Christmas Time

I have neglected this blog for quite a while, but after our Christmas, it is worthy of a post. The kids (and I) have been through quite a lot the past couple of years. We've experienced divorce, struggling, moving on, finding love, making our own new family, that is non-traditional but full of so much more love than we could have ever imagined. Most importantly, we have found Keely a new doctor, that hopefully can get to the bottom of her underlying medical conditions. It's so great with autism when you find a doctor that will treat the child's symptoms, not just chalk it up to autism. 

In the past, Keely has not been into the whole getting gifts and unwrapping them thing. So this year I decided not to wrap her gifts and see how it went. So I sat out all of her gifts, and Santa left some too, and she walked into the living room where she saw them. There were several new books, which are her favorite, and she picked up a new 'Goodnite Moon' book. She had the biggest smile on her face. She took it to the coffee table and sat it down. By this time I had squatted down in the floor next to the coffee table. She came running at me, still with her great big smile, and almost knocked me over with a huge hug. I am sure if she could communicate well, she would have said thank you, but instead I got a great big thank you hug, which was quite all right. I learned two things in this moment, one was she really understands how to be appreciative, and the other the great love my sister in law has for my children. When I looked up, she had tears in her eyes, as did I. It is sometimes hard to tell with Keely what she really understands, and she cannot communicate her feelings, so in those little moments when we can totally get what she is feeling, it is pure awesomeness. 

And now for the funniest thing she did, she hates having her fingernail and toenails cut so I usually enlist the help of someone else. This time, it was my mom. We were holding her down on the couch trying to cut her toenails on Christmas Eve. She was definately winning the battle. I finally finished, with some battle wounds, and she moves over to the edge of the couch and puts her little feet on the coffee table. She reaches down and starts messing with one of toes, that I obviously, in the battle, didn't do a good enough job on. It was like she was saying "ok, if you two crazies will get off of me now, I'll let you cut my dang nails!" And she let me cut all of her toenails on the foot that was bothering her, all the while giving me a look like I had lost my mind.

So, I'm learning. Sometimes, it's a slow process, and sometimes I mess up, but hopefully she can make it through without needing massive amounts of therapy. And hopefully, someday when she can talk, she will tell me all the things I could have done better so I can pass them on!

And brother had a great Christmas too. This was the first Christmas, he really got into all of it. Santa did let him down a little. He wanted a Dora and Diego Halloween DVD. Really?!?! For some reason, stores don't really stock a lot of Halloween DVD's at Christmas time like they should, which is totally setting the big guy in red up for failure. Thank goodness for mommy and the internet, this problem will get fixed soon enough. Overall though, it was the best Christmas so far!

Keely's Words

Things have been very busy lately, but today has been a great day...and it's not even over yet. I went into Keely's room today to get her up. As I laid down on her bed next to her she started feeling my pockets for my iPhone. She then said "I wanna play game." As I said what, surprised that she had said a whole sentence, she said, "now". Such a demanding little girl! But it was still very awesome to hear her putting words together and requesting what she wanted.

Later in the day, she was using her iPad and started spelling out the months of the year all by herself. She then spelled out telepone (one letter off) and took the iPad to the kitchen where the phone is and said, "Telephone Grammie." So we called Grammie. Keely was so excited and just smiling. She seems to be using a lot more words lately, hoping it continues!

Big Sister

It has been a rough week here. The kids have been sick and it totally wiped them out. They both slept more than I have ever seen them sleep. Now we are snowed in. Keely has wanted to go out in the snow all day today. Since both are still sick, no one is going out to play and neither of them are very happy about it.

Today, as we were lounging around the house being snowed in, the kids and I were laying on the couch. Keely will very rarely be anywhere near Justice, especially on the same couch. Today though was different, they both laid there for a while then they started playing around. Justice gave Keely kisses, hugs, and tickled her. She was loving every second of it and laughing the whole time. This was great, especially considering most days she tries to act like he doesn't even exist. As for Justice, he loved it! He wants her to play with him so bad and this was one of those times when it was like they were a typical brother and sister just playing together.

Keely's Jokes

Keely's play skills are coming along well. This week she was playing with her safari animals and as I was watching her play, she looked up at me and had some of the smaller ones and said "babies". A little bit later she had some animal and was making Pablo (little Backyardigans figurine) kiss the animal.

Tonight she was ornery as can be. She was trying to do things she knew she wasn't suppose to do, and she would wait until I turned my back and then try to get away with doing it. When I would catch her she would start giggling and take off running from me. One thing was moving the rug from the back door onto the coffee table and another was turning over a chair in the dining room. Both she knows she is not suppose to do and every time I turned around she would go for it and just giggle like crazy. It is awesome to see her little personality come through and try her little jokes with me.

It's a New Year!

It has been a week full of ups and downs to begin 2011. We started the week good. I was getting Keely dressed and she was eating a snack while I was putting her braces and shoes on. I left her shirt off since she was still eating. When she was done she put her snack bowl down and got her shirt and brought it to me in the other room and wanted me to help her put it on. Normally, she would have no interest in putting the shirt on, she would have just ran around without a shirt until I went and got it and chased her down to put it on.


Then the old yeast problem came back. I had taken her off the prescription yeast medicine a couple of months ago and thought we were doing pretty well considering we were trying to get off the prescription. But this week it got out of hand. I could tell she was in pain and her behavior was horrible. She was not sleeping well either. So I added back the diflucan for now, but am still hoping to get her completely off of it soon.


Even through all that she has made progress and done a few new things this week. This morning she was wanting to leave for school and had gone and got her coat to put on. I was still trying to get her to eat her breakfast so I held up her bowl of food up to her and said bacon. She held up her coat to me and gave me 'the look' and said coat in a little demanding voice. It was pretty dang cute. I love how she can amaze me everyday.


You and Me Against the World