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Here’s the latest Feist video that we’ve been dancing to.  (We’ve been HUGE Feist fans for a long time-way before the Apple commercial)  The boys love her videos. This one is especially great because Gav will be 4 next week, so it’s been a favorite number lately!

Our life in pictures

I’ve been wanting to do this since the first day of school on the 2nd, but things are just a tad bit hectic around here.  Instead of doing several posts, I thought I’d combine pictures of what we’ve been up to these last several weeks.

 

 It’s always important to eat a healthy breakfast before school!  Check out how excited he is for the first day!  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Waiting patiently to leave (notice my sweet pj pants-it’s so nice that Josh can take him to school this year!)

 

 

 

  

 

My two guys

 

 

 

 

 

 

Liam loves cameras!

 

 

 

 

 

 We hit Wells Fargo Day at the zoo a few weekends back.  Check out the trepidation on the boys’ faces (and Gavin’s giant bruise) before we rode the train.  Almost didn’t do it, but they’ve been talking about it ever since-especially the dark tunnel.

 

 And last, this is what else we’ve been up to……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Briefing Update

I just received word that there will be 126 Congressional offices represented at the Vaccine-Autism Briefing on Capitol Hill today: 96 from the House, 30 from the Senate (76 democrats and 50 republicans) and only one person from the FDA.  Hmmmmm….. (I kinda think there should be more of them there).   I’m praying today that ears are open and they clearly see and understand David Kirby’s message (especially the lone FDAer).

Wednesday, September 24th

Tomorrow is a BIG day on Capitol Hill.  At 2pm tomorrow in Washington, there will be a briefing for members of Congress and their staff to update them on the recent developments on the vaccine-autism debate.   Here’s the email I received this week detailing the event:

David Kirby, investigative journalist and author of The New York Times bestseller Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic – A Medical Controversy, will inform Members and their staff about developments in this debate from science, public policy, politics and law. Mr. Kirby will be joined Mark Blaxill, Director of the Coalition for SAFE MINDS.

Among the issues to be discussed are:

• A recent Vaccine Court case in which the federal government conceded that vaccines induced autism in one girl with an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction.
• Possible links between mitochondrial dysfunction and autistic regression, and information on several ASD children with mitochondrial issues;
• State-of-the-art research underway at top universities on the connection between environmental toxins, mitochondrial function, oxidative stress, glutathione depletion, neuro-inflammation and autistic encephalopathy;
• Research agendas from the CDC and NIH that include investigations into links between vaccines and neuro-immune disorders
• The scope and implications of the autism epidemic. How scientific politics is preventing policy from catching up to the problem.
• Ongoing research into connections between mercury exposure and autism. Why most of what is reported is inaccurate.
• Reframing concerns over the vaccine program: It’s not a question of being pro or con vaccines, but rather a question of safety management.

As the last line states, it’s not about being pro or con vaccines, but about safety management.   This is a SERIOUS issue that has been kept quiet far too long.  If you do not have a direct link to an autistic child,  these are the kinds of issues that are easy to overlook.  For those of us in the autism community, it’s crucial that our congressmen hear our voice. 

In other autism related news this week, Jenny McCarthy’s new book Mother Warriors was released today and she’ll be promoting it on Oprah tomorrow.  (Borders is selling her book this week at 40% off!)  Don’t miss it!

Prayers

Just wanted to share this sweet little story with you! 

As part of getting Gavin to do more things (see previous post), we’ve been having him pray before dinner.  A few nights ago, Grandpa prayed and as soon as he was done, Gavin began a prayer without any prompting.  “Jesus, thank you for mommy, and daddy, and for the new house, and for my new bedroom and for mommy and daddy’s room.  Amen.” 

Ususally Gavin needs lots of prompting to pray and his prayers usually end up just being a list of people (we assume the ones he’s thankful for!) This time, he needed no prompting and his prayer sounded like a real prayer (not that his others weren’t).  We all looked up from the table and each of us had tears in our eyes.  It was so amazing to hear those sweet little words to Jesus.

Independence

Lately, I have really been trying to have Gavin do more things for himself.  It’s so much easier and faster to do everything for him, but he’s almost 4 and there are a lot of things he should probably be doing for himself that he’s not (my fault).  Yes, he’s not a typical child so all those developmental lists are thrown out the window, but I also don’t want to be holding him back. 

This week, we’ve been passing colds around at Grandpa and Grandma’s house.  Gav hates when his nose is runny and at the first sign of a drip, he is begging for someone to wipe his nose.   One day this week, we were all sitting around the living room and Gav kept running into the bathroom.  He’d be gone for a bit then come running back and plop down to continue playing.  After doing this several times, Grandma went to see what he was up to.  He had been wiping his nose with a tissue from the bathroom and then would stick it back in the box.  There were about 10 wadded up in the box-no wonder we’re all sick!  Seriously though!  This is another big step for him.  He never said a word about having someone wipe his nose, instead, he just did it himself.   We still have a little work to do on where the kleenex goes after he uses it, but it was too cute to see all those kleenexes wadded up.   We’re making progress!

Here’s a great article on the TACA website that discusses steps to ensure that parents don’t baby their special needs child.  I’m guilty of a few of those things.  Guess I’ve got some things to work on!

It’s Hurricane Season

First I want to apologize for my ridiculously long absence.  I always get frustrated with other bloggers who don’t post regularly and my sister keeps reminding me how long it’s been.  This one’s for you, Kate!

We started out this summer with blue skies and smooth sailing, so to speak.  All we had on the agenda was a roadtrip to the lakehouse in Minnesota and lounging by the kiddie pool on a daily basis.  It was all fine and dandy until we went through an open house “just for fun”, fell in love with it, sold our house in two days and packed all our belongings and moved 5 weeks later.   The house we fell in love with will be our dream home, someday.  Right now we currently have no kitchen (Josh tore it down to the studs), the living room ceiling was drywalled last night, half of the floors are subfloors waiting to be covered, the family room awaits a new drywall job, and on and on.  There is so much work, but it will be beautiful someday!  We joke that we’re going to start another blog titled, “Recovering Our House”.  I’ll let you know!  So, you can see why blogging hasn’t been high on the priority list.

Because of the state our “new” house is in, we have temporarily moved in with my parents.  They have been absolutely wonderful to let us stay.  We are living in a corner of their house and Liam is sleeping in their office, so when he’s not sleeping, I’ll try to post more regularly.   The boys adore Grandma and Grandpa and I’m afraid Gavin might not want to leave.  The transition for him has been surprisingly easy.  I wasn’t sure how he’d take moving, but we visit the new house often and he talks non-stop about sharing a room with Liam.  (We’re hoping this will help the middle of the night wakings.  We think he gets up so much because he doesn’t like to be alone).  So Liam is now our guinea pig and we’ll soon test our theory out!

 Gav started school last week, so as soon as I unearth my camera from the mound of clothes, I’ll post some first day of school pics.