Now being in the world of autism, april is IT'S month so in honor of that here are some specific tidbits we've learned about caden in hopes to increase your awareness. at age 2 when all he was doing was jumping while watching spongebob and his language didn't progress we clued in to a possible developmental delay. as his speech plateaud and his nonconformity to social situations increased the signs became clearer. we had some hints from friends and the big A word was mentioned--yeah scary. that opened the door to lots of testing and assessments. just 5 months ago we finally got a diagnosis of HFA (high functioning autism). so now we have a child with an ASD (autism spectrum disorder). every HFA case is totally different, and of course every child is different which makes creating the perfect "TEAM" of therapists and aides crucial. we are still at the beginning stages of this: analyzing which suits caden best: BT (behavioral therapy), SIT (sensory integration therapy), OT (occupational therapy) and he's already receiving Speech Therapy. if you want to learn about autism itself i have my favorite links at the very bottom of my blog. but check out how cute this video is:
as his parents we have come to realize that these are a few of his autistic tendencies: when mommy is mad at him he only sees my "angry eyebrows", obsessions with sensory enhancing objects like fans, the moon, he turns up the volume at loud things like crashes on Tom & Jerry cartoons, heartbreaking meltdowns if he's excited about something-tries to share the excitement and its not reciprocated, knowing details of animals like a frog is "a red eyed tree frog that uses it's suction cups to climb".
we've come to learn that choosing your battles is the ABSOLUTE KEY to his happiness and ours. we know that infinite patience and repetition will work in teaching him. he's a smart little guy and has the most tender heart out of all of us. he just processes differently, it's actually quite fascinating to learn about and realize why caden does what he does. we love him so much that's for sure, and we thank you for the loving support from all of you.
good ol salinas and it's funky weather--we had a little heat wave and it hit 98 degrees, so i let the 4 kids play in our ZERO of a yard right now and boy did it turn into ONE fun but muddy time.
i love caden being the master of the water--and don't worry little raylee was just as much in the mud as the boys but i chose to rescue her to the tub instead of capturing it on camera. note that kendra is the only one having good CLEAN fun--the wise child.
now these last 2 pics are of our GHETTO back yard; these are before pics yes, but at this point we had put in about 20 good hours of crazy hard labor and as you can see there's about a gazillion more that needs to go in. we contemplated hiring this out but i must say it's a great sense of pride knowing WE did it and watching it come along. stay tuned--but give us some time.
after heading up kendra's class party & enjoying spring break our fam started off with a FHE easter story and egg coloring. ray ray had a good time holding the egg in the dye (note the blue hand) and then cracking it open and playing with the yolk--yuck. all the kids got way into it which was great. then grannie annie had the cute idea to help the kids make "peep-sicles"--chocolate dipped candy coated peep bunnies on a stick. too cute, but holy sugar intake. after seeing what the easter bunny left on easter morning jared, kendra and i along with nieces zoey & taylor, and nephew alex all sang "He Sent His Son" at church as part of a wonderful easter sunday. we ended with our own little egg hunt at home and got another holiday under our belt. hope everyone enjoyed theirs as well.
