Kuddos to a fellow spectrum family

I just have to start this out with a great big compliment to my friend, Heidi. She is the mom of a wonderful little boy who is on the spectrum. We sometimes have a lot of negative stories on our blogs because life can just be tough sometimes but this is so awesome I had to share it. She and her son are both performing in a local play. I am so sad because we cannot get tickets...the play is sold out for the entire run! Which is fabulous. I just think that speaks volumes to what great parenting does for our kids. She has a fabulous son and I just think it is wonderful that they get this great opportunity to be in this play together.

As for our household, it has been pretty good. We took two of the kids to a family wedding in Texas. Packy stayed home with his grammy; his little brother stayed also. I think that has probably upset his schedule a little bit because he has been pretty stimmy. He keeps running that low grade fever which I have a feeling is part of the strep infection......(refer back to a prior column on PANDAS). He is doing his 8th IVIG on January 5th. I think the IVIG has really helped him in addition to the vancomycin and the arithromycin. Right now, he is not taking anything other than some Motrin to keep the fever knocked down. We are hypothesizing that the low grade fever probably has a headache along with it. He has had some acting out the last couple of days...some yelling, some silly talking etc. After the Motrin he settles down, all the yelling, silly movie talking stops.

Patrick has a great behavior therapist, Ms. Joni, who is integral in his home schooling. I posted a photo of her with the kids. The other photo shows the kids all dressed up for a party and play that she worked with them on. She helped them make costumes for a Thanksgiving play and they wrote out parts. The kids even used props they found around the house. It was a very impressive little show! :)

We hit another milestone in November, the day after Patrick's 7th birthday, my husband and I celebrated our Ten year wedding anniversary. Not that we haven't had our rough moments, we hit a really bad spot about two years ago, but it seems like the last while has been really good. We laughed and said that celebrating ten years is like the "new silver" anniversary. HA. I think we have finally gotten to a good place with working out our parenting and understanding what both of us can and cannot contribute.

The most important thing is that we have a happy family and I think that from the smiles on the four kids faces that we are accomplishing that. My prayer this Christmas season is that all families who are dealing with autism issues will have peace and that someone, somewhere can find some answers to the myraid questions involving this epidemic.