Aug 25 2009
It was AWESOME!!!
As is evidenced by my last blog life around here has been very busy. Ian has been at the center of a lot of the activity. We have noticed that after Ian gets his hair cut his behavior changes. It is almost as if his autism is connected to his hair. That or we just happen to cut his hair right before he’s about to make a breakthrough. Either way since I cut his hair last week he has been progressing in various areas.
On Saturday we went on a family outing to buy a bicycle for Matt. As we were exiting the bus Ian stopped and turned to Matt and said. “Mr. Dad, you’re a genius!” First, I am glad that he didn’t call me Mr. Mom. Second, he formulated this thought and phrase all on his own. The next day we went to a local school after church so the children could ride their bikes. Matt removed Ian’s training wheels and he vehemently objected, for about half a minute. Then he got on the bike and rode it around the track over and over and over again. Now Ian is a two-wheel bicycle riding, sleek-headed, smart mouth! What a difference a haircut makes. Don’t believe me? Just check this out and you’ll see that I’m right.
Of course, Ian is not the only child in this family so it should be expected that there would be advances from the others. Well I’m sorry to disappoint you but the rest of them are just a bunch of slackers.
Okay, okay. Yesterday I had a “girl day” with Megan and Mary.
The day began with them accompanying me to a used curriculum book store. Wahoo! At the bookstore Mary found a ballerina paper doll book that she fell in love with. She asked if she could have it and I said she and Megan could share it. While I was waiting to have my purchases rung up Mary ran up from the back of the store and told me she’d found another book she really wanted. She showed me the cute little blue book that was to take the place of the paper dolls. It was an English to German dictionary.
“Are you sure, Mary?”
“Yes, Mom. I love languages.”
So we got the dictionary which came with a German to English book as well.
From there we went to Costco to do some much-needed shopping. Again, wahoo! After we put the groceries away and prepared lunch for everyone the three of us girls went to Lloyd Center to go ice skating. For Megan and I this is not a big deal but Mary has never wanted to skate and she was reluctant. Megan spent most of the morning telling Mary how much fun ice skating is and by the time we arrived at the mall she had gone from nervous to excited. I, on the other hand, was still nervous about her first time on ice skates. There was a very good chance that Mary would not enjoy skating and after 20 minutes would want to leave.
I have often worried about Mary being too timid to try new things. Last month when we went to Oaks Park Mary insisted on riding the Tilt-a-Whirl. Matt doesn’t do spinning rides so it was up to me to ride with her. You know that old saying about not riding the Tilt-a-Whirl after eating a hot dog? It’s true. That experiment in trying new things didn’t turn out very well so I was understandably worried about our latest venture outside of Mary’s comfort zone.
How did it go?
According to Mary it was AWESOME!!! Can Mary ice skate? According to Mary she is an AWESOME skater!!!
I have to agree that she’s pretty good. In an hour and a half of ice skating she only fell six times. After this outing Mary changed her future career from gymnast to ice skater. I am just glad she had fun. Ice skating is the new preferred activity for “girl days”.
Megan also had a good time and finally succeeded in making a new friend and exchanging phone numbers. She has been trying to do this every time we go to the park and today she met a like-minded child. They got us moms together to make sure we would exchange information. Today we will visit some neighbor girls and take them some of our blackberry coffee cake. Megan is intent on having more girls to play with. There’s nothing like friends you’re not related to to help you appreciate your own siblings.
Riding without training wheels, ice skating and new friends. All of these things are AWESOME!!!
Awesome blog! I look forward to reading more.
I am doing a little research for the sake of my grandson.
You mention Ian has Autism, sorry I just read this post. What I am trying to find out is, when he was younger, maybe toddler age, did he behave like a typical toddler? Were there things that were noticibly different in his behavior?
We differing degrees of autism in our family. I am just trying to find out if behaviors are noticible early on with some.
Way to go children! You are blosseming into well rounded lil people and approach life with a zest. Each of you are special and unique. I love you all!
Mrs.G.
Thank you, readers! I love sharing the triumphs of all of my children.
Northsong, Ian was always very cuddly and mellow. He was late developing in gross motor skills such as crawling and walking. He is a twin and his sister was also slightly delayed in this area but she advanced much quicker than he did. His speech was minimal and around 24 months he seemed to lose the few words he did have.
Ian never made animal noises or sang along with songs. When he did repeat words (which was extremely rare) he had what we now know to be delayed echolalia. He would store the information and blurt it out weeks or even months later. He still does this but now his siblings can usually tell me where he picked up certain phrases and songs. When Ian did start walking he would wander a lot. He never wanted to sit down and read a book or play with toys appropriately. He would line things up. One great example was when he took the babies’ teething links and lined them up around the entire room. It all looked very random to us but when someone took a link away he freaked out. Then when we tried to put it back it wasn’t in exactly the same order and he had a complete meltdown. We were just beginning to understand what he was experiencing.
I would love to be able to see the world through his eyes because, to him, there is a very specific order to things that I can’t quite grasp.
It is great fun watching them grow up. I miss mine being small. Now I get to watch my grandaughter grow up. With my kids I look forward to Meghan graduating eigth grade this year. She will be driving in two years. I hope that Joey and Justin do something with their lives. I don’t know what I’m going to do when they finally move out. Cherish every day, even the bad ones. Before you know it, they are all grown up.
It is such a blessing that Ian has those moments. It reminds us how awsome God is.