Hopeful

This week I'm feeling very hopeful for several things. I forgot to mention our supper at Pizza Ranch on Sunday evening. It was a benefit for my uncle, who's been fighting Leukemia since 2006. Chemo and transplant didn't work and his organs can no longer tolerate the treatments, so they have stopped. We usually don't eat out with the kids, at least nothing more than drive-thru. I came prepared with Dawson's leap frog toy and some crackers with Gabriel. We sat by the buffet and Dawson actually ate some chicken sticks, a breastick and ice cream. He hasn't been a big fan of pizza lately. He had been getting less picky about the foods he ate, but since we've been back home he isn't even eating his usual foods anymore. His list of things he'll eat is very small. So I was happy especially about the chicken sticks since they are a different than usual food for him. Even Gabriel ate the chicken. That boy wants to eat everything. He even found a slice of pizza earlier this week that Dawson had put in the living room. Unfortunately with his milk intolerance, eating all the cheese off it wasn't a good thing for him. I was impressed at how well the boys both sat happily eating, even after they were done they didn't get fussy. Dawson asked for his leap frog toy and Gabriel just didn't want to stop eating. Dawson even took a potty break while we were there and stayed dry the whole evening. For the first time since having children I actually left the restaurant thinking "wow, we should do that again sometime". Usually my thoughts are more like "so THAT'S why we haven't done this in almost a year!". ;)

Dawson's potty training is going so well. He's been having 1 accident a day these last couple days. Yesterday he stayed dry at school but had an accident on the bus. He has an hour long bus ride though. Today he was having some cramping and constipation issues, so I gave him his laxitive and he had an accident from that. Autistic kids are often very difficult to potty train because of the GI issues with needing laxitives and not being regular. I started him on a Probiotic today with hopes that it will help out his digestive system. It's just a suppliment that helps balance the healthy bacteria and keeps the digestive system healthier. He's also on a regular vitamin and I just started a kid's fish oil/omega3 suppliment (helps with brain development and behavior). He's missing so many nutrients with his picky appetite, so hopefully that will help get him those essential things.

The Melatonin has been doing great, he goes to bed without any problems now and wakes up in a great mood. I've been putting him to bed in a diaper, but in the morning he gets up and immediately goes to the bathroom. He gives me his diaper and asks for underwear. I love that he's so ambitious about this now! We went to a few stores the other day and he used all the bathrooms and did great. When we were at Walgreens I was looking at vitamins and he suddenly said "potty!", and he chanted "pee in the potty!" all the way to the back of the store. The other moms just smiled. You can always tell who's been there and who hasn't by the look on their face. He does so awesome at staying by me too. Before I wouldn't have attempted standing around looking for vitamins without a cart. Now he just stood right next to me and waited patiently. He's growing up so fast!

Speaking of growing up, I signed Dawson up for Kindergarten today! He's been in the school system for 2 years now and riding the bus for over a year but Kindergarten seems so official. They have a fuller schedule than I thought too, all day, everyday! He did great with that schedule at the Autism Center though, so I'm not worried. He will love it. Changing schools is scary though. I've had 2 kids in Special Ed at the preschool, gone to ECFE classes and support groups. I call the school and ask for Dawson's teacher and I don't even need a last name, they just know me. I walk in and can't even make it to his classroom without someone talking to me. A couple times it's been people who've heard about me but never met me before but they've followed our story. The whole place has been so supportive and I don't want to leave them behind! I saw Tyler's teacher today. She came to our place to work with him an hour a week and has always followed his story too. She had taken a 30 minute video of me working with Tyler because of a new program someone wanted to try out. So this video was sent to another state to be looked at, along with hundreds of others from different schools. The person didn't know of Tyler's illness, but chose a clip out of his video to use as an example! I love that he will continue to help people and his memory will be passed on to people, even if they might not realize what his story is and that he's no longer with us. She also thinks there might be a 2nd video that she hadn't given me yet. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's hard not to! I love finding footage of Tyler that I didn't know I had. Even though I have many videos, it suddenly will never seem like enough.

Gabriel has been doing good, he's clapping toys together now and trying more obstacles. He somehow managed to get into his bin of balls the other day. I never heard a thump or anything, suddenly I heard he was playing with the balls and assumed he tipped it over. I went in there to find this.

 He was quite pleased with himself!

 Dawson came in and started feeding him fishy crackers

 Gave him a kiss

 Then started posing for the camera. I could post the rest of them, but he gets pretty goofy and I'm pretty sure nobody wants to see his tonsils, or up his nose. :)

 He wanted Mater in the picture too and he was waving Hi. He's been playing with some Cars things lately, which he had been avoiding before. He's getting a bit more comfortable with it now.

Today I was thinking of some fond memories. Sometimes they bring tears, but today they made me smile. Even though I miss him like crazy. His cute, mischievious giggle and smiles.

The way he'd look at me when he was nursing.

His constant begging for food when his appetite finally picked up. Seemed like we lived in front of the fridge some days. :)

I miss having 3 little munchkins to cuddle each morning. There's such an obvious gap now and the craziness that was our life with 3 little boys is so different. We still have 2 boys worth of crazy left, but it's so quiet here now. The constant giggles and rough play have stopped and the silence is often too much.