Meet our new baby!

Well we have a new baby! His name is Maxwell Scoobert Wolf, or just "Max" as we call him. We got Max from the local animal shelter. He is such a sweetie. He plays a little and sleeps alot. For now anyway. He is 10 weeks old and 1/2 german shepherd, and 1/2 bull mastif . So we figure by next year he may qualify as a pony! So far he has been a great addition to the family, although Gage is driving him a little bit crazy! We are currently house breaking him and he's doing pretty good. When we take him out he goes potty right away. What a smart boy! I'll have to admit that puppys are work, but nothing compared to taking care of a baby and it hasn't been that long since I had babies so it doesn't seem so bad to me.

Ok so expect him on next years Christmas card!

Why I Do IT.

Often I read blogs and writings by autistic adults . I like to have the perspective of autistics because I am not autistic and my son is. Mostly its thought provoking and enlightening to me. But quite often I come across opinions of adult autistics that say anyone persuing a"cure" or "recovery" is doing their child a disservice because you are not loveing the child for who they are and trying to change who the child really "is". I have heard that biomedical intereventions are "cruel".

Well here is my perspective and probably only the parents of autistics kids will appriciate this. I do follow the biomedical approach. First off I want to get my son's body as healthy as possible. If he is not feeling well then how can he function at his best, how can anyone? After removng dairy from his diet he became less aggressive. He stopped biting his sister and pulling her hair. If I add vitamens and minerals to his diet and remove foods that make him crazy how am I being cruel to my son? Not to mention the fact that he has been sick much less since starting the biomed approach. If I get him healthy, rid his body of yeast overgrowth, get all the alluminum out of him and he's still autistic, then fine at least he is a healthy autistic boy.

Then there is therapy. Some argue that ABA is cruel and mean. Well the ABA of today is a far cry from the ABA of 20 years ago when these adults were children. Its more friendly and less rigid. Lets face it its a cruel world out there. We could all hold hands and sing and wish everyone was nice and accepted everyone else for who they are, but that is just not reality. The reality is that I will not be around forever and my chidren have to be able to take care of themselves. I don't want Gage to be reliant on the state and caregivers and I don't want Makinna to have to take care of him, she has her own life to lead.

So I guess I am in persuit of a "cure" or "recovery" for my son. But its all relative. To me this means "functioning independantly and happy" To some it means to wipe out every trace of autism from thier child. Well I don't necesarily feel that way. I love Gage's little quirks. I just want him to be the best he can be. I want him to learn, be healthy and happy. When he is not able to communicate, when he feels bad physically, and he wants to socialize with other kids but doesn't know how and basically gets aggressive as his social overture, well I don't think he is happy. He has to function in an NT world. As his parent I will push him to do his best to make his way in the world we live in, and I will do the same for my daughter. I just have to go about it in a different way with Gage.

Its always something!

Well another therapist bites the dust! Just when I think we have all of Gage's therapy hours covered someone quits. The girl was very sweet and nice but she really was getting no where with Gage. This was her first job out of college and I don't think working with autistic kids is her calling. So now we once again go looking for another therapist when there aren't any.
I tell ya! Getting services for an autistic child is a full time job in itself. It seems I'm always on the phone setting up evaluations, appointments, or I'm going to meetings or taking him to therapy. Or I have to call someone to light a fire under thier ass because something isn't being done. It's no wonder I'm overweight, overtired, and overwhelmed. But being all of those things does nothing to help my son. So I pick my self up, brush myself off and drive forword.
Now you'll have to excuse me I have a fire to light.

The Lightbulb scare

Well we have been doing our best to save money. One of the steps we have taken is to replace all of our incandescent bulbs with the high efficiency bulbs. (except in our dimmers) They last longer and are supposed to use less energy. My biggest concern with these bulbs is the fact that they contain mercury. The last thing this family needs is to be exposed to mercury! But after reading the package I thought "as long as it doesn't break we're fine" Well now I am not so sure.
Last night I was swinging Gage in the basement. One of these high efficiency lights had burnt out but there are two lights so I hadn't changed it yet. While I'm down there I hear a "POP!" then the light comes on. I thought "oh its not really blown!" Then the thing starts to smoke terrible and has this awful smell. I immediately turned the light off and then took it out of the socket. I was a little freaked out. First I did not know what we were exposed to. Gage had been sleeping just under where the light was. Second...what if I had not been down there??? Could our house have burned down? I wasn't sure if it was the bulb or the socket, so I put a regular bulb in the socket and no problems.
I did a little research on the Internet and found out that this is evidently NOT an isolated incident. I was able to find about 12 other accounts of the same thing happening with the same GE bulb. I am going to write GE a letter, along with the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I do believe I will also write my congressmen because in the recently passed Energy Bill, it is written in there that by 2012 regular incandescent bulbs will be illegal to sell and they are pushing the energy efficient bulbs. I don't like not having a choice. And I'm not convinced that these bulb are not with our issues either.
I just wanted to warn all the readers of this blog. Do not leave your high efficiency bulbs on if you are not in the room.

My Favorite Tradition

The annual trip to the tree farm is by far my favorite family tradition. We started going Makinna's first Christmas and return to the same place every year.

Its not a fancy place, just a tree farm up in the mountain, and they have the most beautiful Frazier furs.

Every year we pile in the car with Aunt B and Uncle Cody and follow Grandma and Pappy Wolf up to the tree farm. Grandma, Pappy, Aunt B and Uncle Cody pick out their tree and we pick out ours. Mostly Makinna and I. Gage is usually running up and down the rows chasing after KJ the dog.

This year there was still snow on the ground from an earlier snow fall. It just adds to the festive mood. I even got some great pictures of the kids. The family picture is not so great...don't we all look so happy?

The experience is always so much fun. Often Wes has a snow ball fight with his brother and sister. And I love watching Daddy and Pappy cut down and drag the trees to the truck like manly men. I know these are traditions the the kids will remember into adulthood.

Boys will be Boys

.....and that's not such a bad thing. Gage is ALL boy. He loves to play rough, sometimes too rough. He often gets the best of his older sister and other kids he plays with. He does a move I call "the take down" where he comes up behind someone, grabs them around the waist and falls backward. I swear he has a future in professional wrestling!
But I realized something the other day.....Gage has only girls to play with. He has a sister, the neighbor across the street has girls, my best friend has 3 girls!! So over Thanksgiving we went to my sisters house. My two nephews were there. They are 7 and 9 years old and I mean they are all rough and tumble boys! They run, jump, yell and carry on like testosterone filled little boys do, and let me tell you Gage had a blast playing with them. It was so joyous for me to watch him wrestle with them and they didn't cry, they ran, they laughed they wrestled and Gage got to do his signature "take down" move and the boys loved it. They thought he was sooooo cool because he played rough. We still had some trouble with Gage biting, but he bit one of the boys and they just said "ouch!" pushed him away and kept playing chase. There was no major melt down, no screaming, they just shrugged it off. My two young nephews have two older brothers so they learned early to be tough, so Gage is no big deal for them.
After watching them I began to think, maybe Gage is not that bad maybe he just needs some rough little boys to play with!

More pics

I just wanted to post these cute pics of the kids in thier festive Halloween shirts, courtesy of Grammy and Grandfather. I couldn't find my cameral when it came time for trick or treat. So my good friend is going to email me some of hers so I have some pictures of the kids in thier costumes. Hopefully I will be able to post them soon.