Orion and Ollie

Beating the heat

// August 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion

According to the thermostat in my car, it was 99 degrees today in Olympia.  That is hot for anywhere, but particularly for an area where most people do not have AC in their homes.

John had a three day weekend and worked tirelessly on putting in a new counter top and ceramic sink in the kitchen.  It was exhausting work in this heat but it looks much better than the awful pink counter top that was here when we moved in.

My job was to keep the boys occupied and out of John’s way while he worked.  I also had a goal to try and keep us all cool in this heat.  Hard to do.

We started the day off by going to Church.  That was one building with AC that I could count on.  They were planning on playing a Veggie Tales video at Orion’s Sunday school class and he is terrified of those talking vegetables.  So, he agreed to sit quietly with me in the adult service.  He knew the alternative was being forced to return to the room with the talking vegetables.  He hardly said a peep and just drew pictures quietly in his seat.

After church we went out to get some pizza….building number two with AC…check!

Then we returned home, changed into swim suits, and headed toward Long Lake to go swimming.  I guess everyone and their brother had the same idea because the place was so packed that we couldn’t find a parking spot.

With two very disappointed kids, I left the lake in search of an alternative form of cooling off.  We ended up downtown at the fountain.  Believe it or not, I had never taken the boys there.  I always thought it was something I should do with John there with me for safety reasons.  But Orion promised to look after his little brother and he did a great job of that.  They had a blast!

Orion’s 7th birthday party at the Children’s Museum

// August 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion

Every year I remark on how it just doesn’t seem possible that my little baby boy is so old.  It feels the same way this year.  Orion is turning 7 this week and today we had his birthday party at the Hands on Children’s Museum in Olympia.

We invited 28 kids but only 5 attended.  Not many but I guess people get busy in the summer months.  Next year we might experiment and have his party right after school starts.

Orion could have cared less about the amount of kids there.  He was just exuberant to have a party.

John slaved away the day before making a Super Mario cake for Orion.  Each year he seems to raise the bar a bit higher with his cakes.  This year was quite impressive.  John’s hoping next year it will be a simpler theme like pac-man (doubtful!)

The kids in attendance were 2 girls and 3 boys.  Two of the boys were church friends and the other three kids were classmates.  Orion was super thrilled that Sophia (a girl that he slightly has a crush on) was one of the girls in attendance.   When she showed up he yelled “Yay, my date is here!” and smothered her with a huge hug.  We’ll have to work with him on subtlety where the ladies are concerned!

All-in-all it was a nice venue for a party and a successful time.  And once again, we are stunned at how big our little baby boy is becoming.  We are so proud of him.

Fun times at Long Lake

// July 27th, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion

I decided to take the boys to Long Lake today because it was 86 degrees outside.  This was the first time I had ever taken them swimming by myself (without another helper).  But since there were two lifeguards on duty at the lake I didn’t feel so frightened by it.  Any of you that know me know that I tend to lean toward being the overprotective parent so this was a real step forward in allowing more freedom for my kids and loosening my tight grip on them.   I guess I didn’t loosen my grip that much since you’ll notice by the pictures that they are very bogged down by flotation devices.

The boys had fun racing into the lake.  Ollie started out very timid of going deeper than his knees in the water.  But by the end of two hours he was bounding into the water.  Orion did quite well kicking and maneuvering himself around in the shallow end.  Small steps are still steps in our quest to teach them how to swim.

I reluctantly wore my swimsuit under my clothes and finally, after an hour or so, decided to quit being so self-conscious and remove my shorts and t-shirt because the likelihood of me running into anyone I knew at the Lake that day was slim.  Only moments after getting comfortable on my towel I look up to see a figure looming in the bright sun above me.  I squinted, looked up, and wouldn’t ya’ know it…it was Aloma, our neighbor from down the street and the mom of one of Orion’s classmates.  She had a golden tan and a tiny bikini and I suddenly felt like an albino beached whale.  She kept talking about a family trip she would soon be taking and all I could think about was how I felt completely naked and embarrassed.  Maybe it’s time to hit the gym and one of those spray tan places again.

After my neighbor left, the boys splashed around for at least another hour.  When we returned home, Ollie was completely zonked out from all that time in the sun and I plopped him on the couch where he didn’t budge for what seems like hours.  It was a fun, summer day.

Essay contest submission

// July 22nd, 2010 // No Comments » // Orion

The following is an essay I submitted to “Real Simple” magazine.  They have a contest called “I never thought I’d…”  I’m posting this on our blog to detail a journey that many may not know our family has gone through.  Here’s that essay…

“I never thought I’d be the parent of a special needs child”

I was never one of those girls; the kind that dreamed of someday becoming a mommy.  When I was a child I did not carry around baby dolls, dress them up, and nurture them.  Don’t get me wrong.  I role played.  But I was more likely to pretend I was a superstar basketball player with crowds of people cheering me on.  It never had anything to do with nurturing or caring for anyone.

In adulthood I continued to dream of fame and notoriety.  I left behind the security of a college education, fully funded by my parents, for the complete unpredictability of pursuing a music career in New York City.  I was out of my comfort zone but still, the challenge of it all inspired me.

After a 12 year successful run in the music industry as a recording engineer, my focus shifted.  What was I doing with my life?  What was the point of everything?  Why was I here?  I knew that the world did not revolve around me, as I had thought in my youth.  I also knew that working 80 to 100 hours a week would probably not bring me happiness.  But what would?  A family?  Yes, I wanted a family.  In particular, I wanted someone to share life’s adventures, successes, and failures with.  I knew I would never look back on my death bed and think “Boy, I sure wish I had worked more hours.” I knew that life was about the people you loved while you lived it.  And up until then, I had been fairly successful at living it alone and only loving myself.

I embarked upon a search for companionship and found it in the most unexpected place, an online dating service.  Finally, I had met the man that I knew I wanted to start this new life with.  We married within a year of meeting and started talking about children.  Children were such a mystery to me.  I started to internally doubt my ability to raise a child.  Nurturing was not something that came naturally to me.  Heck, I couldn’t even keep a plant alive.  But none-the-less I still had this new desire to start a family.

Three years into our marriage we found out we were pregnant.  We were overwhelmed with joy, and a bit scared.

The birth of our son, Orion, was a long, laborious process.  There were complications that lead to induction and a c-section.  But after 34 hours I finally held my beautiful son in my arms and our new dream started.  What could be more perfect than this?

But when Orion was just an infant I started to perceive differences about him.  I joined a local mom’s group and observed how other mom’s kids behaved.  Their children reached milestones that Orion did not.  Their children could be consoled in situations where Orion simply could not.  I remember clearly the transition from nursing to solid foods being a particularly blaring difference.  Orion refused all solids. He only wanted to nurse.  I tried everything but he would go into a complete fit when a spoonful of food came toward him.  I wondered if it wasn’t the food but rather the food delivery method.  He loved to nurse.  It was the only thing that consoled him.  So when my girlfriend jokingly suggested I put yogurt on my nipples in attempts to get him to try new foods, I was desperate and willing.  That plan backfired.  He flew into a complete rage and started screeching at the top of his lungs. I put him in his crib to calm him down and he proceeded to work his way over to the crib rails and start banging his head forcefully. Why would he hurt himself that way?  What was going on?  I may not have had nurturing instincts, but my “something was wrong” instinct was in tact.

I pleaded with the pediatrician to help me understand my overly sensitive child.  She insisted that on the weight scale he was fine and that he’d likely grow out of it.  She also suggested that his delay in development was probably just because he was a boy.  I knew better.

It wasn’t until we moved and found a new pediatrician that the mystery started to unfold.  At our first  Doctor’s visit I was voicing concerns about how my child would only nurse and had major aversions to food or anything coming toward his face.  It was at this point that the Doctor attempted to look inside my child’s mouth with a tongue depressor. Orion flew into a massive fit.  The Doctor looked stunned and I could see on his face that this was far from a typical child’s reaction.  He started to probe further.  Did Orion respond to his name?  No.  Did he point when he wanted something? No.  Did he sit up, rollover, crawl late? Yep. Did he use any language?  No.  Finally, the Doctor suggested that I take Orion to an Occupational Therapist for an evaluation.  “Occupational Therapist?” I said confused, “But he doesn’t have a job yet.”  “Oh yes he does” he said.  “He has the job of being a kid”.  I came to learn that he meant that Orion had the job of developing his skills, both physically and socially, so that he could play with peers.  He needed to acquire the basic skills to navigate life.

After a long evaluation with the Occupational Therapist, we finally got the first diagnosis of Sensory Processing Disorder; a disorder where the brain doesn’t properly interpret sensory input and usually results in erratic or inappropriate responses and behavior.  To Orion, everything was magnified.  Smells were offensive.  Sounds were louder.  Lights were unbearably bright.  It was all too much for him.

Here I was, out of my element, mothering.  But now it was a whole new can of worms.  I never thought I would be parenting a special needs child.  That happened to other people, but not me.  In my mind, those parents of special needs children must have been specifically hand-picked by God because of their enduring patience and amazing nurturing instincts.  I had no such skills.  Still, here I was.

We contacted a local organization that helped us develop an intensive therapy schedule for Orion.  We did Occupational Therapy twice a week and Speech, Behavioral, and Cognitive therapy once a week. We also started him on a home therapy called Wilbarger’s Brushing Protocol where we stripped him down and brushed his skin every 2 hours to help him accept physical touch.  This was just the short list.  It was an intensive and exhausting schedule for all of us.  And still, he continued to have extreme reactions to things.  I wore the proof of this on my arms and legs that I covered up to hide the bruises he gave me in his fits of anxiety.

By age 3, Orion was evaluated by a Neurologist and found to have PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Delay – Not Otherwise Specified).  He was considered to be on the autism spectrum.   Our child had autism – gasp! We could no longer imagine what his future held.

We continued therapies and little by little saw progress.  We switched diets, joined support groups, joined playgroups, and pushed Orion continually past his breaking point.  He grew stronger and more tolerant with each push.  We learned not to put limits on him because he would constantly amaze us and do what we thought was impossible for him.  We pushed harder, he tried harder.  There were times we all cried in frustration, but we got back up and tried again.  And as much as his diagnosis seemed to be only my struggle, I knew it was mostly his.  He had amazing strength and encouraged me to go on when I should have been encouraging him.

Flash forward four years to where we are today.  Orion will be turning seven next month and starting 1^st grade in a typical classroom.  He communicates quite well, has friends, has a huge imagination and a great sense of humor, is particularly gifted in art and yes, still has sensory meltdowns.  But the difference is that now, I allow myself to dream of his future. It’s been a long road and definitely one I never planned to go down.  But I now know that God did hand-pick me to raise this child.  Not for Orion’s sake, but for my own.  I have learned more about loving another person than I ever could have with a typical child.  With a typical child, I am convinced that I would have continued down the road of self-focus.  But our autism journey forced me to come out of that shell and learn to desire to understand another person’s perspective and needs.  And that is what I’m convinced God wants to grow me in.  Sometimes the road we never planned on is the road we really need to go down to become a better person.

Grandma’s new house in Sequim, WA

// July 7th, 2010 // No Comments » // Food Aversions, Oliver, Orion, Vacation

The weather has finally turned into summer after more than a month of dreary gloom.  It was the perfect time to head to Sequim, WA to visit Grandma and Grandpa Jim’s new house along the golf course.  John and Baxter stayed behind in Olympia.  It was just me and the boys on a long, LONG drive up there.

The house was very nice.  A spacious, open layout.  The thing Grandma likes most is the quietness of it all.  No freeway noise to crowd her brain like the house in Bellevue.  But her peace and quiet got intruded upon when we arrived!

Grandma had wisely set aside some large appliance boxes for the boys to play in and they had a great time drawing on them, jumping in them, and knocking them over while inside.  There were lots of laughs, giggles, and a bit of fighting.  There was also a blow-up kiddie pool in the front yard that they enjoyed.  And when that no longer captured their interest, Grandpa emerged with a golf game that somehow never made it to the Christmas tree pile this past year.  Ollie loved reconfiguring the track to the golf game and hitting the balls.

Grandma also took each of the boys on a cruise around the neighborhood in her red golf cart.  Ollie whined and didn’t like it much.  Orion was thrilled.  And Minnie the Schnauzer was probably just plain jealous that his Mommy (Grandma) was focusing her attention on those boys instead of her.

While the boys and I were on the back porch later in the day, we noticed that same red golf cart passing along the golf course.  Lo and behold, it was Grandpa Jim at the 12th hole playing golf.  We watched him take a swing at it.  He did quite well according to Ollie!

We also went to the community pool and swam briefly.  And as if that wasn’t enough excitement, a block or two away from the house was Graymarsh Berry Farm.  We headed over there and picked buckets of strawberries that we later ate over our french toast.  Yum!

The two really endearing things I’ll remember from this trip are of the boys in their tent.  One night after I put them to sleep in their tent that they share I suddenly heard pitter patter of feet escaping.  I crept down the hall to catch them in the act of mischief and found them back in their tent with Orion re-reading their bedtime stories to his brother.  So sweet.

Then in the morning I thought I heard Orion stirring in the tent.  I peeked over the top screen of the tent to see if he was awake and he was wide awake, in the spoon position with his brother, hugging him while Ollie snored away.  So precious.  I just love those boys.

Kingergarten Graduation 2010

// June 21st, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Oliver, Orion, School, Video

Today was the last day of school and the day that Orion graduated from Kindergarten.  We are so proud of our little guy.

Oliver and I headed to the school to join in on the celebration armed with chocolate covered strawberries.  When we arrived they were heading out to recess so we tagged along.  Ollie loved playing with the big kids at recess even though he almost got trampled on a few times.

After recess we all had snacks and cake and then the graduation ceremony began.  Orion was the first one called up to get his paper graduation hat and fortunately Mommy had the video camera recording.  It was a proud day.

Now school is over and I have absolutely no idea how I am going to entertain these two little people for the next 2 months!  Lord help me!!!

Father’s Day 2010

// June 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion

Today was Father’s Day and originally we thought we might go see the air show in Tumwater.  But the weather turned out to be grey and rainy so we changed plans.

We let Daddy sleep in and made him a special breakfast.  Then, in the afternoon, we loaded everyone in the car and headed North hoping to find some sun.  The sun was nowhere to be found so we stopped in Tacoma and had lunch at Johnny’s Dockside.  They had a fancy (read “overpriced”) Father’s Day buffet that we opted to try.  The food was fairly good and the view was nice.  And even though it was not what we had planned, at least it got us out of the house.

Afterward we all headed back toward home but stopped off first to get the whole family hair cuts.  We returned home to watch “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” and just hang close to home.  We love you Daddy!  Thanks for putting up with us.

“Crazy Hair” day at Kindergarten

// June 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion, School

This is the final week of the school year so to make it exciting they are having special theme days each day this week.  Yesterday it was “hat” day and Orion just wore his favorite Key West baseball cap to school.  Today it was “crazy hair” day.

John got out the hair gel and we attempted to spike Orion’s hair.  It didn’t actually look that crazy, but rather, somewhat trendy.  Hmmmm…maybe Orion will be changing his hair style soon.

Orion’s art show

// June 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion

Tonight was Orion’s art showing at school.  For the past couple of months he’s been taking art classes after school in a program called Art Pioneers.  He loves it.

We baked cookies, invited our friends Carol and Dustin and headed out to see his masterpieces.  There were lots of creative projects to look at.  Each student made a very fun paper hat that they were to wear but Orion said that the tape was sticking to his hair and refused to wear his.  So we took turns wearing it.

The boys had a lot of fun climbing around on the climbing wall in the gym.  It was a good distraction for Ollie who wasn’t too interested in looking at art.  Between climbing and cookies, we kept him occupied.

We all had a good time until a traumatic event happened.  Orion and Ollie were playing around in the cafeteria and Orion somehow got trapped inside of the retractable wall that divides the gym and the cafeteria.  Suddenly he was screeching “Help!” at the top of his lungs.  He was quite frantic and we had no idea if he was actually injured or just scared.  John and Dustin worked quickly to try and remove Orion.  There was a button panel on the wall that looked like it operated the opening and closing of the wall.  But we were afraid to push buttons for fear that it would close up on him more and squish him.  Orion’s speech therapist, Vicki, and I ran frantically up and down the halls looking for a custodian to help.  By the time we returned to the cafeteria Dustin had managed to pull Orion out of the wall.  Those were some tense moments.  He was fine.  Shaken, but fine.

That night he was too afraid to sleep and we had to go into his room every 15 minutes or so to reassure him.  Such trauma.  But a silver lining is that we returned home with lots of fun, frame-able art projects.

"Amate" Mexican Painting

Unnamed snowflake art wheel

Beeswax Collage

Silver Falls State Park cabin retreat

// May 15th, 2010 // No Comments » // Oliver, Orion, Video

We were so excited to head out for our first cabin retreat of the year at Silver Falls State Park in Oregon.  It’s much like camping  since you have to cook your food by a campfire and walk to bathroom facilities.  But the cabins have heat and beds.  I like to refer to it as “sissy camping”.  We love it though.

Silver Falls State Park is gorgeous with 11 waterfalls that you can hike to.  You can walk right beneath the waterfalls and it’s just amazing.

On the drive there we realized that we accidentally left Oliver’s backpack carrier behind.  This concerned me a bit because I knew he wouldn’t want to hike the whole way and that I’d likely be carting him on my shoulders while hiking.  But, ultimately it turned out okay.

We limited our hike to just 4 of the waterfalls.  That equated to about a 3 hour hike.  Then we relaxed at the lodge at the top.  It’s a great place with a park area and a river.  The weather was absolutely perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold.  The only complication with that was that there were a lot of people at the park hiking that day.

We spent 2 nights in cabin 3.  The boys slept in bunk beds with Oliver on the bottom.  This was our first trip where we didn’t put Oliver in a tent or a pack-and-play crib to sleep.  We worried he would fall out of the bed in the middle of the night.  We were correct.  He did both nights.  Suddenly we’d hear a loud thump and then we’d look up to see him pop right back up off the floor and crawl back into bed.  No crying or anything. He didn’t even skip a beat.  Moments later he was back to snoring.  Amazing.

The only real mishap that happened on our trip was that we momentarily left our picnic table unattended and the crows ate all of our chips and bread.  We had hot dogs with no buns and no chips that night.  Lesson learned.

We will definitely return to Silver Falls.  It is one of our favorite camping/cabining destinations in the Pacific NW.