If You Have Kids, Swim, or Use Mama Cloth This Post Is for You *Giveaway and Discount Code*

Having gone through yet another wet bag I went in search of a WHAM to buy an awesome bag from. I came across a youtube review that brought me to 529 Baby. I read the about me "I am a Work at Home Mom (WAHM). I first started making wet bags after making myself a set to use with my children's cloth diapers. In the beginning, I invested all monetary profits into 529 college savings plans for my kids, hence the business name 529 Baby. My family thanks you for your purchase.

The Logo for 529 Baby

Over the past 2 years, my business has steadily increased. In 2013, I will be focusing on continuing to grow my business and building my inventory. I will also be changing my 529 saving account investments due to our families changing needs. From now on, I will contribute at least 75% of monetary profits into 529 savings plans for my children, more whenever possible. Thank you for your understanding."

When I asked her more about her family she shared the photo above and the following information: "We are a military family. We moved once again this summer, just a few weeks ago actually. Our kids are 4 & 6. Both were cloth diapered. My son is still using night trainers. We are hoping that one day he'll start to wake up dry. I am basically a stay at home mom, who has a little sewing business on the side. It works well enough for me considering my family's frequent moves. Now that school is back in session, I have more time available to sew and am looking forward to catching up on inventory."

Our first purchase-Large dry/wet pocket bag

I looked her bags over and noticed she had quite a few choices of sizes. I was looking for something big so went to the L and M to compare the two. I decided on the large as my first purchase from her and in the jungle babies print with a wet and dry pocket. The bag matches the mei tai I had made. I had two side straps put on it so I could hook it on the mei tai or on a stroller easily.

Little did we know how handy these two side straps would be. We can not only hook it on the mei tai a couple of ways and also being able to easily put it on the stroller of even a cart for some extra space if needed, but when putting snapping the straps together you can throw it over your shoulder like a purse! If you live in a smaller house or apartment and are low on space or just don't want to deal with a diaper pail you can hook the L wet bag onto the side of your changing table or on a towel bar or closet bar and use that for all your dirty diapers at home. The zipper keeps all of the smells locked in nicely.

We use the large size wet bag as our complete diaper bag. We put anything we would need when out and about in the wet bag instead of having a wet bag in a different diaper bag. We have been through diaper bags a lot quicker then we have wet bags so all in all they seem to last a lot longer then a regular diaper bag.

This picture shows what is currently in our L bag. 5 diapers, Mei Tai, wipes container, potty seat, change of clothes, clear container has cards and small items in it, brown purse organizer has little baggies, snacks, pads, pen, and other little things that could get lost in the largeness of a diaper bag.

We have had handles rip and mainly zippers break on diaper bags. Our first wet bag we got the zipper broke, the second one the seams tore and the WAHM fixed it. After over a year of having it the handles began to tare as they were not that wide, so they could not handle the weight of carrying the bag. This last wet bag that we had was much smaller then the one we got from 529 Baby, so we also had issues of not really being able to put in everything that we needed to take somewhere. The old one we had was about the size as 529 Baby's M sized wet bag.

Large bag on bottom with Medium on top ot that and small on top of that for a size comparison

Our Second Purchase 

How we fold out diapers after use

Our second purchase from 529 Baby was two medium wet bags and after ordering I sent a message about reviewing them once they came in (something I was thinking about for a while).

Mama cloth, diapers or unpaper towels
The medium bags I got with just the one side handle. One is for hanging in the bathroom for mama cloth and the other in the kitchen for our unpaper towels. The medium size is perfect for these two things.

Clean Alva Pocket compared to small bag

Swimming
 The medium bag we can use for more then just diapers and pads we have used it as a mini swim bag. What can you throw in the medium bag for swimming?

Items in the bag. Can close easily.

This is all that was in the medium bag. Two towels, swimming trunks, swim diaper, cloth diaper, size 1 wet suit, lock and scan keys to get into the local pool. All on a nice easy to carry loop. 

The medium sized wet bag works great in the bathroom for my mama cloth after use. It is also a good size to throw in a diaper bag if you need it for a while away or if you have multiple kids in cloth diapers and may need to stick more dirty diapers in then what the small wet bag can hold.

Our Freebie That Could Be Your Freebie (Information on giveaway and discount code)

With the order of the two medium sized wet bags she threw in a small wet bag to, so I could review that. This does not at all change my view on her items as I had plans to review prior to getting the item. She is also giving away a small wet bag, print of choice, to one lucky winner. For everyone else there is 10% off of your purchase from now through October 1st just use the discount code Josiah. The giveaway will be done raffle style. To see how you can win raffles for the giveaway view the rafflecopter box at the bottom of this blog post.

Diapers
The small wet bag is a great size to throw into a diaper bag for if you choose to use a regular diaper bag instead of a large wet bag for a diaper bag.
I am temporarily sending Josiah to school this year with a medium sized wet bag to keep in his locker for the day.  We have already ordered him a small wet bag in "Robots" as it will be a much better choice for at school. He starts early preschool this year for the first time and is in diapers. Since as you have figured out by now we cloth, so we want a nice way for his teacher to keep his diapers and not smell up the lockers. I know 529Baby wet bags will do that job, by sealing the smell nice and tight in with the wonderful zipper.

Mama Cloth
We have been using the small sized wet bag right now in the bathroom with all of my clean mama cloth (have a medium one for after use and they are smaller before use all folded up neatly).

Swimming
We have used it before inside of the big canvas bag we have for swimming (used the medium size for two people swimming and the canvas for whole family swimming) to keep dry items dry when we shove all of our towels and suits in the bag.

Lunch Bag
This bags size makes it great for packing a lunch for one or two people to bring with you somewhere. You could also pack a couple of water bottles (Less then 24 oz ones or one 24oz) in there if you were trying to keep the condensation off of other things.

Unpaper Towels
Depending on the amount of unpaper towels or other things you would also throw in the bag you could use one to throw in your kitchen for dirty unpaper towels. I have yet to get my unpaper towels in so not sure how many will fit in the small or medium bag.

The Specs on Each Bag

The general information on all of the bags listed on her sales page states:

Waterproof – 2 MIL PUL
Reusable
Machine Washable
Zippered to help keep smells inside
Sewn with care by me: a WAHM in the USA.
The inner PUL lining is only sewn to the outer print fabric at the zipper to help prevent wicking.
The PUL is manufactured in the USA by AKASoft.
Quality design: All seams are hidden.
Snap open/close handles! Side carry loops come with a snap closure. Now you can hang your wet bags from more places, like your stroller handle bar.

For the ones with dry pockets it states: This bag has an added zippered dry pocket to put clean/dry diapers.

My general information:                                                              
The zipper keeps the smell in nicely. We once left a poopy diaper in there for a few days in the living room during the summer and did not realize it was there until we unzipped it later.
You can flip the PUL out of the bag for easy cleaning.

LARGE

Sells for $19 for what is already available, $19 for semi custom, $22.50 for ones with dry pocket

On her sales page it states

Hold 15-18 AIO/Pocket Diapers (I can fit 20~Alva pockets~ in the bag without forcing the zipper closed and without packing them in perfectly as we all know if you are putting dirty diapers in you are not going to be putting them in perfectly. This number was also with the bag still fully loaded with stuff in the dry pocket 31 without anything in the dry pocket)
Approx Size 19.5"x22"
This bag could easily be used for your dirty diapers in your house and allow you to get rid of the diaper pail or not get a diaper pail.

MEDIUM

Sells for $12 for what is already made, 13 for semi custom, and $16 for one with a dry and wet pocket of what is available and $17.50 for semi custom wet and dry pocket.

On her sales page it states:

On her site she states that
Medium Wet bag Holds Approx. 6-8 Diapers (I can fit 12~Alva pockets~ in the bag without forcing the zipper closed and without packing them in perfectly as we all know if you are putting dirty diapers in you are not going to be putting them in perfectly)
Size 14"x15.5"

SMALL

Sells for $7 for what is already made, $8 for semi custom and $10 for what is already made with a dry and wet pocket. 

On her sales page it states:

Small Wet bag Holds Approx. 2-3 AIO/Pocket Diapers(I can fit 5~Alva pockets~ in the bag without forcing the zipper closed and without packing them in perfectly as we all know if you are putting dirty diapers in you are not going to be putting them in perfectly)
Size 10"x12.5"

The only two bags of hers that I do not currently own(not including the difference between dry pocket in the three sizes listed above) are the

KITCHEN

Sells for $13 for what are already made and $14 for semi custom.

Size 14"x15.5"

MAMA CLOTH

Sells for $9 for what she has already made

Approx size 5.5" x 10"

Other items she sells are: 

TODDLER BIBS

Sells for $8.75-$9 for what she has already made

DIAPER LINERS

Made with 2mil PUL. Adjustable elastic top.

Extra Small Pail Liner - 18" deep and 30" circumference and sells for $8.50

Small Pail Liner - 24" deep x 45" circumference and sells for $11.50
Large Pail Liner - 29" deep x 54" circumference and sells for $13.50




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Swimaversary Part Three

SLEEP

The title is almost all I need. Swimming has helped us with sleep. That is almost all I have to say as sleep is such a crucial thing that not all of us get what we need and it is even hard to come by with an autistic child. For the sake of this blog post being longer and just to give more detail I will share more.

Josiah started swimming and therapy at the sometime so like all things it is hard to piece out what is the cause to the effect. We have been to a sleep Dr. and know that his sleep issues are purely behavioral or at least there is no medical thing such as sleep apnea or swollen glands or anything like that causing it.

 Well, what has helped us sort out the sleep thing is that he has not had swimming while still doing therapy and had not had therapy while doing swimming. When he has therapy and no swimming his sleep is still bad. He takes forever to fall asleep and he wakes up several times at night. We have gone almost a month without swimming and he has bad sleep whole time. Now while swimming and therapy we did start hylands sleep aid (after swimming started) in disovables for young kids. That helped increase his staying asleep, but as soon as swimming stopped we had issues. When we started swimming back up with the other two the sleep aid and therapy we were good and getting enough sleep even if it is still not the normal amount.

Then we took off of therapy for almost the whole week and instead was doing swimming with this sleep increased again. We have tried baths, staying outside for long periods of time and all kinds of other things to replace swimming and there just seems to not be a good replacement for swimming with him. Swimming is Josiah's thing, so I am happy it makes him happy and helps with so much. We have since stopped hylands sleep aid and have switched to essential oils for sleep. That is for another blog post and will have to share about that soon. Our hopes with the oils is that if we can't go swimming daily that he can still sleep. I still will plan on doing lots of swimming with him as it helps him in so many other areas other then sleep.

Here is part one which was on self control and part two which was on cognitive development encase you missed them.

Swimaverasry Part Two

Cognitive Development

It is hard to gauge cognitive development other then progress. Josiah has been making strides and bound in what he has been learning. Now Josiah did begin swimming and ABA therapy at the same time and it is hard to say what has had the most affect on his cognitive development between the two. All I know is that his ABA therapists are extremely impressed with his progress and have the hardest time keeping up with him. They are creating new programs for him all the time as he blows through most of them. He went from not talking or babbling at 20 months to shortly after expressing simple needs, to now he is fully capable of having conversations. CONVERSATIONS a little more then a year and he has not only started to talk, but in some areas he has surpassed his age. In ONE year he has gone from less then half his age to having some language above a 3 year old and he is not even three yet. I am amazed and impressed with his growth and maturity and ability to learn all the time. He is sometimes way to smart for his own good, but he IS smart and he keeps showing how smart he is all the time. I have always said that he was super smart and that we just did not know it. Like he was unable to show us how smart he is and now he can. I love and enjoyed him before he could talk, but know that he is much happier now that he can not only express his needs. We are less stressed because he is able to answer us on what he needs before it turns into a meltdown over frustration, but above all HE is happier, less stressed and more expressive then he has ever been before. There has even been a study on kids kids who swim which the results can be viewed below:

For those of you who can not view the video click here.

Another way to see that he has had cognitive development besides his ability to learn, his increase in language both receptive and expressive, is his memory. I am always impressed with his memory. He can remember great details about things not only days, weeks, but even months after the event. He sees something and it triggers a reaction in his brain and he can start talking about details of something that has happened so long ago that even I didn't quite have it in the top of my head ready to go. Three months after reviving a bag with ornaments in it from his swim instructor I set up our autism tree. The ornaments were out of the bag and there were other bags out. He picked out that specific empty bag and told he who gave it to him and what was in it. When showing his swim instructor the bag he did not even remember that it was the bag that he had given us the ornaments in. One day my dad had said he needs a clip for something and Josiah takes off and gets his gerbils car. We had no clue why he got the car until we realized their was a clip on the bottom of it where the wheel broke off. The clip was stuck on the car two months before and had only used the car maybe one other time before then. This is just two examples of his memory out of many more. He has also shown cognitive development in his learning of colors, shapes, and counting to ten. He has also learned to count actual objects which is different then counting to ten. He can sing part of the alphabet song and in most cases identify letters of the alphabet. All of this from not talk a little over a year ago! There is a  wonderful explanation that I will quote from charlotteaquatics.com: "A baby’s brain develops through bilateral cross patterning movements like swimming, crawling, and walking. The more cross patterning movements, the more nerve fibers develop in the corpus callosum - the part of the brain that facilitates communication, feedback, and modulation from one side of the brain to the other. Cross patterning movements like swimming activate both cerebral hemispheres and all four lobes of the brain simultaneously, which can result in heightened cognition and increased ease of learning." Another great quote about neurological development is "The child experiences a great deal of tactile stimulation from the water resistance over the entire body while swimming which encourages neurological development. Water has over 600 times the resistance of air. Tactile experiences and interactions in the water are important for overall neural organization."

Here is part one on self-control encase you missed it.
Here is also part three which is on sleep.

Swimaversary Part One

On April 8th, 2014 Josiah has been swimming for a year. We decided to celebrate his swimaversary with some other pages. I mentioned that it has changed his and our life/lives forever. I wanted to go in more detail with what I mean by that. I have talked about swimming and loving it in several posts. I have not gotten down and talked strictly about the benefits and how it has helped. I will share what I viewed and even share some links for things that are not so visible that I have learned through information I have learned over time. I will also share each of these in a separate blog no matter how long or short so the whole thing will not become overwhelming to read all in one blog post. :)

*ok I started this shortly after his swim aversary, but with no swimming, end of semester craziness, and a few other things that have pushed it to the sidelines I am just now getting to writing more on it*

Self Control 

I will start with the first one we noticed. Better self control. This was seen through a couple of changes. The first thing that he started began when he was 11 months old. He started climbing to high heights for his age and it was not only a daily, but multiple times a day kind of thing. He did not even start walking until he was 16 months because of course why walk when you can climb everything. His climbing started to lessen and become not as common of a occurrence in the house. The second think that became less of an issue I have already posted about in the blog post Sometimes I Forget, which goes into great detail about how his tantrums and meltdowns had lessened with swimming/had been almost no existent. The only case when they would show up is when he had an outside source that would trigger it. He used to have meltdowns/self harm due to lack of activity. This is one of the reasons we have so many toys for him to choose from. He always has to be busy doing something. If he gets board he gets into self harm. Biting himself leaving marks, pinching, throwing himself on floor, head butting the floor or walls. He will bite chairs, games, toys or other objects when he is board or angry. All of this calmed down with swimming and picks back up every time we stop swimming. We have been off for three weeks now and he has hit another kid at therapy, threw a toy towards someone there and has picked up increased anger outburst at home as well. Kroc center has started their new hours so I am extremely thankful for that. Sadly we can not start this week because of me. Without going into too much detail I will just say I do not feel well and AF is not so nice this month.

Any parent I am sure can tell you self control in a little one is hard and any ASD parent can tell you it is a huge thing. Self control over outbursts(the ones that can be controlled) is just really HUGE. I was so relieved that I was not as worried about another self harm episode being around the corner. With less self harm and him more aware of his surroundings as he was not going into constant meltdowns he began to learn/grow/mature. He was picking things up at an astounding rate and still is which brings us to another benefit that I will talk about next...

Cognitive Development

Part three is on sleep (link also available at bottom of part two if you want to go in order they were written).

Josiah In 2013

Another free photo slideshow by Smilebox

What Life Has Been Lately

School

Will start with yay!This semester is almost over with. We have a group presentation, for our group project that has been going on the whole semester, this Thursday with this comes a class, self and group assessment. Then the following week after that we have a group paper that will be 4-6 pages long and a individual paper that only needs to be a page long. I am so happy this class is almost done. First paper I did for it I got a 68% and still had an A in the class over all but feared I would get the same on my other two(then supposed to be three) papers that I had left until the end of the semester that were to be written the same way. I got one of the two papers back and got a 90% on it which makes me much happier. I am even more excited(besides thinking of buying books-one of which is 95$) about next semester. I will be taking my degree needed young children with special needs class and a photography class. I am excited about the classes but not so thrilled that I have to get up so early two days of the week for a whole semester. I have done this before with a summer class, but they do not last as long as a regular semester class. For the summer class it also was the only class I was taking where as for this semester I go straight from the one class to the next on Monday and on Wednesday I get to go home after class, unless I have to do something on campus for my special education class (I know there is an extra out of class thing that I have to do, but not sure what yet).

Swimming

Since Josiah has been done swimming with his instructor he has been down to only going once a week with us. Josiah has been doing better with less swimming this time then last time we were unable to swim as much, but I can still tell the difference. I got a cover for my phone, so I am able to take underwater pictures and videos. I have so far only taken video's as I can not get the button to push for taking pictures under water. I looked up on how to resolve this problem and have downloaded a camera that has a timer option onto my phone. I am super happy they have wonderful lighting at the place we swim. I was hoping to get back into three days a week swimming with LM this week, but his teething has caused some issues again and so we have to wait until his loose stools clears up before getting in the pool again. We are hoping that since both top 2 year molars are in and one bottom has fully broke the skin and the other just broke the skin that by the time LM will be swimming with Michael again that we will not be dealing with crabby teething toddler with chances of not being able to swim due to loose stools. 

Aspie

I was shared two different tests from an aspie friend that said based on diagnoses requirements I am considered an aspie. Then I got a copy of a test from someone that said it was the test most psychologists give to adults to see if the have aspergers which again told me I did. I have had thoughts about it as I learned more about stuff with LM that might be on the spectrum as well. 

LM's Over All Health

Just like last year and the year before the month of December seems to be more about getting health issues figured out then just enjoying Christmas. Luckily this year I have the tree up and lights up as of the past Saturday so we won't have a repeat of last min throwing lights up a week before Christmas(was about to not put anything up). Dec 11th LM goes in for his initial visit to the sleep clinic and hopefully will get an apt for a sleep study, so we can rule out any health reasons as to why he keeps waking up at night. I am cool with dealing with him waking at night if there is no health reason as to why he is doing it and want to get a health reason resolved if that is why he is waking at night all the time. The 18th of Dec. a week after the initial visit we have to cancel our chiropractor visit and go into the hospital to do a scope. This is to rule out any GI issues as to why LM will not gain weight. His therapy was unable to get a go ahead to feed him gluten so they will take his temp first thing, Jason will give him gluten and then they will take his temp after his two hour therapy is done. We are two weeks from scope this Wed so hoping that will be enough to show something since we have been waiting on permission to go ahead with it. Praying he does not have any bad reactions to the gluten and praying that we safely get through the scope procedure as he will be sedated for it. He can only have clear fluids starting at midnight and can no longer have fluids after 5:30 A. Wish us luck/pray for us on this one as he wakes up several times at tight to nurse. 

Guest Bloggers

I have asked several people to guest blog on the blog, so in the future there might be some posts by a few guests. As no one has a deadline as to when to get it done and I have given them all the option to be anonymous, use name, or a nickname of their choice I can not give much information other then a couple of people are thinking about it and have few others interested in it.

30 Days of Thankfulness

On day 2 of November I decided to take part in the 30 days of thankfulness. I knew from the beginning that I would have a hard time doing it on time and that I would probably end up doing multiple days at once at times, but figured it would be good to get partially back into the habit that I had from the beginning of LM's page. When I first started his page every night before I would go to bed I would share something that I was happy LM did or that I was thankful for. With such a busy schedule and late bedtimes where I passed out about the same time as LM it made it more difficult to keep up on it and soon I stopped doing it. Here is the 30 days of thankfulness(encase anyone missed some of it or all of it or just want to review them all together):

First Post:

Day 1: I am thankful for my husband who is hard working, loving, understanding, and a great father which brings me to Day 2: I am thankful for my son who is absolutely wonderful just the way he is, even with the challenges. He is smart, loving, he is my guide on this autism journey.

Second Post:

Day 3 and Day 4:  I am thankful to have found swimming for my son since it helps with his tantrums and meltdowns. With that I am also thankful for such a great instructor (who cares for Josiah so much and absolutely loves his job) and program that we found. I am thankful for ISR because it teaches self-rescue, so he can save himself in the event that he ever jumps into the water that he always finds so interesting. He also had no fear of it in the past and now has grown to have respect for it (like not just jumping in for a toy that he wants or getting in a pool that no one is in).

Third Post:

Guess I have to do thankfulness days 5,6, and 7 now. 5: thankful we can put food on the table. Even if it is rice vs rice noodles because we just can not afford the 6$ box of spaghetti noodles. Yes, sometimes being GF sucks because there are limited places to go out to eat and most are expensive, just like the food in the stores, but in the end our health is better for it and that is the best thing. 6: I am really thankful that we were able to get a scholarship at the the place that LM swims at because it is hard enough to get the 37.5 a month and really do not think we would be able to get the 75 a month that it would otherwise cost without the scholarship. To go with this I am grateful that a couple of people were able to donate some money towards his swimming which has helped out with paying the monthly fee. 7: I am extremely grateful that medicaid and our insurance together has covered the ABA costs. Which is 160 a day, 5 days a week. We are still praying that we are accepted for SSI because that would help pay for all of the other medical bills that are pilled up and other costs we have. I would be over the top thankful if we got that. I can promise everyone that we are not in such a bad money crunch because we are bad at budgeting or live outside our means. I live with my dad and pay rent because we can't afford the rent of an apartment. We only have cable bc other's want it in the house so we split the bill three ways. We never go out to eat(it is just not affordable being gluten free). We do not go out to movies or anything like that. The main things we do for fun are free or we take advantage of stuff we already have to have like the pass to the pool(if Josiah did not need this, we just would not have it). We do have a car payment, but since hubby drives 30 min to 45 min back and forth to work 5 days a week we needed a good reliable used car and not a crappy used car. We do have a cell phone bill, but don't have a house phone. We cloth diaper so there is no diaper cost.

Fourth Post:

Day 8: I am thankful for this FB page and blog with all of you awesome people on it! Thankful for the comments, likes and support that comes with the page. The ability to connect with other moms of your children with autism or just people who love to support people/families with autism. So thank you everyone!

Fifth Post:

Day 9: I am really thankful that I have a camera to take pictures. As you can probably tell I love taking pictures of my son and you can for sure tell the difference between the ones taken with my phone and those taken with my regular camera. We saved money from Christmas, my birthday which was in March, and with a little tax time help, my hubby not only replaced the camera that I had before that no longer worked, but actually got me an awesome upgrade to it! It was a really happy time to see the new camera, so although I am not very materialistic, I love my camera because it can help me capture so many wonderful moment's in my son's life.

Sixth Post:

Day 10: I am thankful for a church that we can volunteer in. I am thankful that they offer the amenities that they do: a special need a room where my son van feel safe and comfortable and a parent child room that we can do in if he isn't having a good day in class or sanctuary, so we can still enjoy service while he can play.

Seventh Post:

Day 11: I am thankful for all the troops. I am thankful I have friends and family: 5 uncles, an uncle in law, an aunts, an aunt in law, a cousin, a cousin in law, a grandparent in law, a brother in law, a step father in law, a great grandpa, and a great grandparent in law who has served in the Navy, Army, Marines, National Guard, and Air Force in times of piece and in WWII, Vietnam and Iraq. I am also thankful for the family who have served in a different way as sheriffs, police officers and firefighters.

Eighth Post:

Feeling really drained and stomach not feeling the best, so the debate comes as to stay home or go to school....I think school. Home I will have a toddler jumping all over me. Which reminds me I am behind on my days of thankfulness. Need to do 12, 13, and now 14. Day 12: I am thankful for school where I can learn more about 1. God (go to a Christian college) 2. more about early childhood 3. get to take extra classes in art like: pottery which I already did and next semester it is photography. 4. also thankful that because I am going to school I can go hide there from my toddler to maybe feel a little bit better when I get home because going to class right now is the only break I will get. Day 13: I am thankful that I was able to continue breastfeeding my son even through all of the tough times. It was a lot of hard work to do what I felt was best for him and to continue to do so with support from some and negativity from others. Day 14: I am thankful for my 12 year old cat, that I got when I was 12. He is so patient and kind with Josiah. He puts up with so much from him and still comes around and still lets Josiah touch him. I am thankful that he was there with me for years through all kinds of ups and downs in my life. I am a little sad he is getting up in age now, but will enjoy every day, week and year I have left with him and getting to see him and Josiah love each other.

Ninth Post:

Day 15, 16, and 17: I will start with something that just happened as #15 Thankful there is not a whole in the side of the house as we just had our very own earthquake caused by a tree falling down and hitting the side of the house. Not seeing any leaks, no broken windows, smashed our new gutters though. Now we just need to find someone with a chain saw, so we can be thankful for the borrowed equipment and or help. #16 Is thankful that Josiah learned his colors. If you say can you hand me the ___ M&M he can do it, but if you say what color is this M&M he won't tel you the color. If you say the name of the color he can repeat it back to us. #17 Really thankful for cloth diapers because we can just wash and reuse instead of spending a ton of money on diapers. Otherwise we would be going through so many diapers lately IDK what we would do. We honestly could not could not afford diapers anyways.

Tenth Post:

An update and then my days of thankfulness are at the end: Yay! so we did end up getting medicaid to pick up LM's ABA cost that was not covered by our insurance. We are thankful we have insurance and medicaid bc otherwise ABA is 160 a day, 5 days a week. We also just might be getting SSI. We got a call saying we would temporary receive some benefits(IDK if this month or next as we still have more papers to fill out about rent and how much Jason receives in wages) while waiting for the medical side to approve him, we are hopeful that the medical side will approve him and we will continue to get benefits. We are aware some people started receiving and then got denied and stopped getting payment and had to reapply then get approved. I am praying we are not one of those cases. The benefits we receive will be much appreciated, as we have a TON of unpaid medical bills for things that are just not covered by insurance or medicaid(in LM's case). We also have other monthly medical expenses like LM's drink thinkener every month that is of course even though it is needed to keep him out of the hospital is not considered medical. We are not sure of the amount we will be getting yet, but anything will help. I am hoping we have enough to help pay of medical bills and make it a little easier to afford rent, food and Josiah's swimming pass at kroc. We also are reapplying for food stamps in hopes that we do not have to say well we can not get that extra stuff LM needs bc we can not afford it this week(so once we are officially approved for SSI and or food stamps we need to get back with the other and let them know we are receiving the other one). Kind of behind on my days of thankfulness as well have 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22 to do. I will say 18 and 19 are pretty much covered by medicaid and temp SSI which is still helpful even if we do not get full approval right now. Day 20: Thankful for a warm roof over my head Day 21: Thankful for my dad who helps to get us some places after Jason goes to work, so we do not always have to take the bus. Day 22: Thankful for people who accept my son for who he is and love him. So thank you to all the family, friends, people on this page who don't have to care about LM but make the choice to. I am thankful that Lolo plays with LM when he is swimming with Michael (swim instructor) and that they both care so much about him and that LM cares about and even misses them both when he is not swimming with him. I am sure Josiah can not wait until he gets to see Lolo again.

Eleventh Post:

Day 23 and 24 of thankfulness: Day 23 I am thankful for the overtime hubby has been getting lately, will make Christmas a bit easier. Day 24: I am thankful that the new really cheap waterproof phone cover not only tested well phone free before hand but took amazing video today at the pool. Going to have to upload to YouTube to share with everyone in the page.

Twelfth Post:

Day 25: I am thankful I have a husband who can cook. he made some yummy pizza and I do not mean he threw a frozen pizza in the oven. I mean made the dough then added toppings and placed in oven. Josiah loved it so much he was made his fork was not working for him so he would take some pieces out to eat and other times he had his face right in the bowl eating.

Last few days of thankfulness:

Day 26-30. Day 26: Thankful LM is too young to realize that one of the fish died. Day 27: Thankful we were able to find and successfully make a crestless pumpkin pie. Day 28: Thankful we were able to spend time with Jason's family for thanksgiving and that Josiah had fun. Josiah might have not ate much, but he still enjoyed seeing his uncles, papa, nana and a cousin. Day 29: Thankful I was able to spend some time with my sister and mother and get some really great deals in the process. Got things for a price I would rather spend on items then what is normally expected for items we were in need of for Christmas or just otherwise in need of, like socks. Day 30: Thankful LM  was so great with helping put up ornaments and let mommy clean the tree(had to clean each individual branch bc it was never in a container when put in the basement last year). Also, thankful that when he found and held a glass bulb too tight that he did not actually get a piece of glass in his hand.

Long Days, Well Worth It

*The main subject of the post is......who would of guessed it Josiah, swimming, and autism. I do apologize for any thing that might not make any sense or grammar mistakes(not my thing), but we can just use the excuse that I am tired, yup, tired. *

TIRED

Okay, just a little on the being tired. Josiah sleeps anywhere from 5-9 hours, the latter being less common,  (supposed to get 12-14 hours and I know I could use about 10) a night with getting up 3 or more times a night. then nap time is always up in the air if it is going to happen or not, has been happening lately on a bus ride to swimming (which I promise I will get to-the bus and swimming...). We are waiting to hear from a sleep specialist to get an apt with them. If we do not get a call by next Monday, two weeks from when we got the referral through the pediatrician, then we will be calling the ped back to get things moving hopefully. *fingers crossed, praying, and hoping*

Bus, Swimming, Amazing

Last Thursday, Josiah started swimming with Michael, his swim instructor, again.

The Bus

Since it is at a latter time I take the bus both their and back. Last time it was earlier and hubby would drop me off on his way to work and I would just take the bus back, Josiah loves the bus so either way he is happy and I do not mind (we were taking the bus back and forth to the Kroc center for a while, too and that is a longer trip and latter at night). I was told through someone telling Josiah that I must really love him a lot to take the long bus ride just for a 10 min lesson. I have never even given it a thought of being that out of the ordinary. I just want Josiah to be happy, if it is possible to make him happy. We leave at about 3:55. Today it was more like 3:25 because Josiah was getting impatient and could not wait to go swimming. He kept saying Michael, please! and going to the door and saying "bus, bus". I told him he needed to wait, which turned into crying/tantrum/meltdown. After getting him to calm down a little I decided since last time we left at 3:55 we were late(the first time we were early), that we would just leave at 3:25 and that maybe he would just take a nap on the bus and I could actually study (test tomorrow). One fact about me, you might not know. I HATE being late for anything. Specially if it is something scheduled. I will get a pit in my stomach, horrible feeling, just for being late. Does not matter if the other person(s)/place has no problem with it, it still does not go over to well with me (was late TH, first day too because my sister brought us). Back to the bus. We have gotten there from about 4:40-5:23 when leaving at 3:55. Our swim time is 5:20. Today just like most days Josiah passed out on the bus ride there and was able to nap for a bit before it was time to swim.

Swimming/Amazing

Getting out by himself

If you do not know by now Josiah's favorite person in the world besides certain family members is Michael. There is no doubt in that one. He is the only person besides family that he requests when they are not with him. Most of the time he LOVES swimming. Today was not his best day, we will blame the tired/teething mess he was all night long for that one too. Josiah is really good at swimming, too. If you are familiar with my blog or FB page I am sure you already know this. In that way HE is amazing. His bond that he has with Michael is amazing as well. Even after a day like today when he cried the whole time and even a little after, what does he do when he gets calmed down and Michael is not busy with another little swimmer? Well, he gives him a high five, hug, and a kiss. That is just SO awesome. It took forever for us to get him to hug and kiss back and Michael has been the first non family member to share in Josiah's expression of love.

One happy swimmer

Oh, but that is not all. Swimming with Michael again just brings out so much more in Josiah. He loves to swim with him so much more then Mommy (who is normally harder on him then Daddy, when it comes to swimming) and/or Daddy. We just can not replace his buddy. I think Josiah has adopted him. Beyond his amazing swimming and bond what else could be so amazing about swimming? To start social interaction with other's besides M. All the other kids around. I have noticed at the Kroc center even if kids get interested in his swimming and follow us around he will laugh at certain things and kind of interact with them (normally results in splashing of some sort). The first time I seen this was with Lolo which was so awesome. The Kroc center it is way less the a 50/50 chance of this kind of interaction happening because most kids are busy doing their own thing and Josiah is swimming or hot tubing doing his own thing, but when he is at the pool with M everyone is there waiting their turn. Josiah has copied some parents with clapping and cheering for their children. One day he was copying moves M was teaching an older child to do while swimming. He follows some kids around. The other kids prompt him to interact with them which is great. Specially the older of the two boys who goes right after Josiah. He loves to say hi to Josiah and talk to him. These kinds of interactions happen before and after swimming, but there is still more. Just after his lessons he enjoys laying down calmly with his two towels under him and the other wrapped all around him other then his head. First, the calmly doing something is amazing in its self, but there is more too it then that.

Watching

He watches M teach the other kids. His eyes follow him around the pool. He is people watching and in a way interacting by doing so. For this reason he gets to lay there as long as he wants to. I am not going to rush him to get ready and stop interactions that could happen. How these little things are so AMAZINGLY significant is hard to explain. They are just new social interactions that most kids probably do on a daily bases and they just are not in the complete norm for Josiah. I am sure they have been working on this in ABA, but it is just so great to watch it is person. The little things that most people probably do not see as special or even notice. I notice and I celebrate the little victories and the big ones, too!

OH, OH and I get to take pictures. Which has been interesting to get right with the lighting.

watching Papa

Showing off for papa

Guest Blogging

Finally got done with my A term "killer course" and ended with an A in the class. Fulfilled my promise to guest blog on another blog.  I have in mind a blog post I want to do and have had it in my head since before I began the class 3weeks ago. Hopefully, even with a new class starting this Th, I will have time to put the post from my head into words on the computer. Until then go check out the guest post I did: here.

Loads of Busy

This is my first time not being mobile in a few days so will be doing an all over update and share.

Lets first start with the swallow study.

 Every morning we wake up and eat breakfast/get ready for the day. Of course even though hubby and I did not eat in front of LM he was not thrilled with the inability to eat since it was eat time. After he was all ready to go he spent the last 15min playing outside to distract him. We headed up to the children's hospital which had some great distractions for him:

We checked in, went to radiology, checked in fully there. We waited in the play room where LM very much enjoyed that they had a couple of fire trucks. A speech something or other came in and said she was going to be doing the testing. I am so thankful that she was extremely understanding of his HUGE fear of X-ray machines. I told her last time he had a swallow study done it was to see about reflux and he had to have a tube put down his nose. She said we try to avoid that here. He would not take if from his cup and would not sit still in the seat they had. She told me if I wanted to hold him I could. So I got up in the bigger seat (once the little high chair seat was removed) and held him. He still would not drink from his cup. She then said we syringe feed it to him. So she got out a syringe and handed it to Jason (I was SO excited that both of us could go in, it makes it less stressful). He took to no problem in the syringe. Even I knew something did not look right when he was swallowing. He is swallowing too deep and the liquid almost goes past his vocal cords and into his wind pipe. She then did nectar thick and he did better, so now we have to get thikener stuff for his water and other fluids. I asked about breastfeeding and she said that he should be fine with it since he did not actually aspirate when doing the test and they can not test while he breastfeeds. I have always noticed he makes a gulping sound when drinking from a cup and wondered why. Now I know, he was very close to aspirating every time. That is scary to think about. He does not gulp when breastfeeding, which is really good. We got a sheet with a list of ways to mix his fluids like apple sauce, yogurt, and we were told not to do the nectar simply thick gel since he was born early and many who are born early have had complications with it. Thankfully on the way out he forgot about the torture with these distractions:

 When we got home we tried apple sauce in his water. First, it will not even go through his cup and second he was not a fan of the textures at all. I did not try yogurt in his water figuring that would be a little weird, so 10 dollars latter we have a can of thickener to add to his water. Friday we hung out with one nana and his aunt TeTe. There was a beautiful thunderstorm on the way home and I really wished we had the camera with to take pictures. My cell had to just do the job.

Saturday we went to a union picnic and had loads of fun in the sun:

Josiah with one of his aunts and an uncle and cousin in background

Check out that throw

Pushing the car

Curious

Watching the swans

Elmo Hat

Climbing the rock with some help

Enjoying a seat on the rock

Another look at Elmo hat

All Smiles in the bounce house

In bounce house with mommy

Fishy!

Not happy waiting

Looking from a different perspective

Play Golf

After the picnic we went to his other nana's and papa's and went swimming. He enjoyed swimming in the outdoor pool this time since it was nice and warm. He played, went on walks, and then we headed home. Oh forgot to add that both Sat and this morning I took off his diaper and had him sit on his little potty and guess what both times he went pee in it! Love my cloth diapers, but using the bathroom is a pretty good option too. He also was willing to drink ensure with extra protein!

Over the weekend I sent a message to someone off of one of the other autism pages who stated they were from Grand Rapids, MI too. Well it soon turned into a group chat of a bunch of women from the area. Then I was thinking. Why not have a FB group dedicated to GR mom's with children who have autism, so I created the group and now we have one!

Oh and the local news came by the pool when LM and I were there and we ended up on the news. Sadly not when he was swimming though. Not us talking just us http://grsouth.wzzm13.com/news/news/154353-heat-wave-providing-hot-business-some it is somewhere around 1:30 in the video.