Heather

The Tiniest of my little angels at birth. She was only 6 lbs 12 oz. She had no butt. It was hard to hold her. Yet, she has the biggest personality of all. She started with a bang! Aaneqa had been this perfect little baby, sleeping for hours and hours at a time right from the start. Heather, well. She was different. She could not be put down for the first 12 weeks of her life. She would fall asleep, completely asleep, and I would try to lay her down. She would either immediately or within 10 minutes begin to scream until I held her. It was pretty rough to deal with. For a child who is only "almost" 6, this first 12 weeks was simply a harbinger of things to come. She actually was a fairly calm baby after those first few weeks. I think it was a calm before a storm really.

Most of the rest of her first year was spent quietly contemplating her own reflection. She was happiest staring into a mirror or looking at a cat. She didn't emote a great deal, just sat there. She also didn't speak. Around 18 months I became quite concerned about her lack of verbal expressiveness and so I had her start speech therapy. At that time, her speech therapy was a 2X a week class in Bowling Green. The first class, she rode a bus. She was this tiny little one year old getting onto a regular sized bus. (I was pretty pregnant with Rhys) I became hysterical and called up my little sister to cry into her ear about how horrible I felt putting my baby onto a bus. She was this tiny little one who could not express herself and how could she know at one why Mommy was putting her onto a bus to go away for a few hours? She came back fine and I felt better. My sister however had some conversations with my OTHER sisters and my Mom. They decided they were NOT comfortable with her riding a bus and so they had Mom come up every week TWO TIMES to take my little baby to speech therapy. That was the beginning of "the end". Mom and Heather have been inseparable ever since. :) Their relationship is amazing.

Around age 3 or so, (maybe sooner) Heather began exhibiting some odd behaviors; strange facial expressions, really peculiar noises that didn't fit the situation, the need to be stimulated physically in ways that seemed odd, aversion to "tight' or rough clothing, strong aversion to most foods. I started having some conversations with my pediatrician about these things and she referred me to different people. The farthest I got at that time was "possible ADHD, possible ODD." The dr suggested a counselor. I took her to a counselor and this woman was delightful, A sweet lady. The issue I had was she clearly was accustomed to dealing with older children. She had no idea what to do with my little silly Heather. One piece of knowledge I gained from this experience was; Heather is AMAZING when she is one on one with an adult. She thrives when in a strictly structured environment where she is the sole beneficiary of attention from the adult.

Her peculiarities became more pronounced in certain areas. She couldn't tolerate loud sounds, socks with seams had to be put on a special way and she wouldn't keep them on regardless, she did (and does) things that seem to be designed to deliberately annoy her sister (not the usual I'm bugging you kind of stuff, far more persistent and pernicious) I just, I found that I cannot handle her. For me, while I cannot handle a lot in life, I can generally handle little kids, I know what their developmental milestones should be and I know a lot about how kids should be behaving in general. There has always just been a special "edge" to what she does. She would be petting a cat and getting right in it's face. I would sit WITH her and show her how to pet the kitty in a nice way. She could NOT do it.

Shortly before she turned 4 she developed night terrors or well, I honestly do not know. It began immediately following Christmas break from school. She stopped being able to sleep in her own room. She and her sister had been in their room for a year almost on bunk beds. They were so easy to put to sleep. I would pray with them each individually and then leave the room closing the door. End of story. It was so awesome. Suddenly, and without warning, it was over. Heather would NOT sleep in her own room. I could talk to her nicely, I could scream at her. I could lock her outside a door and let HER scream. Nothing worked. It was a super painful process. I had just finished getting my Rhys back to sleeping in HIS room. I had done what I had read. Every time he got up I would simply take him back to his bed. No talking, no kissing or hugging, no extra anything, just take him and put him back to bed as many times as it took. It took between 2-3 months, but he was doing awesome. I was happy to be sleeping again. Oh, and I was newly pregnant. Well. Shazaam, Momma didn't get to sleep any more. After several months of working on it extremely hard, I finally got her to fall asleep in her OWN bed. I would read several specific books to her and stay in the room talking to her sister until Heather was asleep. Then I could leave the room. She wasnt allowed to come down until we turned off our lights and were going to sleep. At that point she would come sleep on the floor beside my bed. This has evolved again.. Don has been building a wall in the girls room for about 7 months now to give them each their own room. They've been on the couch that whole time and doing really well staying there. It's not 100% ideal, but it's been working.

Back to her other issues. My Pediatrician grudgingly prescribed different meds to help with her sleep and/or mood. None of them had the desired or frankly any good effect. The Adderall made her awful. She referred us to a psychiatrist who has tried several meds. Now. I am not 100% on board with medicine for someone this little, but when all the behavior modification and other methods we have put so much effort into have had little to no effect well, we had to try something. Thus far, no med or therapy or change on our part has had a positive on her behavior.

Her main saving grace is that she and my Mom are very best buddies and spend as much time together as possible. I love and miss my little girl when she is gone, but frankly, they do really well together. Heather deserves to be in an environment where she is happy and thriving. My Mom loves her and they have an awesome time together. And frankly, they don't get to be together as often as any of us would like.

My eldest cannot stand her sister the majority of the time. Heck, I have considered that 1/2 of Heather's issues are related to how her sister TREATS her. She will be humming, or making odd sounds or tapping and Aaneqa will go completely BALLISTIC. Car rides have been and continue to be absolute nightmares at this point. One time when Heather was about 3.. or 4, we were on a car ride and Aaneqa was so upset about the noises Heather was making she began KICKING Heather's car seat where Heather's head is.

I just. I don't know how to handle this. I stopped the car, Pretty sure I pulled Aaneqa out and beat her butt. I can't do that every trip. No matter what you say it doesn't get better when I stop the car and beat their butts. They do NOT stop their behavior. I do not ALLOW them to behave this way, although after a certain point I have to just stop paying constant attention to their behavior and just focus on other things instead. Other children, housework, homework, attempting to simply breathe.

Anyway..... I finally got Heather in to a counselor who said she has high functioning Autism. I took her to another lady in the same organization who threw a fit because "we cannot diagnose here". I admit that threw me for a rather large loop, but I followed this other lady's suggestions and got Heather in for testing at the Center for Excellence in Autism in Toledo. They gave her an official diagnoses of Autism PDD-NOS. (high functioning autism basically) I am planning to get her in to see a Developmental Pediatrician who is more local, but her waiting list is into December (and it's July now) So I am sure it'll be a long wait to see her. I am praying that she will be able to help us in some way because the psych keeps throwing different meds at my child without even knowing anything about her. He once said he would be SHOCKED if she has Autism. Well doc.. guess what?? I mean, I get it, it's not his area of expertise, but couldn't he have simply refused to treat her or told me it wasn't his area?

Aside from all that, Let me tell you about Heather.

She is an incredibly beautiful little princess. She says the funniest things. She will make you laugh all day long. She loves to hug and snuggle. She is fun to tickle. She loves to give to others. She loves to sing, She loves her brothers and her sister. She loves family a great deal. She adores animals. She loves to wear skirts, every day! She loves to watch kid tv shows. She loves to take baths with BUBBLES. She is extremely smart and can count to 100 even though she hasn't even started kindergarten. She can read the words exit, boo and zoo. She can spell her first and last names appropriately! Every inch of her is SILLY and precious. How can you help but love this little girl, she loves to help people and will offer to help often.

She'll be 6 soon and starts kindergarten. We'll see where this adventure takes us!!! :)

Rhys is silly

Oh my Elder Boy. He is so sweet and silly.

He insists that he is a BIG boy. This young man hasn't been talking for very long, only since March 2013 and he is already a "big" boy not a LITTLE boy. It is a card I am able to use against him at will. I thought you were a BIG boy. Or OH, You're a "little boy". He will correct me saying he's not a little boy.

One night when I was putting him to bed I was rubbing his head and he said, Please do not pet me like a cat! I stopped petting him and really enjoyed hearing him say that, but I do miss "petting him" on the head. :)

He is so smart and such an engineer that I have a hard time remembering he is ONLY 3 years old some days. He has been able to unlock every single door in our house since he was a nonverbal 1 year old. At about 22 months of age, he built a high something with a chair and a stool, he then let his sister Heather (who was 3 at the time) climb up his contraption and unlock the door. The "dynamic duo" indeed.

Rhys is a snuggly boy. He loves to sit on my lap and hug on me while he watches television. He likes to be "ho'd" (held) He is in love with his Auntie Daisy who loves him a lot. (this is true, but it is also according to Rhys)

This morning, we had an ant invasion and he was going around telling me all about he ants. Earlier in the day Aaneqa had seen a spider going under the ottoman. He said, Spiders Love Ants! I agreed with him. He picked up an ant walked over to the ottoman, threw the ant under there and proclaimed happily, THERE YOU GO! Oh, that made me laugh.

His favorite song is Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne. He used to ask for it by saying Eye Eye Eye. Now he asks for it to be the song I sing him before going to sleep. It's interesting to try to get all the sounds in from the beginning of the song when I sing it. Hee Hee. He also asks me to sing him songs about the curtains, the lights, the pictures on the walls and the map on his wall. It's a good thing I can make up songs. It doesn't have to be a "great song" it doesn't have to be something anyone would record, it's a song and it's about what my boy wants to hear about. :) These are things we frequently pray about as well.

He is also a terrible liar about just about anything. I can watch him do something and he will immediately point to one of his siblings and say they did it. He learned THAT from his big sisters. Ugh! :(

He is also super particular about certain things. If I try to clean the table he gets upset if I don't let him do it. He loves to sweep the floor. He will sometimes move items so that they are even with one another on a counter or in the fridge.

This little man has stolen my heart with all his sweet and quirky idiosyncrasies. I am so glad he is a part of my family.

I didn't care, Indeed.

My eldest is quite angry with me. I am ruining her day (a huge improvement, a week ago I would have been ruining her life) Here's the situation, In an effort to dry the fire ring, Don has a fire going outside. He is not out there with it and so I have banned the children from the backyard until there is no fire. (seems a fair choice to me, but apparently this makes me the meanest Mom EVER)

Blessings. Aaneqa says I am ruining her DAY, that is a far more fair assessment of the situation than to say I'm ruining her whole life. Yay for progress. I'm sure she'll swing back and forth on this, but I'll take what I can get.
Blessings, we have a cool fire pit that we can use to have fires for burning trash and for recreational purposes.
Blessing, My daughter complimented Daddy last night by telling him He is like ME. (I'm the "mean" one)
Blessings, When I told her to go to her room after she would NOT go on the front porch, she did it!

Annoyances, Meh, just the usual. I'm not able to get homework done because the kids are kind of crazy, but what's new? I have my usual feelings of inadequacy which are founded quite strongly in truth. It's just too much to get out in a public way. Not sure how I could even write those things in private. I want to tell my stories, but some things are awfully raw.

The title is because Aaneqa just told me I don't care. She's quite convinced that I do not care about her. She doesn't see that I care enough to teach her obedience the hard way and she doesn't have to like it or even to ever agree with it, but the fact is, even if it weren't unsafe for her to be outside right now, the fact that she became a whining, backtalking, bundle of goo at the idea of obeying me means she has got to learn to accept that I told her no, and that my word is rule. She even tried to talk me OUT of my no which is not in and of itself a bad thing, but she wasn't ok with my sticking to my guns. Mean old Momma anyway.

Anyway, Homework HO.

Part the Second.

My baby Zane is sitting himself up, a brand new accomplishment. Since he is my fourth and I am a terrible housekeeper, I am concerned for this development. I am excited he is moving forward, but the heightened level of security at doorways, stairways and other household items is something I dread.

My Heather bug is home from several days with my Momma. I am glad she's home, but the level of frantic crazy goes up by several hundred percent when she is in the house. Homework is but a faint memory.

Pretty sure I've developed Mastitis again. :( This makes me sad. I have nursed FOUR babies, FOUR and in the past two months I have had it twice after never having had it before. I am blaming it on the teeth. None of the other three had teeth prior to 11 months of age. This little guy got 1 at 5 months and one each month since. Stinking genetics.

Total change of topic, TOTAL. Be warned (ADHD moment)

Have you ever heard of or had the opportunity to read Karen Arnpriester's book Anessia's Quest? Holy Wow! It's a good book, by my standards. She talks about a girl who has a very rough life starting in Utero and lasting most of her life. She deals with abuse and neglect. She goes into foster care and deals with the horrible side of that institution. However, throughout her life, she maintains a strong faith in God through the close proximity of her Guardian Angel. This book does not make things "come out good" without consequences. It paints the foster care system in a very accurate and unforgiving light. This girl has amazing strength despite going through a life that cannot be imagined by many. I highly recommend it. I got it off Amazon.com, she's got a sequel too that is apparently related, but not super closely to the first book. I have it, but haven't yet had the time to read it.


Well, that's all the time I have for now.

It's a Start

 Organization and I do not mix well as a rule. What should I be doing? Homework. What am I doing? Creating my very first blog. (I think.. I may have done this in the past but you'll find my memory is rather lacking)

Homework? What do you mean old woman? Well, I am a master's student at Liberty University Online Seminary working towards a Master's in Worship Arts in Ethnomusicology. This means I am learning about what worship means and what it means in different cultures. What exactly do I want to do with this? At the moment, I want to learn it. I adore worshiping God, Really it's my favorite thing. Singing, praying and praising God is fantastic. In addition, I am strongly drawn to the music of other cultures, I always have been. This coursework is designed to teach me how to be knowledgeable about the music of other cultures. The ultimate goal would be to become a specialist in cultural music to teach missionaries how to meet people in other countries with their own culture rather than creating little pockets of American (or other) culture in other countries. I hope to help others learn about other cultures and to help lead others into worship. 

However, I am also a wife and mother of 4. The whole wife and mother thing takes up most of my time. Student thing is a fun hobby, sometimes.

My husband and I have known each other for 19 years now. June 1994 was when we met, I was 19, he was 31. We talked about Star Trek and Conservative values when we met. We were a match made in heaven, 5 months later we were married (nearly 19 years ago). Our journey has been filled with a lot of insanity. Organizing it all into a cohesive readable format would be an interesting (I hope) read.

Don and I married on Nov 21, 1994. It was a delightfully intimate ceremony with the preacher Travis Irwin, my parents, my little sister and my friend Cori.  A month later we moved to Montana. Since then we have lived in Ohio, Seattle, Montana and now back in Ohio. We've had a rough run. If it's not one thing it's another, all. the. time. I guess boredom is not in the cards for us. We've always struggled with communication I suspect that's due to his own neurosis mixed with my crazy ADHD. We are working on it all the time.

Our first child didn't come along until 10 years into our marriage. We had wanted children all along, but it had never worked out despite many false starts in foster care and possible adoption. We even dealt with infertility and taking meds to help with fertility. I was diagnosed with PCOS syndrome X on the way. We gave up on having children. The day I found out I was pregnant I experienced a euphoria from which I am afraid I have never quite recovered.

In March 2004, my first child, a daughter, Aaneqa was born. She was followed 3 1/2 years later by my Heather. Rhys 2 years and 2 days after Heather and finally my little Zane came along in Sept 2012. Being a parent while suffering from uncontrolled ADHD is a very real challenge that I frequently fall short on.

My Aaneqa bug has ADHD herself, so she's a scatterbrained little sweetie. She's a stinker who is the apple of our eye. She loves to read much like myself. She makes great plans and gets frustrated when we are unable to follow through on what she has put together. She is so smart and loving. I enjoy when we get to talk together. It's such an amazing thing to be able to have actual somewhat in depth conversations with someone who came from your body. I've been amazed by quite a bit ever since she was first born. Even ordinary things. I just think, I cannot really fathom that some"thing" that came from inside my body is capable of "regular" or any  thing.

My Heatherbug has Autism PDD-NOS which is apparently no longer a diagnoses even though she only got it a few weeks ago. I'm not sure what her "new" diagnosis would be, but I know it's under the Autism spectrum. She is so beautiful and sweet. She tries so hard to be a good girl. She is my Mom's favorite person I think, and it makes me happy because they are both extremely special people and they each deserve to have someone love them and be there for them.

My Rhys was severely speech delayed. I had him in speech therapy and all, but he just wouldn't say more than 1 or 2 words. You could tell he was and is incredibly smart, heavens he's been able to open every door in the house locked or not since he was ONE YEAR OLD. Oh yea, he's a bit of a smarty pants. In March, he started talking a little bit, and has taken off a huge amount since then. Now, I have words to back up the smarts I knew he had. He is incredibly loquacious and now I just want him to hush a little. HA. He also has the best hugs and sweetest smile.

Zane y boy is a precious little happy mite. Everyone says he's just the sweetest thing and the ladies at church keep offering to steal him from me. Giggle. He's starting to think he needs to crawl and I know he will soon, and walk, and talk. I'm enjoying his baby times now before they pass on to the next stage. He is our last baby!

Don is working towards a masters in Christian Counseling. He is someone with an incredible work ethic and he never stops. He is a good man who has had a hard life.

I'm not 100% sure what I hope to accomplish with this blog, but I have so much inside I want to share. I hope I'll remember to do so and possibly get some organization to my crazy thoughts.