He Has Autism - But it Doesn’t Have Us!!

it’s hard to believe that kaya’s almost 3 1/2. next year she’ll go to kindergarten. she can read her name and draw people with eyes and nose and mouth. she can tell me the first letter of her her friend’s names, and she can even carry a tune.

but my favourite thing about kaya is that she’s mini-me! lately she like matching outfits and wants to wear her hair like mine.

she loves to pick her own outfits!

and watch the rain…

she loves to chill with her buddies…

a little while ago shane and i took her to the fair. we try to make special time just for her!

daddy winning her a prize.

spoiled!

excited!!

dancing.

weeeeeeeeeeeeee

it’s so much fun to have a mini-me!!

i have tried to start this blog so many times. every time i sit down to write this blog something happens. kids fall down, kids fight, my work-kids come flying through the door with all of their crazy teenaged cohorts, or once i even hit the ‘back’ button by accident when i was almost done.. it’s always something.

but here i am. if you are reading this, i have finally posted the ‘back2school’ blog!

So, liam has now been in senior kindergarten for 2 weeks. as most of you know we decided to enroll him in public school this year. he is in a typical senior kindergarten class with a 1:1 support worker who stays with him at all times. so far sooooo GOOD! liam loves SK!! he loves his support worker, mrs. H so much! every morning, he is excited to see her and runs to her when she comes out the door. She helps him be successful.

everyone who works with him is blown away by his reading. even me. i mean it’s rediculous. every day, he’s spontaneously reading more and more. he is well above his grade level, by far the best reader in his class. we walk down the street and he reads me the street sighns, he reads me catalogues, tv commercials, web pages. it’s like the letters just reach out to him. when he was first diagnosed i learned what hyperlexia was, but i had no idea just how amazing it would be to watch it develop. he’s phonetically oriented. when he sees the logo for ‘nick jr.’ tv, he insists it’s pronounced ‘nick jerrr’. he’s real sticky about plurals. if you’re reading him something and you leave off the ’s’ at the end, he always corrects you.

anyway, i could go on all day, but you all get the point.

they’ve also harnessed his mad computer skillz at school and have him teaching the other kids how to use the class computer. that is really wonderful to me. they’re using his talents to help him relate to his peers.

overall it seems pretty awesome so far!!

liam’s first day!

i’ll try to get a picture of him with his support worker. she is just the greatest. my nest mission is to convince the school to let us keep her for his elementary school career.

and kaya is back to her little school. she’s thrilled to be back. she’s the biggest kid in the class this year (her class contains 70% children with special needs, accompanied by 30% typical children who learn leadership, acceptance, and the joys of diversity - fabulous!) she is the teacher’s helper this year, and that makes her feel very, very special. she also looks forward to going to school each morning!

kaya in her school van.

in the time i wrote this blog, i was called away 3 times. but this time i actually managed to finish it! so you all better read every word!

liam vs his nemesis…

the best of the batch IMO.

summer break officially comes to a close today. tomorrow liam has his first day of senior kindergarten in public school. i had a really nice meeting with his teacher last week, and i feel confident that he’ll be successful this year.

i got a super fancy new zoom lens for my d40!

…………………. .. ..

    Zoom NIKKOR 55-200mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR

liam lost his first tooth.

i took some sweet pictures of the kids.

and a bit of wild life.

and liam spent some quality time with his hotwheels.

i captured some flora and fauna in the new backyard of the people i work for.

enjoy…

the yard.

find the hummingbird…

probably my favourite..

so much fun!

the other day kaya was in the backyard playing with her little buddy tia. my mom has a big back yard that she shares with her neighbours. two of the neighbours have dogs, who the kids both really enjoy. the two dogs happened to be fighting over a bone on that particular day.

anyway, kaya and tia were sitting at a small table. buster the minin daschund was sitting under the table chewing on the bone he had won from the other dog. kaya got off of her chair and crawled under the table to get a tree leaf that had fallen under the ground. before anybody could say anything, the dog snapped at her, having decided that she was trying to take his bone.

his top teeth punctured her cheek just under the eye and his bottom teeth scraped up her cheek, leaving an awful bruise.

we chose not to make a big deal of it, although we clearly let the owner know that we were’nt happy. but i decided that the dog was being defensive rather that aggressive, and that we could prevent the same thiing from happening again.

so guess it’s just a really tough lesson learned.

the day after it happened. it was still a little swollen. the briuse wasn’t as obvious because her whole cheek was red.

day 3, the swelling was down and the bruise was much more obvious.

yesterday, the bruise was turning all those wonderful bruise colours and was very obvious.

poor princess!!!

here is a declaration:

autism is a word
it is 6 little letters
i refuse to let it change my expectataions
it will not change my view of the world
or the world’s view of my family
it will not dictate how far we can travel
or how successful he’ll be

autism is a word
it is 6 little letters
i refuse to be intimidated
i will not get frustrated
and i will not give up
i won’t change my course
we’ll just fight that much harder

in 20 years you’ll look at him
and that word will not be the first thing to slip into you’re mind.

President’s Choice is a brand name here. They sell all kinds of food and household products. They have a charity called President’s Choice Children’s Charity. They don’t buy any kind of lifesaving devices or send kids on vacations, but they focus on making lives easier. taking care of the little things. you can apply to have them fund therapy, mobility equipment, disability related home renovations and many other things. We wrote to them and asked them if they would help us get a larger stroller for liam. he still very much needs one because it makes him feel safe when we’re out and he has so many social phobias. we were quickly approved for funding and our snazzy new stroller arrived real fast!!

thank you president’s choice!!

it’s a virtual kid chariot!!

if you live in canada - go out and buy something PC!!

liam spent the day at sick kid’s hospital a little while ago. he was there to get an MRI. we’ve always been a little concerned about the growth and proportions of his head and he is prone to headaches, so this test was to assure that everything is growing and developing typically.

Liam was to be sedated for the test. not a general anestetic, but an IV sedation. we had no idea how awful that would turn out to be for him. but, i’m getting ahead of myself, here.

so, we took a cab there. liam was thrilled to see it was a minivan cab.

sick kids hospital is world renowned for it’s research and treatment. and it really is a beautiful place.  here’s liam in the atrium.

in the waiting room they had a teeny tiny MRI machine that the kids could look at, climb in and get to feel comfortable around. liam and i were both extremely amused!!

fooling around while we waited.

giving us the finger.

he said his ‘coupling broke’

hiding in the linens.

after that fun came the hard part.  liam hated being sedated and fought it hard. he took about 20 minutes to go to sleep and cried and struggled the entire time.

still sleeping.

waking up.

he was very unhappy when he woke up. they warned is that he would feel ‘heavily intoxicated’ for up to the next 24 hours. well he did. he couldn’t walk, he couldn’t even sit up straight. he screamed and fought and hated every second of it. it took at least 4 days for him to feel back to normal.

but don’t worry, he recovered in a couple of days!!

and a cute picture of kaya just for fun!

and i’m happy to report that the MRI was totally normal!

the backyard is probably liam’s favourite place. a hot day and a kiddie pool is all he needs to be happy.

if you’re wondering where kaya is, she spends her days at a preschool/summer camp. she loves every second of it!

joy in flight!

you may find him in a tree.

or diggin dirt!

or swingin

but you’ll always find him happy!

he is a child of summer.