Courtney's new Do

Courtney got ALOT of hair cut off tonight! Tons of it. It was down past her shoulders when we went in. I am so glad she did this. It looks wonderful one her!

Look at how grown up she looks! I think this cut is PERFECT for her!

And SHE Loves it too. It took me ALOT of convincing to get her to go this short, but I am very glad she did.

A look into the night at the Beyer House

After a dose of melatonin both boys were in bed by 8:30 (which is not typical for Col, but I bought more melatonin last night, so we are good for a bit) Mike and I went to bed about 10:15, after laying there talking for about 5-10 minutes, I hear a kid. It was Colin, so Mike went in there settled him back in and came back to bed. Off to sleep we go. This is always the most peaceful time of my sleep. It’s after midnight when things go downhill!

At 12:30 Caden wakes up crying because he has to go potty (he doesn’t wear pull ups to bed, he wears underwear, but he won’t go potty without us knowing that he has to go?! {Even during the day!}) So up I get, take him to the potty and get back to bed.

At 1:25 Colin wakes up and comes to our room. This was actually a decent night because he didn’t wake up with an anxiety attack, he just woke up calmly. Of course the only way to get him back to sleep is for you to sleep with him. So I grab my pillow and head into bed with him.

At 3:00 Colin wakes up again. Thankfully I am already in bed with him, so it was an easy fix. Re-cover him and reassure him that I am sleeping right next to him. Back to sleep we go.

At 4:50 Caden wakes up screaming my name. I am disorientated at this point and just yell to come sleep with me, not realizing at the time that I was still sleeping with Colin.

At 5:10 apparently Caden didn’t get up and go in my bed, because he is still yelling, and I was still sleeping with Colin. So I get out of Col’s bed and go in my room with Caden. Since Mike didn’t have to be at work until a bit later today, he was still in bed, so we shoved everyone over and in bed with daddy, Caden and I went.

5:30 – Mike’s first alarm goes off.
5:45 – My first alarm goes off.
**sigh, yawn, I hate weekdays!**
6:00 – My second alarm goes off, Mike turned his phone on vibrate, so I have no idea what happened to his alarms after this.

I got up then and went into the shower as I typically do. As I am showering I here my name (mommy) being yelled. *sigh* can’t even shower at 6am in peace! As I am getting out, the cat is meowing at me, and then I thought maybe I didn’t hear my name, maybe the cat was meowing and it sounded like mommy? Hm….. Continue drying off…. Nope, there is the distinct sound of Caden yelling Mommy from the living room. Off I go to see what is going on, he was laying on the couch {in the dark}, cold and wanted covered up and Mickey on!??!! What??? Daddy is in bed sleeping, I am showering, why not go and wake up daddy?? Thankfully he didn’t wake up Colin by yelling, or I would have been not a happy mommy.

6:35 Colin wakes up, and my crazy, chaotic, non-stop day begins……….. {Not to mention the crying, throwing, biting fits that happened between 6:45 and 7:10 when we got in the car ~ and the fact that their are split cheerios all over the living room and kitchen, that I won't have time to even start to clean up before therapy at 5}

Tonight we have Occupational Therapy, right at 5pm, after work which is typical meltdown transition period, usually lasting for 1.5+ hours. I am hoping that Katie actually sees what our typical evening is like!

So this is an example of most of my nights. And it was a pretty good one at that. I managed to get a decent couple hours here and there. Actually going into bed with Colin helps and makes it easier when he wakes up, but in the end, it is not ideal, nor is it very comfortable. And I want my own bed!

Look at the Vacuums!

This is how we spend our Sunday Mornings - Looking through the ads in the Sunday paper for pictures of vacuums... the boys then rip out that page, and keep it with them for the next months, until it vanishes one day.... They must have sat and admired this ad for a good 10 minutes discussing which one each one of them wanted. Then Caden demanded that I call Stacy so he could have the same pictures from her paper, since Colin took this one... thankfully my mom was here and had the paper with her, so it solved alot of crying fits that afternoon!

Notice how INTO this they are? they had NO idea that I was even taking these pictures!

Brother Bart

here we have Courtney with her "Uncle Bart" We got to dog sit bart for my dad last weekend. The boys loved having him around! I enjoyed having his little warm body sleeping next to mine while Mike was sleeping with Colin so I could sleep all night... what a man!

Have I missed anything?

This sadly is what we do to try to avoid 2 hours worth of meltdown. Sometimes it works.... most of the time it doesn't. Is there anything else King Colin that I have missed?? We have 2 bowls of grapes, one bowl of apples, Corn dog (with 3 spots of ketchup), cornflakes, corn chex, chocolate chips, and peanut Butter crunch cereal. Typically this would include a waffle as well, but we ran out, and a peanut butter & Jelly sandwich, but this was a lucky day and he didn't ask for one....

This is how my conversation went with Colin as I was laying in bed trying to get him to sleep:

Me: Your going to sleep all night tonight right Colin?

Colin: No!

Me: Your not? How come, you should really sleep ALL night and not wake up

Colin: No way mom! Colin wake up night time.

Me: How about we don't wake up this night?

Colin: No Way!

I swear this kid knows what he is doing and does it on purpose! Can't wait to see if my little chat with him works? Maybe hypnosis is next?

**Update** It's now tuesday Morning and No, the little chat did not work. It was well after 9:30 when he finally got to sleep, and it was 12:15 when he woke up in a tantrum...... after 45 mintues of getting his anxiety down enough to get him calm and back in bed and to sleep, Mike went and slept with him so I could sleep all night, only to have Caden wake up at 1:30 because he pee'd the bed! ha,ha. At this point, all I can do is laugh!

Colin's Surgery

This was interesting to say the least. Ok.......I lied. It was Horrible! So much worse then I ever imagined it would have gone. Especially since we had been through previous surgeries with both Him AND Caden! Geez.... I have to tell you, I firmly believe that God has one amazing sense of humor, because I have NO idea what he is thinking blessing us with this child!

So We wake Colin up just as we walk out the door, all is good from that point until we get signed in and they register us. That is when they have to put the wrist band on him. I suggested doing his ankle to avoid him seeing it, so it won't put him in sensory overload. So we do it. *failed* That didn't go so well. For the next 10 minutes while we are waiting in the waiting room to get called back he is screaming, crying and kicking to get this off! Then they take us back to do his vitals and this wonderful nurse cuts it off and give me a new one to hold onto and we'll try his wrist with it. I just held it, hoping and praying that would forget about it! LOL They didn't. Vitals were hard, but we manged to get blood pressure, that was about it. Then to patient holding area. Of course he won't sit in the crib. Of course he won't put on the hospital gown and of course they now tell us he needs to put the darn wristband back on! Argh! he is already in meltdown mode as it is. So as I am fighting to get him dressed the anesthesiologist comes to talk to us, and of course I can't really understand most of what he's saying and I have a SCREAMING child to start off. So as we get him dressed in the gown, I break down and we start to put his PJ bottoms back on him for some comfort all while he is still trying to rip the bracelet off screaming that it hurts and I am "trying" to explain to this guy why he is acting the way he is acting. They don't get it. They were nice and all, but they don't get it. So "thankfully" he ordered us a liquid sedative immediately to get him settled down.

That Stuff is amazing! I want some for home!

I REALLY am not lying to you, these pictures are after the wonderful med!

Colin was still fighting the gown so the nurse that was going to be in surgery with us told us to not worry about it and get him dressed. (bless her!) So Colin went into surgery with his PJ's on. Worked for me. In the meantime, the sedative started working and Colin was ALL better. He was like a drunken sailor. He kept pulling at the bracelet telling us it hurt while he was laughing. If you said anything to him he would crack up. It was quite funny. We couldn't put him down since he would fall, so I held him in the rocking chair until they carried him into surgery. Once they did that, Mike and I went down for a super quick breakfast and to wait for the doc to come out and talk to us.

30 fast minutes later, all done. Now we wait for them to call me back to recovery. So I am looking forward to this part. I've been here and done this. The kids are just waking up and want to cuddle with mommy . Caden did it, Colin did it last time. So they call me back. As soon as they open the door to the hallway, you HEAR the screams. Colin ~ not so much for the cuddling thing this time. He wanted to O2 thing off. He wanted the blood pressure cuff Off. he wanted the IV out. He wanted to NOT be touched. He wouldn't drink. He was PISSED off to put it mildly. The poor nurses. There was 3 of them and me holding him down trying to settle him. It wasn't happening at all. It was then that he ripped the IV out and blood went all over the place. mostly on me. All over my shirt, my neck (ick!) the floor, nurses, you get the picture. We got that settled down, bleeding stopped and there was no getting him to drink or calm down, so they called Mike back too (even though only 1 parent can go in recovery) about 30 minutes later, between all of us and 2 Popsicles later we got him calm enough to move out of recovery to the holding center to head home. I was SO ready to be done by this time. Totally exhausted. blah, blah, blah.

We finally got to leave, we get home and this kid won't SLEEP still! One would think after all of that, plus anesthesia he would need to rest?? not Colin. 45 minutes is all we've gotten so far and it's not 3:50pm. I can NOT wait for Mike to get home! LOL Thankfully he is drinking tons of fluids and munching on everything and wetting diapers, but geez, we both need rest!

So I am hoping we require no more surgeries in the near or far future. And I've now realized too, just how much Colin does needs OT, since this was SO much worse then anything I could even have imagined. He is WAY WAY sensory overload to put it mildly.

All in all though, Colin is doing fine surgery wise. I am exhausted, my shirt is ruined (LOL), the nurses have a headache and Mike probably doesn't want to come home from work, But Colin is fine!

Colin's Swing

The View with swing up. I was able to keep everthing that was in the prior in there still, which was nice, just had to move it around a bit!

Thanks to my great friend Heather, and her awesome mom Jan, we were able to get Colin the Ekorre swing for therapy purposes. Heather has one for Cardon and Loves it. Her mom lives in Utah near and Ikea (which we have no where near us) and offered to go and pick one up for us and ship it to us. I am SO very thankful to her for this! After patiently waiting for a week, it arrived yesterday. Then after patiently waiting and working hard for about 4 hours, Mike & I managed to get it hung up! that is after numerous countless trips for Mike having to crawl up into the crawl space above the house to find the crazy studs, then having to make our own studs to nail the darn thing into! (darn old houses that don't make sense) But the boys both love it and I am excited it's finally here. Colin starts therapy this Thursday at our house, so I am excited to show his therapist this!

The Mess trying to get it installed!

Daddy working hard

Finally!

Caden laying in it!

Col laying in it.

Alvin & The chipmunks

Yesterday we took all the kids to the Sensory Friendly viewing of Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 ~ This is the first time we've brought Colin along with us, but figured since he watches the first Alvin movie more then 20 times per day he would enjoy this ~ well he did ok, for the first 10 minutes :-) Since it's sensory friendly your allowed to bring in your own snacks, so we made our own special air popped pop corn and got red dye free fruit snacks and we were on our way. Another of our parent group families came with and met us there, so it was nice. Colin has been needing to touch EVERYTHING he likes these day, so had to walk up to the screen and touch Alvin, that started the train of kids wandering... Caden followed Colin, then David followed Caden, then tony did David, then came the other kids in the theatre~ LOL they ran alot, sat some, but all in all we had a good time. And the movie is super cute! I am so thankful to have sensory friendly viewing in our area!

Yes, we really did take up two rows!

What If??

What if the H1N1 shot that Colin got might cause Autism in the end???

This is just something that is driving me crazy. I don't really think this is going to happen. I am a strong firm believer that Autism is genetic. I don't think it's something you can "catch". I don't think you wake up ONE day and show every sign and symptom leading to an autism diagnosis. I believe that it is something your born with. I completely understand there is a TON of controversy out there surrounding that, and I am not here to bash what others may or may not think, since I am also a firm believer that everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I just think that Caden was born the way he is, I don't think it's anything that "happened" one day. I think that it just took however many months for the noticeable symptoms to show their lovely hand in his development. Thinking back though, we've always said that alot of his infancy made alot more sense to us. ok, so now, with that being said:

While I had Colin at the doctor yesterday for his pre-op medical Clarence and 2.5 year physical, I decided to get him the H1N1 shot. No one else in our house had this, Courtney was suposed to get it through school a few weeks ago, but she had a slight fever of 99.6 and they refused her. I only wanted to do her and only her since she seems to get sick much much more then the rst of the family. Other then that I didn't plan on getting it done for anyone else either. But for some reason or another I got it done for Colin. Yesterday, and today I am second guessing myself with the "what ifs??" Why do you ask? Well the dose that Colin was given, was NOT one of the doses that was preservative free, which means that it contained a level of the thimerosal, which from some studies has been known to be linked to Autism. Which of course raises red flags for me. *sigh* Because I believe that Autism is genetic based, this shouldn't bother me, but it does, just because. Just becuase someone sometime said that it was linked, it scares me. There is already Autism history in our family, so because of that history does that mean that Colin will have even greater odds of the thimerosal having some sort of effect on him?? I know, I know, It's all things that I shouldn't worry about. I KNOW that Colin has sensory delays and ONLY sensory delays. His delays are Totally different then anything that we went through or do go through now with Caden. I also believe too that Autism shows it's face at a young age, although again some studies have shown otherwise. Again this post is based on my beliefs and opinion, so I apologize now if this offends anyone later on.

So although I know in the long run that Colin will be fine, I can't help but kick myself today, wishing that I didn't do the shot. I have decided to NOT take him back next month for the 2nd dose of it. I am leaving well enough alone. I don't believe that Autism needs reason for "blame" whatsoever. BUT if for some whacked out super strange out of the blue reason Colin ends up with more problems and happens to need or require Autism testing and ends up with a diagnosis down the line, I will ALWAYS wonder:

"What If, I didn't do that shot on Thursday January 7, 2010?"

A 6 year old young Autistic boy once told me "There is no such thing as Autism, it just means that I am more special" Just the fact that my children are special needs, makes them ALL that much more special to us anyway! :-)

Thanks for reading my corny stupid fears and vents of what if's. I guess I just needed to type it and get it out.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition Buffalo date set!

I just learned the date that Extreme Home Makeover Buffalo will be aired!

Everyone set their DVR's for

Sunday Jan 24th at 8:00Pm

the show will also be aired for 2 hours rather then the normal 1 hour in order to highlight all the work that was done in the entire community.

I am SO excited to see this aired. I was SO lucky and blessed to be able to go to the site almost daily and follow the progress, not to mention get up close and personal with the designers and get to meet Jonathan; the producer and work side by side with him and our drivers. I can't wait to see it actually aired on TV and say " I was there & a part of that!"

Courtney's Selling Cookie Dough

Just in case anyone out there is interested, Courtney is selling Otis Spunkmeyer Cookie dough, pretzel kit & brownies. The order is due to me with the money(checks can be written to the DMSPTO) by Thursday Jan 14th, and the cookies are delivered on Monday February 22nd. Each tub/kit is $15.00

The Following flavors are available:

Oatmeal raisin
Butter sugar
Chocolate chocolate chunk
White chocolate macadamia nut
Peanut butter
Cranberry oatmeal
Carnival candy (which is just M&M's and chocolate chip)
Strawberry shortcake
Reduced fat chocolate chip
Chocolate chip
Triple chocolate chip
Pretzel Kit (12 bake and serve pretzels, includes salt & cinnamon sugar packets)
Double chocolate Chip brownies (these just say thaw and serve on them)
Café Au Lait brownies (same as the one above)

If anyone is intersted in ordering anything, just let me know, either by email, leave a comment or give us a call!

Retaliation?

Last night Caden & Colin were playing together with the laundry chute. Colin would be at the top and Caden was at the bottom waiting for Colin to throw things down at him. (they were using a sock for most of this) they would then, meet on the stairs, Caden would give the sock back to Colin and Colin would throw it down again. They were doing this for a good 5-10 minutes. Laughing so hard, having so much fun. Mike and I were standing in the kitchen laughing at Colin running back and forth from the hall to the basement stairs.

Well at one point Col said that he was thirsty, so he grabbed his juice (thankfully, since i had put melatonin in it just 5 minutes before that, it was about 7:45pm at this point) and started drinking it. He had the sock in one hand, the 9 oz sippy cup in the other. He walked back to the chute...... and threw down the SIPPY CUP! All you hear is Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa loudly coming from the basement. I run down there and Caden is sitting on top of the freezer, directly under the laundry chute (apparently they were throwing things so it landing directly on Caden's head/face) with his face in his hands, crying so loudly it broke my heart. I move his hands and his nose was bleeding. Mike got him upstairs, on the counter so we could get ice on it and get the blood cleaned up. I was worried that his nose may have been broken. Those sippy cups are HARD and it was FULL with 9 oz of liquid and dropped from one story up, so it was coming down FAST! It left a mark too, it looked like it hit him right in the boney bridge part of his nose.

Eventually we got it cleaned up enough and brought him out to the living room to settle him down. 10 Minutes later his was STILL screaming bloody murder, so I was worried that I should maybe call then doctor. Caden then started telling me to call the doctor for him. *sigh* he never asks to go to the doctor. So I called our neighbor, Cathy, who is a nurse. I knew she would let us know if we needed to go our not. She said to give him about 30 minutes more to settle down. It was quite swollen, but not bleeding anymore and he was letting us keep ice on it, which was a good thing. with in about 20 minutes he settled down enough and got himself to sleep (still on our laps) we got him tucked in bed (although he wouldn't let us take the cold towel off his face until he was out COLD!) and he slept all night long.

The FUNNY part of all of this happened this morning. Caden woke up, and I asked him if I could look at his nose (thinking for sure he would have some big time bruising or black eyes today) and he let me. He didn't have any really bad brusing, thankfully. I am sure more will come out as the day progresses, but hopefully we got ice on it soon enough to prevent any mega problems. He did say that it still hurt and wouldn't let me touch it to see if I could feel the bone at all. So as I am getting him dressed this morning, he says to me this:

Caden: Mom .... next time I do that
Me: Do what Caden?
Caden: (using his sign and hand gestures mostly) Throw cup down & hit Colin's nose
Me: ?#!$*&?? No Caden, Colin did it on accident, he didn't mean to hurt you!
Caden: Mom..... Next time I do that

*Sigh*

So all this time, we've been trying to teach Caden to fight back when Col is beating the crap out of him, he choose's NOW to retaliate?? Oh Boy!

For Mike

This post is strictly for Mike's sake ~ he wanted everyone to be aware that there has been an earthquake in Geo Town

*sigh*

Just like Daddy

Big Shop Vac, Little Shop Vac.

Just like Daddy!

Colin was cleaning up under the table for us and yes, it really does pick up!

Welcome to our Family

Meet our newest family member ~ Bob, he is a 1.5 year old Tiger Kitty. So sweet, soft & Lovable. We are happy to welcome him into our home.