, just like the other two and we went home with Coleman having a little jaundice. The next day we took him to get tested for his jaundice levels and he ended up having to stay in the hospital two more nights under the lights, where he screamed most of the nights. Before I was going to take him home, I was on the hospital bed with him and had a moment with him that I knew I wouldn't forget. It was a just a powerful feeling that he was a very special little boy who Heavenly Father sent to us. I know that it doesn't sound much different than what any mother would have with her new born child, but I knew it was different. At least different for me compared to the births of my first two.

He grew up very normal and right on target developmentally, but he was a little more fussy. He loved books and could tell me what everything was, his animals, colors etc.. After he turned two, I remember thinking he wasn't quite where he should be. When I showed him toys he would sometimes ignore me and he just liked his certain things. I would joke around with Chad saying that I think he's deaf. But then again, that can be very "boy" normal. He just kept getting bigger and more and more tempermental, and I started to think he was just a little immature for his age. So when I went in for his 3 yr. check up, I told my pediatrition my concerns. As I watched her try to interact with him, he never looked at her and it took a lot of effort to get him to do what she asked. Physically he was right on target, but socially not so much. My doctor said, " I think he is fine, but did autism cross my mind?.., yes." The words hit me in the gut, thinking that there was no way. When I brought him into this same office when he was two, I filled out this paper about Autism and if he had any signs. I remember marking no for every one of them and the same doctor said, "oh this is just routine stuff to ask, but I can tell that Coleman is totally fine." After that I trusted her to catch him up on his shots, and he got 4 jabs, 6 immunizations. He did have a fever for almost a week and his legs were swollen, but hey, they say that is normal.

My pediatrition sent me to a Developmental doctor and I started to go through our school system to have him tested. The first school testing I took him to was not good. They took him in by himself to do the tests, and when I came in, the first thing they said was that they were very concerned. He couldn't tell them what shapes or animals were that they asked, but I thought to myself, "he knows those things at home." I could hardley hold back my tears when they were talking to me and when I left, I just cried and cried in the car. At least Chad was the strong one. His attitude was that Coleman was going to be fine no matter what the outcome. It was who he was and he came that way for a reason. He was the same sweet little boy who we loved, no matter what is development problems were.
After all this stuff started happening, I would see something about Autism somwhere every week. One sunday, I opened the newspaper, and the Parade magazine cover page was something like, "AUTISIM, is there any hope." I threw the paper down and went into the other room and cried. After that cry, I haven't cried about it until now that I am typing this.
We took him to the Developmental Pediatrition, he had us do a test, and after 4-6 weeks time, Chad took him back to the doctor for the results. Chad called me on his way home, told me that Coleman was High Functioning Autistic and the doctor gave us some papers and pretty much sent us on our way to do the work ourselves. By that time, I was almost relieved to know what we were dealing with and now I knew what to research. Coleman started preschool, and after the first day of screaming the whole time, he did great after that. The teachers were great and had such high hopes for him. We moved to Colorado shortly after, so the transition throughout the summer and getting moved in was a little rocky for Coleman.

Now he is in school again, and is doing so well. Academically he is advanced and we laugh at how he knows just as much or more of things than his 5 yr. old brother. He of course needs help socially and things like waiting his turn are not easy, but I think he functions pretty well. I don't think Coleman is a whole lot different until I get around other 3 yr. olds and see how they talk and how freely their conversations run. Little Colme has a pretty scripted vocabulary.

We found a DAN! doctor and after weeks and weeks of collecting urin, stool, blood, hair, and more and more blood, we will have a lot of knowledge of what is going on in his body. We meet with the doctor in a couple weeks to go over everything and we will start the Vit. B12 shots. I'm excited to see him continue to get better and better.



I have been thinking about writing about this for a while now. Mostly to get things documented and I knew the process of writing things out would be good for me. A while ago I was talking to my friend about different trials people go through and how we stand in awe about what people deal with in life. She asked me how I felt about Colemans autisim, and if I felt it was a trial. I honestly never really viewed it as a trial. Especially when I think about how much more other families have to deal with. Starting a gluten and dairy free diet will not be easy, but really very trivial to what things could be. I feel really blessed beyond measure for what I have. I have four beautiful children and a husband who really acts like the mom more than I do. He not only works hard in his job, but comes home and can make up for anything I have missed in the craziness of the day. He reads to the kids, helps them with their homework and still finds time to play, wrestle, jump on the tramp, and then run them to Karate or mini-poms. We truly have nothing to complain about, but all to be grateful for. I appreciate all my family and good friends who helped me throughout this process with Coleman. For all those who watched my other kids while we had doctor appointments and who were there just to listen. THANK YOU!

HALLOWEEN

Since things have been a little crazy and with Chad being out of town, we didn't get around to carving pumpkins until about one hour before we went out trick-or-treating. Everything was a little rushed and Mckenna didn't do well with our rushing to get ready and taking pictures, that she had a melt down. So bad that we threatened her to miss some trick-or-treating time, which just made things worse. I was tempted to tell her that she wouldn't go at all, but I couldn't be that mean. She was so emotional, she ended up telling us she didn't want to go at all. I took the boys out down the street and came back for Mckenna but she just walked with me and refused to go get any candy. I guess that was her way of showing us who was in control! The boys went down the other side of our street and when they passed our house again, they ran in to show dad their candy and they said they were done. I think this was the first year we came home without buckets full of sugar. It's probably best, since Chad and I are the ones to steal most of it away. Mileys favorite part was sitting by the door playing with the bowl full of candy. She litterally played with candy bowl most of the night. She didn't get anything open, so she didn't know what she was missing out on.

Mckenna Saves the Night

While on our little vacation in St. George, Grandma and Grandpa S. were nice enough to let Chad and I go see Les Miserables at the Tuachauan (which I can't spell) It is a beautiful outdoor theater. It turned out to be a very cold night, into the
40's but who's complaining when you can wrap up in blankets and snuggle. Well the play was wonderful but the best thing was to get back to Grandmas house and find out how the night went. I knew Miley would not like us leaving her and I knew she would cry, I was just hoping it wouldn't be for the whole 3 plus hours. So when we came home, Yvonne told us how Miley was histerical for at least 30-40 min. She wouldn't calm down for anyone. Our aunt Pat was there too with her husband and none of the adults could calm her down. Finally Yvonne said to Mckenna that she had to take over. Mckenna took her into the other room, watched an Einstien movie and I guess they were in there laughing and playing. So after a while, Mckenna layed her down, sang her songs and came out to all the adults and said, "she's asleep now." Needless to say, they were all very thankful. Aunt Pat gave her a dollar and grandpa said he would buy her a razor scooter the next day. The boys got scooters too of course. Grandma said the boys were so easy, they came out after their movie and Caden said, "what time is it?" Grandma told him it was 8:30 and he said, "I gotta go to bed, come on Coleman," and off they went and put themselves to bed.
I think Ken and Yvonne may be up to watching the kids the next time we see them.

Going on TRACKS to the Mall

It was a beautiful day to go on tracks and shop around at the gateway. My sisters girls are older so they can all fend for themselves and enjoy shopping. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time just being with everyone, eating lunch and watching then run through the fountain. But the shopping part was, well I guess you could say didn't happen. I waited outside each store with boys while they played with my camera and ran into the nice people walking around. Chad was happy that I came home without spending a dime!

Grandpas Football Game

The kids had a two week fall break from school, so we thought we would go see one of Grandpas football games, Just in case retirement comes soon and we wouldn't have a chance to see another. It was a lot cooler than normal but we survived, well at least the girls survived until half time then we went to put the baby down to nap.
Caden and Chad lasted until the end they even WON! When I asked Caden how the game was, he said it was great and the best part was going to grandpas office after and getting candy!

The Difference Between Boys and Girls

While we were at the Gateway with Grandma K. and our cousins, Mckenna and her cousin Natalee really wanted to get a build-a-bear. The mean mom that I am said no and I didn't want to spend that much money on a stuffed animal. So after some whining and tears, guess who jumps in and says they'll get it for her?... thats right, GRANDMA!!
Aren't they the best! The tricky thing is, there are a lot of grandkids there, so we have to convice the others to not want a build a bear, so Grandma only has to buy one for Mckenna and her cousin Natalee.
One perk of having an autistic child, is that he really doesn't care about a lot of things like buying toys or stuff. He doesn't understand the excitment of picking and stuffing your own stuffed animal. He just sat by the computers there and played on the keyboard.
So when I asked Caden what he would want, he said, "oh mom, I know exactly what I want, it's down by the gumball machines!!" I asked if he would rather have that or a build-a-bear, and he said he wanted to use his OWN quarter to get this toy by the gumballs. Well that was easy enough. I just love the simplicity of boys. The littlest things make Caden happy. Thanks Grandma for saving the day!

continuation of pics from the summer

It's a sad thing when my legs are as white as Mileys legs.

Miley had a special place for Maddie. When mom wasn't around and no one could calm her down, Maddie could.

Coleman is usually terrified of moving cars and other fast things, but when my dad got the scooter out, all he wanted to do was to race it and to be as close as possible to the thing. He wouldn't actully get on it, but he thought he could beat it on his tricycle

pictures of the summer

I'm going a little backwards on this blog thing, but I wanted to post some pictures of everything we did over the summer. I don't think there is enough blog space for writing about everything, so hopefully a picture will be worth a thousand words. Thanks again to both Grandmas and Grandpas for putting up with all of us for so many weeks.

4 Generations

We were happy to see our Great Grandma Holladay during our visit to Utah. We hadn't seen her in 3 years, so we had to get our 4 generation picture. We are so lucky to have a wonderful Grandma and Great Grandma in our lives.

Updates of Little Miley

Our little "mymy" as we call her is now almost 10 months old. Now that she crawls she is not so chubby any more. Chads sweet sister Shauna took pictures of her when we were visiting in utah. We of course think she is adorable, even with her very bald head. Thank goodness for bows!!

After we took the boys to get their haircut, Mckenna kept begging us to take her to cut her hair and she wanted bangs. We met this cute girl in the ward that cut it for her and she loves it. She says she likes that she doesn't have any knots in her hair when she wakes up.

Zion National Park with Grandma and Grandpa Schmidt

dinosuar museum with G. Kraudy and our cousins from California

Splash Pads in St. George

Starting New in Colorado

I figured there was no better time to start a blog, now that we have said goodbye to the beatuful trees of Virginia and have come to the much more open beauty of Colorado. We have made so many wonderful friends over the years and the more we move the more people we would like to stay in touch with. So since the rest of the world seems to have a blog (except Jene'), we decided to join in.

After we left Virginia we went to Utah for about 6 weeks. We had a lot of fun going to Zions National Park, Dinosuar museums, slash pads etc.. and watching a lot of the disney channel!! I'm sure the grandparents were in a way happy for us to move on so they could finally have some peace, clean and quiet.