Joy's Autism Blog

Firstly, I know I haven’t been on here too much because life is crazy busy with our move. My plan is to recommit to daily blogging in mid September when we are settled in our new house, in our new city, in our new state! Hello nerves! So…if you’ve emailed me about anything and I haven’t responded, I’m sorry! I’m not trying to ignore and be rude, I was able to finally respond to a few things tonight while the kids are sleeping (well actually goofing off in their rooms while they’re supposed to be sleeping!) But anyway, I will update here and there and I have a cool giveaway coming up soon!

Well with the moving, we are making headway. We have a reservation with a moving company and have chosen a place to live. I have signed releases to get all the kids medical records. In the shuffle of packing things I have misplaced Adrian’s IEP and I was able to talk to his teacher today about getting a new one, the plan is to email Lincoln’s teacher for his IEP this week (perhaps tonight!?) because I haven’t received a copy of it yet and I need those for new teachers. My list of to-dos is growing shorter which makes me smile! I have packed all of the kids clothing except for 5 outfits each, I have packed all kitchen stuff that we don’t use regularly, and I’ve been steam cleaning carpets and scrubbing walls like crazy. What makes a big empty room so appealing to kids? The second I empty a room there are four little Tasmanian devils spinning circles in it! One great thing though…the girls love scrubbing the walls. I just give them a bucket of warm water and they go to it.

Sanura is enjoying her summer and is probably the most excited about moving out of all the kids. She hasn’t really made a lot of friends ever and I think she is looking forward to a fresh start.

Adrian is doing good in summer school minus the one day that he thought he was getting a hot dog for lunch and it wasn’t hot dog day until the next day. He’s at his own school, with his own teacher, in his own classroom. I think that is so good for him. Less time adjusting to the new setting and new people so he can get straight to the learning. I’m still having anxiety about how he’s going to handle the move and new school, but his teacher is more then willing to problem solve with the new teachers and be in communication with them so that eases my feelings anyway. I don’t know, naturally I am most worried about him.

Nevaeh, my princess, is doing great. She’s just hanging with Sanura a lot. They play for hours and do each other’s hair and nails. I’m glad they have each other.

Lincoln has his ENT (ear nose and throat doctor) appointment one week from today. I would love to just know what is going on and whether or not there is hearing loss before we move. He has doctors here that I trust and that know us so it’s kind of a big deal for me to figure this out, at least some what, before we move. Lincoln is doing so good with his talking and loves to call himself “baby bear” He’s still a mama’s boy and being my littlest I’m loving it.

I did learn one important thing this week. Never ever take Adrian with me when I am making a return at the store. My mom had bought Lincoln one of those games that have fish spinning around and you catch them with the fishing pole, she got him the spongebob variation of the game. I got it home and stuck a battery in it and it did nothing. So I loaded up all the kids the other day and went to get a new one so we could play that afternoon. I gave the game and receipt to the lady at the service desk and got my money back to go get a new one. She grabbed the game and went to put it in the cart behind the desk. Adrian screamed this shrill ear piercing scream. He did not understand why she was taking the game. We went to get another one but they didn’t have the spongebob variation just the old fashioned fish variation. Adrian was not a happy camper. Not only did he cry all through the store but also in the car all the way home. So lesson learned, no returns when Adrian comes to the store with me!

I’m feeling some serious cold feet about this whole moving thing. I’m trying to shove that aside because I have too much to do to freak out about this too much.

Nevaeh had a physical today and I told the kids’ doctor about our move. It was hard, I really like her and she was the first one to mention autism with Adrian. (back when we didn’t know anything about autism at all) She’s been so great with the kids and has seen me through some tough times when I was mourning Adrian’s autism diagnosis. She asked me to send pictures of Adrian when he graduates high school and that she’d really love to hear how he does. I about lost it when she said that but I was able to keep my composure and hug her goodbye. It was tough.

While I was there I also asked her about Lincoln’s hearing situation. Instead of waiting until who knows when after we move…I am taking him to a local ENT in the middle of July. I feel a lot better about that and I’m glad we are looking at it sooner rather then later.

Adrian did his first two days of summer school so far. It’s going well and he’s happy to be at school.

Things are going well, our family has gotten quite a bit done but there is still plenty to do!

We left town on Thursday morning before 4AM to start our trip to find a house-we got home last night (Saturday) after 5. It’s about a 5 1/2 hour drive and the kids handled it pretty well. There were times that there was a lot of crying the van. It did not help one bit that Nevaeh has some virus. She got sick on Tuesday night, when she woke up still sick with very big tonsils and a red throat on Wednesday I thought I should take her to the doctor and make sure it wasn’t strep or anything. It wasn’t strep and they said it’s just a virus. Here we are though on very early Sunday (I’m up and it’s only 4:45AM) and she still has a fever, red throat, complaining of pain in her head. So I’m worried and trying to decide when it’s time for another trip to the doctor.

As for shopping for a house, I think we found where we are going to live. It’s bigger then where we live now which is great. We outgrew this house a couple kids ago and have just been making due so it will be really nice to have a little more space.

I’m nervous about the move. I’ve lived in this area my whole life so this is going to be a big change for me personally and also I’m of course wondering how the schools and stuff are going to work out. I’m just trying to go one day at a time and get accomplished what I need to do for that day and that seems to be keeping my nerves in check for the most part.

Adrian starts summer school on Monday. I think he’s going to be excited to see his teacher again, I’m so glad she’s doing summer school this year! This is the first year that he’s going to have his own teacher for summer school.

Lincoln is done with speech for the summer because he turned 3 years old on Friday so he doesn’t qualify for services until school starts at the end of August.

That’s it for me. Hopefully Nevaeh and Lincoln will go back to sleep…I’d love to sneak in another hour or so of sleep…

I haven’t been on the computer much at all because I’m trying to pack and clean for the move. The one which we still have no date for but that should be happening within the next 2 months if we’re doing this before school starts.

I have a lot of things packed but still a lot to pack. I’ve taken lots of loads of things to Goodwill but still have a lot to take to Goodwill. I’ve done a lot of yard work but still have a lot of yard work to do. I’ve worked on cleaning the basement but still have a lot of cleaning to do down there…see a theme here?

So that’s what I’ve been up to. Everyone is good around here. Just taking things one day at a time and trying to stay motivated to get all this done.

A little while back we found out that the data center that Glen works at would be closing it’s doors in November.

They offered a couple of options- stay the duration and receive a severance package or transfer. There are offices in Chicago, Dallas, and Kansas City.

After a lot of thought we have decided to take the transfer about 6ish hours from where we currently live.

Along with the normal concerns about moving away from family and familiar surroundings we have Adrian. We are extremely concerned about how he will handle a move and we are terrified that he won’t get a good teacher.

That’s all I can say right now, I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed. We are still unsure of a move date but we know it’s suppose to happen before the kids go to school in the fall.

Glen and I decided to go to a couple of open houses today. We have been searching the internet for houses for quite a while but we hadn’t attended any open houses yet until this afternoon. My mom came over and watched the boys and we let the girls come with us. I figured the boys wouldn’t really enjoy it and would be a handful so they were happy to stay home with their grandma.

We got the chance to look at two houses. The first one we really liked and the second one is just too small. It’s actually kind of hard to find a decent sized house on a budget that will fit Glen, me, and the four kids.

Then I won’t even go into all the stress about schools and Adrian maybe leaving the school that he’s at because we really like his teacher. We have other reasons that we don’t want to stay in this same area we live right now though and it’s just a hard decision. Adrian also has lived in this house his whole life and I’m not sure how he’ll take moving.

We’re in the just looking stage right now but we’re looking forward to moving!