Mish Mash

We got home today from a weekend away. Jake's friend got married in Wisconsin so we made the 7 hour drive on Friday by ourselves(left the kids with Jake's parents) and spent a couple days there. Jake was a groomsmen and for the groom's dinner on Saturday we took a huge houseboat out on the Mississippi River and had dinner there. It was sooooo pretty and I'm kicking myself for not bringing my camera! My friend did take some pictures so I'll have to get them from her and share them. We had a lot of fun and we haven't been away together for a weekend ever that we could remember.

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Running is going well. I'm off schedule by a day now because of the wedding. Last week I ran 13 miles and it should increase by about a mile each week. Jake is running too and I'm a bit envious because he's pretty fast already! I'm not really looking to be competitive time wise, I just want to finish.

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Looks like July and August are going to be really busy months for us. I'm directing Bible School with my friend Karri and there's a ton of planning to be done. Bible school is in 2 weeks!!

In August Emeric has an appt. with a specialist in Duluth and then his Stroll for Epilepsy is August 13th. On the 14th-15th I'm going with a group to see Beth Moore who will be in Fargo and then heading straight over to our church family campout the same weekend. August 21st is Emeric's 3rd birthday and then August 25th I leave for Houston for an appt. with Emeric's doctor.

I've been emailing with Emeric's doctor and she strongly believes my family history points to a mitochondrial disorder. She is running a blood test on Emeric that will check for every possible Mitochondrial DNA mutation known. She thinks I should have the same test done to compare results because your mitochondrial dna are passed on only from the mother so if Emeric has some variant of a gene or mutation that I don't have that would tell us that the mutation is what is causing his health issues. So... I'm hoping my insurance will pay for me to have the test done since it's for family history purposes and not really because I'm showing symptoms.

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Kylie is getting nervous about school already. Poor girl. I'm nervous too. I'm still not at peace with our decision to send her to public school so I'm hoping that things either go very well or terrible and then we'd know right away if we made the right decision! :) I am willing to homeschool her if she doesn't do well in public school and I want my kids to always have either option. Let's hope she likes it though! :)

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Jake's sister and brother in law are moving in with us for 2 years. They're going to live in our basement while his sister gets her master's degree at a college nearby. We're hoping it will work out to switch out from nursing care to having a Personal Care Attendant and then Jake's sister would be able to have a job working with Emeric.

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Well, enough updates for one night, I'm off to bed!!

Emeric is modeling...

His mohawk

His new homemade(obviously, lol) shirt

His mimicking skills

My Montage 6/28/09

Running Update

This second week has been a bit easier than the first week of running. Since Sunday I've ran 12 miles and tonight I actually beat my time for a 3 mile run so that was good. I'm feeling much better, not so sore, and my shoes are broken in. Next week the runs increase so hopefully I'll survive them! :)

A fractured brain

Brains fascinate me. Especially the brain of one particular child, Emeric. If someone granted me one wish it would be that I could get inside Emeric's head and figure out how his brain works. This kid puzzles me and puzzles all his therapists. Some of his therapists have been with him for 2 years and aren't any closer to understanding how to get through to him, how to help him understand and learn.

Emeric learns atypically. Whereas a typical child grows up and learns without much effort really from the parents Emeric does not. Emeric has to be taught. Most kids learn from watching their parents. Emeric does this too but it takes intentional, focused, and lengthy teaching for him to learn it.

Emeric's therapists might teach him how to do something or what something is for and he might do it. Once. And that's it. It's as if his brain completely erased the memory of how to do what they'd asked. Or he just doesn't see the point in doing it, who knows.

He doesn't really seem to be bothered with things like pleasing people and I feel like this hinders his ability to follow directions and to learn. A lot of children want to please you so they'll do what you do to get a reaction. Emeric does this sometimes but not often. If his therapists hand him a toy to get him to mimic what they just did he'll usually throw it. Or he'll hit them.

I realize that makes him sound like a brat and since he's nearly 3 it would seem that he should "know better" and just listen. While those things sound nice on paper they aren't true for Emeric. He doesn't think like a 3 year old and while he definitely has times where his defiance is intentional and intended for disobedience most of the time he just doesn't seem to see the connection between being asked to do something and actually doing it. The "good job's" and "way to go's" aren't as much of an incentive as they are for typical kids.

Some days Emeric's brain seems to function pretty well and other days his brain seems to have said, "See ya, I'm taking the day off!".

So, since I'm at a loss as to how to really continue helping him learn I made an appt. with a specialist in Duluth. She actually works out of a free clinic and will do a consultation for us. She specializes in Autism and Autistic like disorders and will see him in August.

In the meantime I decided to start using the PECS book I made for him a bit more and using social stories to try to get some basic understanding of things like not hitting, not throwing toys, etc. down.

Wish us luck! With his attention span(or lack of) we need all the luck we can get! :)

Sand, sun and silliness...

Per my sister's request...

Day 2 and Day 3...

(Don't worry, I won't chronicle EVERY day :) )

Day 2 I ran 3 miles. I made a bit better time but my legs were killing me.

Day 3- That's today and thank you lord it's a DAY OF REST. My feet have blisters on them from my shoes but otherwise I actually feel pretty good. If my back wasn't burning up from sunburn I'd feel even better.

Stay tuned for pictures of what we've been doing the last few days!