Walking, walking and my energetic one

Luke has been taking steps all byhimself!!!  He does not walk around by himself yet but is walking really well with help.  I only have to hold one of his hands.  He has his good and bad days.  Today was not a great day with walking, he fell a bit and seemed to just want to crawl.  He is doing awesome in his walker at church.  So well that he is now confident enough to run over people's feet so we have to watch him a little closer.  Saturday Luke even tried to take a step towards me, although I happened to only be a step or two away.  This is the first time I have seen him do that.  All his previous walking independently has been done at our request.

Luke in general is doing awesome.  He is exploring more.  We were at my grandparent's house and he was everywhere.  He is exploring more at church.  Today he walked his walker up to the raised area, crawled up the stairs and sat at the top looking at everything.  We have screens on both sides of the front for everyone to see and it was really neat to watch him discover those and discover that they were showing the same thing :)

Hannah likes to put her hands over her face and ask "Where's Hannah?" and then uncovers and says "Boo" or just laughs.  When we were at the psychologist getting evaluated for Autism the physiologist asked Luke to play peek a boo and he was interested in it so so.  He has played it with us in the past but not often but I think after that visit and seeing how much attention Hannah gets he decided it was a good game to play.  He plays it now and will even point at the cloth over his eyes to point out that he is hiding.  Hannah enjoys Luke hiding though which is really fun.

Luke is on the Autism Disorder Spectrum but not glaringly.  We have played around with this idea but not done anything official about it until now.  And I must say I had a hard time with the actual diagnosis.  Luke is still Luke the same little boy before and after and we had considered this and knew he at least had a Sensory Processing Disorder.  But it took me a day or two to get out of my sadness about this.  I don't want Luke to have more challenges in life.  I wish he played pretend with Hannah and communicated with me better.  We are working on things with him through school, therapists, and at home.  It is hard work and to know that it may always be hard work was a little overwhelming to me those first few days.  But we keep on and Luke is just so cute.  He has been giving the greatest hugs lately and letting me give him kisses all over his face.  He let me put on his essential oil mix and do a very tickley Vita Flex technique to his feet when I do it.  He is interacting more with us and I am looking towards the progress now.  He is doing awesome in oral therapy and moving right up the difficulty levels with his jaw exercises.  I can't wait till he gets to preschool this year as he is going to be in a mainstream classroom but with his special education teachers as well as the mainstream ones so it will be a good transition.  I look forward to all the interaction with many kids who don't have social issues.  He is doing well at playgroup still this summer and we have started going to reading time at the library.  Oh and did I mention that the hugs and kisses are great!

Hannah is our commentator on her own and our lives.  She loves Lukey and wants him to wake up from his nap to come play and always likes to be where he is and know what he is doing.  They are sharing okay.  They often share things that the other one does not want at all or at least not at the time, but the effort is there.

Hannah is just a happy go luck little girl most of time.  She loves to be silly and will do things and then say "silly Hannah" or silly whoever she thinks was silly.  She runs and prances around the house.  She is just getting more into books.  As a true child of this generation she is very good at working an iPod/iPhone ect... and can play music, look at "Hannah pictures", take pictures, play games, and get into the programs you would rather she not be into.  She likes playing with dolls and pretend food (and real food too).  Her eating habits leave much to be desired but it is all a phase, isn't it?  She is a happy healthy soon to be 2 year old.

Hannah has a very good vocabulary and talks a lot, at home.  She is breaking out of her shell a little more with other people and when we are out and about, which is nice that other people can hear the fun things she says.  She has her whinny moments and is not a morning person.  However, she seems to be the only one in our family that can tolerate heat and she didn't seem to mind the heat wave a couple of weeks ago too much.  The rest of us were miserable.  She is cute and cuddly and a lot of fun.

My parents have moved 3 hours away which means that we have lost our only other caretakers for Luke.  I haven't really felt this too much but it has only been a month or so.  I do miss them as I love spending time with them and they are busy and we don't travel well due to Luke still needing someone to be awake with him 24/7.

In other news my grandmother is failing.  She has lived a long, good life.  We went to see her this past Saturday and it was really nice to enjoy her company, perhaps for the last time :(  Luke practiced walking for grandma and Hannah flitted around talking and being her little joyful self.  While grandma was napping my grandpa played with the kids and it was awesome to watch the interactions.  The love that flowed both ways was really special to watch.  I am glad we made the trip and the memories.

Life goes on as I try to keep the house somewhat clean, play enough with the kids, and keep everyone fed good food.  I am working to try to work out more and was successful for a week or two.  The heat that came with allergies or colds or something not fun lead to lack of sleep and getting off track.  I do walk more with the kids now that it is summer which is nice.  We are still trying to sell the house and move into town where walking is much easier and just out the door.  My goal is to have prayer/devotional time and workout time every morning.  I am trying to go to bed earlier since most nights I am not productive but I have been lazy and have been reading too much (I think I am addicted to books, I have had to set some hard boundaries for myself that I am still working to stay in).

Another goal is also to have good blocks of focused playtime with the kids everyday.  This sounds easy but when there are a thousand things to do and places to go sometimes we don't get that on the floor zooming cars around time that I need just as much as they do.  I am doing fairly well at this and I can see positive changes in the kids.  They are less clingy, they are more apt to play with toys by themselves nicely (which is huge for Luke and a break for me with Hannah), have a better attitude throughout the day, ect...

So I sat down to write a bit and ended up with all this.  That's another goal to reach for, blogging once a week. :)