Friday, January 9, 2009

New blog for a new year

I am not one for resolutions. They never work, and why make them on January 1st? If you are a teacher or student or even a parent with kids in school, it makes more sense to start them in August. Lainey's school does not disregard last semester's tardies just because I made a resolution of no more tardies for the new year (which I've already broken, by the way). But as I read all of the end of the year blogs with highlights and resolutions, it occurred to me that I wish I blogged more. It is so hard for me to actually publish a post. If I just wrote out my thoughts and hit publish post, I would have a lot more entries. I have lots of 'drafts', but I always feel like I have to read and edit and make it perfect before I publish.

One of my favorite quotes (and I am not really into quotes usually) is this:

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away."
-- Dinah Craik

That pretty much sums up my life, I think.

If I just poured out all my thoughts clicked publish post, blogging would have a lot more purpose for me and I would do it more. That is originally what I set out to do with this thing, but then the whole daniel thing started and it just turned into a blog about that. that is not a bad thing, and I am not saying that a lot of my posts won't still be about that. But if you only have posts occassionally they are all going to be about the big things, and that is usually the 'big thing' going on in our lives.

Since I don't have enough posts for a list of highlights, I'll just give one of my favorites. It is one of the first things i ever wrote about and I still chuckle when I think about the incident today.

http://amandasims.blogspot.com/2007/07/im-back.html

I have lots of things to write about if you care to know what's going on. I have been super busy and preoccupied with Daniel's public school stuff. We had the big meeting to set up the goals (or rather a continuation of the meeting we started in December) and I could write a book about it. But I don't know if that is a wise thing to do right now, so I have to wait at least a little while until we get things set up for sure. The other big things are Christmas was great, the Holiday break was great, we went to see our new, one of the best in the country neurologist. He is going to test Daniel for mitochondrial disease which I am still learning about but it is fascinating. I think it could change the way autism is thought of in the future and I am really curious if Daniel is one of the 30% or more of children with autism that have it (according to recent research). He is also having a 23 hour EEG (yes, you read that right) in a couple of weeks. It is 23 hrs instead of 24 because 24 requires an official hospital admission which affects insurance paying for it, blah, blah, blah. They are hoping to catch the seizure activity and get some idea of how often he is having them.

As far as communication and all the other things, Daniel is doing pretty good. I am more and more scared for his safety as he gets bigger and faster and frequently runs for the street or most dangerous situation available. Yesterday, I was at a friend's house and he was upset about something and ran out her front door. I was in heels (I had just finished the big school meeting) and she was breastfeeding, so we both weren't as fast as we would normally be. But he was at the street before I caught him. Most people buy all of the child proof locks and safety stuff when their first child starts crawling or walking....we're buying ours when our second child is 3. (We should have bought them before, we are just lazy).

For some good news, though, the other day he came up to me and said 'eat, eat'. I had just given him some yogurt so I said (never in a million years expecting him to respond), "What happened to your yogurt?" and he replied "yogurt bye-bye". this may not seem like a big deal, but it was huge, I tell you, HUGE. Not only did he UNDERSTAND what I was saying, but he also ANSWERED a question (and for you early childhood people out there, it was a 'wh' question at that). I didn't believe my ears until I went and looked and sure enough his yogurt was bye-bye. He had eaten every bite. I have thought this before, but I felt like that incident (falong with a couple of other like it that have happened recently) proves that he is so more with it than I thought. He totally knows what is going on...which is great news. But also sad in a way too. It is sad to me to think that he knows what we are saying and is almost as smart as an average kid his age, but is 'trapped' and can't really communicate. Sometimes it is easier to think he is just out of it. But then again, to see him respond to me and actually have an almost 'conversation' is one of the best moments I've had as his mom.

So, here's to my first post of words poured out, chaff and grain together. Sift away, friends.

4 comments:

Stephanie said...

So glad you're writing this way! This is the perfect way for you - especially - to use a blog. I loved hearing about the conversation with Daniel. As you and I have already talked about, one of the big lessons I learned from spending so much time with J is that he understood much more than anyone would have guessed from observing him.

Ella said...

amanda, that is so encouraging to hear about your CONVERSATION with Daniel!!

we loved getting to see and catch up with you over Christmas!! Wish we lived closer!

Missy said...

Hi, I'm Missy, you commented on my blog. Excuse me but, do I know you?

;)

Missy said...

Amanda that's AWESOME! That is huge.

You know what, when I first started blogging, I was the same way, I wanted it to be PERFECT. So I only blogged twice in one year. Finally I told myself, "Come on, it's not going to be nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, it's a BLOG." We kind of have to break out of the English class revise-revise-revise rut.

Now, I wish I had been blogging from the day I got married. I would love to go back now and relive all those memories.