I just got this picture from my sister, Sarah. It's from our trip to Frankenmuth earlier this month.
In other news...
I got a new phone. It's a Palm Treo and runs Windows Mobile. I'm excited about it, but I hate that I had to put in a support request to IT to have them help me hook up my work email to it.
Happy last day of March!
I'm not feeling real creative today, so I can't think of a good title that will make you want to keep reading...
But, in case you've held on this long, I have a few things to tell you about:
Ms. Hall’s troupe is not very representative of the spectrum of autism — the most difficult types of children are not in evidence here — and for the first two-thirds of the film, viewers unfamiliar with the condition might be thinking, “These kids don’t look so bad off.” But around the one-hour mark, when Ms. Hall’s 12-year-old slams a smaller child to the ground for no reason, the film begins to show some of autism’s more disturbing manifestations. And you start to see why these parents are so frazzled.
Click the image to watch the movie. You can pre-order the DVD here.
So, the cat belonged to the little girl next door. We saw her and her dad riding their 4-wheeler out in the field and flagged them down. Turns out, she was really worried about "Smokey". I guess he goes outside sometimes, but doesn't usually go far from the house. (There's about 6 acres between our houses.)
They were really nice and asked Chase to come over and go fishing once their pond thaws out.
It's weird to think that I ever lived in a subdivision where the houses were so close and you saw your neighbors every day. I prefer this, but I guess it would be nice to talk to the neighbors more than once a year. Once all of our kids are in school maybe.
Anyway, hope you all have a happy Easter!
I didn't mention it before, but my cat Mica got hit by a car and died a few weeks ago. She was an inside/outside cat, and we knew it would probably happen at some point. But, she was miserable if we made her stay inside all the time.
I REALLY had a hard time with her dying. I've never had to explain to a child why they can't see their kitty. I told Chase that Mica ran away and went to a really nice place to stay. He keeps telling me that we have to have 2 cats and that we need to go to the "kitty store" to buy a new one.
So yesterday, this gray cat showed up at our patio door. I opened the door, thinking it would run away. It didn't. It came in and is the sweetest thing! He's front declawed and fixed. He's not afraid of the kids and is super cuddly. (In case you were going to check, you are still reading Sally's blog, not Jodie's...)
So for now, we're keeping him. This will change for any of the following reasons:
I just wanted to mention this neat thing that they have for Snapfish. It's a way to send pictures from your cellphone to your Snapfish account. It comes in really handy... Details? Click here.
... to beg ME to update my blog! Really, my life's about as boring as a really busy life can be. I seem to always be doing something, but never anything interesting.
So, just for you Jodie... I guess there's a few things of note going on:
Well, in Jackson at least.
They did a story about Autism in the Citizen Patriot yesterday and used Chase as the "face" to go with the story. I thought the article turned out really good. You can read it here. There's a gallery of pictures from the story here.
It was interesting to meet with the reporter and photographer. They were shocked that Chase was so "normal". Even though I had told them he is very high functioning, they weren't expecting a kid that wanted to show them his toys and guinea pigs.
People not affected just don't get it sometimes. Chase is a poster child for early intervention, but it took a huge toll on our family to give him the help that he needed. All the time off of work added to the tremendous emotional roller coaster. I never thought I'd be able to adjust to living with autism.
A year ago, Chase didn't say Mommy or Daddy. He didn't say "I love you." He couldn't say "I want..." It took us two months of speech therapy to get him to say "I", sign the word "want", and then point or grab what he wanted. But, that whole time, he would hug about anyone. How could he be autistic and hug anyone? Autistic kids don't do that right?
Thinking back now, I can't believe that he's come so far in a year. Compared to other kids his age, he seems "normal" at first, but if you know and you watch closely, you can see that he struggles to communicate with the other children and wants very much to be accepted. He's doing better and better every day.
It's weird to think that he's only about 2-4 months ahead of Cory (who just turned two) in expressive communication, when he's advanced in other areas. He is a smart kid. He can write his name pretty well, he knows his alphabet, he can spell some words like stop, go, Chase, mom, dad, nana, he can count to 30, he can read letters, and he's a mean Jedi with his light saber.
Wow. We are so fortunate that we didn't lose him. And, honestly, we're a closer and more compassionate family for having gone through it.
