Our Weekend

Victoria had her first swim lesson on Saturday. She had a great time. It is a class for children with disabilities. There were about 6 kids total, and it was an hour long, so she got some great one on one time. I love that all of the kids in her class were younger than her by at least 4 years, and she didn't even notice. She just loves to be around other kids. She started a conversation with a girl in the locker room, who is an older sister to one of the kids in her class, but was still probably only 8. Victoria kept the conversation going on in the lobby with me. The girl sat down at a table by ours, and V said, "Don't you think she is beautiful?" And the girl told Victoria that she loved her glasses. V said, "thanks, I got them at January." The girl told her she got hers at Walmart. It made me giggle a little. I told the girl that Victoria got hers at Walmart too.

Then, Victoria got to stay for gym time for kids with disabilities. There were probably 10 kids in this class, with a wide variety of ages and disabilities. They did stretching and played basket and hockey. It was fun to watch the teachers always asking Victoria if she could dribble when she was walking/running. She could do it quite well, she just seemed to either forget or just not think it was that important.

Needless to say after two hours of exercise she was tired. I tried to tell her on the way home that if she took a nap that would be fine. Nope. She stayed up until midnight, and had one meltdown in the afternoon. I'm pretty sure with was escalated because she was so tired. She definitely had a rough time staying awake during church and Sunday School the next day also.

When Victoria first came to live with us, she was dead set on the food that she would eat. However, I always told her she had to try it first. I am getting bolder with the food that I put on the table. Our staple meals have been spaghetti, tacos, and pizza. She will now eat tuna casserole, broccoli chicken casserole, and others. (Sorry, I'm writing this at 6:30 in the morning and I've only had one cup of coffee. My memory isn't perfect yet. :) Long story short, she is getting a lot better at what she will eat. I made Shepherd's pie last night for Matt, she ate the meat out of it and the mashed potatoes with out complaining that she didn't like it, but it was clear she didn't. I told her I was proud of her for not complaining, and next time I made it, I would make something else for her and Micah.

Speaking of eating and Micah, my amazing eater is not so amazing anymore, at least not at eating. I know I should be thankful for almost 2 years of him eating whatever was put in front of him. Now all he asks for is hot dogs for dinner. But let me add, he will eat fruits all day, and still likes the veggie puree pouches. But I can't remember when he ate something for dinner that wasn't kid friendly. (I'm not sure this paragraph makes sense, but I'm not rewriting it, sorry.)

Happy Post ~ Micah

Not that the posts about Victoria aren't unhappy.

For the last month or so, Micah seems to be blooming into a new person. He has become a lot less whinny, sure he wants his Momma ALL the time, but his personality is much more calm. He has time out maybe once every couple of days. And is favorite line is, "Okay Momma." And, "thank you Momma." He still loves trucks, and he LOVES babies. We are surrounded by them at church, and he loves them. He talks about babies all the time. (No this is not a post to say we're pregnant. :) If he hears a baby cry, he says, "Sowwy Baby."

Some of my favorite new phrases he says.

Try again.

Oopsy Daisy

Too cold

Daddy funny/silly

night night Sister

Baby Hazel

When Micah was sick, I was holding him until he went to sleep, but most of the time I would just lay down in our bed with him, and he would sleep with us all night. After he was sick, he wouldn't go to sleep well at all. I happened to pull out one of the sleep books I read when he was a baby to give to a friend, and read that toddlers need to be told that you, the parent, are right down the hall and they are not alone. The first time I tried it, he fell asleep no problem. And has been falling asleep no problem ever since. Thank you book!

Victoria and Micah love each other very much and the two of them together make me smile everyday. I am very happy about the timing of our move to Arizona, since it will take Micah's mind off the fact that Victoria is moving in August. :)

Happy Birthday Victoria!

Victoria's 12th birthday was Saturday and it was a wonderful one. Her grandma and husband picked her up around 11 to take her to see The Lorax. Which was so nice, because Matt and I got to clean and decorate for her party. When she got home she opened her grandma's present, and then they left.

After that a couple of friends from church came over. Victoria loves her friends. This was the first time she's had a birthday party with friends and the first time she had friends over.

When we asked her what games she wanted to play on her birthday, she said Sorry. Who are we to say that Sorry is not a party game. So she got play Sorry with her friends. Then she made some vidoes, and got to show them Garfield and Friends on DVD. She had a smile on her face the entire day.

On a typical Saturday, we can usually only get Victoria to spend an hour total outside of her room unless we go somewhere. This includes meals. On her birthday she spent over 9 hours outside of her room. She even stayed out after her friends left.

When she was opening her presents, she kept saying, "this is the best Birthday ever." I don't think anyone in the room didn't have a huge smile on his/her face. It was awesome. She got Garfield cupcakes and vanilla ice cream.

It was one of the best days ever.

Victoria being funny

Without knowing it, I have been passing some silly phrases onto Victoria, and Micah for that matter. I guess I always tell her to show inanimate objects who's boss. So, she came out of her room a couple of days and said, "I tried to show my jacket who was boss, but I lost." I started laughing so hard. Just a little background, she sometimes has difficulties zipping jackets/sweatshirts and she has a peacoat that she has trouble getting the collar to lay down flat. I was so proud of her humor, because usually she just uses movie quotes when she is trying to be funny. I love seeing a little sarcasm come out in her. :)

Then, yesterday I received a package from my mom in the mail. She asked who it was from, and I said, "my mom." She asked what it was, and I said, "probably just some junk." (More background, my parents have been cleaning out there house, so I was guessing it was stuff I had left there in the past.) Her reply, "I thought your mom liked you." (so did I.)

Conversation with Victoria at lunch

Victoria had a dr appt this week, and because she did well at it, we told her she could have McDonald's for lunch on Friday since there was no school. Then at school yesterday, she got an A+ on her test. Micah was going down for a nap, so Matt stayed home with him, and Victoria and I got to go.

About a minute after sitting down, she asked me, "Do you think I will be a good grown up?" I have no idea where she got this question from, and it was very rare, since 99% of the time she just tells us movie quotes. I told her I think she will be a great grown up, and asked her what she thought. She shrugged at the question. So, I went a different route.

Me: What kinds of stuff do grown ups have to do?

V: Cleaning and laundry and stuff.

Me: That's true, what else do they have to do?

V: Well, you have to take of Micah.

Me: That's true, but do all grown ups have kids? I was a grown up a long time before I had Micah. (I know what y'all are thinking, stop laughing.)

V: I don't know.

Me: What makes some one a grown up?

V: I have no idea.

Me: What else do grown ups have to do?

V: Get jobs. :( But I want to be a director.

Me: I know! What do you think it's going to take to be a director.

V: I don't know, a couple years I guess.

The conversation went on. It was a bittersweet conversation, and I'm not sure why. I think it's because I think about her future a lot. What will she be able to do? Where will she live? I try to just think about it, and not worry. I know for a fact that I, personally have very high expectations for her. I know she can do better than she thinks she can, so I am tough and strict with her. And she helped to remind me today why I am the way I am. I want her to be a good grown up.

Glowicki Fam Lately

First things first, Micah is a reader. He knows his name, however he thinks his name is Mikey. So cute. He reads some words in the Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, but his favorite book to read is Baby Bear, Baby Bear. What do you see? by Eric Carle. He says all of the animal names. It is precious and amazing.

Secondly, he eats a banana every morning, but he doesn't like the last bite. So he likes to leave it places for us to find. On our bed when Matt is still in it, behind our chair, and my favorite place Matt's work boot. Matt was rushing to get to work one morning, stuck his foot in is boot and smushed the banana piece. Better than coffee to get your morning going.

Victoria is doing pretty good. We had our appointment with a developmental pediatrician, and it went better than I could have ever dreamed. He spent 2 hours with Matt and I talking. Tomorrow we have our next appt. Soon we will be having a behavior therapist coming to the house to work with her. He is very interested in making a thoroughly thought out assessment of her and her needs. Long story short, we're hopeful and excited.

She has a had a couple of meltdowns lately, but snaps out of them quickly. She has anxiety and does not like it when we are upset with her, which makes it very hard to correct or discipline. I started talking to her about fixing her dirty clothes before putting them in the hamper and she started getting upset. I haven't quit figured out how to talk to her about things like that without upsetting her. "Buck up Victoria," doesn't seem to be working. Just kidding!

We are also trying to get Victoria to understand that we are her parents and not her cook/maid. She will come out of her room, say that she is hungry, and then try to go back to her room. We have no problem making/cooking her food, but we make her hang out with us in the kitchen while we are getting it ready. I am also working on in my head to start teaching her to make things by herself, besides PB&J. I firmly believe that she is capable of more than she thinks she is and more than she is doing. But I am also woken up everyday at things that she is unable to do by/for herself. And I just don't know if she is really unable, which is fine, or if she just needs to be taught and worked with.

Victoria and Micah are loving each other more and more every day. She spends dinner time trying to stump him, by asking him if he can say different words. It's cute. And they hug each other bye, and she even let him kiss her cheek. When she left for school this morning, I said, "say good bye to your sister." He walked up to her, "Huggy, huggy!!!!" Makes a Momma so happy!

I feel mentally tired everyday and always ready to go to sleep and turn off my brain. As I have said before, Micah takes up about 10% of my mental ability and 90% of my physical ability, and Victoria the complete opposite. At least they try to balance each other and me off. :)

I know I said this before, however, thank you everyone who reads this blog and supports our family in different ways.

First Consequence

Okay folks, get ready for a bumpy ride. I have been putting of posting for no good reason, so this could be quite a jumbled post. And just so everyone knows, I do reread my writing, so no editing is done.

Let's start with last night's meltdown. Victoria is a very cold natured person, and when she got here we were keeping our house at about 63. We have started setting it higher. However, Victoria has become accustomed to the heater in her room and has added it to her nightly routine. (hindsight is 20/20). So last night, Matt told her no more heater at night, because by the time we all wake up in the morning, her room is a sauna. She was not okay with that, as soon as Matt left the room, he heard her pacing and having a meltdown. Long story short, she got her heater on. I am the one to wake Victoria in the morning, so when I went to wake her up, her room was a sauna, and Matt said she had a meltdown, and said she couldn't sleep without the heater on. At first, I wanted to talk to her about it before she went to school, but she looked exhausted and I didn't want to send her to school upset and have her not do her work. I am also finding, that before I have a serious talk with her, I need to give myself a couple hours to one, calm down, and two figure out how and what I am going to say.

7 hours later she got home from school and I was ready. Here are the different thoughts that went through my head today:

1. She has never had a consequence at our house, because we are afraid of a meltdown. Yes, she is autistic, but she still needs discipline. We can not be afraid of an 11 year old.

2. I was more upset that she had a meltdown, than the fact that she wanted the heater on.

3. She needs to learn to work through her meltdowns and not overreact. And my guess is that she has been taught this before, we just need to reinforce it. We'll see what happens next time....

Okay, I thought there was more, but whatever. So when she got home I told her we needed to have a talk about what had happened the night before. She immediately got VERY anxious. I told her I wasn't mad and I wasn't going to hurt her, we just need to talk. She said she overreacted and got mad and thought she wouldn't be able to sleep. (I tried to talk about not turning the heater on after 12, but that was a no go for now.)We talked about how it is not okay to over react/hit yourself :( what there are solutions. So her solution now is to calm down, relax, and to talk to Dad or myself. I told her that she was going to receive a consequence for her actions. I had talked to her before about consequences and types of consequences that she could get. I asked her to think of a consequence for herself, but that just made her anxious and mad at herself. So I told her that she would need to spend 15 minutes after dinner on the couch with no computer or TV show that she wanted to watch. I said she could talk or watch something if Micah was. She asked if that was until her bedtime, I said no, and we talked about how long 15 minutes is. My main objective for that timeout was taking away internet from her without her freaking out on me. And mission accomplished.

About a week ago we lost power at 10:30 pm because of a windstorm. I can honestly say those 2.5 hours were some of the worst of my life. There was not rationalizing with her. Long story, short, not fun. I spent the next day feeling hung over.

I am going to Development Pediatrics tomorrow to ask about her referral. I left a message last week about it, and the recording said I would hear back in 3 days. One of the things is, I just want to make sure that they received her referral, and two, I need them to know that it's serious. So, we'll see how well I keep my cool tomorrow. :)

Victoria is doing well at church. I let her read one of her books during the sermon, but hope to stop that in the next couple of months. I love that fact that she is there with us.

She came home from school today and said, "I asked if they have Valentine's parties, and the teacher said no." So I'm pretty sure we will be having our own!! Super excited!

I just want to say thanks to everyone who has left comments about this blog and who is thinking and praying for us. It really means a lot to me. I am feeling very loved and cheered for. (I know that doesn't make sense, but I'm not changing it.)