Mr. Artist

Taylor is quite the whiz on the computer and especially loves drawing with the Microsoft Paint program. Here is Wall-E:

And Eve:

And Mo:

And here is his lego air plane made in the lego builder program totally from scratch:

It's brilliance like this that makes it hard to be a humble mom ;)

It's a Wrap!

The bridal show is done! The work isn't quite but we are making some changes so it should be less work from now on and we can hopefully manage not to ignore our kids while we plan away. I think we have just worked too hard to be nice and make ourselves available, which sounds great but probably is not the smartest business move as it creates so much work and I think in the long run has just made more work for us. I finally finished the brides lists tonight and will hopefully have those out tomorrow. All in all we worked with 105 vendors, 20,000+ square feet, an exhibition company, a venue, a tent rental company with two mega tents, a pre-event reception with 100 guests, the event planner sent from above, almost $10,000 in prize giveaways and probably 500+ guests at the show. Praise Jesus it's done. Not that I don't like it when things are in full swing but my goodness is it a ton of work! Signed our 2011 Arizona Weddings campaign today and working on the 2011 renewal info and then breathing for a few days before starting all over again. Ahhhh...

Today Brooks is in Baltimore visiting some friends and I am enjoying the babies all to myself. Taylor has pajama day at school tomorrow and is insisting on wearing his Wall-E "jamas". I might pack a spare set of clothes just in case. He also gets to go to the book fair with his class and pick up some new books. We went on Wednesday after school and he picked out a book on space and another on the weather. Jasmine chose two Barbie books and a "Dolly" (Ariel) book, which we have ready about two dozen times.

On Saturday we are having a movie play date with Kat and are going to see the Legend of the Guardians for the sensory friendly showing. Then back home and maybe we will put up some Halloween decorations.

Mr. Popular

Last night was curriculum night at Taylor's school. We were late of course and the room was pretty full with kids and parents sitting at the tables. Brooks sat with Jasmine on the rug and went to work on her coloring book while I tried to listen to Mrs. Gregory.

"Mom, do you see blue? Blue is my favorite color"

"Shhh, Taylor. Please don't talk when your teacher is talking."

"Okay mom. But did you know that--"

"Shh! Can you please wait to tell me after she is done talking?"

"Okay mom."

And then we were done. Brooks asked if that was it, and I guess it was. We waited to talk with her after the room had pretty much cleared. I didn't know we really had anything new to share with her, but since Taylor was sent home the day before with a yellow note on his behavior I thought for sure she might have something to tell us.

She said he had a great day, and she was sure his behavior the day before was because he had made the choice not to behave versus something sensory related, like I worried. She also told us the best news ever- that Taylor has a lot of friends and that the other boys really gravitate toward him. "Really?!" I asked. "Oh yeah! He has the best sense of humor and I think the kids notice that." Then she told me that two of the boys in the class were calling Taylor their best friend.

Phew! We have been so, so worried about Taylor making friends. That concern has been at the top of our list for such a long time. Aside from wanting him to appear as normal as possible, we want to make sure he is making friends and kids are being nice to him. And of course that he is being nice back.

Taylor in the House

I was looking through some pics this morning and could not help posting this one. Taylor is so darn cute and if I do say so myself we have one good-looking kid. I love this picture, it is so hard to get pictures of him anymore and I get so sad sometimes when I look at his baby pictures when he had such light in his eyes. But, here it is in this pic, and I love it!

Girly Girl

Jazz discovered Mama's lipstick. 'Nuff said.

...and the quest for speech continues

I was reading some old posts a while back and when we first began to worry about Jasmine's speech one of the initial fears we had was Autism. How ironic (?) then that Taylor is the one who ended up with the diagnosis and our little Princess is now singing "You've Got a Friend In Me" in the background as I type this. Little Miss Jazz is quite the talker these days. She loves to sing, but is just a chatterbox in general. She can also be quite sassy...I certainly don't know where she got that from.

So here we are one year from Taylor receiving the PDD diagnosis and 8 months from him receiving the Autism diagnosis and we are still waiting for speech therapy. I think I found the place, but I won't believe it until September 2nd at 5pm when the paperwork is in and the session is done. I have to be grateful because we do have really great insurance, but unfortunately many insurance companies deny speech for Autistic kids. Yes, I plan to appeal and once I have a copy of the evaluation he received last week I plan to do that.

As we started down this path with Jazz, I went ahead and self referred to DDD to try to get coverage that way. While he was determined to be medically eligible for DDD services, he was denied by ALTCS who provides the funding. Basically DDD will cover treatment for certain disabilities/diagnoses. It's much easier to get help for kids 3 and under, over three are usually referred to the school district. Five and over gets really tricky. I keep wondering what if I would have realized sooner what was going on and how things might be different now. But, I didn't so here we are.

Yes, Taylor gets therapy at the school, but it is not enough. Any services provided by the school district are only for the child to be able to function in an education setting. I don't know any condition that limits itself to Monday-Friday 8-3. We have so many issues at home it wouldn't be enough for us to rely on the school to address everything. Plus, I learned last year his therapist had over 100 kids on her caseload! That's crazy! Gotta love Arizona and our fabulous emphasis on education.

So anyway, I have been trying to get speech. I tried through insurance. I tried with DDD/ALTCS- which took over 7 months by the way for the whole paperwork/interview process. Finally we gave up and figured we'd have to pay out of pocket. Regular price is $300 a session, but there was a cash discount where he received his other private therapies of just $90 a session. We waited two more months for the evaluation only to have the therapist tell us that Taylor needs more than what they could offer. I broke down and cried in front of the therapist. I couldn't even explain why, I just was done. "But, he is really high functioning" she said. Which is great and I get that. But because he is so high functioning getting any help is a constant battle. High functioning for a kid with Autism does not equate to able to function.

So I went home and Googled the clinic she mentioned. Then called them and immediately they emailed the paperwork over. They offer group sessions every other week for the bargain price of $50 a session. This is cheap compared to everything else. So I've got the forms filled out and we'll be starting him on September 2nd. I know I should be optimistic, but I still have this feeling something else will happen. Maybe these sessions won't be a great fit, maybe after a full day at school and an hour drive he won't respond like he should.

...or maybe this is it. Really it and we've finally done it.

Toy Story Mania

Little Miss Jasmine is Toy Story Crazy!

We watched the Toy Story 3 at the theaters during the sensory-friendly showing, which was great! The sound is not as loud, they don't dim the lights as much and best of all, all of the kids are noisy and walking around- not just ours! Great experience and we would see all movies this way if we could ;)

Well, since then Jazz has become Toy Story crazy. Thank goodness we had 1 and 2 at home, as they now play non-stop on the TV in the playroom. And I mean NON-STOP. Even if Jazzasaurus is in the other room she'll flip out if she can't hear it in the background. The only time that poor TV gets a break is when she is asleep.

By now she has quite a collection of the toys as well- Woody, Bullseye, Jessie, Slinky, Rex, Zurg, Buttercup and of course the Barbies. When we go somewhere, she'll load them all in her Kai-Lan backpack and off we go! These pics are of the gang watching what else- Toy Story, while hanging out in a Barbie carriage.