Hugs

I have said it before - but it is worth sharing again - Carson's hugs are the best! 

There was a time that he didn't want touched, and he didn't give hugs.  Some with Autism are very sensitive to touch, so they don't hug.  There was a time where Carson would just come up to you and barely touch you in an attempt to give a hug -- then one day he started hugging.  And it isn't just any hug -most of the time he will wrap his arms around you and squeeze.  And he wants you to squeeze back. 

Good Morning hugs - When he wakes up every morning - he gives us a hug with a Good Morning - How are you?  Pretty awesome way to start your day if you ask me.

Good night hugs - part of his night time routine is to give Mommy, then Reed, then Daddy a good night hug, and kiss.  And if you are lucky enough to be here at bedtime, you will get one of them as well.

Welcome to my home hugs - If you come to our house, Carson will greet you with a hug.  He likes to say welcome to every person that comes in. Friends, family, customers all get hugs.  Amy, my mail lady,  Mark the UPS driver and the Fed Ex driver even get them and like getting them.  They are a little bummed after summer vacation is over and they don't get them every time they stop. LOL 

Your home hugs - Daddy gets home from work - Reed gets home from school, Mommy comes home from being gone - you get a hug. 

I love you hugs - Carson sees Bill and I give each other a hug, he will come over and get in on the hug for a big group squeeze hug. 

Feel better hugs - when you don't feel good - he knows - and he will come up and hug you.

Out of the blue hugs - the random out of the blue hugs are awesome - just out of no where he come up to you and gives you a hug. 

He is our official hug dealer.  And we love each and every one of them. 

Meltdowns

As I type trying to hold back tears - meltdowns are awful.  I am so glad that they do not happen very often - but when they do - it is exhausting and emotional on everyone. 

Carson has 3 ipads (an old one that he won't part with), his new one and one that was supposed to go to Reed, but Carson took over.  Reed never complained.  But he had recently asked to have it back, but didn't want to upset Carson.  Reed wants to be able to download books to read.  We had an upgrade available, so we used it and Bill got a new one, and Reed could have Bill's old one. 
Well, Carson gets it in his head that he has to go through all of his ipads (use till battery dies) and then while they are charging, he should be able to use Bill's and my ipad.  We don't think that it is necessary.  So we have put passwords on them to lock him out and not let him use them. 
This afternoon, Reed and I downloaded he book he wanted on his ipad and Carson saw Reed get his new (Bills old) ipad.  He has gone into full meltdown.  He has screamed no in a high pitch voice for over an hour, he has run the length of the house multiple times throwing himself on to the floor or his bed.  If you can imagine a 6ft plus 150 plus pound boy doing this, it sounds and feels like the house is crashing down. 

It is so hard to know why he is so upset - you can not reason with him.  2 of his 3 ipads are 100% charged - he doesn't need the one Reed has. 

What I wouldn't give to be able to turn it off in his head and calm him down and make him understand. 

Villagers

One thing is for sure... we would not be where we are without help from lots of people. 

Whether it be a teacher, an aide, a TSS, our friends or our family - the help and support that was given to our family will never be forgotten. 

There was countless hours of trying new things, some worked, some didn’t 

There was speech therapy, occupational therapy, this therapy and thay therapy. 

There was research done to see what else we could try

There was shoulders to cry on and tears shared 

There was babysitting so we could have a date, even if the date was only to the grocery store

There was laughter 

There were memories made

Even when there are times we feel isolated and alone - we know that we can’t do this alone. 

Thank you everyone who has gotten us to the point we are at today. We will never forget you and what you have done for us. You never know when we will be calling ya again! 

What any parent would do

More times then I can count, people say to me “You’re amazing”,  “I don’t know how you do it”... 

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I became a Mom. I was pregnant 3 times. My first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and that baby was just as much my child as Carson and Reed are. 

When I become a parent, something inside me changed, it was no longer just me that I had to think about, I was responsible for another human and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for my child. 

When I was 6 months old, ans my mom was pregnant for my brother, my father walked away from us. Never to look back. We never saw him, we never met him, he never supported us, he wasn’t there for us. How does a parent do that? I can’t imagine walking away from my child. 

When I was pregnant for the baby I lost and I started bleeding, the doctor said to go home and rest. I did just what the doctor said to do. I would do anything to protect our baby and help the baby.  Unfortunately, God decided that he needed that baby with him more. 

From the moment I held Carson in my arms, I knew I would do anything for him. Drive at all hours to get him to sleep, put another bed in our room so we could all sleep comfortably, buy him every green shirt I could find, just so he could have a shirt on that comforted him, put double key dead bolts on our doors, so he couldn’t get out, put a 6ft high chain link fence around our house to keep him safe, get help when we needed it, put padlocks on our fridge, on our cupboards.... just do what needs to be done, not what needs to be done for me, for him first. 

When Reed broke his leg at 2 1/2 years old, I rode with him in the back of the ambulance to Bradford, I am not sure who was more scared, but I wouldn’t let him see it, I held it together for him. 

So I don’t see myself as amazing or anything more then just a MOM. I love all my kids unconditionally from the first moment they made me their Mom, and I will be there for them till my last breath! 

Being a Mom is amazing and I am so blessed to be able to be their Mom. 

The Bright Side

So today, like pretty much every other day, there was a frustrating moment.  Carson got his afternoon snack (leftover birthday cake) and took it back to our bedroom to eat it. On our bed! So cake crumbs everywhere. Making the bed was not on my to do list tonight. But the brightside is, tonight I will crawl into a bed with clean sheets. 

Having a 17 year old that still can’t wipe himself after going to bathroom, bright side is, he isn’t in diapers, he uses the toilet, he just can’t make his brain figure out the wiping technique. 

When we have nights where Carson will talk and talk till well after bedtime and we’re ready to scream, we have to look at the bright side that it isn’t back when he was like 5,6,7 and he would be awake ALL NIGHT  long! (I don’t know how the kid could go on like 2-3 hours sleep)

When it is bath night and the boy takes a good 45 minutes to dry himself off after baths, at least the boy will take a bath without a fight. He loves his baths. 

I have said many, many times that Autism is not a life threatening illness, it is life altering. Yes, my son has daily struggles, he is classified as non verbal (he does speak, but very little spontaneous conversation),  he will never have a normal life,  but there is a bright side. He isn’t one of the Autistic kids that hit others or himself, he isn’t violent, he does interact with us, he interacts with family and friends, he smiles, he hugs. He will get to grow up, he isn’t sick or have some illness that will take him from us.

So many times when thing happen, I have to look for the bright side. If I don’t it will totally loose my mind. People say all the time, I have the patience of a saint. I think if you were at my house every day you would realize I loose my patience a fair amount. I just have to walk away. I take my baths almost nightly to be able to relax and get me brain back to zen. 

There is always, always something to be thankful for, and there is always a bright side. Even when we don’t see it at that moment. 

Birth Day

It is kinda funny, I woke up around 4:30 and had to pee...17 years ago today, I woke up and thought I had to pee, but my water broke.  I wasn’t due for another 3 1/2 weeks.  I woke Bill up and said my water just broke, he jumped up out of bed running around in a panic, can I jump in the shower quick? Yes dear, jump in the shower quick. I wasn’t even having contractions, and we live 5 minutes from the hospital.  He showered and We made our calls to the doctor and our parents, and we went to the hospital. 

Like I said, I wasn’t having contractions, so Dr. Backus gave me petocin and said I will be back. I had said that I didn’t want anyone in the delivery room except Bill. But I was scared and hurting. Bill and I agreed on a neutral party to come in with us, so we called our friend Kristi. She came right up and helped relieve some of our fears and calm our nerves. We laughed, we cried.  I wasn’t able to get an epidural because the doctor was tied up with an emergency, so I did it all natural.  It seemed like forever, but really not a long labor, at 2:17 PM our beautiful baby boy arrived.  Carson James Powers was born at 6 lbs 13oz. And we were in love... we became parents.  We knew right there in then that we would do anything and everything for him, always there for him no matter what.  

Little did we know what our lives would intail, but as the words of my favorite song goes. He was perfectly, wonderfully, beautifully meant to be. 

Happy 17th Birthday, Carson James! 

Frustrations

Carson is not the only one that gets frustrated around the house. We all do. His oddities, his ways, his methods to his madness, his patterns... all things that make him tick the way he does, and we all love him unconditionally, we all still get frustrated at times. 

Like this morning, I took the time to take all my clothes off the top of the dresser that my awesome husband washed, dryed and folded, to sort them so I could put them away. I walked away and got doing something else (which happens all the time, I start 20 things because my brain is going 500 directions) I walk back to my bedroom to find a great big pile of clothes in the middle of the bed, because my piles were in his way when he wanted to sit on the bed and watch his ipad. 

This is frustrating to me. Now I need to take the time again to refold and resort. 

This afternoon, Bill asked me to step out on the back porch to show me something. We stood out there for 20 minutes or so and I come back in the house to find the pizza box on the counter and Carson eating, when he shouldn’t be hungry. 

He doesn’t like chairs pushed under the table, which causes many stubbed toes for his clutsy Mom.  

He has to have his juice in a row in his order and heaven forbid you move it!

He will get a bottle of water and pour it into a glass to drink. But before he does that he has to pull the label off and lay it on the counter. I try and try to get him to put in garbage. 

We all have ipads, Bill and I have iphones. Carson thinks he has to use them in a certain order, and take ours, even if his battery is charged because he thinks he has to use them in his order.  When he plugs them in to charge, he will stand and watch it till it gets past a certain point. 

He will pour a cup of juice and fill it to the absolute top of the cup and then carry it across the room or down the steps into the family room and very rarely spills a drop. (I would have 1/2 the glass dumped). He has gotten frustrated with us getting frustrated at him about filling his cup so full that he will not get a drink unless we are out of sight. Which means he won’t eat till he has his drink. And in the mornings time is to precious to argue so I just leave the room. Oh, and if we pour him a glass and it isn’t to his specifications, he will get the juice back out and fill it up. 

For those that think we let him “get away” with too much don’t walk in our shoes everyday. We have learned to pick our battles. If it isn’t dangerous or hurting him, there is absolutely no point in fighting it. Having a 6ft tall 170 pound young man throwing himself on the floor, bed or chair is not worth it. 

Any parent has moments of frustration with their kids. If you don’t, your not doing your job right.  I just choose to go to another room to scream or cry, vent to a friend, go stand in a hot shower and take a deep breath and move on.  Because if you think about it, how does Carson deal with his frustration...he moves things, he does his things to calm him brain down. 

Don’t sweat the small stuff right???