Posts Tagged ‘developmental delays’
When you Take the Lens Off
I am not new to the autism world, in fact, I’d like to think of myself as almost a professional autism mom. Many times, I am called in by a lot of my social media friends to be the one they connect to, when another mom has a child that is showing developmental delays, or behaviors that just don’t seem very typical for the age. My son is almost twelve, and we’ve been through so much since the day that 6-pound 13-ounce baby was placed into my arms. When he…
Read MoreThe Woman who Changed our Lives
I would like to honor my son, Gabe’s dance teacher/therapist Jackie Zamora. Jackie has a dance class called Zamdance. It’s for all children and adults with intellectual disabilities. A little about us… My name is Nicole. When I was 29 years old my husband passed away while I was 12 weeks pregnant with Gabe. When he was 18 months old Gabe was diagnosed with autism. He is now 9 years old and is non verbal with significant delays. I never thought I could be happy again after Gabe was diagnosed…
Read MoreAn Unlikely Critic
I got really mad at a little girl this weekend. As I write that sentence I realize that you will probably think I’m crazy. And I even made fun of myself after. But, it is what it is. Cooper and I spent the weekend at the lake. (I have more to write about that later.) It was a great weekend. Lots of sun and beach time. My favorite. As we arrived at the beach on Friday afternoon, Cooper let me know that he wanted to swing. There were two bigger…
Read MoreTough Conversations
Today the school psychologist came to our house to do the final in-person evaluation. Our IEP meeting is set for the day after Memorial Day. We are so damn close. The phsycologist recently observed Cooper at daycare and was shocked at how he acted like a different kid in different settings. I totally get this and could said it until I was blue in the face. I actually gave up trying to tell people becaue I started to sound like a broken record. At the school evaluations Cooper resembles Lucifer. And…
Read MoreFaith Is Easy To Have Until It's Tested
I wouldn’t consider myself to be a super religious person. I firmly believe in God and that he touches everything. Heck, I pray to God every single day and I have turned to God during especially hard times in my life. But there is something I need to get off of my chest. Faith is a funny thing. It is so easy to have Faith until it is actually put to the test. It is so easy to tell someone to trust in God’s plan. But when you are devastated and your…
Read MorePostive Updates
I just posted about changes in Cooper. I wanted to go into a little more detail because I am such a proud mama. I have blogged before about how picking up the boys from daycare can be a sad point in my day. It’s hard to see other kiddos the same age as cooper talking. It crushes me actually. So much, that there are times where I dread going. Sad, right? On Thursday, as I walked up to the house I saw that another mom was holding Cooper. He was hugging her and…
Read MoreA Photo a Week Challenge: Joy
Joy. What gives you pure joy? For me, it’s my kids, my husband and my dogs. Yes, they make me feel like a constant passenger on the bi-polar express but that’s not important right now. Nancy Merrill Photography asks ‘share a photo that expresses joy.’ I LOVE THIS IDEA! And I had fun searching for one as well. This picture is Cooper’s personality in a nutshell. A combination between pure joy and pure emotion. We are at Lake Superior throwing rocks into the big lake. Cooper’s favorite activity of all time.…
Read MoreWishing Your Life Away
As I was getting dressed for work this morning I tried on 6 or 7 shirts, two pairs of pants and multiple sweaters. And no, it’s not that I LOVE my fashionable clothes. It’s the opposite. I am still working on losing this last 10 pounds of baby weight that feels the need to stick around and NOTHING fits me right. And there is nothing I hate more than being uncomfortable at work. I keep telling myself that I will buy new clothes once I get to my ‘goal’ weight.…
Read MoreI Should Have Known and Deep Down, Maybe I Did.
Looking back, I always new Cooper was speech delayed, but I never knew he had delays in other areas. He never babbled like a typical child so I wasn’t surprised (devastated for sure) when we started the speech therapy route. Even now, his babbling is extremely different from Sawyers. I will admit that I always lumped ALL of Cooper’s delays into one category…SPEECH. And that was wrong of me. But in my defense, Cooper met all of his physical milestones (up until jumping) right on time. He held his head up, rolled over, crawled and…
Read MoreAnother Occupational Therapy Evaluation In The Books
We had Cooper’s Occupational Therapy Evaluation yesterday morning. I am wearing my new positive hat (AKA…The ‘I am going to positive if it freaking kills me’ hat) and there were many ‘good’ things that came from the evaluation. First, this lady is A-MAZ-ING! If you could pick the exact person you would want to work with your child it would be this woman. She is patient and sweet and knew exactly how to work with Cooper. We have had people in the past that didn’t know how to handle him…
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