In So Many Words

The prompt for this edition of Blog Gems is creativity. All you have to do is link up your post and then read and comment on the two posts listed before yours (at least!). Visit Blog Gems – Air Your Archives #11 to link up your post or read some other entries.

Since my son’s ninth birthday was on Thursday, this topic immediately made me think of the scrapbook I made for him (with immeasurable assistance from my incredibly creative friend L.) for his seventh birthday. It is an alphabet book celebrating all of the things that make him so special and wonderful, and everything in it is still true today.

I hope you will take a moment to visit the post and enjoy My Birthday Star!.

On a related note, this year we had his first real “friend” party – at Chuck E. Cheese of course! – and he had a blast! Here’s a picture of Michael with Chuck E. in his birthday crown:

Birthday Boy

I have been collecting a bunch of bookmarked pages and emails with all sorts of information that I thought might be useful but didn’t have time to go through right then. I am finally getting to this project and wanted to share with you the fruits of my labors.

No-Food Birthday Cakes at American Partnership for Eosinophillic Disorders
I was doing some reading on eosinophillic esophagitis (for me, not my son), and found this great article at about how to make birthday cakes fun for a kiddo who can’t or won’t eat cake.

There are some very clever ideas here, and I’m sure something will jump start your creativity for the next celebration. Luckily, I have a few months to think about this one, but I definitely want to do it for Michael’s next birthday party.

What to Ask of An Occupational Therapist at The Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism
Wow! This guest post by Dr. Boucher from TherExtras blew me away – how I wish I had something like this when I was getting started!

No matter, I’m sure I will use it many times in the future and adapt it to any professional I am seeing for my son. And I’m also thankful to have been introduced to another great blog with tons of helpful information.

Autism Risk & Safety Management
This is the site of Dennis Debbaudt, a leading advocate for autism training for first responders. With the increase in encounters between law enforcement and people with autism, this is a crucial area of need, and this site has a lot of information about keeping your child safe and reaching out to the community.

I know several members of our Autism Society chapter take gift baskets to the police stations locally on their Memorial Day (where they remember fallen officers) and also ask for the opportunity to speak with them about autism. It has always been very well received by the officers.

National Parks FREE Access Pass
Did you know that a person with a permanent disability can get a free lifetime pass that is good at federal recreation sites? It is available to people who are US citizens or permanent residents and would also cover the person’s caregivers. The site has full details of the eligibility requirements and how it works, although you do have to obtain it in person so they can verify residency and disability documents.

Now that Michael is interested in traveling to different places, I am definitely going to get one of these. It will be a big help to the vacation budget!

Thankfully, I have a good report to follow up on my post about the DAN! doctor insurance woes. I did get a call back from the office manager on Friday and the paperwork is being re-submitted to the insurance company. I can’t really share all the details here, but I will say that I have learned over the last couple of weeks of issues with various areas of my son’s care that there is almost always more to the story and a lot of the time it isn’t really about you personally.

I also realized that my niece’s birthday is actually today, not yesterday as I originally wrote. She is interested in many wonderful things that have never graced our toy bins, such as Barbie’s Pegasus, Polly Pocket, and Strawberry Shortcake. So it should be fun shopping for her, as a nice change from Legos and Thomas trains and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (not that those things aren’t awesome, as my son would say).

It’s so amazing to see how much she’s grown – she’s almost as tall as her five and a half year old twin sisters!

Happy Birthday, Sophie!

Michael has been talking about wanting a cat for a while, and yesterday I heard about this kitty, who has been living in a bathroom for the last few days,

because of this doggy, and needed a new home.

So, last night we went to meet him, and now…

he is living under our bed!

Actually, he is very friendly and lovable, just a tiny bit nervous still about Michael after living with a toddler and a baby. His name is Stubby (long story), but we are still deciding if we are going to change it or not.

It has been over three years since we said goodbye to the cat we got from my mom right when we got married, and I am really looking forward to having a pet again.

Visit Special Exposure Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday for more great photos!

Today is my son Michael’s 7th birthday! I can hardly believe it – I remember being amazed when he turned 7 months old, and now here we are with this big kid running around our house.

A few weeks ago, I got an idea to make him a scrapbook for his birthday. The plan was to fill it with positive words that describe him and would build up his self-image, which can often be very negative. He loves the alphabet, so I decided to make it go in alphabetical order. I used bright colors for the backgrounds and put them in rainbow order, which is also a must for him!

My friend Lisa and I got together last Friday night and actually put the entire thing together in a six-hour marathon scrapbooking session. I could never have done it without her help and expertise, and I am so amazed by the finished product that I had to share it with everyone.

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom for more Tackle It Tuesday. I’m also over at 5 Minutes for Special Needs today, talking about Teaching the Value of Money. Whether you have a child with special needs or not, we’d love to have you join in and share your ideas on this topic.

With my son’s birthday coming up on Tuesday, I had gotten the bright idea to make him a scrapbook that would be filled with positive things about him to help improve his self-image (both in terms of accuracy and self-esteem).  I didn’t realize how long it would take me to actually figure out how I was going to do and get started on it.  Earlier this week, I finally got photos picked out and found a variety of paper, stickers and other items to use for the project.

The plan was to have words from each letter of the alphabet, since that is one of his loves, and I decided to use bright color backgrounds and put the colors in rainbow order (another strong preference of his).  Well, I went to my friend Lisa’s house on Friday night, thinking that we would get started and then I would spend the next two days holed up in my basement finishing it . . . but wouldn’t you know it, we FINISHED THE ENTIRE THING in a marathon six-hour session!!! 

The finished product is amazing (IMHO), although we are NEVER doing anything like that again.   I can hardly wait until Tuesday evening to give it to him.  Here’s a sneak peek of the first page:

This week my big project is the scrapbook I am making for Michael’s birthday. It is basically a celebration of him, with each page featuring a different letter of the alphabet and words the describe him starting with that letter. He loves the alphabet, so I think he will really like it.

Anyway, I have just looked through about two years worth of pictures for this! Here’s a few of my favorites (that I haven’t posted previously):

Happy Wordless Wednesday and Special Exposure Wednesday!

So now that we are on the second whole day of a new year, Michael feels very strongly that he cannot wait to be 7 and has been asking all day about it. Is it my birthday yet? Look at my hands – they are too big to be a six year old’s hands. When will it be March 10th? How many days is it? Can’t I be 7 now?

Now he is perfectly able to understand the concept of dates and time and knows exactly when March 10th is; he is just so impatient about it coming that he wants to talk about it constantly. I think a lot of the feelings come from the fact that Daddy’s birthday is on Monday and mine was last Thursday, so he feels like he should be part of all the celebrations.

So, onto other topics…

I am really enjoying having this blog; I am already getting to know a few other bloggers better through it, and I feel like it is helping me be more focused and productive in other areas as well. One of the (many) things I am hoping to do this weekend is sit down and brainstorm ideas for the blog I contribute to biweekly (5 Minutes for Special Needs).  I have a oouple of thoughts but need to flesh them out and see if they will work.

One of the things I am involved with in real life is a local non-profit organization called ASD HOPE, which helps “new” parents, meaning people whose child has recently been diagnosed with autism or who are new to this area, with information about local resources and services.  We have an information booklet that we send out to people, and we hold parent seminars three times a year to go over this basic info, plus occasional workshops related to special diets and biomedical information.

 All that to say I have several things I need to do before our first board meeting on the 12th, including finishing updates to the booklet so that it can be reprinted, putting together an agenda, and going through the emails to see what else needs to be done.  I do enjoy the work; it’s just that somehow I never get to it.  I need to just block out a couple of hours and force myself not to check email or go on Facebook or Twitter.

Well, I had better shut this down as it is almost tomorrow.  Before I go, I just wanted to mention for anyone that may be interested that I am having my first giveaway over at Another Piece of the Puzzle.

Well, it is Christmas Eve, and what a busy day it has been.  But I am happy to be able to get so much done again, so I am not complaining.  We had ice last night but then it rained most of the day; this morning I didn’t get three feet down my sidewalk before I fell down.  Ugh!

I got a good start on the 2009 pricing that is supposed to be in the system by January 6th.  That sounds like a long ways away until you realize that there are only 4 more business days between now and then for us, and I only have two people helping me.  I am hoping to work on it quite a bit next week while I am home with Michael.  I’m hoping he will be happy to watch some of his new DVD’s while I log in.

Bob & Michael went shopping today for groceries and also for birthday and Christmas presents for me.  It sounds like they had a good time, and Michael hasn’t let anything slip out about my gifts (darn it!).  They also took me out to Ruby Tuesday for a birthday dinner (the night before since we are going to a friend’s house for dinner tomorrow on my actual birthday).  Michael was a bit nervous because he had never been there before, but later pronounced it a very good choice and said they had the best French fries he had ever had.

While they were out, I got all the presents wrapped and just have to put together Michael’s Santa gift once he is asleep and Bob finishes his secret wrapping project downstairs.  I am excited – I think this is going to be a good Christmas for us, even if Bob feels like his “vacation” has slipped away without any real down time.  I’m hoping he can get some time off around his birthday when there won’t be all these other things that need to be done and when he can truly rest and relax.

The rash from the scarlet fever is almost gone, although I feel like I have been sunburned and am afraid the skin will start peeling.  My face is rough and dry no matter how much lotion I put on, but I don’t think you can really tell unless you get close, so maybe I will be alright for Christmas photos this weekend.

On the bloggy side of things, I wanted to put a nice widget of some sort on each of my blogs with the feed from the other one.  I like Widgetbox but I can’t get it to work; the customization page just won’t load.  So I ended up using Spring Widgets, which are similar but just not what I like.  Oh well.  If you know of another one that is similar or better, please let me know.

Well, I think I am going to go play around online until it is time to get out the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to set up for the morning.  Merry Christmas Eve, all!

Well, the birthday celebration week has come to an end at last!! (Actually, I have really enjoyed it despite the extra craziness involved. We spread things out this year and think it was a much better choice than trying to have one large party.)

A few months ago, we discovered Gluten-Free Oats and ordered some to try out. We have not seen any negative reaction to them, although admittedly the Little Guy does not consume them very often due to his texture preferences (pretty much only things that are crunchy or chewy, which does not include cooked oatmeal).

Anyway, their recipe for Monster Cookies has become one of his favorite special treats. We sent them to daycare on Monday for a birthday snack to share with the class, and we also made some for the family party/sleepover this weekend. They were a big hit with everyone.

I would highly recommend this recipe to anyone, whether on a special diet or not (unless you are allergic to any of the other ingredients, of course). They are even easier if you don’t have dietary restrictions, because then you don’t have to worry about having gluten-free oats, vanilla and chocolate chips. As it is, we use Earth Balance Buttery Sticks, which I do believe have a small amount of soy, and Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips. Enjoy Life products are awesome because they are all free of the top 8 allergens, plus are GFCF.

I did also make a regular birthday cake for this weekend. The Little Guy requested it so he could blow out the candles, but he did not want me to make one he could eat because, in his words, “Cake is yucky to me!”

(In the interest of full disclosure, I have to confess that we used M&M’s in place of chocolate chips this weekend. While I am not recommending it, three years into the diet we are occasionally allowing small infractions with digestive enzymes.)