Just a few random pictures...

Trevor caught his first fish this weekend up at Silver Lake! Camping was fun, but VERY wet and rainy the first half of the weekend!

Jaylen reading to his little brother. I LOVE it when these two get along so good!

Jaylen and Moby. He sure loves this kitty! Thankfully the feeling is (pretty much) mutual... most of the time. :)

My Boys!!

Trevor Bevor is 4!

Okay, I'm way behind, so have to post Trevor's birthday first... Trevor turned 4 the end of February and we celebrated by going down to Jungle Playland! It was SO fun! All the kids loved it, and almost everyone made it despite the snow in the area... Can't believe my "baby" is 4 - he hates it when I call him my baby! Trevor's a sweet little guy, but he's got a little fire in him too. :)

The kids ran and played and slid and jumped and rode and got a ton of energy out! Trevor loved his caterpillar cake, and we all had a great time!

My Trevor

This little guy is such a sweetie. :) We were at 5 Guys Burgers & Fries (which I highly recommend, by the way - kinda like In & Out) and he just put his arm around me and gave me kisses on the cheek, just because. I love it when he does that! We took the boys bowling for the first time last weekend, it was SO fun! They had loud music playing, and Trevor just started dancing and moving, jumping around. He's got rhythm. Unlike his mommy. :0)

Look Who's 6!

We celebrated Jaylen's 6th birthday a few weeks ago! Can't believe our little man is 6 years old already... His birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, so we went to McDonald's for dinner that night, then had his parties on Satuday. Phineas and Ferb was the theme for the day. In the afternoon, we had his "friends" party... two boys from school and a couple cousins came over - the kids had a great time, while the moms stuck around and we all chatted for a while. I have to say, it's pretty cool to see Jaylen's friends playing with him. This is such huge progress for Jaylen! That night we had the families over and had pizza and cake... Funniest part was when I put the cake in front of him. He looked at it, then looked up and said, "Sing!" Considering he used to hate the "Happy Birthday" song part of a birthday party, this was pretty funny to hear!

This picture is a little blurry, but I think it's still pretty cute!

Happy Birthday, Bubba!

Playing catch up....

Just a few pictures of some recent happenings around here - just before Christmas we had some family pictures done at the park. COLD day, but they turned out great. :) Christmas was so fun again this year, the kids look forward to it more and more each year. We tried to talk alot about Jesus's birthday and why he came to earth, etc. Santa and presents are so "in their faces" everywhere they turn, it's important to remind them of the real meaning of Christmas. One of the Christmas songs they play on our Christian station here is "I wonder what Christmas in heaven is like." I heard that while working one day, and it got me thinking. Our baby, instead of being born into this world, went straight to heaven. Was he or she celebrating Christmas? I don't know... maybe. God knows, and He was with him or her that day. Kinda crazy to think about. But I definitely missed our baby - even if we hadn't met our baby. The boys still mention "the baby" every once in a while, and I have to remind them that we don't have another baby yet. But they're just excited at the idea of having another baby in the family I guess, knowing we plan to have more. I kind of had it in my head that I would be able to get pregnant again right away, but that hasn't happened yet. Every month, I try not to get my hopes up too much, but it always bums me out a little when I find out I'm not pregnant. I know God has His timing, and He is the author and giver of life. I just need to wait on Him. He knows his plans for our lives, and I don't. So many people have gone through much harder things, lost many babies to miscarriage, lost a child to SIDS, or have never had the ability to be pregnant. I know there are so many out there "worse off" than me... but it still hurts. I guess God can't be our Comforter until we need to be comforted, right?

Anyhow, this post has gone in a totally different direction than I had planned, but moving on... Jaylen turned 6 last week - I can't believe that!! - and we had a couple of fun parties here. His first "friends" party, and then a big family party. So much fun! I don't have pictures of the parties on the computer yet, I'll have to get to those later! It was so cool to have Jaylen's friends from school over for his birthday. He told his teacher a few weeks ago that he had a best friend problem - TWO kids wanted to be his best friend! Wow - what a great problem for Jaylen to have! He's growing up so much. Poor little guy had an ear infection this last week. I know how bad those hurt! they also found a "Still's" heart murmur - just a benign murmur that a lot of kids get and outgrow. The doc said because of the infection his heart is working a little harder so it's easier to detect. We don't have to do anything about it - they'll just monitor it when he's in...

Sledding at Mt Baker! Geoff was off the week between Christmas and New Years, this was one of the many fun things we did that week...

Sorry, the pictures are being a pain to post! Above - Trevor on Christmas morning, below - Jaylen at Geoff's parents on Christmas Eve, they got us a Wii!!! (Sorry it's sideways, I tried to fix that...)

Watching "Frosty the Snowman" in their dumptrucks! :)

POOP!

Poop. Poop! Poop!! PooP! POOP!!! OK, now that we're all a little more comfortable with today's subject, here goes: I'm reading this book called "Dancing with Max" by Chuck Colson's daughter (I don't remember her name and the book is way across the kitchen, so... sorry I don't have the author's name) about her son Max, who has autism. So far, I'm liking it.
Some things I can relate to... she tells a story about when he was 2 and they went to visit her dad and step mom. They had a bunch of people over and Max could only handle it for the first few minutes, and then the two of them ended up in a bedroom, separated from everyone else... Yep, I remember that. At least when Jaylen was younger. He was much happier away from the crowd, and I (or Geoff) would wind up isolated with Jaylen from everybody else. Now, Jaylen has come a LONG way since then. He is so much more social now, you'd hardly think he's the same kid.
Another thing I could relate to was the irrational fears. Yep - this is where the "poop" comes in. Ever since we started potty training, pooping on the potty has been an issue. It took what seemed like forever before he pooped on the potty.... then he would do fine for a while, then he wouldn't. Once he was done with pull-ups, he wouldn't really poop in his underwear, he would just make himself miserable trying to NOT poop. And poop on a public toilet? Forget it! You want to know his biggest hangup with pooping? He's terrified the toilet is going to plug up.
That's it.
One would think, what's the big deal? But to Jaylen, it is a VERY big deal. He's even seen a toilet plug, seen it get plunged, and found that it's really not the arrival of the end of the world. But, it doesn't matter. Every few days, we end up bribing, pushing, threatening... whatever it takes to make him sit on the toilet. He makes himself so miserable! But, funny thing is, after he does, he wants "help" flushing the toilet, and he always wants the lid down so he doesn't have to witness such a terrifying event.
Last week he had diarrhea. Oy. Not a fun week. I remember the first time he had it after he was potty trained. I informed him he had diarrhea, and he started crying his eyes out. He was so scared that it was going to "die" him (DIEarrhea). He's pretty literal. He also thought the dentist was going to give him a DENT in his head. :)
Sometimes it's funny, most times it's frustrating as all get-out. Maybe some day I'll figure out what exactly he thinks is going to happen so I can assure him it won't. But until then, I guess we'll continue to bribe, push, and threaten... And don't get me started on the automatic-flush toilets in public restrooms! I'm convinced that some day Jaylen will invent a toilet that is totally silent and will never plug. :)

Oh, Jaylen

It all started last week with Jaylen being sick. He has school Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but missed all of them last week because he had a high fever. He didn't eat well and was pretty tired most of the week. By Saturday, the fever was gone, but the crabbies were starting to set in. I was gone on the Santa Express bus trip (super-fun shopping trip with 8 busloads of women to Seattle!) so we had hired a babysitter for Saturday night while Geoff went out for dinner with his dad's family for his unlce's 80th birthday. So when I got home Saturday night, babysitter Paige said Jaylen wasn't very good for her (usually Jaylen is pretty good for everyone but his parents, so this was odd). Then we had the time change. Sunday morning Jaylen was about the worst he's ever been in church, and actually bit Geoff towards the end of the service. We went home and he took an almost 3 hour nap. Sunday night, he was still pretty crabby, and yesterday my mom said he's never been that naughty for her (again, he's usually good for other adults). This morning rolls around, and he tells me, "I'm going to be really good today, Mommy." Sounds good. Well, that lasted all of about ten minutes before the backtalking and fighting with his brother started. Then, he was waiting for the bus at the entrance of our cul-de-sac, and I couldn't find my shoes so I was standing in the driveway and yelled goodbye to him. He wanted me to go there, and started crying, so I told the busdriver to just go (after walking on the cold, wet pavement in my socks). I knew once we hit this point, things would only go downhill. So I took Jaylen to school, and we did his parent-teacher conference we were supposed to do Friday but he was sick. Well, when Mrs Wells told him we were going to go out of the classroom for a few minutes for the conference the tears started all over. She talked to him and then he was fine... then when we were done talking with him, he went back to the class, and his teacher and I talked for a few minutes. Then I heard him crying so she went in there, and I left.

I wondered how things were going to go after him being off school for a week. The same thing happened when he was in preschool, after a break of a week or two, he would have a hard time going again.

I know that some kids can have the same thing and some people probably wonder why this is so draining to me. But as Jaylen's mommy, it just make me sad when he's having such a hard time with something. Routine is so huge to people with autism, and Jaylen is no different. Every parent wants their child to be happy, and I don't mean the "buy your kid every candy and toy they want so they'll be happy" kind of happy. I just mean the run around and play with other kids, laugh, and smile kind of happy. Jaylen has those times, but so often he's just so NOT happy. He's very negetive and this morning I saw it in how he interacted with Dominic (his friend at school). Dominic asked him if he had hot lunch today, Jaylen said no, and Dominic asked if they could eat their cold lunches together. Jaylen got a scowl on his face, and said "No, I don't want to do that again" and stomped off. I feel like this fragile friendship won't last if he's going to be like that, and honestly it makes me want to cry. Just a few weeks ago, I posted on Facebook how good it is to see Jaylen playing with other kids and making friends at school (Dominic and Dale). I'm sure Jaylen will get past this negetive/crabby period of time, but right now... it's tough. Things are just harder with Jaylen. Because when Jaylen goes through a time like this, I know part of it is related to autism. I love Jaylen, and I want him to succeed and by happy and most of all to love God. That's another thing that scares me. I know he's only 5, and sometimes he talks about Jesus and heaven in a good way, other times he doesn't. So I guess the point of my dis-jointed little (ok, not so little) post here, is, well, partly to vent, but also that maybe people could pray for Jaylen. Pray that he can overcome some of his difficulties with school, pray that he can be happy, and most of all pray that he would some day love Jesus.

Sometimes when I talk about the things Jaylen does, people will say that their kids do that too, or lots of kids do those things... But with Jaylen it's different. Part of it is knowing he has autism (no matter how mild) and those other kids don't. It's like a tantrem times ten. Talking back times ten. Crabby times ten. And the fact that I want Jaylen to be like other kids, but in some ways, he's just NOT. And I have to be OK with that. I think of the serenity prayer often!

Anyhow, if you've actually taken the time to read this whole post, thanks. :) And thanks for praying for our Bubba. We love him so much and want what's best for him!