Christmas with the Relatives

Christmas Eve we went to my parent's house, Christmas Day we went to my Grandma's house. We opened our gifts at home after my Grandma's house, but that's a different post (hopefully tomorrow) due to the number of cute pics I have. ;) 

Dawson was very excited to go to Grandma's house and to see his Auntie. He didn't realize we were there to open the gifts. I told him we were going for Christmas, but since we've been talking about Christmas all month and he doesn't understand the concept of days yet, he just didn't get it. So we had supper and we started in on the gift opening. I told Dawson it was time to open presents and he said no, he just wanted to play on Grandma's computer. So we started with other people, hoping he'd see what we were up to and get in the mood for it. He did finally come over and open his and enjoyed it.

Gabriel, with the help of my sister, opened his Vtech Helicopter. He loves it!

 I think he was most excited about the huge box and the idea of climbing on it. Dawson claimed this shopping cart as soon as my brother assembled it! Gabriel is still a bit short for it and it's a little tippy, but I'm sure he'll love it once he's tall enough. This morning he was wanting to play with it.

 Dawson got an echo michrophone.

 I couldn't get him to hold still, but this was a Cars 2 book for the Tag reading system.

 Opening box from Grandma

  Leap School Reading Game for the Explorer (which he hadn't opened yet)

 A puppy! This one walks and barks like a really hyper thing. Both boys love it. Dawson likes making it walk off the edge of the table and Gabriel had tons of giggles everytime it barked at him.

 Gabriel found his auntie's present and decided to climb on it. My dad does many wood projects, so there's always fun things to climb on.

 True to an almost 1 year old, he found the bow more interesting than his toy for a while. :)

 Someone found it amusing to tie the puppy to Gabriel's pants, so he crawled away and the puppy followed and barked.

 Then he had to stop and see what the barking is about. He did it a few times and was really having fun with the puppy. This isn't a gift, just one of Grandma's toys. Right after this he crawled over to the stairs and climbed up 3 steps. He hasn't gotten the opportunity to try out steps before. He really had no problem at all, I'm sure he would've kept going had there not been a person sitting in the way. He's really on the move these days!

 After gifts were all opened, my brothers played the Wii for a bit and Dawson had fun watching. They sure make Dawson look short! Matthew is slightly over 6'4.

 Christmas Day! We got to my Grandma's house and Dawson was happy to be there. I was going to get a picture of the tree and Dawson jumped in front of me. I told him to say cheese and he did this instead. I love seeing him so excited! Especially since earlier before lunch he wasn't doing so well. This was our first time to her house without Tyler and he realized he had nobody to play with and do his usual routine things with, so he had a meltdown and was upstairs sobbing. I finally got him to calm down with some cuddles and he said he's sad. It took him a while and he decided he wasn't hungry after that, but he did finally get excited when it came time for presents.

 Gabriel opening his. He loves the paper. It is (of course) the best part about presents at this age!

 It's yummy too, he was quite bummed when I wouldn't let him eat it all. He did however eat 2 small pieces of cake. He didn't even let me break them up before he attacked and scarfed his first piece down. He's getting quite good at handling food himself.

 Curious George coloring book! He recently started liking that show, thanks to the pbskids website.

 Dawson was posing for me on the stairs. The first one didn't work out, it was blurry. He came to see his picture like he always does and I told him it didn't work and to go back and try again. He did! It's so nice having him a bit more cooperative these days. I've gotten many blurry pics over the last couple years!

 Gabriel was so happy and cute pretty much all day. He really likes having extra people around.

What we brought home from my Grandma's. I do this mostly so I can look back and remember what came from where. :)  I got the picture collage frame. Dan got chocolate and Transformers. Dawson got Toy Story, coloring book, airplane and zebra. Gabriel got a mirror bug toy, 2 pairs of socks and 2 jars of puffs.

Our gifts from my parent's house. We did a sibling exchange of just 1 person each this year. Dan got Fast & Furious 3 & 4, the Firefly series and Serenity, which is the related movie. Never seen the series, but they say it's good. I got a food processor, nail polish dryer with polish, fuzzy socks, t-shirt and bath/body set.

Day +100

I've been looking forward to this day since they told us Tyler needed a transplant. It is the special day where bone marrow transplant patients get to go home, 100 days after their transplant, after watching, waiting and living at Ronald McDonald House. I knew it would be right around Christmas and thought it would be the perfect gift, to bring our little boy home and have a big Christmas celebration.

Instead we got sent home early, something we didn't anticipate. I thought maybe we'd have to stay past 100 days, and that would be frustrating, but overall we'd manage, as long as he came home eventually. Instead the unthinkable happened. His body failed and he died. My child, the one who was more full of life than anyone I know, slowly slipped away. It's hard to think about. He fought all but 3 months of his life. He didn't get his cure, he didn't get to come back home like I told him he would. He came home in a little marble box instead. We don't get to hear his giggles or see his cute self running around, we have to watch video clips, which now seem like so few in comparrison to his life. I'm wishing I would've gotten videos of him saying certain words, so I can remember just how he said it. Thankfully we have lots of pictures.

I had asked the portrait studio if I could have a cd of Tyler's sessions. She already knew his story and  she said we could look them up. She found his 2 year session and put that on a cd. For some reason she couldn't find his 1 year session, so she did the cd and gave me that. Then she decided to look a different way and ended up finding his first one. She was only allowed to give us one cd, so she said if I bring one in, she'll give me the rest of the pics. I'm so excited to get them, his one year session was so adorable!

When I took Tyler in for his 2 year pictures, I had just found out he relapsed the day before and wanted to get the pictures done before we got admitted again. It was an emotional day, wondering if that would be his last birthday photoshoot. It was. We only got 7 decent pictures. He wasn't feeling very cooperative. He had a cast for his broken leg and he wasn't feeling too well.

This is the picture we got for his 2yr pictures

 He was really bouncing around, so he ended up not centered.

 I believe I was holding his arm on his left side for this one and he was trying to pull away from me. He was so wiggly!

 I think the darker background makes him look so different!

 Classic Tyler arms. He always waved his arms around when he was excited. The arm in the corner is Dawson. You can also see his walking cast boot a little.

 This one looks like he's flying to Heaven or something. I didn't like it when I first saw the picture, but I do now. The excited, joyful look on his face gives me comfort. I'm sure he probably ran through those gates with a big smile on his face, waving his arms around and giggling, like he always did when he went to new places.

I finally got a lot of things cleaned and organized, so I got to add many things to the pile that went to the Women's Shelter. Also, Gabriel decided that baby food is no longer cutting it, so the got the rest of what I had. Lots of clothes, bedding, blankets, toys, books, personal items, etc. They have a list online that I looked at for ideas. So much of this stuff had just been sitting around taking up space. Felt good getting it out of our place and giving it to people who could really use it.

 While Dawson was at school and I was cleaning the playroom, Gabriel was bored, so since I'd just emptied this bin, I made a little ball pit for him. He had so much fun! Here's a video of him enjoying it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRd5fw7HBqw&feature=youtube_gdata

 Meanwhile, I got our playroom cleaned, rearranged and organized. I'm hoping the puzzle mat will save the carpet from playdough, markers, paint and all that we do on the kid table.

 The room got well used this evening, since I babysat 4 kids, ages 4, 2, 2, 1. We are swapping babysitting for date nights, which is working out nice so far. Dawson was very excited to have them over. He kept saying "play with girls". We went to Walmart and he kept asking for them. Eventually "play with girls" ended up as "I want girls", in a rather loud voice, so that was entertaining. Ironically, he doesn't actually play with them, he just likes having them over. We are working on that social stuff, but for now it's all just parallel play, which is going much better. As you can see in the pic, he's standing right next to her and they are both playing with trains. He actually shared trains! Usually he wants them all or he throws a big tantrum. There were a few toy battles, usually involving Dawson, but thankfully they were very short lived. Thankfully I didn't have to use up all my fun ideas, but they did the Dance Cam, which is a toy that shows them on tv and they can dance around and watch themselves. Set up a big tunnel tent with chairs, which even the babies loved. We colored, played with trains and they played nice for quite a while. I even got to make banana bread.

I can't believe tomorrow is Christmas Eve! There is no snow on the ground and it's just weird. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy Christmas. Often when we're at other people's houses it's a little easier to distract myself. We are going to my parent's house for Christmas Eve and to my Grandma's Christmas Day. Thankfully we only have about a 30-40 minute drive for each. I hope everyone has a great Christmas!

Velcro Board Schedule

Dawson's teacher sent home the velcro boards we talked about and it's already going pretty well. He was excited to see it and started using it right away. I had some people wondering what a velcro schedule is, so here it is! Having grown up with a special needs sibling, I often forget that many people don't know what this stuff is. ;)

I taped his schedule to the fridge, it's laminated so it should last a while. Just a strip of velcro on the side to stick the little squares to. The little squares are also laminated and have a little square of velcro on the back. The orange pocket is for the things we've already done, so when he finishes something, he removes the square and puts it in the pocket and then looks to see what's next. It really helps him transition between places and activities when he knows what's coming and what to expect.

 Tuesday is his day off therapy, so this evening was simple. He chose pretzels for snack, then he got to play until supper, for which he chose pizza.

 This is his Choice Board. I put up all his options and he gets to pick one. On this one he got to pick 1 from each row. Sometimes I'll just use the whole board and have him pick one.

 Haven't used this little card yet, but she wanted to throw in the first-then card too. So as an example, this one-on-one work, which will be used to symbol his therapists, will come before his computer time. He often wants to skip right to the computer, but we're trying to get him to work for his computer time. It seems to be going ok, depends on the day.

 Here are the meal cards

 Daily living/school

 Home/bedtime

 Food

 More food

 Gabriel deciding he wants a part of this. He picked up the school card. So not ready for that baby!

 Dawson was helping me set up and put them away. His teacher said if I need a picture for anything else, to just let her know. This is just to get started, we do plan on adding more.

Never fails that once I say Gabriel might be starting something soon, he goes ahead and does it the next day. He's been practicing walking next to things now and even going from one thing to something very close by. He'll hold on with 1 hand when he's just standing there. A couple times he tried to let go completely, but wasn't quite ready for that. He's such a determined baby! He's been walking holding our hands more easily now too.

We had a nice evening, we went rollerskating and got to visit with friends. After some slight panic over Dawson losing my keys at the sitter's house, we got home and Dawson quickly fell asleep. Every night I'm so impressed with how easy it is! I really should've started the suppliment a year ago when I heard about it! It's been nice skating every week again and being active. Sitting around the hospital all day was so depressing. The only walk I got was down to the cafeteria. Plus I tend to stress eat, on top of just having a baby, I really didn't lose any of the baby weight. I noticed I'm down a couple pounds this week, so maybe that will continue. Not counting on it with Christmas being this weekend though!

Attachment & Accomplishments

Lately Dawson has really been getting more attached to Gabriel. Today I was looking at videos of Tyler, and Dawson came over to see. When the video was over he pointed to one of Gabriel, then another of Gabriel, then one of himself. I let him play on there a while and noticed he played just Gabriel and his stuff. Usually he just obsesses about Tyler's videos.

Gabriel loves watching what Dawson is doing. When he's on the computer, Gabriel will stand up by his chair and watch him. So I'll sit him on the chair by him and he loves it. Dawson doesn't mind either, which is a huge step for him. He even moves over to let Gabriel sit by him. It's so cute seeing them sitting together.

 Gabriel even puts his arm around Dawson.

 Dawson has learned how to tickle Gabriel and loves that he gets giggles in return.

 Gabriel was so happy to be tickled and acknowledged by Dawson. He looks at Dawson with the cutest look on his face, it's obvious that he totally loves and idols his big brother.

 All cuddled up. Usually Dawson would be pushing people away if they start leaning on him. He didn't seem to mind this time.

 He even decided to be silly and play with him.

 Dawson took this picture. I'm guessing it was yesterday when I heard him turn my camera on when I was in the bathroom. I didn't realize he took pictures until I uploaded them tonight. He's getting good! This is totally Gabriel's typical self. He always has his tongue out it seems.

This is the mess I've been trying to tackle the last few days. It was actally much worse, when I started I couldn't see carpet at all.

 I moved the white organizer drawers into the playroom and that was very useful. I have his playdough, paint, crayons, markers and flashcards in there. It's nice because he can't reach them so he has to ask. The 3-drawer purple one has other little fine motor toys, stringing beads, lacing cards, little people and animals and other things I don't want Gabriel finding on his own.

 In the closet I keep the puzzles, color and preschool books, games and books. Out of Gabriel's sight and he can't open the closet door yet. We lovingly refer to him as our little goat. He chews on everything that's paper or cardboard. Boxes, books, mail, anything. The other boys chewed on things too, but not this much! He would rather crawl around and find a box to chew on than play with his pile of baby teething toys. Go figure.

Dawson has been making some big improvements in the Self Help category. He can easily take off his shirt and pants. He sat on the potty yesterday. Today he made waffles, by himself. He took his stool, got them out of the freezer, took a couple out, put them in the toaster and pushed it down. We just had to get them out of the toaster for him. Wow! He'll also get the cereal and a bowl and help me pour it. Same with the milk, and he'll even insist on screwing the cap back on the milk jug. He gets it on good and tight too! He takes his shoes off by the door instead of running around the place with shoes on, and even puts them on the shelf in the closet where they belong. He occasionally needs a reminder to put them away, but he does pretty good. Yesterday we had some friends over so I asked him if he wanted to go let them in, since I can see the door from our apartment. He jumped up and said Yes, so he went downstairs to the door and held it open for them, then showed them the way back upstairs to our apartment. He loves getting company! He's also getting good at blowing bubbles. He couldn't figure out the blowing for quite a while. He would spit or suck the air in, but he finally got it now!

Gabriel is crawling around much faster and pulling up on everything. He's thinking about walking along furniture too. He'll take a little sideways step sometimes but is pretty nervous. The other night he was on the other end of the couch and I was calling him over to me. He looked like he really wanted to but was nervous and started fussing because he was hungry. So Dawson went over to him, wrapped his arms around him under his arms and helped Gabriel walk over here. Though it looked more like dragging him over. I don't think Dawson expected him to weigh as much as he does! He's about 21-22 pounds. He looked so excited to be helpful though. He did the same thing tonight and was just beaming with pride at being able to help Gabriel out. He doesn't do it much though, thankfully! I'm guessing Gabriel will be walking along furniture by the New Year.

I'm so relieved to report that Dawson's bedtime has gotten so much better! He fell asleep at 11pm the first night and has been getting to sleep faster and sooner every night since. This was his 3rd night doing the Melatonin suppliment and he was asleep by 10:20. I hope to bump back his bedtime until he gets to a better time. He wakes up happy and rested now too, no more waking him up groaning. I guess we'll see how it goes this week! I'm really wishing I would've started this sooner. Even though it's a natural suppliment, I was still nervous about giving it to him before. He wanted the music off though, so I left it off and he just fell asleep on his own. It's such a relief, both for my sanity and to make sure he gets a decent night of sleep.

Solving the Sleep Issues

Dawson's therapist came today, bright and early at 9am. Dawson has been getting out of bed by then usually, but today he had a harder time. Thankfully once he saw his therapist, he smiled, gave her a hug and proceeded to lead her to the playroom. He had a great session, his longest yet, from 9-noon.
At 12:15, Dawson's teacher came for a home visit to discuss how he's been doing. She said he's enjoying school and does well. She brought up Kindergarten and said sending him in the Fall is a good option for him. We'll be having a meeting with the Special Ed department of the Elementary school sometime after the New Year. It's so weird to think about starting real school! He's had a teacher since 2.5 and has been going to school on the bus since 3, but Kindergarten sounds so official!

I mentioned wanting to do a velcro board schedule for him at home and she thought that was a great idea and even offered to make it for us. The school often provides that stuff at home, and she said she already has an extra one sitting around that she's not using that's just like the one he uses at school, so that should be easy. We went over the different things we do and she made a list. She'll be sending it home with him this week. I'm excited!

After his teacher left we left and met up with a friend at McDonalds to play. I hadn't been in there since the day Tyler was diagnosed. It was where I recieved the call about the bad lab results. Tyler was sleeping in his infant carseat while Dawson played. I remember the day like it was yesterday, I'm sure I always will. It was nice creating some happy memories. Dawson chased the girls around saying "I'm gonna get you!". It was so great hearing him interact with other kids. They are older too, 7 and 10. He usually doesn't pay much attention to the older kids.

I also got to meet someone who followed Tyler's story at the end and realized she's in the same town. She did a Scentsy fundraiser for us and even gave us some wax to burn in our warmer that I got from another friend.  There's just a lightbulb in there, so no flame to worry about and the wax really doesn't get that hot, I can touch it and it's warm, but not going to burn you. I turn mine on for about an hour and turn it back off again since the aroma stays around for a while. The warmer holds a picture, so I used a wallet of Tyler's 2 year picture and when the warmer is on, the picture glows and it's so neat. It's so hard to be without him and I'm grateful for all the amazing people I've gotten to know because of him.

 We can see it glowing even in the daytime, it's really neat

 All the bars she gave us! They're $5 each and last a very long time. Each one has about 8 little cubes in them and I'm still using the first little cube! It re-hardens when I turn it off for a while, but I've been using it for a while and haven't noticed the level going down at all. When I'm done I can pour it back and try a different scent. It's nice freshening the place up a bit, especially with the boy's room right off the living room and I sometimes notice that slight diaper pail smell.

 Here's the lady I met up with. She didn't ask me to advertise or anything, but she was super nice and I thought my local friends might be interested. You can order online too though. I never thought I'd be into anything like this, but it's nice to have. I'm looking forward to the "cookie" and "baked apple pie" smells. Right now I have Black Rasberry Vanilla going.

Since we got back home, I got these 3 necklaces. I love them! This first one was engraved and we have 5 necklaces and a keychain of this picture. Dan wears his everyday.

This one was hard to get a picture of, but it has the 3 boys' names around it

 I wore this one to the funeral, it arrived at 8:30 that same morning, just as I was wondering what necklace to wear. The one I'd planned on ended up being too short. The big circle says "always our wild thing", it's from his online group, we were all due the same month and have gotten to know each other well. The group is called Wild Things. The gem is his birthstone.

Dawson got a haircut! He was looking pretty shaggy before. He did great and only needed verbal reminders to sit still. A couple times I had to ask if he needed me to hold his arms, but he quickly said No and held still. He's getting so big! Here he is playing with his playdough. The therapist had made lots of balls that he's been taking in and out of the containers, so I gave him an egg carton and he loves putting all the balls in that.

The teacher and I talked about Dawson's schedule and his sleep issues a lot during our visit. I've been struggling with his bedtime for a long time. As a baby he was colicky, around a year he started getting out of his crib and hasn't really stopped. He goes to bed ok, he knows it's bedtime and doesn't put up much of a fuss, but he stays awake for 2-3 hours after I put him to bed. He'd crawl in bed with Tyler, who just wanted to sleep. Now he crawls in with Gabriel, or goes over to his crib and it annoys Gabriel too. He just wants to sleep. His teacher recommended a Melatonin suppliment. Naturally, your body makes Melatonin. It's what triggers your body to be tired and fall asleep. Autistic children often don't produce their own, so they have bedtime issues. So I went to the store and found it in the vitamin aisle. Gave him 1/2 pill about 30 minutes before bed. It was weird cutting and dissolving pills again. It was Tyler's bedtime routine, 1/2 chemo pill.

We made other changes to his routine also. She said no tv/computer/electronics an hour before bed. Those things stimulate the brain too much. So to occupy him we did playdough, coloring and books. We usually do those earlier in the day and relax with computer in the evening, so I wasn't sure how he'd deal with the change, but he did great. He's been playing with more toys lately anyway, so it's nice seeing him get comfortable. He even got out the trains, which is the first thing he's played with since we got home that Tyler used to do. She also said nothing with lights or animation while going to sleep either. He had a Baby Einstein fish crib toy in his bed, he watched the fish swim by and listened to the music. So I removed that and put on a baby lullabye cd instead.

At bedtime he went to bed ok, but when the lights went out and I turned on the quiet music, he wasn't happy. He screamed "music off!". I decided to let it go a bit and see what he'd do. After a couple minutes he was sounding tired, but still protesting a bit. He went to bed at 10:15 and fell asleep at 11pm! That's the earliest he's been to sleep since we got home over 6 weeks ago. Usually it's midnight-1am. Hopefully it will go well tomorrow also! I'm going to bump the bedtime back more and see how it goes.