Revelation

So the other day it occurred to me just how easy life is these days. I just woke up and realized that Benjamin is a thousand times "better" than he used to be. A year ago and he was such a bear most of the time. Everyone knows that he's always been an active child (understatement of the year) and that his attention span has always been short, but it seems as if the older he gets, the easier life gets with him. I have always heard most Moms complain that the older the child gets, the harder life seems to be, so I'm ecstatic to say the complete opposite is happening with us. It's not an ordeal to take him to the grocery store anymore. We can go to the park and he will play with other children. I can do housework and not be scared that he's hanging from the chandelier.

Life is good, folks. I have no complaints.

Sleep

Sleep is such a popular pastime for people. Over the last two years, I have often thought that sleep is past my time rather than it being my pastime. Lots of children have sleep disorders and drag their parents along the way. Warren and I often wonder how it is possible to have more than one child. And what I mean by that is how is it possible to have the energy to raise more than one child... because the two of us can not comprehend what is it like to have a child that sleeps through the night more than two consecutive nights. We know lots of people with two and three children and they all seem normal. Sure they complain about losing sleep, but they continued to have children and some still see more children to come in the future. I'm pretty sure they're hepped up on coffee for most of the waking hours of the day though.

When people ask me if I want more children, I would love to answer with an emphatic "YES," but honestly... I don't answer that way at all. This is just our season, I know. I KNOW.

Soapbox

Okay, brace yourselves for this one...I'll just admit it to all of you now, I love my kid. I enjoy being a parent. No, this is not some sort of weird mantra.

How about using that as a conversation starter as opposed to the usual phrases... and we all know what those phrases are so I won't be posting them here. Really think about what you say about your children. They are not miniature adults and should not be spoken about as such. Most people say nicer things about their pets than their children when asked.

If you think your children have bad attitudes, take a good long look at their surroundings. What do they see? What do they hear? If I've learned anything from Benjamin it's that his bad days are my bad days.

I've never said my days were easy with Benjamin... and I have done my share of complaining about his behaviors... but never once have I resented him and the time it takes to care for him. Being a stay at home parent is challenging for anyone from time to time. Learn to embrace those challenges instead of simply complaining about them.

So I just might be on top of my soapbox, but that's what a blog is for, right? It's your choice to read it. :)

It is well

Benjamin had his six month check up with his neuro pediatric doctor last week. It's just a simple office visit very similar to a well-baby exam, but he sees a specialist instead of a regular pediatrician. The office is inside a hospital, which is a little scary for me to be honest. Every time we go, I'm very aware of the fact that his office is inside of a hospital, which houses sick people. Now there are tons of clinics there as well, but those clinics aren't my concern when I'm taking Benjamin there. All I can think of is that we're required to go to a hospital for my child to see a brain doctor. Some days I forget that Benjamin is different, but not on the days when we go see Dr. Stuart.

The visit was uneventful in terms of a medical perspective. No tests, no bloodwork. Just some questions from the doctor and another scheduled appointment at the end of the year. Dr. Stuart asked us questions about Benjamin's behavior on a day to day basis and it finally dawned on me what a different child he is compared to last November. He has a language delay, but that is probably the only noticeable factor at this point that he is different from any other child his age. Does he have tantrums when he doesn't get his 5th popsicle for the day? Sure. (they're sugar free, by the way.) Is he cranky when he is sleepy? Sure. Does he not like to come inside when he's having so much more fun outside? Sure. The differences: Does he bang his head on the ground repeatedly? No. Does he cry when other children simply enter the room? No. Does he physically push books away from you? No.

Benjamin is leaps and bounds a different child, but it's been so gradual that we didn't notice that he's more normal than abnormal at this point. Sure he still lines up his toys and loves to spin the wheels on his cars, but that isn't going to put him in a special school. Quirky people fill the world and my child is just going to make it a bit fuller.

I have said so many times how profound song lyrics are in my life, and as I was walking out of that hospital, I could not help but to think of this hymn.

It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

A new day, a new word.

Benjamin has so many words now! I can't express how relieved and excited we are to hear anything come out of his mouth. His new favorite word is eye, which he says like his Mamma- "ahye". It's soooo adorable. Six months ago we were seriously starting to have doubts about whether or not he would ever speak, but now we are without doubt. Isn't that awesome?

tantrums

Benjamin's teacher comes once a week on Monday mornings. He was still sick on Monday, so we had to reschedule the appointment for today. She mainly works on speech therapy through interactive play and it usually goes really well. He actually looks forward to it it seems. He is usually very withdrawn when people come to the door that aren't in the immediate family (me, warren, and my favorite neighbor), but he always smiles when she comes. She is here solely for him and I think that he is aware of that. Today she brought Easter eggs filled with little treasures for him to find and he was amused with opening and closing them a million times, but got a little irrate when she tried to hide them to practice for the Easter egg hunts coming up in a few weeks.

It can be said that Benjamin has a difficult time managing transition, but today was just completely out of the normal range for his tantrums. In a normal situation, I would have just let him throw himself on the ground (This part is actually sort of funny because he usually eases himself on the ground because he's found that it hurts when he throws himself. lol) and have it out for the couple of minutes. Well, as I said, she's only here once a week, so it is vitally important that he stay in control of himself and be able to learn while she's here. I tried to consol him and my oh my was that the wrong thing to do. The child actually headbutted me! Right in front of his teacher. Now to clarify, he wasn't trying to hurt me, he was just that much out of control. Needless to say, this made me very angry. Yes, angry is the right word because it hurt. I try to not parent in anger and I'm to tell you that it took every bit of strength in me to not beat him right in front of his teacher and Madeline. (Rachel's little sweetie who comes three times a week.) The hour was up by this point, so it was time for his teacher to leave anyway. Not a moment too soon because all I wanted to do was cry, but I managed to keep it together until she left.

It's time like this that I sit and think, "Why me, why my kid, why he does act this way, and when will it stop?". Well, I do know why he acts this way, so that isn't really a good question to be pondering to begin with. So, to all of you who think that I always have it together with Benjamin and that it's easy, I'm to tell you that it's not easy and I most certainly do not have it all together all the time. I don't have moments where I sit and feel sorry for me or for him often, but those moments are definitely real. However, God never gives us more than we can handle and I still believe that to be true. After all, I do not have a woe is me attitude about his condition that is evolving into something that could possibly require life long care. Okay, yes, maybe I do have a woe as me attitude 1% of the time... Still good odds for us all, I'd say.

Thanks for listening.

Gluten woes

Casein free is not fun, but gluten free is lots worse. It's easy to substitute soy for cow's milk, but there really is not a substitute for wheat. Wheat is in so many foods! What I am coming to realize is that the foods that contain wheat usually are not that great for you anyway. All the processed junk that we put into our bodies on a daily basis... man oh man. Just wait for the post about the additives in fast food. I actually already knew most of it, but I chose to ignore the facts and settled with ignorance is bliss. You really can not do that with a child who has allergies though.

So the woes basically consisted with Benjamin having withdrawals to gluten. The basic explanation of the whole situation is that there are some autistic children (and obviously some neuro-typical children as well, but they get labeled as having Celiac disease) can not digest casein (cow's milk by product) and gluten (wheat, rye, barley, etc.). These proteins remain in your blood stream and behave as an opiate. GREAT, right?? So basically I've been drugging my child for two years. This is not what causes autism, but rather it exacerbates some of the symtoms such as spinning, banging of the head, and looking "out of it" most of the time. Doctors sometimes suggest that you try this diet to see if any of the symptoms subside. A LOT of Benjamin's symptoms have subsided with the GFCF diet, and we're thrilled with the results. We were not so thrilled with the withdrawals that lasted for about four days, however. He woke up about every 45 minutes at night and was incredibly cranky all day to the point of driving us insane. I'm sure he must have had some sort of headache. We all had a headache at that point. Benjamin has been using more "jargon", which is baby jabber. You know when a child looks at you and has a complete conversation and it's obvious that they aren't speaking English? That's jargon. Benjamin never had that before. It's thought to be the precursor to speaking. Yippee!

Now I'm sure many of you may be wondering why children are not tested for these types of "allergies", and I can not really answer that question. I suppose the same reason why we are not all tested for lots of things. Sometimes, as parents, you must educate yourselves (Warren calls this webmding yourself.) and then ask the doctors for various tests. Is it our crappy healthcare system that ALWAYS revolves around money to the expense of our own health? Maybe so. I do not have the answers, but I do know that Benjamin could have been tested for this earlier. The treatment to eliminate some foods is considered a homeopathic treatment. We all know how most doctors feel about homeopathic treatments. It's very interesting that Western medicine has come this far, but yet falls so short in many ways because most refuse to believe in homeopathic treatments.

Yes, big post with lots of topics. Sorry. The bottom line is Benjamin is doing better and we're stoked!