Owen ran past me, yelling, “let’s go potty let’s try it gotta go potty”. I can tell you any combination of those words send sparks of joy right to my heart. Potty training was a long and windy road, a long, long, long road. It was the kind of road I thought we would never get past the stop signs and detours but here we are and he’s potty trained. There’s still those occasional moments and then the screaming of not wanting to go but more extremely successful days than the opposite. I can’t tell you how many times I screamed out to God to give me strength. A sensory child and bodily functions are two things I never ever imagined would be so complex. And with that, I rejoice again the millions of steps forward on the potty party train. Owen has always had a hard time answering questions when I ask him something. We have to work through replies and what he might say. It seems like from day one I’ve been having two-sided conversations with him. I would ask him how his day was going or what his favorite color is. I would then follow it up with an answer. He’s starting to reply to more of my questions but not always with the answers I’m predicting. I asked him if he could say, hello in French. He replied, “hello in French”. I tried again with “hello in German. He said, “hello in German Siri”. I smiled. He spends countless amounts of time now asking Siri to say different words and phrases in all the languages he knows and some vegetables. He sings with Mickey and the gang in numerous languages, talking to Jake in French, and laughing hysterically at something that was said in German which makes me think he understands more than I can even imagine. I remind myself this is the little boy the doctors said might not talk. I remind myself of this because every day there are miracles that happen and every day I know Owen will continue to grow. I tell him every single day that he can accomplish anything he wants to if he sets his mind to it. He wanted to take one of his books to bed tonight. He laid there reading me a story about a dog and playing in the snow. He referenced throwing a frisbee with a neighbor’s dog and I thought today is a great day for the journey we are on. He’s taught me to be stronger and to keep moving forward. Find what makes you smile and go after your dreams. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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Sometimes sausage grease gets in the way of a good day and then other days you have to laugh and say it makes a pretty good hair gel. Owen knows how to use a fork but fingers and toes are much easier to eat with. Oh yes, even the toes, but I really don’t want to think about that. I have so much sausage grease in my hair from Owen’s breakfast I kinda forgot about it. My sensory child doesn’t think twice about rubbing food all over his face or hair or body. And he comes to me with a “big hug” immediately grabbing for my hair. Some days I want to sob a river because I just don’t really want sausage grease or pizza or whatever else he is eating in my hair but I have to put it out of my mind so I don’t go out of my mind. I’m constantly having to stay on top of the situation at hand. I put Owen’s lunch on the table, I went to get the rest of mine, not even ten feet from him, and turn to see him sitting on the table once again. My heart stops every time he does this. He’s sitting on a table that he has already loosened so many of the screws they keep falling out and I’ve put braces and different bolts on hoping it doesn’t collapse under his weight. I thought this table would be perfect. It was like the Three Bears of tables, how many do you have to go through before you find one that is safe enough for your child. I remind him to sit numerous times during our meal and then I breathe. He understands no danger and have to remind him constantly to be careful, which he repeats the words back to me when he is doing something he shouldn’t. I have a big yoga ball for Owen that he loves to jump on. He jumped so hard on it he loosened the air plug. This needed immediate action. The meltdown was happening before I could even think what was happening and then I heard the telltale signs of air coming from the ball. I was able to get the plug back in but it had already lost tons of air. I had to get the pump right away and thankfully I knew exactly where it was, which is not always the case with my mad organizing skills. He was still not pleased with how long this was taken me. I quickly realized I needed to make him pump the ball back up. He stood there calmer than he had been and pumped it with me. Then he pushed it back into my hands and watched but calmly watched. A relief washed over me. I think through my joys today, trying to erase all the anxiety I feel from not being on top of every single thing before it happens. “Siri I want church please in German”, Owen said. He listened and then said, “I want church please in French”. This is a day for rejoicing in every language. Find what motivates you and give yourself credit for what you have accomplished. Smiles to all and donut daze!
Owen was in a really good mood throughout the day. He was a little on edge and wanted things his way but for the most part, was happy as long as I didn’t rock the boat. Sometimes I forget to follow the rules and it can cost me hours of our day. And sometimes it’s easier to sit. I think this is where I get trapped in my own emotions. It’s not only telling him to get over something or move forward it is literally a process for him to even work through the steps. I can’t tell you how many times I go to cook breakfast, lunch, or dinner and open a drawer in the kitchen. The next steps of those moments already have me cringing. As soon as I open a drawer in my kitchen Owen starts yelling, “you done you not done” and his foot will bang on the floor. If he isn’t already in the kitchen he will come running from another room to close the drawers if I can’t convince him to leave them open. I get a lump in my throat thinking about it. I wonder if there is a noise that the drawer produces that bothers him. I have four drawers that I use most of the time. I can tell which one he is going to scream at, which one he is going to immediately close no matter what I’m doing or tell him and the other two main ones get him reminding me constantly to close them. Sadness washes over me thinking about how hard a drawer can be on him. I’m trying to think about how amazing he is doing with using his voice with Siri instead. He holds conversations with her it seems like, asking her to translate everything he can think of, in every language he can think of, and even in “potato”. I remind myself this is the little boy doctors told me might not talk. Not only is he talking but he is talking in multiple other languages now. It seems like this has happened overnight. His skills are taking off and I’m so excited about his growth. He is also growing in size. I can’t believe how much he is eating now. He ate three breakfasts, not much of his shrimp lunch he requested, but he finished strong and ate two beef steaks and gravy plus potatoes and vegetables. He more than made up for some of the lunch he didn’t eat. Even in my struggles, I’m thankful for his growth. I think about all the steps it took to get my sweet baby O to even consider eating beef and here he is taking it off the serving plate before I even have time to give it to him. I smiled more times than I cried but I did pray for God to guide me through my day. My boy is soaring to new heights every day. Never give up on the miracle yet to come. Smiles to all and donut daze!
I’m rejoicing. Owen spilled his milk. Did he scream, no. Did he get mad, no. Instead he told me. “Scuse me”, he said numerous times. Then he followed it with “makey de mess”. He only spilled a little bit of milk but this still always upsets him when he spills anything. He usually plays in it while he screams. We have been working on manners and bodily functions so at first, I thought he burped and I didn’t hear him but he kept trying to explain what had happened. He did it very calmly. That’s some big growth right there. And this momma is excited. He has been using his voice to find videos on YouTube instead of asking me constantly. I love that he is feeling more confident with his own voice. He is speaking slower and pronouncing his words so that he can get the voice-activated option to understand him. It seems like sweet baby O is soaring so quickly. He is speaking Spanish, French, German, Italian, and possibly Chinese and Japanese. And my favorite “potato”. He keeps asking Siri to translate everything into potato. I’m not sure if it is because he thinks Spanish is “spinach” or he thinks potato is a language. I know he can say his alphabet and count to at least ten in several of them. Otherwise, he repeats mostly Disney references and nursery rhymes in multiple languages. I got Siri and Alexa fighting over the chance to translate for me and I’m still lost but hey, my sweet baby O is going to town on these languages. Through all these happy moments I’m still crying a river of tears inside. He yelled, “milk milk milk” at me from across the house. He had milk in his glass. I try to get him to understand we need to have conversations and he has to ask for what he wants instead of blurting it out like a command. I also have him get the milk or other items he wants and bring them to me. My tiredness shows today and my loneliness feels heavy. He’s come so far. I’ve cried happy tears over spilled milk and sad tears over the yelling for milk he already had. I’m going to focus on the good stuff. His smile is bright, his words abundant, and his focus very determined. Focus on the good times in the overwhelming moments and let your heart be calm under the waves of emotions. Smiles to all and donut daze!
We slept mostly-better. I fell asleep in Owen’s bed last night. He woke by five, I was still in his bed, and he moved to the couch. He slept for another hour. I might have re-learned the sleeping lesson last night. It doesn’t matter what I do he will or will not sleep when he is ready. That’s a hard concept for me to accept even though as a child I hardly slept myself and even when I got older sleep didn’t really matter much to me until my thyroid had a say in it. Plus, when your child is up on their schedule, yelling at you, and you’ve had no sleep it puts a whole new twist on the word tired. He was excited to get to the bus this morning. He started pointing at different things. I asked him to point where his bus comes from. I absolutely love watching him process my question and then his finger-pointing in the right direction. This is a concept that took him years to develop and here he is pointing. I’m beyond thankful and excited every time he does it. Owen has been talking a lot about a soccer ball. I’m really not sure where he originally saw it but I got him one. He immediately started talking to it and kicking it around. It’s more of a plush stuffed soccer ball which is a sensory delight to him. I try to get him items that have different textures, weights, and materials to them. He loves standing on mats that have textures; like welcome mats or straw mats. I also got him several types of yoga mats and beaded carseat covers. He will lay on them and I can see the difference in him immediately. He also loves to be in a small areas so I got him a tiny tent-like structure that he takes his blanket and books in. This is like his new little hideaway. The key is to give him the sensory input he needs. I’m thankful for his growth. And today felt like he was getting back into the swing of his schedule. His smile is my joy. Find your joy, share your smile, and make today matter. Smiles to all and donut daze!
I wondered how I could be this tired. And then I remembered, I haven’t slept in days. Sure a few hours here and there but boy, oh boy, this has been a hard week on my sweet baby O. I’ve seen the progress though and I know it has been hard for him returning to school. As much as he loves the routine and absolutely loves the bus, school, and his teacher it’s all still hard. His teacher sets a lot of expectations for Owen and he thrives with it but it’s also a matter of getting back into the routine and making sure he is really going to school. He questions me constantly about it. “School”, he says in question form. As soon I tell him he has to go to sleep and then he will ride the bus to see his teacher he gets defensive or starts screaming. We then talk about it and he starts asking all over again. He cries for his teacher. And my heart aches not being able to reassure him one hundred percent. He reads me like a book so I’m sure he hears the uncertainty in my voice. My knowing he started again but it could be taken away from him at anytime always makes me struggle trying to say for certain he will be continuing to go to school. Our night was long, my day has felt longer, and I dread bedtime but can’t wait for it all in the same thought. He had woken up around three, got in my face, I believe singing about Jake and the Never Land Pirates in French, and then proceeded to tell me he was ready for school. He started in about his tablet again. I could not face him screaming at me for hours again. What rules do you try to enforce is always my question but last night my answer was have at it. I did tell him that if he chose to have his tablet that he had better leave one on the charger so he would have it for later. I’m trying to make him understand why he needs it charged. He understands when “it die needs battery” but not the complete process of keeping it charged. He’s yelling at the TV in Spanish while watching French, counting to ten. I always thought he saw all languages as one language and every day I think he is proving that theory more and more. I hear his voice very loud and clear today as he slowly as the voice-activated option in YouTube to find a video in French. Be bold, be beautiful, be you. Smiles to all and donut daze!
I’ve invested in toothpicks for my eyelids. I have said this before, I will say this again, and I will cry a River about it. Breaks from his routine are extremely hard for Owen, any type of break for any reason. And then when the break is done and the schedule resumes, that’s hard too. Can you imagine going to someplace you love and want to be and then you are quickly pulled from it and have no clue when you will ever go back. So I think this part is happening to most of us right now and as much as we don’t like it we can at least somewhat understand it. No matter how I try at this stage Owen’s comprehension level is not there to be able to understand why he can’t always do the things he wants to do. I dread every single break for him. I didn’t want spring break or summer break or Christmas break. I didn’t even want the weekends until we started making those routine as well. Now here we are after weeks of him not going to school and now that he’s back into a routine he needs to make sure is going to happen every day. I’m trying not to cry. Probably the pure exhaustion also does not help. He woke up at two and started immediately yelling at me for school. He doesn’t want to miss it or lose it again. How do you guarantee anything when you don’t know what’s going to happen. All I can do is pray. From two o’clock until he finally fell asleep for about thirty minutes around six he yelled at me. He wanted school. He wanted to be awake. And he absolutely wanted his teacher. Me, I want to cry. He’s thriving in school. Tonight he screamed at me for over an hour. I held him and then he finally decided he would go to sleep so he could go to school. The only part of this journey that gets easier to explain is the love. I told him tonight that “I would love him forever and ever” like I always do and he said, “amen”. You are important. You are amazing. And you matter. Smiles to all and donut daze!
“School”, Owen said an inch from my nose. It took me a minute to even process what he said, then I looked at the clock. It was barely three o’clock in the morning. I was able to get him back to sleep but it’s never easy for me. I would love to sleep an entire night through. Even when he goes to sleep I sit in the quiet for a while. I paint and write to get all of those emotions out from my day. My heart spins when I can’t make him understand that his tablet needs battery or that he can’t squat on the table while eating dinner. I try not to think about how much food he has consumed that has been stuck in his toes. And when the meal is done you can almost certainly tell what he ate by his hair. He’s a sensory child through and through. He was ready to go to school this morning. He helped me get him dressed without hesitation and when we actually walked out the door to get the bus I could see him light up. He may not have the words to express all his emotions but I can certainly see his emotions. When he came home from school his smile was huge. He said exactly what I expected to hear from him, “have to go to sleep and then”. He wants me to fill in the blanks and tell him what his next day will hold. It’s keeping his routine in check. He doesn’t like a calendar or visual schedule. He gets mad at the calendar when it gets changed to different months. The visual change is hard on him. I’m so very thankful he is starting to believe in his own voice. Tears, floating in my eyes trying to hold them back. It’s hard when he screams at me to find something with the voice-activated option and I can’t find exactly what he thinks should show up. Especially now with all the languages he wants. “Throw down my blow dryer in French”, he asked Siri, laughing hysterically as she said it. “I want monkey please in germen”, followed without skipping a beat. He brought me the tablet and asked me to find “I want chocolate milk and potatoes please in Japanese”. My favorite is he thinks it’s “spinach” for Spanish but luckily Siri understands he wants Spanish. I’m thrilled with all the interactions he is doing now on his own. He threw a huge fit on me about his tablet. It was on the charger and he kept pulling it off. He was not taking no for an answer but he was also not able to use his tablet. I may have cried over these moments for far too long. The screaming is loud and I beg him to calm down. Probably why he screams more. He laughs the entire time as he can’t process it. I’m learning to breathe. I thought I knew how but now I’m working on doing it through the right moments. His smile, his joyous, joyous smile. Find your inspiration and grow. Smiles to all and donut daze!
Owen slept all night. Maybe one of the high points for the day. He woke up at five. I was pretty much already awake though. He walked around the corner and started saying “church church let’s get ready”. So did I mention it was five in the morning. For the next five hours, he couldn’t decide if he wanted me to “sit” or “let’s get ready”. The processing of what we need to do doesn’t always have a connection for Owen. He will yell one way but truly wants to do the opposite. In the grand scheme of things he was relatively calm today, minus the biting, pinching, and pulling of my hair. I don’t know why these behaviors are starting again. Maybe because of the extremely long break in routine or because he is trying to find ways to express himself and assert his opinions. He’s truly finding his voice though. Siri is giving him the confidence to use his voice with the voice-activated option on YouTube. I’ll take it. He gets so upset with me when I don’t understand what he is looking for or I can’t figure out what language he is trying to find. But I look at how far he has come in the last few weeks. He was playing a game on his tablet and he doesn’t understand with this particular game it’s a matter of rotating the whole tablet instead of using his finger to guide it. He asked me easily ten times to help him move the selection by tilting it. I had him hold it as well but he still wanted to put his fingers on the screen. Finally, as the day wore on he got it, kinda. He still didn’t get the concept but he at least realized he had to tilt the tablet. Anytime he would still miss he would bring it to me. He loves listening to a kid’s song about broccoli. I like to give him real-world examples of things so I made him broccoli to try while he listened to the song. Let’s just say he likes the song a lot better but at least he tried it. When I gave Owen his bath he was very calm. He got out of the tub without hesitation when I told him his bath was done. I started draining the water and I turn around to see Owen laying on the floor. I immediately started crying. How can my eight year old child think this is fine, better yet how can he think it’s a laughing matter when he starts pulling my hair as I help him off the floor. But this momma had to pull it together. He fell asleep relatively quickly but with his flair for pulling my hair and flipping so much on the bed that all the covers were completely thrown off. He’s excited for his big day tomorrow, back to school he goes. He had a smile as he drifted off to sleep and so did I. He makes me believe in miracles. Find your inspiration, know that you are important, and go after your dreams. Smiles to all and donut daze!
Every single noise is a noise. Some days and nights are not as bad as others and then there are nights like tonight. In the road, in front of our house, there is some kind of manhole cover. Every time a car goes over it Owen hears it and sits up in bed. When one of the dogs bark in the neighborhood he starts talking about “dog barking” and how he is going to get a dog. He fell asleep rather quickly. I laid there for a little bit and then got up. I had to go to the bathroom and it is right next to his room. I was trying to be quiet and I didn’t even flush the toilet but I think washing my hands may have been the start of him waking up. When I moved to the kitchen I didn’t turn a light on but I opened a drawer, I heard a noise outside, and before I could even close the drawer Owen was next to me yelling “tablet”. When he wakes up he moves through the steps like it is morning most of the time, only occasionally going back to bed and falling asleep again quickly. Luckily tonight was a mix. He went back to bed but then asked for a “sip of milk”. I told him that I would get him milk but he had to stay in bed. I knew what was going to happen either way but him staying in bed would be the easier of the two options. I walked into the kitchen, got a cup, and opened the refrigerator. I knew tonight he would not ignore the light pouring out from the refrigerator but that’s the only way I was going to get his milk. He doesn’t ever want his bedroom door closed and it would cause more problems for us but he hates the light the flows from the other rooms. I put up blackout curtains to try and help the light reflecting into his room but he can still see the shine through them. It has been a couple of months and the light hadn’t seemed to be a problem for him but he was on edge tonight. He had his sip of milk and then I laid back down with him. He doesn’t understand personal space at all and he had his head pushed into my head. And he keeps pushing harder. He also doesn’t understand his own strength. I got him to fall back asleep and I’ve been quiet ever since. He had a better day. We slept more last night and he was able to go see his grandma. These all make for a happy momma. Tomorrow I plot and plan how to make a house that is never quiet quieter for my sweet baby O. I’m thankful for his smile, his songs in several languages, and the “big hug” he offered me when he could tell his yelling at me had been upsetting. Sometimes the steps forward do not feel big enough but look at the path you have traveled on and focus on the victories you have made. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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AuthorI'm Lynn Browder. Owen's Mommy. The best moments in time are when I get to see the smile on his face and that giggle come from his heart. Archives
May 2024
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