Off to school...

I can't believe that my little Peyton is going to school. He officially started pre-school on Wed. the 27th of October, so he has been going for a few weeks now. Starting on his first day, he loved it. The teacher has been great and there are lots of aides for only about 12 students. It means he is getting lots of attention. I stayed for a little bit the first day and watched as he explored his new surroundings. They have school 5 days a week, so he is there a lot. There is a routine they go about in the morning, and now when we show up he knows to find his hook and hang up his jacket, then move the stick with his name on it to the Here board, and then sit down and color. Now he likes me to stay with him and color, but I try to jet as soon as possible. I know he will quickly calm down. He even rides the bus home like a big boy and he really likes it. I often have to get him off, but the bus driver says he does a great job, just like a big kid.

He did not really want to pose for photos on the first day!

It is weird having him gone every morning, but also kind of nice. Brady and I can run errands without the little run away P. But watching him go to school and get off the bus makes him seem so old. I can't believe he is that old. We never planned on putting him into preschool until he was older, but this seems to be really good for him. Between school and therapy, his language is getting better all time. He still has trouble with some of the behavioral issues, but those are improving too. I love my boy and am glad he is getting the help he needs and even just some time to play with other kids each day. That is a big help for him. Can't wait to see him keep enjoying and improving.

Monster Mash Bash 2010

This years party was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed getting to decorate my own house this time and even the clean up wasn't that bad (ok it wasn't awesome though!) Despite a few last minute no shows, the house was still packed, and there were kids everywhere. It worked out really well having the older ones in the garage. I just love throwing parties, maybe someday I will get better at hosting them! Thanks everyone for coming!

The Millers (Peter Pan and Tinker Bell and B-Ball players)

The Dahlins (little Kinley as an Indian was the girls winner in the costume contest!)

Brady as the Flash was the boys costume contest winner.

Iz and Madison

Us in our superhero glory!

The Marshalls

The Hunts

The Other Morgans (A UW family)

Our Traditional Picture with Babies from left Parker, Brady, Kannon, and Brynlee

The Kiddos Popping Balloons

The Little Kids had Trouble Popping Them!

Andy totally cheated and grabbed a whole bag and popped them all!

Everybody fighting over the rest.

The Teacher and her Student

Our adult winners!

Umm... Harey Carey?

It's been a bad day.

We all have them. Today was just one such day for us. Mostly for Peyton and I. Some days I can almost forget their is anything different about him because I am so used to his behaviors and our routines, but when days like today hit, I am overwhelmed and outmatched. It started at 3:30 am when he was awake playing loudly in his room. I went in to tell him it was night time and he needed to go to sleep only to find him shoving flash cards into the heater vent. This lead to a 4:00 am unscrewing of the heater to get out all the cards so my house didn't end up in flames. I think this resulted in us both being a little tired and cranky today, but for whatever reason, all day, Peyton insisted on making as much trouble as possible (I have witnesses.) He was hitting, dumping, emptying, and jumping on everything in sight. The best was when he opened up the cupboards under the sink and took out both the dishwasher soap and the dishwashing soap and proceeded to put the dishwashing soap into the dishwasher leading to Brady eating some of it. I had already emotionally lost once, in front of people no less, and I really didn't know how much more I could take. No form of punishment seems to be working with him. Words mean nothing to him, it is just something for him to echo. Spankings are like a game, he doesn't care that he has disappointed us. Same goes for yelling. I try to remove him from the situation or put him in time out, but even that has little effect on him, as he was in time out several times today and he kept doing worse and worse things. Plus, I don't know why he is doing them. He is never being malicious. It's so hard. I hate feeling so helpless and out of control. I don't like being so angry at my son, especially if he can't help what he's doing.

To try and help things, get him some sensory input and a little energy output, I took the boys to Burger King to play for a bit this evening hoping it would help. It did at first, but then things started to happen that broke my heart even more. Peyton has a hard time interacting with other kids, he doesn't know how to communicate, but he wants to. At one point, there were two kids a bit older than him there playing together and I could tell he wanted in. First, he just followed them around, but then it seemed like he was actually playing with them.  I got so excited. They all came down the slide and Peyton had the biggest smile on his face. He ran to go up again and said "Let's do again," wanting the others to follow. I watched and waited for them to do so, but they didn't. Instead they continued to do their own thing playing together. When they finally returned up into the play structure they began to act as if Peyton was chasing them. Peyton thought it was a fun game saying, "I get you," like we always do. My heart began to break on the spot. Will my son always be the socially awkward kid no one wants to play with. I don't know if I can take it. I tried my hardest not to ball right there, but I teared up some. I guess I can find some solace in the fact that he was happy and didn't notice anything either way, but I don't know if that will always hold true.

Right now we have a lot of things in the works to help Peyton more, pre-school, possibly gymnastics and even a membership to the Children's Museum. I think he desperately needs these types of outside contacts and sensory stimulation's. But none of that is happening yet. In my head I like to believe we aren't that different, we can do things just like most everybody else, but maybe we can't. I'd also like to think I can do it on my own, so many others do, but maybe I can't. Days like today teach me I am not as adjusted to this as I thought. I still haven't let go to the picture of the son I once believed I had. I still haven't come to terms with the fact that I have no idea how to parent this child and it is scaring the crap out of me.  But I still love him more than words and I truly want whats best for him, whatever that is.

Thank You... Now Move!

I feel like some things have to be saved so we don't forget how cute little P is at this age. Tonight, about 5 minutes after I had put Peyton to bed, I heard him screaming from his room. It wasn't normal Peyton screaming, it was most certainly "Peyton in distress" screaming. I ran into his room to discover him in the corner of his bed, wrapped up tightly in his big blanket screaming his head off. I went over to him and grabbed him and asked him what was wrong. He said "I'm stuck," obviously he had gotten the blanket wrapped around him a couple too many times and couldn't get out of the blanket. I helped Peyton get "unstuck" and he stopped crying. After the ordeal was over I was about to get up to let Peyton get back to bed. I asked Peyton to give me a hug goodnight and he said "Thank you Daddy" and gave me a great big hug. Then he said, "Thank you, Thank you... Now move!" Obviously he did not want his father on his bed any longer. What a cute kid.

Comfy?

Well at least he looks comfy! But he has been falling asleep in some very weird positions lately. Both times in the crack between the wall and his bed. Too cute though!

Thank you...looooove Peyton!

As we have continued to work with Peyton on his prayers he has been progressing really well. At first he just repeated what we said, and then we did every other line, with him simply repeating things he remembered us previously saying. It went more like a script than a prayer because with his autism, echolalia is very common while, natural creative sppech is not. However, lately he has been making great strides in coming up with his own additions to the prayer, especially in the thank you section. It shows that he knows what being thankful means and that he can come up with original thought. Plus, it is just so darn cute to see what a 3 year old is thankful for. Some of our favorites!

• pancankes (pancakes)
• PBS kids
• Cars (the movie)
• Dr. Suess
• Lucky Charms
• Grandpa
• Daddy's Job (we did teach him the last two but he is choosing to use them a lot on his own)
• Sponge Bob
• playdoh

C is for Pretzel...

Apparently Cookie Monster doesn't know everyhing. As he was riding in the car eating some, yes, pretzels, Peyton  began singing...

"C is  for Pretzel. That's good enough for me. C is for Pretzel. That's good enough for me. C is for Pretzel. That's good enough for me. Oh Pretzel, Pretzel, Pretzel, Pretzel, starts with C."

We tried to inform him that pretzel started with P, but he didn't agree. It was so cute that we chose not to argue the point any further. You learn so much from kids.

Charlie Safari

Last week I think we were all a little desperate to get the kids out of our houses before they destroyed them (or worse!) so Erica and Melia had the great idea of taking them to Charlie Safari and letting them run WILD! All of them had fun, minus Brady who was a bit cranky, and Peyton even tried to follow other kids around and make friends. How cute. I became Izzy's buddy since Melia was too knocked up too jump and she adopted mine. We finished up with a nutrious Wendy's lunch, and it made it a great little outing.

What would you do...

If this was coming after you?

This Little Looker is 1 today!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRADY!

Jesse wants one, too!

A blog that is! While at Chelan Man, Jesse got inspired to start a blog about our training where he could also include bits from his vast track knowledge like a weekly exercise and spout about random stuff like fartleks .  It is also where he will chronicle his journey to being an ironman and where we will post our race results (Jesse's Chelan Man Post is up there already). I will also be writing there as well, about my training, races, and such. Of course, we will still be keeping this blog as our family blog, we are just adding on! So, please check it out, become a follower (it makes us feel cool!), tell your friends, leave us words of encouragement, or tell us we suck if ya feel like it! Ok big moment, the new blog is  http://trackcoach-tressaabe11.blogspot.com/ and thank you for listening. Now [track] Suit Up!

Read and Romp

Yesterday I took the boys and met up with Erica at an activity in front of the Centralia Library called Read and Romp. It had booths with fun activivties based on different books. The whole concept was really cool and one of the stations was this huge Little Tykes village. Well, once the kids found that they really didn't want to do anything else. I did manage to get their picture drawn at the Harold and the Purple Crayon stop, but other then keeping Brady from running out to the street, we just had a "peaceful" time playing.

As soon as we got there, Brady found this little girl and I knew he was immediately thinking about stealing her binky!

Brady loved to drive this car, although he could only go backwards!

Brady found this baby on a cot and immediately hopped up there with it to play with it.

He then preceded to lay down on top of the baby and "cuddle" before he so lovingly threw him off!