the good news keeps on rollin' in!!!!!

Yesterday evening Richard called me at work and told me that Dean had been accepted into the TEACCH (Treatment and Education of Autistic and related Communication-handicapped CHildren )program in Greenville. Praise the Lord!!! Plus, the lady that is the head of the program picked Dean to work with for herself. Praise the Lord again!!!!! For some of you that do not know what TEACCH is, I got a little overview from the website:

TEACCH is an evidence-based service, training, and research program for individuals of all ages and skill levels with autism spectrum disorders. Established in the early 1970s by Eric Schopler and colleagues, the TEACCH program has worked with thousands of individuals with autism spectrum disorders and their families. TEACCH provides clinical services such as diagnostic evaluations, parent training and parent support groups, social play and recreation groups, individual counseling for higher-functioning clients, and supported employment. In addition, TEACCH conducts training nationally and internationally and provides consultation for teachers, residential care providers, and other professionals from a variety of disciplines. Research activities include psychological, educational, and biomedical studies.
The administrative headquarters of the TEACCH program are in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and there are nine regional TEACCH Centers around the state of North Carolina. Most clinical services from the TEACCH centers are free to citizens of North Carolina.

So now all that is left to do is to pick out our dates and head on up there!!!!!!

How awsome is the Lord !?!

Richard recieved a phone call last night, I didn't really know what was going on but all of a sudden I heard him say Praise the Lord. Well come to find out, the person on the phone was calling about Dean's extened school year. It is starting today yep TODAY!!! He goes to Smyrna @ 10:00 it is gonna only last about 1 hour today just to get things going. His teacher is going to be very flexable b/c she is also working this summer some place else, so:
1) NO WORRIES ABOUT TRANSPORTATION!!!!! (Richard is going to be able to schedule it on his days off)
2) the teacher is none other than Ms. JOSIE---yep that's right Dean's resource teacher from K last year...which is so wonderful in it self because she is such a great kind hearted soft spoken person and loves Dean to death and also he knows her and is close with her and won't have to spend 2-3 weeks getting used to someone new.....

How blessed are we? We just keep on recieving more and more blessings everyday..

Speaking of that I have been reading up a lot on the LDS faith and beliefs and am finding myself more and more fastinated by it. I feel like we are being guided in that direction and am finding answers (see previous post) that I could not find anywhere else.

toilets,texas,and a "hair do"

this past weekend was crazy our toilet in our bathroom has been acting kinda funny lately, wouldn't flush right or take a while to go down things like that....well Richard decided to run over to his mom's house with Dean to down load some pictures from our camera and Lily and I were at the house. I went in the bathroom to put up some towels and saw that it looked like it was backed up so i got the plunger and flushed it, (bad mistake) the water was gushing out everywhere all over the floor in the bathroom down the vent, so sissy and I ran next door and told Richard what was going on. My uncle came over and they took the toilet up and took it outside and sprayed water down it with the water hose...well low and behold while they were doing that out pops a tooth brush to which Lily gets excited and says "There's my toot brush" so I'm guessing I know who flushed it...of course she got mad when we wouldn't let her have it back, so we went in the house and found her another one, which made her happy so thankfully we got that cleaned up and back to normal (no expensive on call plumber for the weekend).

Sunday, my mom came over and we went to texas steakhouse, where for having to sit there Dean was really really good, he just played and played with his excavator, Lilybug on the other hand was not so nice..hahaha there was a lady sitting behind us with hair that was situated just so, fresh from the hair dressers, so of course Lily decided she was going to stand in the booth and see if she could mess it up...that was a time...I finally had to take her out to the car..but, they are only little once.

Dean's new cute saying was he was asking his mema if she was hungry, when she said she wasn't Dean told her that she was full and she couldn't eat again until she was empty. After that, he kept asking her if she was empty yet, and then let us know that he was empty and fries chicken nuggets and a pepsi would make him full and so much better...I love it when he does cute stuff like that...

summer begins

Dean and Lily are having so much fun this summer...they spent all this past week at home with Daddy. (I had to work, not fun for mommy haha) We have contacted the school about the extended school year when it was supposed to start, I want to say that I remember something about the 25th but with everything going on I can't remember one thing from the next lately.
We have started working with Dean on knowing his phone number, he is so cute with it and sometimes he trys and then again sometimes he just laughs and counts numbers. Hopefully we will conquer that and move on to the address.

Richard called me yesterday with the funniest thing that Dean said. They were driving home and I guess with the curves and all Dean kept losing his truck (it would fall in the floor) so he looked up and said "Daddy if I have to find my truck by myself one more time you are going in time out." Richard just about died laughing called me and I got just as tickled. out of the mouths of babes.... so anyway he's doing really good Ms. Vicky ( his K teacher) sent home the word lists and things like that so we can work on them this summer Dean is a very routine child and I hope we can keep things going until he goes back to school.

Lily is still doing great and you would have never guessed that a little more than a week ago she was so critical. God is amazing...

back to normal?

Lily's check up went really great...no post complications to worry about anymore, and no water in her lungs. Dean is back up to full speed, he even asked to go swimming this weekend. When I was running bath water for Dean on Saturday night Lily decided she wanted to get in to!!! So I held her hand (with my heart in my throat) and she stepped in and played a little before I bathed her. Of course, I never took my eyes off of her for a second, I really dont even think I blinked..she was ready to get out..but, when it was Deans turn she wanted to get right back in so we let her...I was so proud of my little girl and my little boy, I sure was not ready for them to get back to normal that fast, but, I made myself let them.

when life flashes before your eyes

ok, most everyone knows about what happened to Lily this past week. There are several stories going around so I'm going to clear that up first....
NO SHE WAS NOT IN THE POOL!!!

So, on Monday I came home from work was straightening up a little and getting ready to cook supper, Dean was outside playing, Lily was in the house. Richard had gone to the doctor that day for his eyes, and wanted me to help put some eye drops in. Dean came back in side and when he went out again, Lily managed to sneak out side. When I looked up she was on the porch, so I put my head down to put the drops in Richards eyes. He may have blinked maybe 8-10 times when Dean came running in the house and said "Sissy hurt, Sissy in water, I pulled her out."

ok so panic set in. We jumped up and I screamed Lily's on the ground she's not moving. I don't know how we managed to get out of the door and it seems like our feet never hit the ground and we coasted over about 15-20 feet out side.. There was my little girl laying there BECIDE the pool. From what we can tell, it looked like she slipped and fell into the feet bucket which had about 4 inches of water in it, she must have lost her breath or got knocked out or something. She was on her back and there was foam and blood coming from her mouth and nose.. no breathing or even attepting to breath.. at that moment i felt my heart stop and vomit rising in my throat. I have to mention that Richard's instincts took over he flipped her over and stimulated her back which thankfully caused her to throw up. He did this several times...by this time 911 had been called and my in laws were running over, my brother in law told us that our call was the 3rd one for otway and they only have 2 ambulances... (more panic) Richard to Pat to get on the phone and tell them we needed a medic now..something about ASR and drowning...by that time my head was spinning in several directions and all i could get out was "Please dont take my baby!!!" Thanks to my sister in law (who is 8 months pregnant) her and her daughter Bri stayed with me holding me up and helping me to remember to breathe...The ambulance got there just as a paramedic was getting there, which they didnt even make it in the drive way...Richard was running into the ambulance with her, and instructed his mom to call mine and get me to the hospital..My mom got me to the hospital I think in like 10 minutes...I called for a police escort to the hospital and to this day still havent seen him yet.... Abouth this time, my aunt Sherry called me and told me she saw Lily and she was screaming...They let me go straight back and there was my little girl laying there on O2 so weak and all the blood vessels in her eyelids and around them had busted...So I crawled in the bed and held her...the doctor came in and told us they were sending her to pitt..they had requested an ambulance but, pitt sent a chopper (which i was glad for since it was faster)
we go back home and get clothes, the medic from the ambulance calls us and tells us she did great, her O2 stats were back up to 99 and 100 with out oxygen. We arrived at Pitt County Memorial Hospital about 2 1/2 hours later (seemed like so much longer) they had already asessed her, so they bring a bed in instead of a crib for us to lay on around 1:30am her iv keeps occluding and Richard was mentioning that he was getting really hot and thought he had bit his lip..they took Lily into the treatment room to fix her IV and Richard looks up and says Would one of you go get my wife I need to go to the ER....they look at him and he was so swollen he looked liked Will Smith when he played HITCH and was in the drug store with an allergic reaction...So needless to say bless his heart he spent all night in the ER...the next morning the doctors came in and said we could go home all of the fluid was gone and she had been with out oxygen all night long.

So, we came home, and called Dean's autism doctor to see if anything needed to be done for him since, he was the one who came and got us and saw the whole thing..she said it sounded like he was doing fine and asked us if we wanted to put Lily in the hyperbaric chamber because sometimes after a drowning incident days later blood work would be off and the chamber would prevent that...so wednesday and thursday we were in wilmington doing that she did really good with it..i am extremly closterphobic so richard got in with her and the 2nd time she even went to sleep...so that is where we are now...she is doing really good, so is Dean, she goes back to the doctor for a check up today... so that is where we are at now....she is not quite back up to par, but we are so amazingly greatful to have a 2nd chance with her...we came so close to losing her i never ever wanna have that feeling again and would never wish it on my worst enemy...


a very postive thing came out of it all :
I was having some doubts about faith and things like that since my father passed away, and all I can say is that she is alive by the grace of God and all of those doubts are compleatly gone. I know I saw his work that day and am so truly grateful that He had a hand in helping Richard stay so compleatly calm and do what needed to be done to save his daughter, He also had a hand in letting Dean communicate with us and that Dean knew to come and get us, because after that happened he reverted back and was unable to communicate for a while..

post kindergarten

Oh my gosh, I was so exicted at graduation. Dean did such a wonderful job. He knew his line and also knew which song to perform in. He did everything perfect. He sang all the songs and did all the dance moves. ****plus**** he didnt get fidgety during the performance (which lasted a little over 2 hours) But, on the other hand my little girl Lily was all over the place, she definatly has hit the two's. What could I say though? She is 2 and was in a gym for 2 hours, so actually she did pretty good. The next morning, we went to the award ceremony where Dean recieved two awards, PE and Math we were so proud of him, Sissy was to because every chance she got she was running up to the kids ( i was kinda embarassed but kids are kids)

We have been working on recognition with Dean. He is reading books but, I think more from memory than recognition. The other day he went up to the TV and said "is" and began reading some of the words on the tv (updates from dish network) I got so excited and started jumping up and down, Richard was pretty excited to. We all made a really big deal out of it.. I've learned the more you make of good things, the less he stresses out over the bad..

on to another note army wives came back on last night, and oh my gosh, i so did not see that coming...

graduation

Today Dean graduates from Kindergarten, wow I can't believe I'm saying that, it seems like only yestereday I was in the hospital with him thinking how I was responsible for keeping this little guy alive and healthy. (It was the greatest and scarriest feeling in the world all at the same time.) Tomorrow is the class picnic and I've taken tomorrow and Friday off so I could go. Actually, I haven't been to a school field trip with him yet. (work just always seems to get in the way haha) So hopefully I will have some pictures up of him and his friends later on this week.

new to this

School is almost over. Dean has made such great accomplishments this past year, He went from echolalia(echo for short) which is where he could not communicate with us, he could only repeat what he has heard, to making friends and learning and communicating. It was such an awsome experience to watch him grow that much. Dean has a friend named Grant, and Grant and his dad stopped by the house last Sunday to see Dean, it was amazing to watch him actually interact with a child. I know Grant's mama Emily has told us about how much she has seen him grow at school. It is so wonderful to see how other parents notice the changes in Dean.

At our last school meeting, we received the "awsome" news that Dean would be recieving a 1 on 1 teachers assistant, an autism specialist to work with him 2 hours a day for 2 days a week, extended school year, and is GRADUATING kindergarten this year!!!!!!! six months ago that would have never been told to us I don't think....

So, my new motto in life is....."Never give up fighting for your kids, eventually they will listen, you just might have to talk a little louder" --Paula Weippert