Blizzards and Blessings!

"And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat.’ And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, ‘Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.’ And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.”

- 1 Kings 19:5-8 (ESV)

We just returned last night from Colorado. I mentioned that we were there at the invitation of a couple whose ministry seeks to give physical and spiritual refreshment to pastors and their wives. Their goal is to mirror the spirit of 1 Kings 19:5-8 where the prophet Elijah, too wearied to continue his journey, was strengthened by God in order that he might continue in ministry.

The trip was truly amazing. The host couple said they wanted to provide "The Three P's" - pamper, play and pray; they did all three very well. Each day they prepared a yummy breakfast right before we stepped out of their condo and skied down to the lift. We skied as long as we were able (I am not the young pup I once was who could ski eight hours straight without hardly stopping!) and then walked around the village at Copper until it was time to get ready for dinner. Every evening they treated us to fabulous food at restaurants all around the area. Dinner was followed by a sweet time of dessert, hot coffee, sweet fellowship and best of all, prayer - for our personal needs, our families, our church and anything else God laid on our hearts.

It was a time I won't soon forget. And not just because it was the best skiing the locals said they had seen all season (thanks to a blizzard that arrived the day after us) or because our last day was a "bluebird day" - what Coloradans call days of fresh powder and bright blue skies! But mostly because it was a time to rest and reflect on what God is doing in our lives. I truly realize how blessed I am to have had this opportunity. Thank you A & D! I am more grateful than words can express.

Our Sr. Pastor, his wife, myself and dh heading for dinner at Copper Village.

Dh and I before heading out for our first day of skiing.

Up on the mountain!

Enjoying ribs (Yum!) and some amazing fellowship!

Me, my friend and our precious hostess.

Colorado, here I come!

This morning dh and I are heading to Colorado to ski for three days at Copper Mountain! My sweet in-laws are here to stay with our boys and they will have a great time. I love skiing and went almost every year with my church youth group as a kid from 7th grade through high school and then a few times after college. But I haven't been on skis in a decade and I am wondering how I am going to do after so long! Here's the story about how and why we are going again...

This week is when I would have had baby #4 and I knew it was going to be hard for me. I mentioned to dh not long after we lost that baby that I wanted to use some of our frequent flyer miles to go somewhere for a few days this week, just the two of us. Well our Sr. Pastor knows a retired couple in Colorado who blesses ministry couples by flying them up there and hosting them for a week at their condo on the mountain. He and his wife has been guests of this family a few times now and called the couple to ask if we could come along this year. They were kind enough to extend the invitation to us as well. We will ski all day and eat in restaurants we could never afford on our own each night, not to mention we will get lots of time with our Sr. Pastor and his wife who are some of our favorite people on earth!!! :) I cannot wait!!!

I'll post pictures when we get home. I hope you all have a great week whatever you are up to, too!

What's on my MP3

I just changed the songs on my MP3 player because I've been listening to the same music on my runs for almost three months now. It was time! I like to run long and slow and often I use the time to think, pray and reflect. But sometimes there's nothing better than listening to music that makes me smile. Here's what I loaded up tonight:

• Thank God I'm a Country Boy - John Denver
• Days Go By - Keith Urban
• Where the Blacktop Ends - Keith Urban
• Summertime - Kenny Chesney
• Do You Believe in Love? - Huey Lewis and the News
• I Walk the Line - Johnny Cash (sung by Joaquin Phoenix)
  
• Levon - Elton John
• Copperline - James Taylor
• Centerfield - John Fogerty
• Jackson - Johnny and June Cash (sung by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon)
• Better Life - Keith Urban

What's on your MP3, or for most of you it would be what's on your iPod?

Rest Time

I mentioned that my boys go to rest time in my post about the diet detox, but I realized I had never blogged about this part of our day, at least not in detail. Well, it's about time as I feel this is one of my huge "sanity keepers"!

Some wonderful person (I wish I could remember who so I could hug her neck ;) ) gave me a piece of advice when Thatcher was just starting to drop his daily nap. She encouraged me to never give up a "quiet time" for him even though a "nap time" was just about history. I took her advice and told him (at the time almost 4), "Thatcher, you don't have to sleep if you don't feel like it. Just stay in your room and play." We picked out a different special toy each day and he happily played away. Sometimes he would still nap and sometimes he didn't. And guess what? He thought that was soooo cool that he didn't have to nap?! He was in heaven. It wasn't until a year or more later that he realized I'd completely duped him. Lol!!!

The reality was that I needed the down time as much or more as he did. I love my children with my whole heart but the demands of homeschooling, raising a special needs kiddo, busy boys and my personality that re-energizes with solitude means that I need some quiet each and every day.

So each day around 2:00 my boys go to their rooms for rest time seven days a week. They stay for about an hour and a half to two hours depending on other things we have going on that day. Beckett still naps but the older two don't, although Haddon will still fall asleep if we've had a field trip or nature hike that morning. They can have one or two buckets out of the playroom each day; we store the majority of our toys in clear Sterilite containers in the playroom closet. Occassionally we do something special like letting the boys trade rooms or allow them to play together. It's amazing how beautifully they will play during these times since they feel it's such a special treat, even if they have been fighting all morning!

Are you interested? Could you use your own down time? Here are some tips I've learned over the years that have helped make rest time successful. First, when they are young and starting out, I put a baby gate on their room as a physical reminder that they are to stay put. I start with a doable time, usually 30 minutes. If they struggle with that time and start fussing, I give them a lollipop or other treat and send them back in to play more. I want them to know this is a special and fun part of our day, not a punishment. I gradually increase the time up to an hour. As they near five I begin to require an hour and a half and Thatch sometimes will stay up to two hours.

Each of my children's personalities has them approach rest time differently. Thatcher, as an Aspie and a first born, loves solitude and typically loves rest time. It recharges his batteries so he can handle the remainder of the day. It is a sacred time for him when no little brothers bother him or interrupt his plans. He can get out all his tiny legos or K'nex with not a soul to mess anything up! Haddon, my middle child, struggles with playing by himself. Rest time is a discipline for him. He is learning to entertain himself (something Thatcher does naturally) which is a very valuable life skill, in my opinion. All of my boys enjoy audio books and the Classical Kids CD's but for him they are especially helpful in getting him through his one-and-a-half hours somedays. I always keep a basket of audio books from the library and he will ask for them when he needs one. I will be curious how Beckett approaches rest time when he begins to drop naps, which is I hope is still not for awhile yet!

During this time I have disciplined myself to sit for at least half of this time each day. I start out by reading from my Bible and whatever other book I am working on. The last 30-45 minutes I try to get a few chores done, return any phone calls from that morning, chat with a friend, return emails, blog or any other little thing that needs to be done.

If your children are older, it's not too late to institute a rest time. My boys are old enough now where I have explained to them my need for quiet and how much it helps me to recharge my own batteries. They know they are not to come down and ask me lot of little questions, although they do occassionally peep in at me. If you are starting out, I would do just like with the littles - start with a short time and build up. Reward them with their successes and help them understand this is not a punishment but should be viewed as a treat. Help them understand how to recharge their own batteries. Is it sketching, reading, building, using their imagination...Your kids may not love rest time but it can become a regular part of a wonderful day.

What are your sanity keepers?

Today...

Here is what I wrote last night in my journal before going to bed as I prayed about a fresh new week starting after a mediocre one last week. I was seeing the end of the year on the horizon and wondering if I'll have the steam to make it to the end and finish well. I often feel like The Little Engine that Could chugging up that hill saying, "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can." This is my version of a Monday morning kick in the pants to get me off on the right foot, and actually, I know I can with His help and grace!

Today I will....

• treat my children the way I would if Jesus were physically in the room.
  

• remain calm both in demeanor and voice; I will chose to stop and step away for a moment if I am unable to do so.
  

• shower my boys with hugs and kisses.
  

• model appropriate choices. When I make a mistake I will immediately confess and ask forgiveness.
  

• find positive ways to say things and encourage the behaviors I am seeking.

• focus 100% on my boys and not allow myself to be distracted by the computer, telephone or other tasks awaiting me at the end of the day.

• remember "Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character." and I will do the hard work to help "lay down the rails" for good habits to form in my boys.

• laugh 100 times today!

Happy Monday to each of you. I hope it's a great week for all. :)

Ten Day Detox...Done!

Be honest, how many of you saw the title of my post and wondered if I had been guilty of doing something terrible? ;) Well, truth be told, the answer is yes and no. I am guilty of something but it's nothing you would typically attribute to the word "detox".

As you may have read in my nutrition posts, I feed my children very healthfully: no dyes, additives, preservatives or chemicals of any sort and as much organic as our budget will allow (the majority of the time anyway). Yet when it comes to my own diet, it's another story. You see, I love food. All food. Italian food, Greek food, Mexican food, healthy food, junk food, fruits, vegetables, carbs, protein, dark chocolate, candy, cookies, cakes, you name it...I love it all! Unfortunately, I have not been disciplined enough to feed myself in the same way I feed my kids. I will eat a salad of mixed baby greens, roasted beets and asparagus sprinkled with goat's cheese and roasted pecans for lunch and then when the kids go to rest time have a bowl of dark chocolate M&M's with a diet coke! How nuts is that?

In recent months I have come to realize that I am truly a sugar addict. I need it three times a day and my cravings are growing increasingly intense. On top of that I have not lost a single pound since the day I had my miscarriage and I was five pounds over where I need to before before I even got pregnant. Now when you are 5'3" on a good day, those extra pounds really, really show. Add to that, 40 is closing in fast and a perfect storm is brewing. I need to take charge of my eating and now - and I have been saying that for over a year.

Enter my dh and our physician. Dh has been on a low dose of blood pressure medication for several years now. It is very hereditary in his family, and now his cholesterol is starting to slowly creep up as well.

Let me digress and tell you about our amazing physician. He desires to treat all patients from a standpoint of wellness. He wants to see his patients get well and get well naturally, not just to keep treating their ailments with more pills. What unique perspective, huh?! He was an MD in a traditional type practice, but when he was unable to treat his own son's asthma with conventional medicine he began to look into natural cures. And that changed his life and subsequently his medical practice. His practice is now referred to as a "Wellness Clinic" and he employs a nutritionist, a personal trainer, a massage therapist and has a several programs like healthy cooking classes and field trips to teach his clients how to navigate the mine field that is the local grocery store.

Now back to my story...Our physician encouraged dh to start a 14 week "Wellness Program" to lower his cholesterol and blood pressure and lose extra weight. It all starts with a ten day detox. Day one, meat and all grains except brown rice are eliminated. Day two rids of dairy. Day four eliminates nuts and seeds and day five you say good bye to legumes. Then you are down to fruits and vegetables until day 10. On top of that you take supplements and "medical food" mixed with water (and it tastes just as yummy as it sounds - Blech!) to help your liver and kidneys function more efficiently to fully detox all the chemicals and sludge out of your body and specifically your GI tract.

I decided to do the detox with dh for two reasons: support him (We are talking a man who typically doesn't get his daily servings of fruits and veggies in a week's time - maybe a month - and now he has to eat nothing but fruit and veggies!) and kickstart my own wellness plan. And boy did it! I no longer crave sugar, at least physically crave. The mental cravings are another story altogether; I expect to be fighting them for quite some time. Sigh.

I also took a test at our doctor's office to find out how many calories a day I am burning, my percent body fat, how much water I am retaining and how effeciently my cells are working. For the next 12 weeks I am on a plan that will restrict my caloric intake to lose these extra pounds, yet still get my daily servings of fruits, veggies and protein, and to teach myself proper portion control (something that is so skewed in America due to insane restraurant servings) all without sugar. Phew!

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. I feel like I am learning to cook all over again, and I thought I cooked pretty well before. I am learning to use tons of herbs and spices for flavor rather than unhealthy fats, marinades or sauces that typically have crazy amounts of calories and/or sugar. How to provide more balanced meals that include no more than four ounces of meat and very limited carbs but with tons of lentils and beans and vegetables (and not just corn, the staple veggie for my boys). And the journey begins. Oh and if you have any good suggestions for bean or lentils, please pass them on! :)

Focus on Social Skills

I realize most of my readers don't have a kiddo with autism but I thought I'd share my thoughts on this subject because many children can be delayed socially even with no official label of any sort. Kids can struggle in this area for lots of reasons - very strong/very timid personality, immaturity, ADHD, lack of training or lack of good role models, any number of disabilities, ineffective parenting (not accusing anyone here! ;) ) and the list goes on and on. If your child could use some support in the social arena then I hope you find some ideas and encouragement here. Now on with my post...

With our new diagnosis of Aperger's our reality has changed. We now know that many of the behaviors we have been dealing with are not something Thatcher will just outgrow as we had been hoping and praying. In fact he needs much more support than we have been giving him up to this point. Also we are seeing more and more copycat type behaviors from his two younger brothers who idolize him yet are too young to understand that big brother may not always be the best role-model. Further complicating our issues is the fact that Thatcher has ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder as well. All three work together and at times create complete havoc in the life of our blue-eyed little man.

What does that mean for us? That's the question that has been rattling around in my head for the last several weeks. I have thought about this from two levels - social skills we need to work on at home and those we need to work on during activities /outings not at home. Right now the only two things Thatcher is involved in outside of our home is church and AWANA, but then there are grocery store trips, restaurant outings (rare nowadays), errands we run and the like.

As for church, I have temporarily stepped down from serving in our children's ministry. For the next eight weeks I will be Thatcher's buddy in all services he attends. If I would have known then what I know now, I would have done this with him three years ago when he started in the elementary ministry. Now we are having to reteach and retrain and that's always harder then just doing it right the first time before bad habits have the chance to form. Still I am very hopeful that we will be able to do great things in the next two months.

At our church students start in a large group room playing and doing activity stations. Then comes about 25 minutes of singing and a lesson presentation. Next, the children go to their small group rooms to review what they learned and do an activity to reinforce the main idea of the day. We are working with Thatcher on things like sitting still during the lesson, not moving place to place to place. Not calling out answers (or just his thoughts!) during the lesson. Not having meltdowns when the large group teacher calls for volunteers and he doesn't get chosen. Getting into line calmly when it's time to transition to small group without knocking all his friends down to be first in line. Really listening when the teacher talks and not just waiting for a pause to be able to interject his own brand of wisdom! ;) Appropriate hugging - who and how and when. I am sure there are more but that comes to mind first.

How am I doing this you may wonder? The answer is simple. Bribery. Thatcher is in love with Transformers Animated toys. Two of his favorite things on the planet, vehicles and robots, combined into one toy; life doesn't get any better for Thatch. He is always saving for some new Transformer he wants so I told him that he would receive one dollar at the end of the hour if he got three or less warnings from me. He would not get warnings for inappropriate behavior (that will come later as we have more training sessions behind us) but rather for not receiving Mommy's correction with a gentle and teachable spirit. That has to be our first goal. Thatcher often gets so frustrated when I try to correct him that he just growls (literally). We are first working on rooting that out. We have talked about how we are on the same team, "Team (our last name)" and that we are all working for the good of each member of our family and our family as a whole. As time progresses and good habits are established I am hoping to slowly fade into the background and thatthe success that we will have started to continue. I have no illusions that our problems will be magically fixed forever but just changing the trajectory from down to up - not perfection - is a goal. I am hoping to return to serving in a few months where I will still be in the room able to keep my eye on Thatch and help when he needs me, much more so than I have ever done in the past. I won't allow it to get as bad as it is now; I'll step in for a refresher course!

For AWANA, we have decided that next year we will not continue (mostly for reasons given in this post) but Thatch wants to finish the year and complete his book. As many weeks as possible I will be staying with him and working on similar goals mentioned above. My dh preaches on Wednesdays at our church and AWANA is at a different church down the road. Therefore, I am only able to stay with Thatch on the weeks when dh is able to work it out with his schedule.

Then there's the other stuff: grocery store, post office, restaurants...oh my! This is where I can get really stressed. Beckett is still an extremely active two (almost three) year old and then there's Thatcher who has to touch every.single.thing every where we go. He can get distracted and wander off in ten seconds flat. This is where we see more of the ADHD come into play. Between he and Beckett outings are exhausting. I am working on taking lots of little grocery store trips so Thatcher has the chance to experience success with the three things I always ask of him: stay next to me, hands to yourself, talk softly (becasuse he is a very loud child normally but gets even louder when he's overstimulated and he's definitely overstimulated on outings).

I am also being much more deliberate about talking to him about what our errands will look like and the exact behaviors I am looking for on the way to our destination.

"Thatch we are going into the post office to mail two things and buy stamps. There will be that large display of boxes and envelopes for sale but we need to remember that it's okay to look but not touch. We will stand in line for around five minutes and during that time you can quietly talk to me or your brothers but you may not interrupt other adults' conversation or hug them if they are strangers. Then when it's my turn in line you may say hello to the postal worker but then you must wait patiently and quietly while Mommy does business. Then you will be able to say goodbye. Do not tell your brothers what to do or get frustrated if you think they are doing something they shouldn't be. I will be right there and I will take good care of everyone so you don't have to. If you are worried about them, just tell me. "

Seriously that is how much scripting he needs on just about every errand we go on.

Today the social skills books I ordered were delivered so once I get a chance to look through them, I'll post my thoughts. So far, I am very excited about what I see!

Welcome to Holland

I went for a run (often my thinking/processing time) last night after posting my last blog and this story a friend shared with me years ago came to mind. I have seen it many times since then but each time am touched by its profundity.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Emily Perl Kingsley 1987

Greiving and Empowerment

I have been reading The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome and have learned so much just 100 pages into a 300 page book. To be honest I can only read this book in small doses because I get very sad. I do realize that Asperger's is not a death sentence and families struggle with much more challenging conditions than this all the time. In fact, I have two friends who both have daughters with severe Cerebral Palsy. These wonderful girls who are in wheel chairs will (without a miracle from God or a major advance in medicine) never walk; talk; toilet, dress or feed themselves; or do so many of the other things I take for granted each and every day. They have had countless painful surgeries and procedures to try and keep their conditions from debilitating them further and will continue to have more.

Still I have learned that pain is pain and it must be dealt with and worked through - and this is painful. Anytime we see how sin has affected mankind it's difficult because this was not how God meant things to be. Little boys should not have to cry when their brother gets invited to yet another playdate and he hasn't been invited to one in over a year. Little boys should not have to deal with being called "dork" or "weird". Little boys should not be excluded from sports just because they are physically clumsy and can't catch a ball at the age of eight. And when pain affects our kids, it's even harder because our hopes and dreams rest in their sweet souls. And when those dreams begin look different than we'd imagined, we grieve. That's where I have found myself in the past few months - grieving. My husband says that my, "dreams have been shipwrecked on the jagged rocks of reality."

Yet slowly I am moving past grieving into a new phase of empowerment. We can help our son. He will have an amazing and fulfilling life, even though it may look different than we had originally imagined. It's a good place to be for sure. I will be blogging in coming posts about what that empowerment looks like for us.

Our Progress With Miss Mason

As I've mentioned in several posts, we have come far and made many changes towards being a CM inspired school, yet as I am reading Volume 6 in Miss Mason's Home Education series, I am realizing how incredibly far we still have to go. I am not completely certain we will implement every one of her ideas 100% yet the more I read the more I am inspired and drawn to her methods and beliefs.

Sometimes I start to get a little excited, even giddy, at the changes we've made and the positive way these changes have been received. "We're getting there," I start to think. Then I sit down with my highlighter and one of Miss Mason's Volumes and immediately I am humbled. Her ideas are so magnificent and her goals so deep that I realize we have far to go before I would truly consider us a CM school. Still I am enjoying this journey of discovery. I know it will take time to transition, especially as I feel I am reprogramming my brain after almost a quarter of a century in the public school system (my own schooling plus my years teaching).

Here are the changes we've successfully made:

• Short and varied lessons - Our typical lesson (other than math and reading) lasts no longer than 20 minutes. We switch between seatwork type lessons and floor type lessons.
• A wide and generous offering - We have moved from only doing five or six subjects in a week (math, reading, grammar, spelling and handwriting, Spanish) to doing 11 or more (math, reading, history, geography, science, art appreciation, music appreciation, art instruction, handwriting, spelling, Bible, poetry, social skills). I still have some work to do in this area as art instruction and poetry reading are not quite as regular as I want them to be. As for social skills I am so excited to have found a curriculum I will be using with Thatcher. It is geared specifically for children with Asperger's Syndrome but all of the boys will benefit as often they mimic older brother's behaviors.
  
• Incorporating nature into our days - We are taking weekly nature walks at our local trails. We have purchased a bird book for our area and are having great fun learning to identify the birds we see. I am looking for ways to incorporate more nature into our daily lives right in our own backyard, too. I will be buying bird feeders and starting a compost pile in our backyard this spring. Hopefully by next year I will be ready to start our very own garden! If anyone has other ideas how you have changed your (small suburban) backyard into a nature paradise, please share!
  

A few of the many things we still need to change:

• Using predominately living books full of what Miss Mason calls "literary language" to teach all subjects. These are basically books rich with beautiful vocabulary to capture childrens' imagination and subsequently their minds.
• More and more reading - In Volume 6 it states that children should read (or be read to depending on their age) between 1000-3000 pages per term (12 weeks for her schools). Yikes! We have far to go. I am not going count pages but I know whether we followed CM or not, I need to find ways to incorporate more reading into our days - even with a crazy two year old in the house! ;)
  
• Habit Training - I debated whether to put this in the first section or here but I decided the changes we've made are so minor that they belong here more than above. For our last term I picked a specific habit to work on but I need to be much more deliberate about this. Miss Mason is correct when she says that mother who works hard in this area makes for herself days that are pleasant and full of joy (my paraphrase).
• Narrating - This is such an important component of a CM education. It is just not a habit for me to stop and ask Thatch to narrate. Another area where I need to be *much* more deliberate.
  
• Masterly Inactivity- I have many ideas for how to make this happen but am struggling with the day to day reality of it all. In the perfect scenario the child takes responsibility for this but getting an ADHD'er to commit and follow through is tough. And my afternoons are full of Mommy chores so I haven't made the time to sit and train him in this area.

I am sure many more things will come to mind but this is just a quick glance. :) It is good to be back to posting. Leave me a comment if you would and let me know I haven't lost all my readers in this past month!

What's Been Happening at SSA

Well, I truly didn't mean to take a one month break. Some months are just like that. It started out with a really busy week and no time to sit at the computer. Then followed two weeks of sickness that took all of us out. I even ran fever for the first time in five years. Then we escaped to my in-laws place in the Hill Country with Beckett still running fever (I figured we'd lay around somewhere and I'd much rather be there in the fresh air on the porch snuggling!), Haddon on antibiotics for a double ear infection and Thatcher still with a huge chest cold and would start running fever for a second round while there. I am blessed that my kids are pretty healthy and don't get sick too often, but when we do get sick, we get sick!

And now here I am for the first time in a month sitting at the computer. I will be blogging soon about our CM changes and my thoughts as I read through Miss Mason's Volume 6 in her Home Education series. Also to follow will be a post on Tony Attwood's The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome, ADHD and special kids in general. This is typically a tough time of year for us in managing Thatcher's symptoms and this year has been no exception. I have a few more ideas in the nutrition area as well.

Hope to see you soon!!!