YouTube, Facebook and Pinterest

Posting, Uploading and Pinning.

I have been busy posting, uploading and pinning of all sorts lately. Pictures, videos and meme's galore. Josiah started swimming again and I got copies of all his under water videos and underwater pictures. 

Pinterest

Pinterest has all kinds of new memes posted to it. The pinterest posts links to the location on FB that the photo's are located for easy sharing on FB.

FaceBook

For facebook I organized the edited meme type pictures by:
Other Memes: which contain the non Josiah picture memes that I made.
Bible Quotes: Different quotes from the Bible with pictures of Josiah
Josiah Memes: Memes that I have used Josiah's picture for plus maybe a few other ones.

This is also where I make small updates/share funny things LM does and share pictures I take of him each day.
YouTube
This is where I have uploaded quite a few new videos: click the link for more than what is posted below.

Josiah In 2013

Another free photo slideshow by Smilebox

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

Acceptance

 I have talked about how we have come to the conclusion that Josiah has autism and where he is at now with therapy and swimming, but I have never touched on the journey to acceptance much. I really do think I need to share that it wasn't just like waking up and thinking okay, he may have autism and well that is fine with me because that is the way God made him. It was a process that took time. 

When Josiah was younger something always seemed off with how he interacted with me and other people. I had put this off as being possibly because he was breastfed and I did not know many people who breastfed. I also put off his insane need to be swaddled all the time and tightly for the same reason. As he got older I wondered if he did have a delay of some sort. I had even made comments like "he seems socially off, somehow". I just could not put my finger on it. Even though I had know about autism, I mainly knew about the typical autism. The low functioning or middle ground functioning, but did not know anything about the higher function type or that there could be autism without repetitive movements.

I did dawn on me eventually that he may have autism. I started asking ?'s to some people that knew their kids had autism and got mixed answers on my child's behavior being normal or not. I went back and forth with the he has it, to no way he has it, and back to maybe he does. We got a hold of an early on program and although they felt he was showing some signs of autism they said they do not like to label a child so early and that we would have to wait until preschool. Luckily before then Jason and I had come to the conclusion that he probably had autism and that we were not going to take a wait and see kind of approach, since that is never the best approach to take with young children and brain development.

Through the place not diagnosing him and knowing how far behind he really was, I went through some tough times. At 17 months he had the evaluation and he was: 13-15.5m for thinking learning and play; 5-5.7m for speech and language; 10-11.5m for relating to parents, self and others; 5-5.7m for emotions and feelings; 13-15.5m for self help and coping skills; 8.5-10m for fine motor; and 11.5-13m for gross motor. Almost everything he was more than half of his age. I started wondering where I went wrong, what did I do wrong, why me, why my child. I was going to school for Early Childhood Education and could teach other kids skills, but not my own. My child was behind and by a lot. He might have autism. Why me? I did everything that you were supposed to and nothing you were not supposed to during pregnancy and I have know people to drink and smoke and all kinds of things and their children turned out perfect to be perfect health. We had already dealt with so many health issues his first year of like I was kind of just hoping that instead of him having the delays because of autism that he was behind because of all the health issues and being born early. I honestly did not trust my ability to take care of a child with special needs. I had done all sorts of thing with children, but I was not confident in the area of Special needs. I talked to a wise friend of mine about how I was feeling a why me moment and I did not really want to be there, but just needed some venting and she shared with me a really good video that helped me a lot.

See because on top of feeling the why me and denying he had autism I also was feeling loss. Loss of my child and loss of his future. I wondered if he would graduate high school in a normal class or special ed like my father. I worried he would not go to college, get married, or be able to live on his own. I wondered if he would ever talk and why I could not just have all the regular mommy experiences. I already knew I missed out on a lot of eye gazing lovelyness when he was a baby, but I still wanted to have what every other mom gets to have. The ability to have their child grow up and make a choice on their own and not to have it taken away from them prematurely. I wanted him to choose if he stayed in high school and graduated with the hopes that he would since my parents were the first in my family to even graduate and now only a few cousins have followed suit as well. I had hopes he would choose to go to college, but would support him in any way I could if for some reason it was just not the correct fit for him. I had hopes that he would fall in love, get married, move out, have children of his own, so I too someday can be called grandma. You plan and think of all of these things normally before a child is even born. Not to mention the in between moments where you hope they will have the choice to play a sport if they wish. I know my family never had the money to allow me to do any extra activities after school. My wise friend also shared a book with me D iz for Different. By the time I had read the book I had already gone through the stages of acceptance several times over and gone back again. 

After reading the book I made the decision I was going to stay at acceptance as long as and as much as I could. I was also going to live in the here and now. Not in the past on what I might have done wrong or what I missed out on or on the future which is never guaranteed anyways. By focusing on the now and not worrying about the future or past it did several things. First, I was honoring God more: I was trusting our future to him and I had also actually accepted that even if my son was not going to be higher functioning in society that he would still be a part of God's family and in a way I dedicated his life to him. I was also able to honor him by trusting him more, it was not what I did or what I learned that has helped us get to where we are now or where we will be in the future. He is our guide.  Second, I was able to focus more on what my son is doing now, what is going on now, and the little accomplishments most parents do not give much attention to, I was able to notice and love them all. Focusing on the now has made me a better mother. 

I have always know that autism was not the end of the world; however embracing the new world was a hard and scary experience that has taken a lot of faith/trust, but embracing it has been so wonderful. I have embraced it so much now that if there was a magic pill to take away his autism, I just would not do it. To me so much of him that makes him, who he is today and which made me, who I am today is mainly thanks to his autism. Yup, I said thanks to, it has opened my eyes and changed me; It has made me a better, more patient, and more understanding person (because of course patients comes from understanding in most cases). I know that through whatever it is that Josiah will go through in life it will help to make him who he will be, both the good and bad. Also, that with me accepting him fully, autism and all and not wishing there was a magic pill, he too will be be more able to accept himself fully for who he is. I will do what I can to help him learn and to help him cope with things and to learn how to deal with the world around him, but I am not trying to change him.

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.

Welcome/Here is a Special Link

First, let me say thank you to anyone who came to visit our blog from the ISR testimonial (<if you have not seen it because you are a blog follower check it out). I try to update things as much as I can on here, but update more often on his FB page with weekly photo so and sometimes videos as well, so feel free to like the page and share in our adventure. If you are interested in a longer more detailed version of how ISR changed our lives read How This Started (how the blog started/first blog post) and Sometimes I Forget (about meltdowns/tantrums and swimming) both have more photos too. Best way to navigate around the blog are the links listed on the left hand side, but if you scroll to the end of a blog and there is another posted after it, it will go to the next blog (for instance since this is the latest blog right now it will go nowhere when you scroll down, but if you started on how this started you could scroll through them all).

Building Great Memories

If we are going somewhere with Josiah and it is not just an ordinary trip to the store or to ABA, you will probably see me with my camera. I take a TON of pictures and most of them never see the light of day. I delete what did not turn out the best and keep what was good or that I can not bare to delete just because it is blurry like from today:

Through these pictures I hope that Josiah will forever see how much he was loved, supported, and accepted.

One of the ways I choose to keep these photos is facebook both on my regular profile and on his page along with making picture books one of which I shared after making it here(sorry if you are mobile it will not show up). Well, when we had LM's party we set out the book for everyone to write something in it. I figured as cheesy as it seemed it would be something nice for him to either look back on and read, we could read it to him, or something just plain nice to read ourselves. Well, wow was not expecting some of the stuff. They are such great words of encouragement, love, and acceptance from everyone that wrote a little note! I really do have to share them to you all:

Love you so much and always nana and papa wheeler; you’re a great kid Elliot, D, and I are so lucky to get to know you and watch you grow-up. Keep being the happy great kid you are; you are such an amazing young man already. You have surprised us all by what you have achieved. Keep going you have a lot of people pulling for you-Laura; you have such an amazing mind, active curiosity and grand imagination. I look forward to the impact you will have on the world!-Uncle Jon; keep learning and growing, awesome swimming, happy 2^nd B-day-nana and papa Jacobs; Thank you for being such a great student. You did a fantastic job learning to float. Your hard work each day made it fun to teach you how to rollback and float. I loved seeing you each day in the water and seeing how much you liked to work. I will never forget your awesome smile! I have your picture on my wall in my office and every time I look at it I smile, so I look at it a lot! Remember that anything you do in life that is good is worth working hard for. I can’t wait until I get to swim with you again and I hope that is very soon. You are going to love learning to float AND swim! Stay safe and see you at the pool, -Mr Michael.

Daddy and Josiah sledding

I will continue to build memories for us and for him by anyway I can! Through doing fun stuff and documenting it all with pictures even if they all do not turn out (like today I took 270 and ended up with 150 in the end after deleting).

I guess you can now add Pinterest to our list of ways to share us and our adventures. I added all of the edited pictures I have done on there which can be found here!




Hope everyone enjoys the pictures as much as I do and as much as I hope Josiah will in the future!