Cason's smiles

Time for my favorite pictures of Cason in 2006. When I look through all the pictures, I realize that in 9 out 10 he's smiling. His smile lights up his whole face and reaches out and grabs you to make you smile too. I think I probably have atleast a thousand pictures of Cason on this computer and seeing all those smiles again gives me a glimpse into why this has been such a great year. It's got me so thankful that I have not one little smiling son, but two. When I say it's been a great year, I have to clarify a little, see it's not all been so great. There were some really difficult and emotional things that happened in this last year. Not too long ago I remarked to Josh that it was curious to me that at the end of this year I feel good. Meaning I'm not depressed. I've struggled with depression off and on over the years, but right now I'm content, I feel balanced, okay. There have been years past that have had much lesser pains and yet I've felt much more discontent. What's different now? I think having these boys in my life brings God closer. One of the ways God has been showing me his love is through my children. For every picture I have of them smiling, I must have received a hundred more smiles that were just for me. They're my daily reminders that God is good and will do what he says he will do, and for believing that I am blessed.

He was seven months old in January. This picture will always be one of my favorites.


A sneaky little grin...


Nine months old in March and starting to cruise.


It's blurry and his head is chopped off, but those eyes just say so much. Another all time favorite.


A brother is a good thing to lay on!


A first birthday party picture with Daddy.


Hanging around in October.


Look at all those teeth!


A Christmas morning smile just for me.

Year in Review

Down to the wire now! Only four more days left in 2006. This is that wonderful time of year when we look back on the year and recount our best and worst times. The goal of course is to try and include more of the good and less of the bad in the next year. The radio, t.v. and magazines are full of the top 100 "whatevers" of 2006, so without the actually counting, I thought I'd do some looking back here too. Today I'm starting with my favorite pictures of Jonah from 2006. Going from 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 brings about many changes in a little boys life and hopefully I caught some of those moments on camera.

A visit from my dear friend Nancy in January was a special treat for Jonah. She quickly became his "Ancy" and he was very sad when it was time for her to return home.


A sleepy smile after a bath on a cold day in February.


While this picture may not seem very noteworthy it signifies two major things in Jonah's life. In May, Jonah decided he was ready to go potty on his own all the time. It literally was as if someone flipped a switch and there was no looking back. The other part is it shows his absolute love of cars, he could pour over the weekly car ads for hours and the toilet was a great place to check it out.


Finally warmer weather means picnics outside!


Taking a break from learning to ride his bike.


His first time riding rides at the fair!


Opening presents at his fourth birthday party.


First airplane ride courtesy of Uncle Joel!


First day of school!!!


No Autumn is complete without a trip to the pumpkin patch.


Having fun in Iowa over Thanksgiving weekend.


One more from the trip to the fire station.


What a year for Jonah! I can't wait to see what's in store for him over this next year. Looking back is a good reminder that when you're four everyday can bring a new experience. I hope that I remember that more often and look for more oppurtunities to share those "firsts" with him.

Christmas

We started off Christmas morning very early to the sound of giggling coming from the boys' room. We hopped out of bed because we were afraid Jonah would come out and start opening presents without us. We met him in that hall with his announcement of "There's bunches of presents under the tree!" He was very excited to see all the presents and did great being patient when we said we were going to take it slow. Did I mention it was 6:45? Yeah we didn't want the excitement to be over before the sun even came up, so we let him open one and then play with that for a bit before the next one.

He was very excited to see a new table and chairs set from Nama and Pop.


A John Deere truck and tractor set he wanted very much! (sorry about the glare)


Cason with mommy enjoying a new truck.


Cason with his activity cube.


Jonah posing in a new Cars outfit.


We spent the rest of the morning organizing the playroom. We cleaned out tons of old toys to make room for the new table set and also an easel for Jonah. I have to say I think these boys are awfully lucky to have such a nice room for play.

We headed to my parents house just before noon to spend the rest of the day celebrating Christmas with Nana and Papa, Aunts, Uncles and cousins. It was a wonderful day!

Cason is 18 months old and a trip to the fire station!

Yesterday was my little guy's 18 month birthday! It feels like time has flown by since he was born. It has been a very busy 18 months! He's growing into such a neat personality. Such a happy boy with a laugh that bubbles out of him and makes everyone around him smile. He can be fiery and stubborn one minute and then cuddle close the next. He is still very into sucking his thumb while tugging away at his right ear. He's definitely an explorer as he never stays in one spot for very long.
From this:


To this:

That second picture is from our trip to the fire station yesterday. Josh's good friend Trevor is a fireman and invited us to bring Jonah for a tour of the fire station and trucks. This is a huge thing for a little boy who loves cars and trucks. Trevor gave us the VIP tour and let Jonah climb all over the truck and play with the lights and levers that controlled the water and some that lowered the ladders and all kinds of equipment. Jonah had a wonderful time and announced when we got home that when he grows up he's going to be a fireman/football player/race car driver. Here's some more pictures...

With all of Trevors gear on! That helmet was so heavy Jonah had a hard time holding his head steady.


Looking cute by the hoses.


Sharing the experience with his brother.


Happy as a clam!


The whole family.

I've got the blahs. I've been overly crabby and snippy with Josh and the boys since yesterday. I really hate days like these. Would you mind saying a prayer for me? I'd much rather be happy and patient.

I called the county Special Education Co-op yesterday. They are about 6-8 weeks out with making appointments so it'll be awhile till we get Jonah in for more testing. We're not in a rush right now so it's okay, but I am excited to see what they will do and the results. Anything that gives us understanding for how he looks at the world is worth it.

I think all of that may be related to why I've got the blahs, but I'm not sure how. Maybe I'm feeling some denial about it. I'm working so hard to put a positive spin on it, maybe I just need to allow myself to feel sad too. I don't know.

We're also putting a close to another chapter of our lives this week. We've decided not to have any more children. I feel this is an incredibly smart move for us, but I'm still experiencing a grieving process over it. I'm so ready to move on to the next phase of life. Going back to school and watching the boys grow up, being financially stable and taking regular vacations. Getting healthy by losing some weight and gaining some freedom by having older (and fewer) children. Still being young when they are graduating from high school and college. At the same time, I really loved giving birth and breastfeeding and the whole newborn phase. Cason hits 18 months on Sunday, he won't be my baby for too much longer. I'm so thankful that God choose me to be the mommy for these precious little boys.

Another appointment update

This morning Josh and I had our third appointment with Dr. Jay (as Jonah calls him) to review his findings from our first appointment, the rating scales and his appointment with Jonah. The bottom line is he feels Jonah does have Asperger's but is cautious to actually make the diagnosis because he is only four. From what I've read the average age for diagnosis is 8, so this makes complete sense to us to proceed slowly. Thankfully we will still be able to utilize the support systems in place for parents of children with disabilities. Our next step is to have further testing done by the county's special education coop (our tax dollars giving back!).

There's a lot more to say about this but I think I'll leave it to another time.

Jonah funny

It's Sunday afternoon and we're all relaxing. Cason's napping away. Jonah was playing quietly in the play room until a little bit ago. Today he didn't nap so he had been flitting in and out of the living room. Josh was in the "comfy corner" of the couch on the computer. Here's where I admit to a flaw of mine. I tend to let things get a little cluttered if we haven't had anyone over for a while. The chaise lounge part of our couch has been getting piled on by clothing and jackets lately and today a laundry basket was added to the mix. So looking for a comfy spot to rest I shifted some stuff (including the laundry basket) over so I could curl up on the chaise. A few minutes later Jonah comes wandering out, walks right past me and this is the conversation that followed.

Jonah: Hey Daddy, where's Mama?

Josh (teasing a bit): I don't know, she just left.

Jonah: Oh yeah, where'd she go? She go to work?

I'm trying to stifle my giggles at this point.

Josh: No she didn't go to work, she just went away.

Jonah: Oh, did she go to Wal-Mart?

Josh: No, not to Wal-Mart?

Jonah: Oh, Target?

Josh: No, not Target either. Maybe she's still in the house, you should go look around a bit.

Jonah: Okay

He runs right past me to go looking. Josh and I burst into laughter, mostly because Jonah is apparantly so used to seeing a pile of clothes laying on the chaise that he doesn't even realize I'm right there.

He came back pretty quick and said he couldn't find me. I couldn't help my laughter at that point and was finally "found" by Jonah.

End of a busy week

Ahhh, it's Friday! Even better than that is I don't have to work this weekend! We were supposed to go out of town for our annual Hostetler/Hostetler/Harstine/Dengler family Christmas trip but in the end we all decided that the cost of the trip was a bit much and we'd rather save it to spend on gifts. That was fine with us and now I have a work free weekend since I had already asked off for it. I'm also excited about it as Josh is taking a vacation week next week. He hasn't taken an entire week off in several years so it's a treat. I feel that way even though he will still be working. He's putting up around 600 feet of stone for some friends of ours. But I still think he'll be around more, maybe we'll even be able to have breakfast with eachother a couple times.

We had our second appointment with the psychologist for Jonah this past Wednesday. Actually it was more like Jonah had his first appointment with him, since he asked if we minded leaving the two of them alone about five minutes into it. We joked later on that he was the most expensive babysitter we've ever paid, and we didn't even get to go anywhere. We were called back in with about five minutes left in the session. He said they played with Jonah's Tony Stewart semi-truck (it's still in go everywhere mode), colored, talked, and he did some kind of test with what looked like a picture flip book. When we told Jonah it was time to go he became upset and started protesting. This is one of the biggest areas of struggle we have with Jonah (remember the post office incident) and I mentioned that to the dr as Josh was trying to get Jonah to put his coat on. The dr. commented that this was a part of the session too. Josh picked Jonah up and he started kicking and fighting him, so he kinda apologized to the dr. He said he actually was expecting this, and had expected it to be worse. I think we had a couple factors in our favor: there were two of us, no Cason, and no previous routine established which as being interupted. We're thankful the this dr. is being very thorough and careful about making a diagnosis. Josh and I will go back next Wednesday to get the results from the questionaires we did and also get to hear the dr's opinion now that he's actually seen Jonah.

I learned of an awesome perk to my job last night. Our club is the sister club to a larger racquet and fitness center in Elkhart. I've never been over there but have heard it's nicer. One of the things they offer that we don't is massage therapy. The girl who does the accounting for both places had mentioned a massage appointment one time so when she was at our club last night I asked her about it. Turns out I can get an hour long massage for $15 because I'm a employee! Josh and I received some money from his parents for Christmas and I had decided to spend some of it on a masssage. Now I can get four massages for what I was expecting to have to spend. I thought the free membership and childcare for Josh and I was a good perk but this beats that by a mile. They have three therapists and I got the inside scoop on which was the best at relaxation massage so I've got an appointment for Monday. I can't wait.

I went to the bank this morning to open a new checking account. The manager of the branch we go to is very anti-kids. She's polite but you get the sense that she's looking down at you for deciding to raise children rather than become a bank manager like her. So it's never an easy thing to go in and do business there, but with no other time to go, I took the boys with me. Jonah was great, he entertained himself with his newly acquired Tony Stewart semi-truck. Cason was not happy that I was restricting him to my lap. This boy loves to explore. I'm trying to conduct business with Miss anti-kids while entertaining him. I give him my keys, they get tossed, so then I give him my wallet, he's one so he doesn't realize how cool that is and it gets tossed too. Finally I spot a snow globe on the desk. It looks kid friendly and so I hand it to him, which he loves. Sweet, we're almost done and he's finally content. Anti-kids gets up to deposit my check and while she's gone Cason throws the snow globe which lands on the metal frame of the chair and bursts open, spilling glitter and water everywhere. That'll teach Chase to use cheaply made snow globes for decoration. But I think it unfortunately just reinforced Anti-kids belief that kids are a pain. She's so wrong though, even though they embarress me sometimes there's nothing better than being their mommy. How could you resist this?

Finally my internal seasonal clock has reset! For months I've felt out of place with the year. How could we think about Christmas when it was 60 degrees out just last week? I had to work on Halloween, for me it didn't happen. We were travelilng over Thanksgiving and again it was incredibly warm. I'll take the cold we're getting now gladly because it's put me in the Christmas spirit. I feel like baking, decorating, shopping. Especially shopping!

Another great thing about this week - Cason's better. We had gastroenteritis...rotavirus....the flu, whatever it was it was nasty! Thankfully, he seems much happier to be healthy and that makes this mama's life so much easier.