Behold the Cuteness

Meet Cosette....AKA "Cozy". Yes, she's named for the Les Miserables character. And yes, I'm still that much of a musical theater nerd.

She's a Great Pyrenees. She's HUGE. The picture really doesn't show her size well...hold on....let me post something else that will give you a better idea of how gigantic this 6 week old pup is...






There we go...that's better. The other pup is her brother, Montana. (Yes, he was named for Joe Montana, football icon, and hero to my 10 year old nephew.) He was brought home by our nephew and will now happily live next door.

Right now, they are big bobbles of fur. They are still shy. A little confused. But doing well. Very sweet, very quiet, and very fluffy. We love them.

And before anyone starts saying the inevitable "Do you KNOW how BIG those dogs get???!!!" Yes, we KNOW how BIG those dogs will get! We have a neighbor 2 fields away that has one who seems to think that he lives with us. It's kind of a joint custody situation...every few days, he comes over to our house and hangs out until his owner comes and picks him up. Then he shows back up a few days later...the cycle continues. Here's a pic of Luke (AKA Jo Jo) meeting the pups for the first time....


That's the approximate size that they will get. Notice Cooper standing there, thinking about how he'll get a saddle on at least one of them in the near future.

Used and Loving It!

So, I've been in the world of Consignment for the last few years. When my oldest child was born, I refused to even think about the concept, other than to donate to Goodwill. I would have never, ever bought her anything there. No, I was one of those insane mothers that would trek her way to the mall every week to buy cute little 6 piece outfits for the little princess. Top, capris, hair bow, sweater, purse, shoes...all in the same pattern so that they could be mixed and matched. I thought it was slightly ridiculous to spend $80 on an outfit for a toddler, but I wasn't the one that set the prices. They were what they were. What could a mom do?

Momma of today wants to go back in time and slap some sense into momma of 1999. Seriously! What was I thinking?!

Once my second child was born...in the midst of my husband being laid off, injured, and moving into a freshly built house...I had no choice. I began with Ebay. I sold everything that wasn't actively being used or eaten. Going....Going...Gone was the cute little Gymboree outfits! SOLD! And in some cases, for more than what I paid for them. Nice.

Later, I discovered some local consignment stores. Michael Jon would drag me in those stinky, unorganized places looking for work jeans. He would point out the kids' sections and the women's section and I would stick my nose in the air and run away. It wasn't until I mistakingly went into a kid's consignment store in KY that I fell in love with it. It really should be referred to as a consignment "boutique". Clean. Smells good. Organized to the inth degree. Only clothes in very good condition. And since the store...ahem....boutique was in the same area as a mall with all those wonderful brand name stores, it was filled with all those wonderful brand name pieces. In my first trip there, I bought enough clothes for all 3 munchkins for the entire Spring/Summer. I spent a whopping $187. Sounds like a lot when I type it out, but when you break that down...it's a little more than $60 per kid for his/her entire wardrobe! Yeeeeehawww! I was a new believer!

Now I actually enjoy it. It's like a treasure hunt! You never know what you're going to find. I've even started doing some shopping for myself from time to time. Just today, I got 6 new shirts, a dress and 2 pairs for shorts for the summer for less than $30. Not too shabby. OK...we'll call it shabby chic.

That's right. I am Rachel and I wear consigned clothing. I just dread the day when Chloe figures out what "consigned" means. That'll be a whole new mother/daughter mine field that will have to be detonated. After all, I am now a tried and true consigner. I can't go back to paying full price. Just can't. Sorry Chloe.

Trying To Find the Words

It's not as easy to spill your guts online as I had once thought it would be. For that matter, it's not easy to just talk about the day to day business of life. One thing that some friends/blog critics like to point out is that I generally suck at getting my blog updated. So, once again, I find myself shamed into trying to make the time to do this. It's just been such a crazy past 6 months in our family that I find it liken to bathing....enjoyable when you can get around to it, but only necessary when it's truly necessary. TMI??

So, I suppose that I should just start at what's been eating away at most of my time and energy...turns out that we're one of "those families". You know the ones...we're the ones that have to come up with new and original excuses as to why our child isn't speaking more than a few words at almost 3 years old...the ones that get to be thoroughly embarrassed in front of friends/family/strangers/innocent bystanders/rude bungholes when our child starts tantruming in public when he isn't able to make it through a grocery trip without hitting the sensory overload threshold. Yep. We're parents of a dear wonderful, beautiful, smart, talented, intense boy on the Autism spectrum.

The diagnosis has not been officially made as of yet, but his psychologist is currently referring to his form of Autism as "Pervasive Developmental Delay, Not Otherwise Specified". In other words, "He has some major signs of Autism, but not all. Therefor we really don't know what it is, but we're going to call it Autism, and treat it the same." It's also jokingly referred to as Autism Light.

The last 6 months have been a roller coaster of ups and downs. He's made remarkable progress. He's using several words now in proper context, however they are what's commonly known as Echolalia. Several therapists strive to teach these kids how to respond properly to questions..."yes, no, please, thank you, etc", and it is helpful for them to know how to respond to questions. And it is amazing to have your otherwise voiceless child to be able to tell you something. But it definately knocks the wind right out of you when you have a doctor look at you and say, "You know he's just repeating...like a parrot...he's not really communicating." Sigh....that one comment, after months and months of 3-4 therapies a week knocked me into a funk that I wasn't sure I'd come out of. In fact, it hit me so hard, that I refused to even repeat it in full to anyone. This is the first time I've used the full quote....and it still stings. Like a parrot. Ouch.

Nonetheless, I can see the progress made with each week. The eye contact is much better. He's listening more. He looks at me now when I call his name (70% of the time, anyway). He called me "Mom Mom" and I really think he meant it. The tantrums have lessoned significantly. However, we still have to watch in over-stimulating circumstances...too much light, too much noise, too much chaos can drive him into a major freak out session, just as it would any over stimulated toddler. But for a kid with Autism, a grocery store trip under bright florescent lights, with lots of piped in music and noise from customers and speakers can be more than he can stand. A simple shopping trip is no longer simple. I can count on one hand the number of times he has come with me to the store. Looking back, even his first year, I was compensating for his symptoms then. Able to ignore the signs with a quick and easy excuse for whatever symptom was showing up at the time.

Still, there are days when one of the therapists will refer to something he's doing as "stimming" (a repeated motion that an Autistic person will do to self stimulate or self sooth) and I think to myself, "Is that stimming? Or is that just a 2 year old kid that likes spinning around?" There are days that I look at him and think, "He's fine. He's just slow to talk." But my gut knows that there's something else happening.

I thank my lucky stars that he's not showing the same nightmarish symptoms that I have read about...seizures, completely losing himself in his own mind, violent outbursts, complete loss of communication skills... We thankfully caught it early enough to slow down the progress significantly. But I can't help but wonder if there will come a morning that I will go to get him out of bed and find him there, but gone. Lost. It scares the living daylight out of me.

So, it is my hope that this can become a new way of me getting out some frustrations and stress when needed. I tried keeping a journal, but I hate my handwriting. It's horrid. So I think I'll give this another try. I also vow to talk about the happy things in our family as well. In fact, I'm about to leave this blog to go out and play with my 3 beautiful children. That way I can come back in and tell you all about the fun we had in the Springtime sun.

"Big Church" and kids

So Chloe is officially too old for Children's Church. Actually, she has been for a year, but since no one stopped her from going, she just kept the status quo. Well, the children's programming director sent word that any child over 2nd grade should stay upstairs. Totally understandable and totally ok by me.

Here's the predicament. She learns more in Children's Church than she does in "big church". We have a new minister who has lengthened our service a half hour. There is a lot of "high church" pomp now that is difficult for even the adults to sit through for an hour and a half. And his sermons, while beautiful and very educational, are very grown up. Not much for an 8 year old to be interested in. And everyone knows what happens when you get an 8 year old bored.... T-R-O-U-B-L-E!! She ends up squirming, whining, begging to go to the bathroom 3 times, wanting to lay down in the pew, wanting to sit with her friends....which ends in many, many confiscated Webkinz.

So, what to do?? It has been suggested that we allow books to be brought in to read. But I really would rather her pay attention to the service. At the same time, I'm not sure if she's capable of "getting it" yet. I remember playing tic tac toe as a child in church. So I suppose if the preacher's kid was allowed to goof off some during the service, it's not all bad.

I'll take any and all suggestions, friends and family.

Mommy Time

So, because of my parents' love and kindness, I had only one of the three children to care for all weekend. Chloe and Cooper spent their time with Grandmama and Poppa, being properly spoiled and exhausted.
Yesterday, I found myself with a quiet afternoon. Older kids were still out of town, Brody was down for his nap, and Michael Jon was planning on taking a nap himself. I decided instead of using that time productively, I would waste it by being a "lady of leisure". I went to the pool. By myself. With a book. A cheap, tawdry novel, to be exact.
I can't explain what a thrill it was to get into the vehicle without first having to strap it a car seat and two boosters. My heart was pounding! The windows were down...my hair was flapping in my face. (OK that's not true. My windows stay up! It's July in the South, people. Unless it's after midnight, the AC is required). My iPod was blasting all the music that I can't listen to with the kids in the car...that's right....I was listening to Prince! (Or is it still "The Artist Formerly Known as Prince"??? And is all that supposed to be capitalized?)
So I arrived at the pool and found that there was only one family there. Nice and quiet. Heaven! I settled in to a lounge chair and started arranging the iPod, the book, my towel, my beverage, my cell phone (in case the kids need me) and start relaxing. But my earbuds weren't right. So I adjust and readjust them for about 5 minutes. Then I start to read the book, and just as I'm getting to a good part, my phone rings. Kids are checking in. Everyone's good. Going fishing. Eating out. Went to Chucky Cheese. Yikes. 30 minutes later, I have lost almost an hour of my two hour reprieve.
About the time I hung the phone up, I hear the sound of laughter and joy. Ah, yes. Kids. One of my best friends and her family, three kids and husband in tow, to be exact. "Miss Rachel! Miss Rachel!! I got $174 for my birthday!" "Miss Rachel! Will you swim with me?" Miss Rachel! Can I have a drink?"
And so my afternoon of quiet bliss was done. But I have to admit, I had much more fun talking on the phone with my babies. I miss them when they're not around, little heathens that they are. And playing with our friends was much more enjoyable than the plans that I originally had.
All's well that ends well.

A Name Change...

So, after much nagging, complaining, and general unpleasantness from friends that have NO IDEA how difficult it is to keep a blog up (because they won't step up to the plate and do one themselves...hint hint hint), I have decided to not only add a post tonight (although a fast and boring one), but also to rename my lil' Blog to something more appropriate. Since daily blogs are really too much to ask of any one human being, much less a stay at home mom with a busy summer schedule, Semi-annual Rachel seems much more achievable.

Therefor, I present a new blog with new, much lower expectations. Ta Da!

In Awe

So, I've given birth three times now. Without delving into "TMI" land, I will say that I had all basic birth scenarios. First birth was a long, 18 hour, pitocin dripped nightmare that ended with a c-section. My second birth was a "marathon labor" that started 3 weeks before I actually went into hard labor, and it still took 12 hours of that before I was able to give birth with the help of an epidural. The third and final labor came close to being a "blurb" about a woman giving birth in the McDonalds drive thru. Once my water broke, I had little Brody 47 minutes later. No drugs!!! A real, natural birth. The doctor almost didn't make it in the room.
Now, I dealt with labor the way that most women on those reality birth shows do....lots of moaning, crying, rocking, walking, screaming. I remember certain points where I was hearing myself making noises that I didn't know was me. I was a vocal one for sure. But after finding this on Youtube, I feel quite inept. No warnings needed. There's no anatomy on the video. No worries.



I sing. I sing all the time. I sing to relieve my stress. I sing while I clean, while I cook, while I drive. I sing to my kids. I sing to my pets. I just sing. But I never, ever would have thought to sing during labor. And this lady's beautiful voice and the song choice just gets me all weepy. And now I almost ALMOST wish that I could experience birth once more just to try her theory. Singing through the contractions. It's a concept that I would love to try. But I'm not going to. My birthin' babies days are done.