Recovering Noah

I was digging through the kitchen drawers earlier and came across a stack of photos from when Noah first came home. He was, without a doubt, the cutest little thing I'd ever seen. He had these chubby little cheeks and a smile that could light up a room. But the thing that struck me the most was looking at pictures of us holding him and how he made the best eye contact. One of the things that we're doing for Nandi - in an effort to build attachment - is bottle feeding. I hold her in my arms three times a day while giving her a bottle. She won't even look at me. I hold Eli in my arms and sing songs to him. He won't even look at me. And then I find these photos of Noah - my sweet, little Noah - and he's making the best eye contact. And I can close my eyes and I remember rocking him hour upon hour and feeding him and he would stare into my eyes the entire time.. .with so much love. And then it was stolen from me. Autism took it away from me. My only child who truly bon...

Where oh where Oh where oh where Oh where oh where do I start? There have been so many things on and so many different emotions going on that I am definitely going to have to break down this post into several smaller ones. Otherwise, you might all get overwhelmed... kind of like I've been these last few days. And, let's face it, I'm not exactly known for my brevity, am I? And since I want you all to come back, I'll try to post several little "here's what's going on" posts over the next few days. The first one will just be to tell you what our typical day has been like and why I've not been posting as much lately. Basically, it's impossible to get anything done unless a) the kids are asleep or b) Sim is home That's it, really. Here's a scenario from a typical day... Wake up around 5:30 and quickly check email. Look at Pilates DVD and wish that I could blink my eyes like a genie and have a super hot body. Put DVD down and vow to start tom...

Reaching in the freezer to grab a bag of peas for supper and rediscovering the Dairy Queen Blizzard that you hid in the back a few days ago....

Isn't she gorgeous??!!!! This was taken this afternoon at the Cedar Creek Arts & Crafts Festival. We held a fundraiser there to help raise money to go to India to work with Sarah's kids in January. Tuesday, one of the teens going, did face painting. She did a great job! I'll be posting all the pictures and the total raised later tonight on the India blog . (Oh, I know - I promised that there'd be no more blog plugging. I'm shameless, aren't I?) Anyway, Nandi decided that she wanted her entire face painted like a cheetah. Quite fitting actually... not that I would know firsthand that her teeth and claws are razor sharp. Oh no. Nooooope. Would know nothin' about that. (ahem). But, you know, despite everything that's going on right now, you cannot deny that she is absolutely stunning. Beautiful, really. She's just breathtaking, isn't she? I know I haven't blogged much lately about what's been going on, but will try to do an update this w...

So, I promise that I will eventually get back to blogging about our daily life... the good times, the bad times.... oh, did I mention the bad times??? Could be that that's one of the reasons I've been MIA lately. Things are still pretty rough around here and I don't want to be a downer. I am so glad, though, that I'm being kept busy with fundraising our trip to India in January. A friend asked me if I was still planning on going - in light of the things we've been dealing with regarding Nandi - and I said, "Uh, yeah!" Truly, I am so grateful that I have that trip to look forward to - it's keeping me going. Otherwise, I could very well dissolve into a big 'ol puddle on the floor. And that wouldn't be very pretty now - would it? Anyway, not that I'm trying to pimp our mission trip blog or anything... and, yes, that may very well be the first and only time that you'll read the words pimping and mission trip in the same sentence... but w...

No, I'm not running away. Although I have thought about it.... The one thing that has kept me going is knowing that I'll be in India in January. I'm going to see Sarah ! Whoo hoo . Insert major happy dance! In fact, a whole group of us are going. Most of us go to the same church, but the trip is open to anyone who has a heart for God and a desire to help children with special needs. Anyway, we've started a blog to chronicle our fundraising efforts. We have A LOT of fundraising to do. Not only are we trying to raise money for tickets, but we're hoping to raise enough money to build a playground for Sarah's kids. If I recall, the nearest playground is an hour and a half away AND they have to rent a bus to take the kids. Can you imagine not being able to just walk outside and hop on a swing? EVERY child deserves the chance and the freedom to play. And we hope to help make that happen! All of our fundraisers will be listed on our fundraising blog. You can find it H...

First things first.... I would like to sincerely apologize if any of you woke up at 7:15 yesterday morning to the sound of tires peeling out of a driveway and a crazy woman shouting "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOMMMM!" at the top of her voice in her best Braveheart imitation. That was me. I had the day off. Whoo hoo!!! It was a day full of self-indulgence... which basically means three things: 1. Friends 2. Food 3. Fun It would have been even more self-indulgent but an early morning stop to the ATM quickly fanned the flames. We be broke. But, hey, not going to let a little monetary challengings dampen my day off. No way, Jose. Anyway, I picked up Tristan and we drove to Mesquite to get Christine - who was also mucho excited to get away from her crazy life - and we hit the town. First stop: Arlington Homeschool Bookfair. This is my third Book Fair. I have so learned my lesson. Every year I buy some hellaciously expensive curriculum only to find out that the child I bought it for has som...

My friend Julie - God bless her! - sent me a link today that named me "Mother of the Year." You can view the video HERE . Have ya'll seen this? It's awesome. You can enter in anyone's name, and even though I know it's computer generated, good grief did it make my day. So definitely send one to any stressed out mom you know. I guarantee she'll love you for it. (Love ya, Julie!) As for how we're doing... well, things aren't any better. I mean, of course they're not. This stuff can take years, but I was so hoping we'd be that one exception, you know? No such luck. I had to call the school today because we are seeing alarming behaviors that I had to warn them about. It's like she is going through the entire book of RAD symptoms. I honestly don't know where this is coming from or what triggered all of this, but I feel like we've just been hit by an avalanche. We had no warning (well. looking back we had all the signs, but were compl...

Just wanted to let you all know that we are still here. Contrary to what some may believe, we have not fallen off the face of the earth. We are just going through a really rough time at the moment. I've been debating about whether or not to post anything.. but then blogging is my way of dealing with things... so, I figure I may as well just write about it and get it off my chest. Turns out one of our little munchkins has RAD. Oh heck, you all know who I'm talking about. I'm not quite sure the difference between attachment disorder and RAD, so she could possibly just have attachment disorder. I'm still learning about it all, so I don't really know what exactly is going on. What I do know is that if you google it, you might think, "No way... there goes Leslie again... slappin ' on a label..." Trust me... trust me.. we have resisted this for a long time. We really wanted to attribute everything to her brain injury... but we just can't ignore it anymo...