First Word!

Marianne signed her first word!!!!!  What was it????  It was......Love.  I looked at Scott and just cried.  She even repeated it!  It is amazing!

Down...

Okay.  I'm not Wonder Woman.  I know that.  I've known it for a long time.  I work hard at all that I do because I want my Heavenly Father to be happy with me.  I guess that it makes me look like I can do anything.  No, it just means that things will get done...maybe not in the best way, or the right way, but it gets done.  Earthly life...bills, grocery shopping, work, work, stop the fighting, bills, schedule to make sure that everyone gets to where they need to do, love the kids, love Scott, love the family, Church callings, email parents, share behavior tips, teach, Church, study, FB, read to kids, journal, writing, keep data, learn some ASL, stop the fighting, deal with more tired cries, try to hug everyone and let them know they are loved, blog, short order cook, make sure that Kellis has this needs met, Garrett has wood/paper/crayons to create, jump with Isaac, hug Virginia, nurse Marianne,  sleep--at least a little bit, play, do all that I can to fill the home with the spirit...that is life

Now that is a life that is filled with energy, but my heart is breaking over one.  My little Margaret.  Margaret Susanna...she has been my trial, my heartache, and  for a while...my child that I'm struggling with.  There are things that I know that she has been through that no other child should have to endure.  She was neglected and abused...so we left.  That is good, but...but as like all of us, she is searching to find out who loves her.

I'm in turmoil over it.  She hurts her sister, she cries, she needs so much love...and all that we do for her she just takes and takes...she needs so much to fill the void that rests in her heart.  It is the worst pain.  When I think about how she was neglected, abused, and then abandoned I can get a glimpse of the pain that she is in.  But her cry for help is very difficult to bare.

It comes in shouts, screams, and endless crying.  It also comes as she pinches, hits, and has to control all that is around her.  Her play is very demanding.  She orders her "friends" around.  She needs to find a constant control of each situation.  And when she gets an idea in her head, it is difficult to let go.  The drive to win it through badgering, nagging, crying, whining, and screaming sometimes just breaks us all.  The peace in the home is gone when these episodes happen.  Half of me needs to embrace her, but I can't reward the negative behavior...can you see my pain and conflict?

I do all that I can to find her doing good, being happy, and then jumping in and hugging her, telling her she is loved, how proud I am of her, anything positive...somehow trying to fill the void that is in her little heart.  I'm not enough, Scott is not enough, not even Grandma and Grandpa are enough...and on Saturday it all came to a blow.  We were worn.  We could not take another demand, another tantrum...nothing. 

I cried and cried...it was as if I was grieving for her.  My minds eye saw a bleak and horrible future for her.  My biggest fear is that when she is a teenager she will just find any boy to fill the void in her heart and allow him to do everything to her.  I'm so afraid and fearful of this...and that is a breaking point for me. 

I want peace in the home.  I want love to be spoken, the spirit felt, and I want Margaret Susanna to know who she is.  I want her to feel love.  I want her to feel safe.  I want her to know that we (the whole family) is praying for her.  I want her to know that she is important.  I want her to know that she is a Daughter of God.  She has Divine potential.  Scott and I are trying as parents to teach her that.  Give her an anchor, give her the Rock to stand on.  But she is sometimes so difficult to reach.  She seems to just go backwards: demanding, wanting material things, and needing total control to understand the situation. 

Can we ever reach her?  Will she be alright?  Will we be able to help her understand who she is?  She is my little Maggie-Sue.  My beautiful little girl.  She has endured much in her little life.  She can make it, if she will allow us to help her.  My desire in writing this...is that I can read it over and over and remember that she is that Daughter of God.  She is precious.  She is worth it...she is worth loving...aren't we all? 

I'm praying for strength...I'm praying with faith--only as big as a mustard seed right now because that is all I have--just a hope, a desire...I'm praying that it will turn to a stronger faith.  So, it is my pleading that anyone out there who reads this can  help Scott and I to understand how to best help her.  Prayers...Answers...and time...that is what we will do, we pray that a solution will happen as well. 

Anyway...that is the down...I know myself, it won't last long...I'm too busy to allow that.  So, thanks for reading...

Autism Carnival

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The painted faces: Isaac--the blue Chinse Dragon, Garrett: Morph Butterfly, Margaret: Sparkle butterfly, Virginia: Princess

Sahara Cares puts on one of the best Carnivals in the world!  Each year it just gets better and better.  The kids enjoyed all the games, candy, prizes, ect...Enjoy the pictures!  We sure had fun!

FLY!!!

Oh what do we in the summertime....We Fly!  Kellis and Isaac at their best! 

September 11

I was in a rental house in Boise ID.  I was fighting anger, hurt, and contemplating a separation from my first husband.  I needed a break.  I thought that I would escape...so I turned on the TV.  After about 6 minutes of watching Good Morning America...my heart, my lungs, and my brain was stunned.  My escape was shattered as another horrifying reality was setting into my conscience.  I took it as a sign.  I remember screaming at my former husband that he better straighten up because he was running out of time.  The rest of the day I sat on the couch hugged my kids, play blocks, colored, ran around with them...I created a safe place for them and made sure that they felt loved.

For two straight weeks following that tragic day, I would look to the sky and pray that we would be safe for one more hour, day, week, month, and hopefully a year.  We needed more time to fix the mess (our marriage, our business, and our finances) we were in.  We needed more time to do this, but I felt a prick of pain that I felt could never be healed.  Almost every once every hour we would hear the reassuring engine roar of F-16's from the Air force Base near Mountain Home.  Time began to move slowly and steadily after that.  But the fear of loosing everything: my family, my way of life, my freedom was a haunting echo that never truly left.  Kellis was 3, Garrett was 23 months old, and Isaac was six months old and I now my blessed America was no longer safe.  That is a day that I will never forget.

Marianne...

Cool evening  air fills the room, the gentle song of a cricket softly beats in the background, soft giggles of little girls, happy conversations of two boys and their Legos, cliking clapping sounds from the boys room, mom and dad speaking about work, family, and schedules, gentle beats, rhthyms of music softly flows from the speakers and into the home, and high pitched squeals from the sweetest baby lips.  Those are the sounds of the home in the evening.  But for Marianne... her world is quiet.

For Marianne it is...white static....unidentified noise that sometime filters into her ears, and sometimes never reaches them. Hours of silence, no noise...no music...no sounds of laughter sparkling into her ears like sunshine sparkles over water.  For her...it is quiet...silence....then short blips of sounds that her brain is not able to identify or make an auditory pattern...different...different...For her it is called Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder.

Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder: sound enters the ear normally, but because of damage to the inner row of hair cells or synapses between the inner hair cells and the auditory nerve, or damage to the auditory nerve itself, sound isn't properly transmitted from the inner ear to the brain.  As a result, the sound that arrives at the brain isn't organized in a way that the brain can understand. It is disorganized and in some cases the sound never even makes it to the brain.

For us: we are on a new journey...familiar in the sense that we are learning to understand a whole new Spectrum Disorder...but unfamiliar in learning that sound, speech, music, everyday noise will not be the same for Marianne. 

We are learning about the two communication paths...ASL or Voiced.  We are learning how to grasp the fact that we will be learning a new language and that she will depend on us for her communication needs and that she is going to have to trust that we have done our homework about what is the best for her. 

Trust...trust...that is what Heavenly Father must have in us, our family, in order to have her sent to us.  Marianne is who she is: a beautiful daughter of our Heavenly Father on loan to us to raise and help her to return to live with Him one day.  Our journey is just beginning.  Our faith is just beginning to stretch, hopefully to stretch far enough with the Atonement for us to be able to handle the challenges that we are now presented with.  Wow, never say never.  Pray like your life depends on it, becuase it does, and laugh...laughter through tears is one of my favorite emotions.  Laugh, love, live!  Marianne is teaching us the deeper meaning of this.  Here we go...one step at a time.

Thanksgiving Point

 The whole gang, Garrett's favorite picutres, and of course Brucey the Shark!

 Starting from left to right: Garrett, Maggie, Isaac, Mom, Virginia, Marianne, Kellis, Hyrum, and Samuel

Garrett took this pictures of me.  He is such a great photographer.  Love this kid!

Well, it was that time of year again...we needed to go to the Dino park and so...two dollar Tuesday brought us there.  Garrett was in his element: he took over 435 pictures.  He would like to have them all posted...hum probably not, but I will share some.