My daughter recently informed me that Jason eats his toast upside down. While this seemed a bit odd, she decided that this made a lot of sense, as this would allow more of whatever is on top of the toast to hit your tastebuds,therefore allowing you to enjoy more of the flavor. This is how I have decided to look at Jason's new diagnosis of Autism. He is still the same wonderful, loving boy he has always been; he just looks at things in a different way. And, like eating toast upside down, he might have a lot to teach us about life. Jason came to us at 22 months from Taiwan. He bonded with us immediately, and has always been very affectionate. For a very long time we thought that his speech delays were due to the fact that he had been uprooted from his native country as a toddler. Other people who had adopted infants from Taiwan now had toddlers who were speaking in complete sentences. However, there were others who had adopted older children internationally who seemed to pick up the language quickly as well. We then learned about a special-ed preschool program through the public school system that would help him with his delays while he was also getting socialization. It took him five months to get into the program because of all of the testing required ahead of time to get his IEP (Individualized Education Program). This plan, however, will follow him throughout his school years, changing as needed, to allow him all of the special help he needs for his delays. At the end of his few months in preschool, the teacher and speech therapist met with us and told us that they suspected he might have autism. I was surprised, but then again not, to hear this. We had taken him to weekly sessions of private speech lessons, which without any extra therapy, weren't helping him to learn to communicate. Our family doctor had also mentioned that she thought he might have some neurodevelopmental delays. His lack of communication and eye contact, his repetitive speech and fixations, as well as his lack socialization skills were all starting to make sense. We took him to the University of Washington Autism Center, where we had him tested for Autism. He was given a diagnosis of Mild to Moderate Autism. (We asked about why he wasn't considered high-functioning or Asperger's but we were told he falls bellow standard in cognitive, verbal, motor and social skills.) It was recommended that we seek therapy for him in ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) Therapy, as well as speech therapy. Unfortunately, our insurance doesn't cover ABA Therapy, but we are looking into other options, and I am signed up to do a three day "bootcamp" to train in ABA therapy myself. We are now trying to educate ourselves about Autism, seek help for direction in his therapy, and meet others who have had similar experiences. I am looking forward to discovering what advances Jason might make in the years to come.

I'm sad to report that just after the "Pink Spoon" book was published here, Mr. Pink Spoon was lost forever down an elevator shaft. We have tried to come up with a replacement, but nothing has been able to match the beloved pink spoon. On a happy note, Jason doesn't seem to care now which spoon he is carrying, as long as he has one in his hand!

The Pink Spoon

I realized after uploading all the pictures for my last blog entry, that almost all of the photos show Jason with his beloved pink "spoon". When he first came home he tended to carry around a hairbrush, but after a while he switched over to a spoon. At first it didn't matter what particular spoon he had, as long as he was carrying one at all times. Then one day we were at a friends house and he spotted this giant pink spoon (aka a pink spatula that was a part of a play kitchen set). They have been inseparable ever since. In fact, even if you can't see the pink spoon in one of the photos, I guarantee it isn't far from his body.

This last weekend Kate and Steve decided to make a book together for Brian's birthday. They spent hours working together. Steve drew the pictures and Kate wrote the story and colored the pictures. The book turned out to be so amazingly cute that I had to share it with you all. If you have trouble reading the words, you should be able to expand the photo by clicking on it. Enjoy!!!!

Finally Some New Photos!!!

CHRISTMAS








THE HIGH CHAIR




LOVES TO READ







JUST PLAIN CUTE!!!

Days of Autumn

It has been a pathetically long time since I have updated this blog! Busy days and small snippets of time on the Internet don't leave me much time to post. However, our beautiful Autumn days provided us with some gorgeous photos full of colors so glorious, they must be shared.

"Stop It!"

It has been a while since I have given an update on Jason. I have had several people ask me how his English is doing. Well, I’m not sure how much Mandarin he actually spoke in Taiwan and I don’t expect him to start speaking full sentences of English anytime soon, but he probably has a vocabulary of about 25 words. He is particularly good at mimicking sounds of things such as the tea- kettle. He has started saying, “Mom! Deedle doodle daddle….” Because he hears Kate and Steve say this and he is trying for the same thing.

His first combination of words came when we were on our vacation in Virginia. He already likes to take up more than his share of space in the back seat and sticks one leg out of the car seat in one direction and on in the other. Stephen jokingly told him to “Stop It!” and the next then I heard was, “Bop-it!” They did this back and forth several times, which was hilarious. He also has a particular fondness for shoes and brushes. He wants to have his shoes on (doesn’t matter which pair) at all times. He will reluctantly let me take them off at night when I say “Night- Night!” to the shoes. He thinks it is important for everyone else in the house to have their shoes on, too, so if someone is lacking a pair he will grab some from the shoe rack and try to put it on their feet.

He also loves to carry a brush around wherever we go. Kate got tired of him stealing hers so she bought him one of his own. Now he just carries them both around, one in each hand. It’s funny that if he can’t find his shoes or his brush, he will call them; “Shoes……!” or “Brush……!” While he won’t sit in front of a movie and watch it, he loves to sit in front of Kate’s CD player and listen to children’s music. In fact, he especially loves the tape she listened to when she was little. He will sit there for a long period of time just staring at the player and listening to the music.

Otherwise, Jason is basically one of the gang. He keeps us in smiles.

Our First Vacation with Jason

Our first family vacation with Jason was planned as seven nights in Montana divided between Kalispell and Glacier National Park. We arrived in Kalispell and checked in to our hotel, which we found we would be sharing with those celebrating “Gay Pride” over the weekend. My kids were able to see men in sequin dresses for the very first time!





The mountains and lakes around Kalispell and Missoula were beautiful. We especially enjoyed a town called “White Fish” just north of Kalispell where we discovered a coffee shop that introduced us to something new called, “A shot in the dark.” This is a regular cup of coffee with a shot of espresso added (because there just isn’t enough caffeine in a normal cup of coffee!?!) One of Stephen’s favorite parts of the trip was the ‘Fur Trading Company’. He was able to buy himself an arrow and a raccoon cap while we looked around at all of the animals on the walls.



A few days into the trip we headed up to Glacier National Park where we planned to see beautiful ice-capped mountains while taking a boat tour and driving on the “Into the Sun” road. Unfortunately, there was no sun to drive in to. In fact, by the time we checked into the lodge it was cold and pouring down rain. At some point in the evening we decided that spending the next four days in our small hotel room was not going to work. It was time for plan B.

So, the next day we headed back to the airport and flew to…..Washington D.C. How did we end up there? Well, our actual destination – Virginia – is one of our favorite states and home to a college called “Christendom” where Kate is hoping to go to in a few years. We arrived in D.C. very late and drove into Virginia where we were very happy to find a great Holliday Inn that had a suite that was just a fraction of the cost our lodge would have been in Montana (we were so fortunate that we were able to get almost all of our money back on our previous reservations!) After a great night’s rest we started getting ready for the day, when something happened in which I will be reminded of till the end of my days.

I have done quite a bit of traveling and when one travels, one’s clothing tends to wrinkle while packed. My usual habit is to hang my clothing in the bathroom while taking a shower so that all of those nasty wrinkles are gone by the time I’m ready to get dressed (in other words, I’m too lazy to iron!) So this time I took my lovely black capris into the bathroom and found the perfect spot to hang them right in the middle of the room where the steam could circulate all around them. It wasn’t a regular hook, however, but one of those sprinkler heads that come out of the ceiling in case of a fire.

Fortunately, I hadn’t yet gotten undressed and into the shower, but went back out of the bathroom to talk to Brian for a few minutes, because suddenly there was a noise coming from the bathroom, which turned out to be water spraying down from the sprinkler head. At first I screamed and laughed almost hysterically as the fire alarm started to go off and water sprayed into the bathroom. But then it got worse! The sprinkler head somehow broke and (as we found out later) all of the water that was allocated to our entire floor of hotel rooms suddenly poured forth into our bathroom! Black water like ink from the pipes came pouring down the walls and into our hotel room. We called the front desk and told them what was happening and then quickly cleared all of our stuff out of the room and into the hallway. By the time they were able to stop the flow of water, the entire suite was covered with water, which had gone through our third floor all the way in through a light fixture in the lobby.



After the firemen were dismissed and the wet-vacs were brought in we were given a different room to finish getting ready for the day while Brian called our insurance company and found out that thankfully the would cover my little boo-boo.















The fun and excitement behind us, we headed to breakfast at the “Cracker Barrel. We enjoyed it so much that we would eat there a few more times at other towns on our trip. Next we took a tour of “Christendom College,” which sits next to the Shenandoah River. Afterward we drove through the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. During the next few days we would visit Thomas Jefferson’s estate at Monticello, and tour Williamsburg and Jamestown.

















We headed back up to Washington D.C. where poor little Jason spent one morning throwing up (probably from something he ate.) While there we saw the “Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception” and the “Commissariat of the Holy Land.” This is a Franciscan Monastery where replicas of places in the Holy Land have been recreated. We also took the subway to see the monuments and the White House at sunset, which was beautiful!







While Jason’s first vacation with us didn’t go exactly as planned, and there were a few glitches, we did have a fantastic and very memorable trip!