Blanket, Owen yelled sitting on top of the blanket. I tried to cover him and he yelled it louder. “Blanket”, one more time he cried out. I said, “you have blanket”. He finally let me pull it out from underneath him to cover him up. Another day of no school means another day without his beloved routine. He did really well in general throughout the day but as day turns into night I can feel his anxiety increasing. School is already on a two-hour delay tomorrow. I can feel my anxiety increasing as I hope and pray it doesn’t turn into another day off for him. I further my anxiousness thinking about summer. I don’t want to even think about it but it sneaks in there as the days go by. Any and every break are hard on him and summer is anything but routine. I have to save that thought for a different rainy and snowy day. The language train was slow to leave the station today but it’s another thing that has increased as the day has moved on. I constantly wonder how many languages he comprehends. Since he was little he’s been fascinated by them but only recently has he started talking in them. He switches between languages easily. He asked me to blow bubbles for him and he counted the times in English. I asked him if he could count in Italian. He said, no but quickly started counting to ten. As soon as he finished I asked if he could count to ten in Spanish and he did. I asked for German and he walked away. He was done with my game. The bottomless pit continues to eat more than me. Two breakfasts, two lunches, tons of snacks, and a good size dinner for him to the point of asking for more food. My response, absolutely. I’m excited that he requested shrimp for lunch and fish for dinner. And I’m probably more excited that he ate all of it. It’s years in the making getting him to eat a wide variety of food and here we are. I’m hoping that I can convince him it’s bedtime and we fall asleep quickly because this momma needs the rest. His smile was definitely brighter than mine but his shining smile definitely made my day brighter. Never give up on the promise of tomorrow. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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Owen got to go to his beloved school today. He however is not getting to go tomorrow. The school board already called the day off. We are supposed to get a lot of snow overnight and so many people are without power already from the ice storm we had. My heart breaks for my baby even though I completely understand that they had to close school. He made up this little chant song saying his teacher’s name. I tell him all the time he’s my little songwriter. He comes up with these tunes that he sings to other songs or makes them up completely. Occasionally he will even play his guitar or drum with it. I’m always impressed with his musical talent. As the night wore on he kept getting more agitated about seeing her. He kept saying her name and then “be with mommy”. He couldn’t settle. He wanted to talk about her, more like scream about her, and no matter which way I said he would scream louder. I tried to not let on that he wasn’t going to school tomorrow but he can read me like a book so he probably could feel my emotions. I’m sure he knew right away when the phone call came in. He could sense the change in me because I wanted to cry. I told him we were getting ready for bed. He goes through the countdown. He first said, “two more minutes” then it changed to “five minutes”. After I told him we were going to take a bath he said, “no more minutes”. I kinda chuckled as he quickly realized what he said and immediately changed it to five more minutes. When he wakes and realizes there is no school he will ride the rollercoaster of emotions once again. I’m sure he’ll have a good day, most days are relatively calm for him and he will work on his learning apps but as the night wears on it will be wondering what his Friday holds and it will start all over again. All I can do is pray. I see growth in him. His language skills both in English and all the other languages are increasing daily and this makes this momma happy. My joy is watching him smile, hearing his laugh, and knowing that tomorrow is a brand new day. Find your inspiration and motivation and watch your world grow. Smiles to all and donut daze!
Owen hasn’t screamed in at least a week about the drawers being open in the kitchen. What conditions changed I wondered off and on throughout the day and I still feel anxious when I open a drawer knowing he might scream at me. He was relatively calm today even though he had to “be with mommy” instead of being at school. He processed it by repeatedly asking Siri how to say “be with mommy” in all the different languages. After a while, he moved on to asking Siri how to say, “Humpty Dumpty sat on them all in French”. This nursery rhyme phrase ranks right up there at the top of my list with his Christmas tune “single bells single bells single all the day”. I know partly this is because of how he says some of his letters but it will always have that special place in my heart. I have been trying to prepare him for a power outage or our internet being off. Both of these would be highly unacceptable to Owen and the same with not going to school. Any and all breaks from routine are beyond hard for him to understand. Earlier he walked right up to me when I had to sneeze, wanting me to help him with the voice-activated option on YouTube. I put my finger up to show him one second, knowing he wouldn’t understand but still trying. I moved my head and he kept saying what he wanted. The sneeze was coming. I moved my finger closer hoping he would stop. He moved an inch from my nose and my sneeze was swallowed. He has no general understanding of bodily functions. He’s learning but this is still hard for him and he didn’t understand I needed to sneeze. As I laid in bed with him I cried and I rejoiced. He started asking to go to bed so he could “go to sleep and get on the bus” by dinner time. He took his bath and was in bed before eight. Two hours later my emotions were drained. My sweet baby O spit on me. I couldn’t believe he did it. This used to be common and here he was doing it again. In the two hour span so many actions and reactions he had for being out of his routine. My heart aches for him and I pray he gets to go to school tomorrow. To calm him I said, “a is for apple” because I knew he would finish it. In today’s version H was for hamburger and he spelled it. To say I was shocked is an understatement but then he started singing the alphabet in French. My sweet baby O is amazing and I knew that tomorrow would be a brand new day. Rejoice in your victories, celebrating each and every one, no matter how big or small celebrate them all. Smiles to all and donut daze!
Sometimes the loneliness is met like a brick wall when the screaming begins. I tried to stay busy because the more activities I wanted to do with Owen the more he screamed at me, except when it came to the language train. The excitement in my dude’s eyes when he starts asking Siri to say everything he can think of in every real language and things that he thinks are languages is amazing. “I want chocolate milk and cuckoo clock in boy”, he says, laughing as he does it. He immediately follows up with his next request, “I want cuckoo clock and chocolate milk and potato and gorilla please in jer-min”. How Siri understands that when he says “spinach” he really means Spanish but he says “jer-min” and she asks him to repeat it baffles me. I have tried working on how he says the word German but he quickly gets frustrated and instead starts talking to Siri in German. Food was also that fifty-fifty shot of what I was doing incorrectly. I scored big points for my waffle and shrimp fixings but my meatloaf was met with “no more meat wash ya hands throw it in de trash you through”. When he is done with dinner I make him wash his hands and help me clear the dishes. He generally likes meatloaf but with the variety he does eat and the new things that he tries I don’t like to push it when he won’t eat something. I always make him take a bite and move on. However, after he went through his entire speech he started screaming at me. I stopped him from running away and I took his tablet. I talked to him about respecting each other and not screaming if something doesn’t go according to plan. We went through our calming techniques and I told him I loved and respected him. I explained to him I understand about emotions but screaming solves nothing. He screamed at me. We started over with our breathing and then he said, “sorry mommy”. Together we grow and together we will be stronger. Never lose hope of what tomorrow with bring. Smiles to all and donut daze!
I tried all day to not think about it being a holiday. Owen is starting to grasp the concept of what a holiday means but there isn’t a definite connection yet. Today he sang a Christmas song and watch a Halloween video repeatedly. He kept changing the video to listen to it in all the different translations our TV would do. Somehow the video had the closed caption on in one language and he was listening to it in another. I’m fascinated by how he is processing all of this. Every day his voice is getting stronger and he is learning more words in every language it seems. He was having a hard time saying “German” but he wanted Siri to translate everything into it. I was trying to help him pronounce it so we were over-exaggerating it and I went through it with him several times. He was getting very frustrated so insisted of saying “in German” one more time he spoke to Siri in German. I keep praying tomorrow the weather holds off and Owen gets to go to school. It’s an emotional journey for him when he can’t go. He repeats his teacher’s name and says it’s over. The barrier of language and level of understanding makes it hard for him to comprehend the days off randomly for something like snow. All I can do is hold him and tell him it’s going to be fine. I’m thankful that his words are forming, in all the languages. I know that as he develops so will his connections and I can’t wait to hear all the stories he wants to tell me. My bottomless pit once again ate a lot more than me and I can see how much he has grown. He fell asleep quickly tonight and I suppose that has a lot to do with being up extremely early. I’m thankful for his smile and the promise of tomorrow. Find what makes you smile, share your joy, and know that you are important. Smiles to all and donut daze!
We slept. It was glorious sleep with a side of chaos but sleep nonetheless. I know we both needed it because he only woke up a couple of times and went right back to sleep. Now tonight was a completely different story but I think it topped off the day. To say Owen was hyper is probably an understatement. He packed in a lot of energy in one day and he didn’t want to let it go even as he laid there trying to go to sleep. His emotions seemed heavy as he laid in my arms but then he quickly and loudly pushed me away asking for a “big hug”. I try not to get frustrated as he yells at me one more time and especially when he is yelling for exactly the thing he pushed me away from doing. I breathe and I pray. I learned that he knows a lot more math than I thought he even knew. He was playing with an app and had me help him, which he didn’t really need it. Depending on the app’s response he will purposely get answers wrong so that he can get the negative reinforcement response. If the colors are brighter or flash across the screen when he does something incorrectly then he will answer the problems wrong. If the response the app gives is more to his liking when he gets the answers right he won’t miss one answer. The app he was playing with today he liked the negative response better. But this made me realize he knows what the placement is for numbers, like the one in the ones place, he knows even and odd numbers, and he understands greater than and less than. There’s no stopping my sweet baby O. He’s now turning the cards on Siri and asking her to say her own words in other languages. He said, “ok here’s what I found in French” wanting her to find the phrase in French and then moving on to several other languages. I truly wonder how many languages he knows. He asked, “I want chocolate milk please” in at least five different languages throughout the day. And I was happy to oblige. He is my miracle and he is finding his voice. Dream big and let the world hear you rejoice. Smiles to all and donut daze!
The understatement is I’m tired. Owen went to sleep relatively early last night but he also kept drinking milk. But who kept pouring the milk. He kept asking me for “a little bit more” so I kept pouring a tiny bit more in his cup. It wasn’t much each time but it was the whole interaction thing for me that kept me going. I told myself that he had enough to drink but he kept asking. I got him to sleep and then it was me time. I had not been asleep very long when Owen woke up and laid down on the couch. Within an hour he wet the couch. I got him changed but then he screamed and threw himself to the ground so he wouldn’t have to go back to bed. I finally got him back to “mommy’s bed” even though it’s been his bed for a while now but there was no sleep to be had. He kept screaming, kicking, pulling the tiniest of my hairs at the nape of my neck, and then would ask me for a big hug only to push me away and start screaming at me again. Nights like this feel impossible. It wasn’t long and he wet the bed. It finally dawned on me that he didn’t go to the bathroom when I took him after he wet the couch. He humored me, he went to the bathroom but he was still so asleep, and so was I, that he didn’t go. Now I’m still doing laundry because he has to have the right blankets in the right places and everything was wet from everywhere. I’ve tried changing out the blankets but it’s something else to work through. He screamed at the top of his lungs one day for what seemed to be hours because I put one blue blanket on the bed and the other one on the couch. These two blankets are the same brand bought at the same time. The difference is one has been washed more times than the other one. I’m sure there is something else but that’s what I know for sure. He can tell the difference between which one he wants on the bed and which one he wants on the couch. I woke up this morning, told him I love him, and that together we would work through all the rough edges of this thing called life. I’m trying to teach him through love, respect, and communication we can get through anything as long as we do it together. Find what inspires you and let it be your guide to motivation. Smiles to all and donut daze!
Know Thursday. My heart aches for a million reasons. It also rejoices. Owen looks so much older to me today. His smiles, his screams, his laughter, his words, and his cries overwhelmed me and delighted me throughout the day. The snow and the ice kept him from going to school and when he realized he wasn’t going he cried in my arms for his teacher. I wanted to scream at the snow. Any and every break is hard on him and especially when I can’t prepare him for having the day off. Tomorrow is already a two-hour delay and I’m on pins and needles praying that he gets to go to school. He did well throughout the day but as daylight faded he asked over and over again for his teacher. He doesn’t understand the calendar, only recently has he even wanted to look at one, but his internal clock tells him exactly what day of the week it is and what time in his realm it is. He kept himself busy working on his apps and in today's edition of nursery rhymes “hickory dickory donkey” in Portuguese and Japanese were the big hit followed by Humpty Dumpty in Russian. Arabic and Korean are also quickly becoming two of his favorite languages to listen to and I keep wondering how many words, phrases, and languages he knows. Out of the blue, he will randomly start saying something in one of the languages. The sky’s the limit for my sweet baby O. As he learns more words and languages I hope and pray it will help him comprehend his emotions too. My sadness was thick as he screamed because his tablet was running slowly. I felt his pain but I didn’t know how to calm his worry. Through time we grow together. Dance in the rain, smile in the sun, and ride the waves of life knowing you are not alone. Smiles to all and donut daze!
I hear his words and sometimes it still shocks me. Owen asked the voice-activated option on YouTube to find a cartoon and his words were very clear. Five minutes before he came to me wanting me to find a different video with the voice-activated option. I’m not sure what triggers him to ask me to find a video versus him finding it. His words and interactions feel big today. I was in the bathroom, cutting my toenail. From the other room, I hear him say, “toenail”. I didn’t tell Owen I was going in there to do and here he was knowing what I was doing. I was amazed and it felt huge. He heard the noise and knew. It also made me realize how in tune he was with his surroundings to hear that noise when he was in the middle of playing a game on his tablet. So many thoughts ran through my mind at that moment. He now calls them toenails and no longer “birthday candle”. That brought tears to my eyes thinking about it. He’s come so far and I wonder how many other words I’ve missed his connection to. I’m not sure how he got started calling his toes “birthday candle” but once I figured it out it helped tremendously. I was always worried he wouldn’t be able to tell me if he had a rock in his shoe or his socks didn’t feel right. But now he can tell me when he wants me to get the “slipper clipper cut de toenail please”, his name for “clippers”. We are starting to have conversations filled with his words and phrases and not the words that I’ve given him to fill in the blanks. It feels amazing. He came to me, showing me a game he was playing, and had to select a color. He said, “let’s do purple”. “I like pink”, I said. He said, “no we do purple”. What progress, I thought, what absolute brilliant progress. He was a little on edge tonight, obsessed with the ABC video again, but he at least let it go when I wouldn’t respond every time. His repeating of words and actions is becoming more pronounced and I’m trying to help him through those moments. It’s hard when he will not let go of something and literally repeat it for an hour. The distractions only bring it full circle at another time. For today I’m going to focus on that amazing conversation we did had and the connections that he is making. Find your joy, share your story, and know that tomorrow is a brand new day. Smiles to all and donut daze!
There are moments in time all I can do is pray. Owen yelled at me because I wouldn’t say, “you have to go to YouTube” for at least the twentieth time in only a few minutes. I’m was trying to prevent a meltdown but sometimes you can create them instead. The cycle goes round and round. He wanted me to tell him he had to go to YouTube to see the ABC video that’s no longer on the app but he wouldn’t let me help him find it on YouTube. Sometimes it’s about the quest and not necessarily about the goal. He was having an extremely rough night. Everything seemed to upset him tonight. I wanted to cry right there with him. He needed to process what he wanted and what could happen. Change is incredibly hard for him, unless it’s not. Somethings, like all of us, don’t phase him at all. And then other changes set him into tailspins that take days, weeks, months, years to move through. He still asks about our electricity being off years ago when someone hit a pole and the dog that was on the corner with a lady for several days and then we’ve never seen her again. His memory is long and incredible and my memory is always trying to play catch-up to figure out what he is making a connection to. When I could only think to distract him we painted. We do a hand over hand method working on his fine motor skills. He at first only wanted to paint one triangle and the more we talked and the more I distracted the more he did. But then once we stopped it was right back to YouTube lalaland. I could think through anything else. It’s like breathe breath breathe and then he says the same words repeatedly until I answer. It took over an hour to fall asleep and it is taken me several to calm down. I want my baby happy. And today’s happiness came from Owen asking Siri how to say everything in Korean his new go-to choice. Through tired eyes, I cried out to God many times to give me strength and then Owen laughed one more time and it made me smile. Celebrate the little things because they can provide the biggest impact on your life. 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
April 2024
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