things are finally quieting down...

what a day we had today. i'm fighting a chest cold, so i made Ewan take a nap with me this afternoon when Heather was sleeping and Cameron was in school. just after we woke up, we got a phone call from the affice at Cameron's school letting us know that he had had a melt down and refused to get on the bus, could we come and get him. all the way on the 70 blocks to his school, i just kept wondering...what was the trigger? this has never happened before. on the one hand, i was surprised, as Cameron's teacher is wonderful about giving him the support he needs to navigate his school day. on the other hand, nothing surprises me these days...poor Cameron has had a major regression since christmas vacation. i walked into the office, was directed towards the health room, and found cameron in there with, surprise, surprise, a subsitute teacher...

the poor kid was sitting in the corner kneeling, batting his hands in the air and wimpering like a scared puppy. with some coaxing, we got him to the car and he instantly calmed down. the "sub" walked us out to the car and assured me that she just could not think of anything that might have triggered him to have this melt down. a couple of hours later, we got a call from his teacher (who was home with strep throat) and things became more clear. when pressed, the teacher was able to get more info. about the day from her assistants and the sub and turns out a major change was made in the daily routine without giving Cameron any warning. i have learned to put on my detective hat in these situations...always trying to look through all the possible clues and discover the trigger...i feel emotionally exhausted tonight. the past five weeks have been so taxing on all of us. we had such phenominal progress last fall and since the Christmas break, it's one thing after another. the teacher shared some things with me that i was unaware of, that they have been doing at school to give him extra support and i am realizing how much they too are pulling out all of the stops to try to help him through this difficult time. she shared with me how much she "adores" cameron and what a special little boy he is and how much she is willling to help in any way. god bless her.

this picture really represents to me the complexity of the challenges cameron faces at school. he's little boy who desperatly wants to be a part of the big, loud, confusing world around him.

Hello friends. Greatings from Beaverton, OR. I have a couple of friends who convinced me that I need to start a blog...so here goes.

These are my crazy cute kids on Halloween. Cameron and Ewan are totally obsessed with Star Wars and they were so cute in their Jedi costumes, but Heather stole the show in her Princess Lea wig. We are coming to the much awaited end of Evan's schooling. He is has just three more clinical rotations and then board exams to pass. I have my hands full with the kids. Cameron is in kindergarten and will be six in three weeks, Ewan is three and a half and in pre-school and Heather turned two in November. Our lives have been pretty challenging lately, really for the past two years, but we have learned so much. Since this is really about the kids, let me tell you about each of them...

Cameron is one amazing little boy. Two years ago this spring, he was diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (probobly Asperger Syndrome) and we began our amazing journey of learning how to parent this exraordinary little boy. He is bright and imaginative and endlessly courious. He is amazingly articulate and keeps us in line with observations like "boy, the grown ups in this family are sure grouchy today." Most amazingly, he put his little hands on my cheeks one evening and said "Mom, I love my family. My family is my only chance." We take this extraordinary statement very seriously. Cameron is currently in Speech thereapy to help him with social communication deficits, Occupational therapy for sensory processing dificulties, and a special kindergarten class for kids with high functioning disabilites all in an effort to help him with the many challenges associated with this disorder. We have most recently been looking into getting him extra help with what appears to be an anxiety disorder. This has all been enormously challenging, but so worth it. He is such a joy and we have so much faith in his very bright future. As I said above, he loves star wars, and also legos and dinosaurs. His most recent obsession is playing a Lego Star Wars video game on the x-box. He works very hard each day to fulfil his "responsibilities" to earn x-box time.

Ewan is our monkey in the middle. He has this fun, quirky, joyful, challenging little personality. He gives a crazy amoung of hugs and kisses every day and often wraps his arms and legs around us like a little chimpanzee and says "I wov you"...we just eat up. He is difinatly the one to be scared of if things get quiet. He is my early bird and I can't even begin to write all of the mischef he has gotten into quietly in the wee hours of the morning while mom and dad slept unaware. One morning I woke to my entire kitchen and dining room drenched in a half gallon of chocholate soy milk. He has a crush on his pre-school teacher "teacher Beth" and I hear he will often just stand next to her grinning during pre-school. He loves having somewhere to go that is all his own. One night in his prayers, he said "fank-ful I go pre-school...just me...not Cameron" But don't get the wrong idea, he worships Cameron. He wants nothing more than to play with Cameron all day long, sometimes Cameron's just not able to tolerate the company. Ewan is also in speech therapy, but for totally different reasons. He has a condition called Apraxia, where he has difficulty coordinating the muscles in his mouth to work together for speech. At two he had a severe speech delay, but he has made amazing progress.

Heather is a joyful, spunky, little chatterbox. Just today she discovered her first bad word..."tupid" When I told her it was not a nice word, she smiled at me and said "Tupid Cameron" I told her if she said it again she was going to have a time out. She smiled joyfully again and said "tupid, tupid, tupid! And then walked over to the wall and said cheerfully "I fink I have my time out here!" and sat down. She is all about her "tories" (stories) and she usually has a basket or bag or purse full of books that she is hefting around the house with her. She also loves her "bwankies" and her daddy, and will sometimes climb into bed with us in the morning and push me aside so she can "tuddle with daddy." She likes to sing her own little songs, but has very little tolerance for mommy singing (she would rather listen to herself). She calles herself "Heady" and often refers to herself in third person. The other morning she watched the movie "Free Willy" with Cameron. When it was over she was flitting around the house flapping her arms. I asked her what she was doing. She said "Heady be a whale. Heady be a dancing whale!" Heather had major surgery this past summer to repair a condition called bladder reflux that made her prone to bladder and kidney infections. She and I spent a week at Doernbecher's Children's hospital while she was recovering. It was quite an ordeal. Her reflux is 100% cured, but she unfortunalty has permanant kidney damage. I sometimes think of Heather as our comic relief. She is just so happy and sassy, it's hard to get mad at her.

This gives you an update to where we are at, and hopefully, I will be able to keep up with posting so that I am better able to keep in touch with all of the people we love and miss in our lives!