Road Trip with My Wallflowers

We have nine children, and four of them seem to get the spotlight the most, especially on my Facebook page.  Amelia is naturally outgoing, she always jumps in to help, she loves having conversations, and we run together.  Leif is our awesome little man who has no idea that his siblings are defined as "different" or "special"...he just loves them and loves life...and has so many innocent yet wise moments.  Kimberly is the baby of the family and naturally gets a lot of attention.  Dante takes a lot of time because he has the double diagnosis of Down Syndrome and Autism, so he would come in 4th for attention received.

And then there are Micah and Sunny.  They just go with the flow, fly under the radar,, and I think they actually try to stay in the background.  Sunny wants to be included, but she also insists on being coerced into participating.  She will ignore all verbal attempts to include her, and if we give up and start without her she will start to cry.  She wants to be taken by the hand and led to the activity and needs to be helped every step of the way.  She is so hard to figure out! She's nonverbal, although she will very occasionally spout something, and I hear her talking to herself in her room. If we insist she will repeat us word for word, to make a request for something.  And Micah, honestly he's just plain lazy and completely content to be so.  He would watch TV all day if we let him, although now and then he will randomly sweep the floor or put away the dishes. The only thing that really gets them going on their own volition is Sunday School and dance class.  Honestly, Micah and Sunny don't get less attention because I love them any less, they just seem to prefer less attention.

Recently my Sailor asked me to help him move some of his stuff from Georgia to Massachusetts, and since I love road trips I did not hesitate to say yes.  I also decided that Micah and Sunny would be the ones to go with me.  They needed a chance to shine.  So this past week, during Spring Break, we packed up and headed south.

 Micah and Sunny each ordered their own meals as we ate our way south.  I did have to repeat Sunny's choices because she spoke so quietly, but she did speak!  Micah also got mad at me halfway through the week because I stopped letting him get fried tenders and french fries with soda for every meal.  He even refused lunch (grilled chicken tenders and green beans) during our ride home on Friday.  

 They were thrilled to see Zachary, even so, Sunny placed herself in the background of the group photo.  She really enjoyed watching the birds on the water.

 Micah does not enjoy being cold and wet, which is what he considers swimming pools and beaches to be.  We did get him to put his feet in the pool.

 Sunny absolutely loved the pool!  She got right in and spent an hour playing.  I went in with her for a few minutes and helped her do some actual swimming, but she preferred to bob up and down on her own, smiling the whole time.  This was a win!

 We played tourist for a bit and went on a boat tour of Cumberland Island, off the coast of St. Mary's, Georgia and Amelia Island, Florida.  Sunny enjoyed seeing some dolphins, but all she said was "Oooooh" multiple times.  

 Another win for Sunny, she loved Fernandina Beach!  Micah sat down and would NOT budge.  It took at least 15 minutes to convince him to get his feet wet, by having him pretend to be a penguin and walk to the water.  (Kimberly and Leif would have been up to their necks in the water in the blink of an eye, Micah and Sunny were a welcome relief to not be recklessly running into the water.)

Micah and Sunny did have a good time on this trip, but there were no "it's my turn to shine" moments like I hoped.  I guess my kids all have their different personalities, and these two are content to hang back and do more viewing than participating in life.

I'll admit I missed having my active ones along.  When going up a mountain in Virginia on 77 the van was slowing a bit-- yelling "everyone start pedaling" would have been a lot more fun with Amelia, Leif, and Kimberly along.  Micah and Sunny couldn't even muster up a "mom's crazy" look.  I never thought I'd miss Leif peppering me with questions from the backseat where I can barely hear him. (He's currently peeved that not all the letters of the alphabet follow the rules for reading, and wants "C" and "X" to be tossed.)

All in all, it was a good trip and I'm happy Sunny and Micah went with me.

Next Fall Leif and Kimberly with both be in school (sigh, a whole other blog post for that), and I will be focusing on academics, life skills, and social skills with just Amelia, Micah, and Sunny.  I'll have a whole school year, instead of just five days, to pull Micah and Sunny away from the wall they prefer, and get them participating in life.

Feeling Blue

Days have been passing so quickly, and it has been three months since I took the time to post here.

Summer has come and gone, and we are well into our home school year.  Amelia has taken off with her reading skills, and I have switched to using Alpha-Phonics with her.  She has a solid basis of hundreds of sight words, and is taking well to phonics now.  Micah is also using Alpha-Phonics (the exact same book I used with Alexander and Zachary, only slightly falling apart), but he is going slower than Amelia.  It will be some time before ShanLin is able to read, and she may never get past a first grade level.

Dante is still doing amazingly well in his special school.  Unfortunately over the Summer he began displaying some more assertive tendencies (I refuse to use the word aggressive just yet), and we are working to see what is going on.  It seems to be a combination of unmet sensory needs and the excessive energy of puberty coming on.

Leif is still his amazing little self.  The other day he took something from Kimberly that she should not have, and when I thanked him he simply said, "Just doing what I have to do".

And Kimberly.  She might be the baby of the family but she makes sure she is busy and doing what everyone else does!

 The other day she helped herself to some paint.

When she could not reach the paper, she simply painted herself.

And then she cleaned it all off.

She does sit still for a few minutes here and there, with one of our pets.

Back in August while we were on vacation, I noticed her night time sleep was fitful and interrupted by gasping for breath.  After nearly three months of appointments and waiting, she had a sleep study done last night at Boston Children's Hospital.

She studied for the Study.

And Daddy reports that she was an excellent patient.  

In a week or so we will have some results and see her ENT.  In the meantime, we will be keeping just as busy and active as we always are....

God is good.

Special Olympics Summer Games 2015

June 6-7 the triplets competed in the SO Summer Games in Gymnastics.  They have spent most Saturdays this past school year out at Gymnastics Learning Center working with their team and coaches on the skills needed for competition.  They also learn skills needed for life...following directions, keeping fit, social skills with their peers, and sticking to a schedule.

Every year they love their weekend of competition!

The girls competed on Saturday.  They are at different levels, and both had a great time.  This past year was the first time that Sunny really took an interest in practices and put in a lot of effort.  The last few years she has at times been unconcerned about following directions, but something really clicked for her this year.

The last 2 years Micah has spent a night in the dorm with the team, last year Amelia did also, but this was the first year that all three stayed with the team Saturday night!  They were so excited!

Sunday morning before competition the athletes spent some down time playing duck duck goose.  Newly 13 years old, Micah seemed to choose the female coach quite frequently.  Ah, another teen boy in the house...

Micah works in spurts during practice throughout the year, but he really comes through at competition.

Another amazing weekend!

A breakdown of their scores, for my own records:

Amelia, Level 2 ages 13-14, 5 athletes:

Vault, 4th

Uneven bars, Silver

Beam, 4th (tie):

Floor, Silver (tie)

All Around, 4th.

ShanLin, Level 1 ages 12-15, 3 athletes:

Vault, Silver

Uneven bars, Bronze

Beam, Silver

Floor, Silver

All Around, Silver

Micah, Level 1 ages 12-14, 4 athletes

Floor, Gold (tie)

Pommel, Gold

Rings, Gold

Vault, Silver

Parallel Bars, Gold

High-Bar, Gold

All Around, Gold

Now we have the Summer off, but I am sure they will be excited to start practicing with the team again in the Fall.

When Special is Typical

Anyone living in the world of disability cannot help but have heard about the "typical" siblings of a disabled child.  They miss out on things because of Mom or Dad hauling the Special Kid off to yet another therapy or appointment.  They are always more compassionate than other kids, because their sibling with special needs taught them to have more patience and understanding.    

Are we supposed to be more grateful for these typical siblings, and wish we had been able to give them more attention?  I think we did a pretty good job of making sure the  "Original Three" still led typical lives, despite being saddled with special needs siblings.  Besides, they even got trips to Hong Kong and Taiwan because of the adoptions.  They're pretty compassionate, but show me any family with nine kids and you'll see a lot of love from the older ones being showered down upon the littles.

Five of our nine children have Down Syndrome.  In the realm of disabilities, I think this is pretty minor.  There has never been a lot of pitying the poor siblings going on here.  Besides, the Original Three are all grown up and moving on...although I do admit the reality that some day they may choose to care for their adult siblings.

Leif is still here though, a 4 year old completely typical boy being raised with his 5 special brothers and sisters.

Leif does not know what Down Syndrome is, or what it means for his siblings.  He does know Dante has Autism, and that it makes him different and sometimes irritating.  That's life, though.

So I guess now it falls to the oldest three-- Amelia, ShanLin, and Micah to help take care of their little brothers and sister.

Leif asked his big sister to pour him some juice.  Dante indicated to Amelia that he wanted to go out into the water, and he trusted her to take him.  Micah knew that Kimberly needed some guidance so he took her by the hand on the sidewalk.

Does this technically make them "typical" siblings?

Even Kimberly wanted to give our special Dante a toy and a pat on the head when he fell asleep on the floor.

My kids look after each other in ways that amaze me every day.

These kids are role models for each other. It made perfect sense for Leif to have Amelia do the driving when he and Dante wanted to hang out in Poppy's truck.  And when Leif asked his big brother and sister to play with him,  Micah and ShanLin were more than willing to put on some costumes and play along.  They think it's pretty cool that he's nicknamed them Iceman and Firestar.  (Amelia is Batman.)

In our house, all the kids are learning compassion, and they each get their own time too.  Amelia, ShanLin, and Micah take part in Special Olympics Gymnastics and an amazing dance class, Leif and Kimberly are each in a gymnastics class, and Dante gets to go to school every day and have boatloads of attention from his wonderful teacher and aides.

In our house everyone is typical and special, even if none of the kids living here know-- or would care-- what those words mean.