Just spreading a little fantabulous news, Malachai had his therapy evals last week, and he is done with PT! This is amazing, because not six months ago he would fall over standing still. No joke. Now he can balance on one leg so long he can’t count that high (ok, maybe he can, but it’s a long time!)  He is still in speech and occupational therapies, but those are improving too. They will re-evaluate him in another six months. Maybe in the next six months he will learn how to sit in, and stay in, a chair

Not only is therapy going well, but he only missed one word on his spelling test today (out of ten words) and he has been helping me read Coraline at night. His speech therapist suggested I talk to the school and see what kind of literature we can tie into his daily work to keep him interested. He reads like crazy for her, not so much for me. Apparently, I just hadn’t picked the right books. We’re reading The Tale of Despereaux next (Dorian’s choice). I think I will be moving a bunch of books down the shelf for Eshiva, and finding some more appropriate books for Mal & Dor.

Speaking of Dorian, he is doing basketball after school once a week and he loves it. I think we’ll continue to do it once it’s up. It runs in five week sessions and he started last week. I looked into the local rec center for something for both the boys to do, as our PT suggested Mal do some type of sport. I don’t know what, but we’ll find something. I think they are looking into karate (ok, I am pushing karate) but I am not going to push it if he’s really not into it. We were also thinking bowling, but the PT specificaly said sports that work the entire body. We need to increase (and maintain) his muscle tone, as it’s significantly “below age level.” Eshiva is going to be taking a dance class once a week in the mornings, and she is uber-excited about that. She wont stop talking about it, in fact.

Shivie is a little chatterbox, and thinks she’s a princess. She recently discovered dinosaurs (and I wish we lived closer to DC, because there are no decent dino exhibits around here that I can find) and barbie. She turns four on Feb 10th and woe be unto you if you try and tell her she’s three.

Everyone else is well. Dad and Michael and still employed (yay!) and I am still getting enough work to buy fun stuff by freelancing (also yay!). Michael and Sara are looking into the SAT and making plans and doing all that fun 17 year old stuff.

Ah… I think that wraps us up! I’m sure there is more, but it’s daily stuff. I was just so excited about Malachai! He is still having troubles, but there is a light.

and I posted this to PM’s yesterday:

Michael was given written notification today that the therapy place we go is closing on Friday.

Fucking economy.

They are going to try to farm everyone out to other locations, and we may be able to keep our OT if the other place she works can fit him in (and if they take our ins and if it’s in a reasonable drive). Our ST was an intern.

What really stinks is I really, really like our ST, and WTF giving us one weeks notice?

I know we can find someplace else (hell, maybe the place a few blocks down the street takes our ins and offers what we need) but this still stinks.

and I posted this today as a follow-up:

Yay!!! Our rockin speech gal called me up this morning and told me that she interviewed this morning at a place that is even closer and they are working their hardest to absorb all of the speech therapists AND their clients AND keep the same schedule!

She gave me the number of the new place, and I left a message around 10AM. She phoned me back around 5:30, apologized for it taking so long to get back to me, and told me what was going on. They do take our insurance, and are working to have the approvals transferred to them from our current place. She is hoping to start Monday!

We see Courtney tomorrow and Thursday and I am just thrilled it sounds like we won’t have a lapse, at least here.

I still need to find out where the place our OT works is located (she was split between the two places I guess), if they take our ins, and if we can fit in over there. I really like our OT as well – not like I like our ST, but she is awesome with Malachai. I’d hang out with our ST, not so much with our OT.

But wait, there’s more! We’re adopting a new puppy!

So, we’ve been thinking about getting a companion for Malachai for a while now. Therapy dogs are quite expensive, and the “free” ones take a lot of paperwork and legwork. No doubt they don’t deserve it, but it was more than we needed. It’s not like we were looking for a seeing eye dog or anything, you know? So, we found this little guy! We’re picking him up either Thursday or Sunday.

He’s been there for a year! I can’t imagine why someone didn’t want to take him home, but I am glad they didn’t! We drove down to Ft. Lauderdale on Monday and went back to meet him. He is so friendly, and energetic and playful. He jumped up on Eshiva, but did not knock her down. The gal who showed him to us said he gets along with all the other dogs/cats in the rescue, have never bitten anyone, and is healthy. Apparently he was purchased from a pet store, and then got sick. He had demodectic mange (yes, just like our Yorkie) but his fur is full and thick and I didn’t feel any scabs or anything on his body. They said nothing about meds or anything else, and he is neutered. This is good, because Sasha is so sick, putting her through surgery to spay her would be too taxing on her immune system (so says the vet).

He is a year and a half old, and is the perfect size. Yay!

From the rescue site:
More About Patches/Atos: Patches was purchased from a puppy store. He is a sweet fellow who is good with other animals including cats. He is waiting for a forever home with lots of playmates or toys. Walks in the park or just around the block. Nice yard to play in but not totally necessary. Patches loves his toys!

Oh, he’s a beagle/basset mix. Cuteness!

Anything else? Probably not. I am sticking with good news right now.

I read this and started crying. I don’t know if everyone will/would, but stories like this always make me cry. I always see myself in them. I think all siblings of special needs children are like this (or I’ve never met one who wasn’t). It’s almost the same as a parent/child relationship, but it’s different too. I would have given my arm for my sister to be normal. I would have done anything. I used to tell my gram to rub her legs, so she could walk. I wanted to be a therapist when I grew up. I took care of her, I loved her, and I defended her to strangers all the time. A pierce of me died when she did, and it’s a piece I notice missing all the time. A huge piece of her grew in me, and I know it’s there every day when I interact with my own children.

I feel for this little boy. He has no idea. His entire life is already different from his peers, and it isn’t better and it isn’t worse, but it is most definitely different. He will grow up knowing things that I wish we could instill in every child in the world. He will grow up a little faster, perhaps he already has, and he will grow up a little slower, because that’s just how it is. I wish him and his brother the very best.

My world is entirely Jenn-centric. Isn’t yours?

I realize that the universe didn’t give us Erin just to prepare me for Malachai. That would be a little too Jenn-centric, even for me, but…. Well, you just never know, right?

So I texted my husband, whom I adore, and told him I was missing mom and I wanted to go out when he got home, even if it was just to StarFuckers or someplace like that, to sit. Well, Eshiva wouldn’t go to sleep, and finally did around 9.30, so we went out. Can I shoehorn in here, that my sister had her friend go home so she could keep an eye on Esh? She is such a love. I had him print out the free drink coupon for B&N, so that’s where we wound up.

Normally B&N is a bad, bad, bad idea for me. I can drop a hundo easy there, and usually do. Well, we get there, and I’m not even in the door yet and I realize I don’t want a cup of coffee (or whatever frou-frou drink the coupon is for) and we just shmy around for a half hour or so. I see a ton of books and magazines I want, but don’t get any. This is bad people, I am beyond pick-me-up shopping and into save the money, I don’t need it anyway territory. Everything I looked at was photography, graphic or cooking related. It all reminds me that I let everything fall by the wayside, that I can’t stick to doing anything. Which of course, puts my somewhat funky mood into piss-off territory.

So we come home, my husband feels like crap because he can’t fix it (and he isn’t expected to, but I appreciate the thought) and I get in bed and turn the lights out and listen to an audiobook. Fin.

This morning I was woken up at 6.30 because dad is still at work and will not be home to wake and take the twins to school. So I wake up Sara and Michael wakes up Michael and agian, being the love that he is, takes them to school because I just can’t drive at this hour safely.

Malachai was impressed with himself that he woke up before the alarm clock went off. We had a nice chat. He told me his teeth feel like there are little people in there playing them like xylaphones. He asked when his birthday was going to be. Tomorrow? No Mal. After tomorrow? After lots of tomorrows, yes. I have no idea if he understands time outside of yesterday, today and tomorrow, because any real length of time is just “after tomorrow.” I know he gets that it’s eight days to Halloween and ten days till we go back to the beach, but I think he still thinks of it in terms of “after tomorrow.” It’s kind of endearing.

Today is a half day, so I need to figure out what this afternoon will bring. Tomorrow is off, which will be interesting as we have Edinea at 9.15, so we’ll have to figure that out. Maybe we’ll take them all and go to breakfast after. We’ll see.

Denis Leary on Autism.

It might be time to add a new category to our lineup. Denis Leary knows the power of the autism community. That’s why he’s using us to sell books. Can we have a giant, “Whatever.” for Mr. Leary?

“There is a huge boom in autism right now because inattentive mothers and competitive dads want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can’t compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons. I don’t give a [bleep] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you – yer kid is NOT autistic. He’s just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.”

New York Post Gossip section.

PS My apologies if you’re offended by the graphic. It seemed fitting.

AGE OF AUTISM: Denis Leary on Autism.

So yah. You’re an asshole. I just have one thing to say really. My autistic child tested at just shy of *genius* on his IQ testing (part of the testing that was done during his diagnosis). G-E-N-I-U-S. And my kids not lazy either. Me? I’m lazy. I spend more time and energy figuring out how not to do things than just doing them in the first place. I’ll own my laziness. Most autistic kids? Not so lazy. Not so stupid.

I’m not buying his book. I’m not telling you to buy his book. I’m not even looking the damn thing up. I’m also not buying Jenny McCarthy’s books either, so there you go.

We had Malachai’s IEP this morning. All went well, he has a 1:1 for part of the day, interviews for the 1:1 were today. His speech was dropped to 3X a week instead of 4X, but not a big deal as he has improved a huge amount and he gets an hour outside of school as well. They are doing a OT/PT request form, so he may get OT/PT in school as well. They are accomodating his OT sensory diet needs. I have to copy and drop off those papers tomorrow morning.

My wrist and elbow are in a lot of pain. In fact, the entire right side of my right hand is a wreck, from pinkie finger down. I am worried, but not too… I’ve been working a lot this week.

Getting the oil changed in the van tomorrow morning, dropping off the release forms to APS (for CSE to be able to communicate with APS), dropping sensory papers off to CSE… busy morning!

There is more, but I really am having trouble typing :/

Michigan Messenger » Lose your house, lose your vote.

Michigan Republicans plan to foreclose African American voters

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

You have to read the whole article. They are targeting people who have lost their homes, and who have no proof of address. Perhaps they have moved outside of their voting area, or in with family and don’t have proof of address available (such as utility bills in their name).

BBC NEWS | Business | Crude oil price drops below $106.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so excited, especially after reading they anticipate it soaring back up, and past the low 100′s to over 250$ per barrel. But I am. We had to get gas yesterday, and it was as low as 3.679$, and I got a full tank of gas for less than 90$.

I will be the firs to admit, I don’t quite understand why gas has soared so high. I understand just fine that we’re having troubles (understatement much?) with suppliers/supply areas, and I understand it’s a limited resource. I also noted that on the pump yesterday there was a note that said “between 1% and 10% ethanol,” so why can’t we mix it a little more and bring the prices down a little more too?

I also know bio-fuel is equally as bad as oil-fuel (well, it’s still bio, isn’t it? How misleading!) but for different reasons.

So much to digest… It doesn’t help that I am operating on too little sleep, trying to think about this stuff it giving me a bit of a headache right now.

I was recently reading that bio-fuel (corn based) causes problems with the land, can cause more pollution in production and shipping, can cause poverty (I must say, that one is still beyond me, but let’s skip it for now), and a handful of other major problems.

I’ve said it before, I literally screwed myself into the need for a large car/van. I have three kids, all in carseats. Show me a smaller, fuel-efficient car that can safely seat them and doesn’t cost a fortune and I’ll jump on board! Until then, I have a minivan I can mostly afford (and owe more on than it’s worth, so no trading it in for a new vehicle) that isn’t as bad as some on gas, but not as good as others.

AAA had an article on hybrid vs. some other smallish car (I think it was a Hyundai) and the numbers over five years had the non-hybrid come out ahead in fuel efficiency and cost, so if you are looking at a hybrid to cost less… don’t. If you are looking at a hybrid to be easier on the environment, go for it!

Tangent there. Told ya I wasn’t awake.

Took Malachai to therapy, got a flat tire on the way there. Took care of that, therapy went well. I was shown hot to do joint compression with him and he worked on strength and whatnot. Fun stuff! He also started speech today.

Came home, did… something. Played MouseTrap somewhere in there with the kids. Michael is making sloppy joe for dinner. I dyed my sisters hair, I haven’t seen how it came out yet. Ordered a couple of new machines for myself (a rotary machine and a craptastic cheap one to use as a learning tool). And that pretty much wraps up my day! I so want to go out, I don’t want to be home. Oh well.

Michael and I went out to lunch on Monday at Salad Creations and I was asking him about some tattooing technique stuff and I taught him something! I had been asking him about lines and filling in solid colour, and he said something about doing it in straight lines. I said oh, I did it “spots,” so instead of a line of circles to make a line of solid fill, I did a largish circle of solid fill, and then moved to another area, and sort of staggered them, so it didn’t make an obvious line, or a lot of obvious stripes. He said he had never thought to do it that way. I went on to explain why I did it that way (I didn’t like the obvious striping effect of line-fill on the melon and my approach camouflaged it) and he said no, you taught me something. I’ve always done lines, because I was taught to do it that way. Go me!

Malachai turns 6 tomorrow. I told him today he was 5 years and 365 (leap year, right?) days old. Wow! Where does the time go? He got two birthday cards in the  mail yesterday, and we’re going to lunch on Sunday. Money we get the swingset! I don’t know if it will get put together or not that day. We’ll see.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2004/afamilyundertaking

The parlor, or “death room,” was an important part of funerary rituals for most of the 19th century, the place where deceased family members were laid out for final respects. This image dates to c. 1890-1905, a time when many funerals were still taking place at home. Soon, however, death would begin to leave the home and by end of World War I most Americans will receive their health care in doctor’s offices and hospitals and most funerals will take place in funeral homes. As the funeral “parlor” came into vogue, the home parlor was rechristened a “living room.” A 1910 issue of Ladies Home Journal declared the “death room” to be a term of the past.

interesting to read this, mainly because we have had two people, literally, deathly ill in our living room, each died in there. I never knew that what I grew up calling the “living room” used to be the “death room.” How very. Perhaps the death room is going to come back into vogue? Perhaps it is just more… natural? I fought for both of them to be brought home, to be allowed to die surrounded by their loved ones, in a setting that some part of their brain might still recognize as home. Or maybe it is just more comforting to those of us who are being left behind.