Our Journey with Noah

Our son Noah is 10 years old and as most of you know, I've been convinced he has Asperger's Syndrome for about 5 years. It was difficult coming to that conclusion and I won't give you the details of how we came to that, but I still believe that he has that condition. I probably will never be convinced otherwise.

Lately we've been having problems with his behavior. He is fighting more, he gets angry more, and his tics are getting worse. He used to just sniff or clear his throat, lately he has started squishing up his face, rolling his eyes, and taking quick breaths kind of like an asthmatic problem.

We've had a lot of changes in our family lately and things are still changing, I don't know when things will settle down for us, and I know that has a lot of effects on the children and especially Noah. Stress can make all of these issues worse, but it's gotten to the point where my husband and I don't feel like we can handle it on our own.

We looked into getting him and official AS diagnosis so he could get behavioral training, occupational therapy, and some other options that are out there when you have a diagnosis. I met with a clinical psychologist for an hour and went over issues we have with Noah and things we've dealt with him about.

Afterward he told me he didn't think Noah had AS (he said 30-40% chance) but he suspected gifted-ness and possibly Tourrette's. We decided not to go back to him when he wanted to meet with Noah for 2 hours by himself. Maybe I'm over-protective but that really bothered me. I also had some disturbing dreams and I think God was warning me.

This week he met with Bro. Hays who is a Biblical Counselor at my Brother-in-Law Rick Carter's church. I was there during the meeting and he just got to know Noah and find out what kind of issues he was having. Bro. Hays said that we needed to set up some goals for him, and make sure he had something to look forward to. He also suggested the possibility of Noah having Tourrette's.

I was looking online and there are some more natural ways to help Noah deal with the tics. We're going to start him on a grown-up multi-vitamin that has 300-500% B-6 and B-12, compared to the children's multi we were giving him that had 100%. A lot of websites also suggested cutting out sugar, caffeine, and white bread. We will be discussing that more drastic change in the future.

Some other things we're looking into is getting him into taekwando since it is known for structure, discipline, and also has goals that they achieve rather quickly. He also recently finished a book in Light Brigade, which is a children's church program similar to AWANA or King's Kids.

I just wanted to share these issues we're having and maybe someone else is struggling with these things with their own kid. And also maybe spread some awareness or understanding if you come across a kid who deals with these issues.

Exciting December

We were able to go to my parents' house for two weeks in Iowa. I'm so thankful we were able to go! We had hoped to go in the Summer but it just never worked out, especially since we went to North Dakota for my Grandma's funeral in July.

Before we left I looked up the 10-day forecast to see if we should take our snow stuff or not and only one day had a "slight chance" of flurries, so we decided not to take it all. Well that was a big mistake! We got there on a Saturday and that Wednesday we were hit with a blizzard and my parents ended up getting several inches of snow. Not only that, the temperature never got above freezing the whole time we were there and it snowed two more times.

But thankfully my parents still had some snow things left over from when we were kids and since it was so cold, the kids didn't want to stay out too long anyway. Caleb went out the first day and pushed them on their sleds, and I went out the next day. We had a blast sledding, throwing snowballs, and we played snow tackle. We were exhausted by the time we went inside, though. And very grateful for the fireplace!

We weren't able to go to the zoo with my sister and her boys, but my mom did take the kids to the IMAX theater twice, and they went to the new aquarium, the jungle, desert, and the new pavilion. She has a lot of pictures of this, I just haven't gotten any copies yet! (hint, hint)

Other highlights of our trip were spending a day at my sister's house, seeing my younger brother and sister, surprising the kids with gifts on Christmas morning that they were NOT expecting, getting my hair trimmed and colored, and spending time with my parents. We had a good visit and I'm very thankful we were able to go! But it would be nice to go again this year.

A most exciting event!

After taking a loooooong, unscheduled, unwanted break from my 30 List I'm back! And this one is an exciting one. My friend Belinda Mooney has helped set me up to send articles to magazine publishers and with her tips and help I sold an article to two different ones! Here's a link to one of the magazines. If it goes to the first page, my article is on page 37.

My article is even in the Table of Contents, which I think is ultra cool. It's not just a side bit, it's an actual article! I'm pretty excited to get into this field of writing.

So there you have it, another one of my "30 Things To Do While I'm 30" is accomplished!