Levi's Playroom Coming Together!

Going into the basement is NOT something I like to do very often. And the reasons are numerous. To list a few, it's unfinished, it's damp (kind of like a cave and kind of smells like one too...lol), the ceilings are low, and there are water pipes and duct work ALL over the place. EVERYWHERE you look, there are obstacles.

After thinking on it for months, the basement seemed the most economical place to close in a room for Levi's Playroom. EEEK! But what about all that "stuff" down there?? SO, we formulated a plan! Change what we CAN change, and either work around or use to our benefit what we CANNOT change. So, out came the scrub brushes, brooms, mops, bleach, big black garbage bags, a trailer hooked to our 15 passager van, a dump run and that all equals a whole LOT of elbow grease!

This morning when I was thinking about doing an update on the progress of Levi's room, it occured to me how my basement is such an awesome analogy of our life so often. Along life's path, we face obstacle after obstacle and so often we allow those things to hinder our growth, our progress, our joy.

Going into the basement and taking an honest assessment of what needed to be done in order to accomplish our goals was the first step in the process. Next, making the changes to the things that we could. Then I had to deal with the "unchangeables". This is always difficult for me. There are those things that you just CANNOT change, like the huge metal pipe coming up in the corner of the room, or the duct work hanging TOO low, right above the outside of the room where my observation window is...

...or, in life's landscape, the loss of a dream being fulfilled. Here, when there is absolutely nothing we can do to change the situation, acceptance and trust in our Creator is essential and key to joy and peace of mind in the midst of our situation.

So, here we are building his room around PVC pipe coming in and out of the walls and ceilings everywhere and that one huge metal pipe coming up through the floor and into the ceiling and making a decision to accept them because there is nothing I can do to move them (unless of course I want to live without water coming into the house).

 Levi is so in-tuned with what we are doing. All day, he comes and gets someone's hand and takes them to the basement door. He loves going to see his room being built. He giggles and runs and plays in the saw dust. I love seeing him happy and connected that this is all for him. He knows that we are doing everything we can do to help him. It makes me feel satisfied, knowing that he understands that.

I'll keep you updated on the Playroom progress!

Hugs!

<3 Angela and Levi

The opening for the observation window on the outside of the room.

This will be a play station of sorts. See the pipe there?...lol Have any good idea's on what to do with that???

Our Trip to Son-Rise Mountain

All the Son Rise Parents in our class: Our wonderful comrades in the Autism Journey

So many of you are waiting to hear how our trip went. How do you think it makes me feel to have so many of you either publicly or privately messaging me, wanting to know how mine and Rebekah's trip went?

It thrills me! Period. It's amazing to me that you are EAGER to keep up with Levi, because that is an indication that we are on your mind and in your prayers and that means so much to us.

I have so much I want to tell you about, but for now, I'll stick to the basics.

So, if we had to describe what we "brought back" from our week at the Son Rise Training Center, in 6 words, what 6 words would Rebekah and I use? We had a pow-wow about it, and these are the words we came up with:

Change

Hope

Confidence

Motivation

Excitement

Support

I think I'll break this list down one word at a time over the next few days (or couple weeks) and explain the idea of that word and how it applies.

Ok. So what about CHANGE...how does this idea fit into the scheme of things?

I really think that expanding this principle in regards to Levi will be a huge key for us.

We as parents, love and do the best that we possibly can do for our childern. Sometimes, loving them means coming to terms that a change within ourselves is neccesary in order for us to help our children be all that they are intended to be. Our beliefs and attitudes about ourselves, our children and our lives have everything to do with our ability and effectiveness in helping our children grow. How "do" we veiw ourselves? At the training, I sat in a room with people from 18 different countries! All of these parents deal with some level of feeling like a failure or dealing with guilt because of their childs special needs. These feelings produce beliefs and attitudes within ourselves that make us feel hopeless, inadequate, depressed, frustrated and so on. These beliefs and attitudes render us literally helpless within ourselves, much less allow us to be able to help our childern in a real, effective manner. 

We have basically gotten down pat, that acceptance of Levi "just the way he is", is the best way to show him how much we love him. But somehow, the importance of what is going on inside of us, slipped through the cracks: The irrational guilt in SO many area's, like not being able to understand his needs because he's not able to communicate, the pressure and frustration that we must make Levi act "normal" for other people's comfort, fear of what people think about my child and us, as his parents because of a lack of understanding. So, so many things going on in here!

 It meant so much to me that these things were pointed out to us, not as another source for more guilt, but as a tool to enable us to be the help and support in Levi's life that we long to be. This means that we will have so much more of a focus on giving these false beliefs and attitudes over to the One that blessed us with our precious Levi. God gave Levi to our family, because He knew that we would strive to grow, so that in turn, we could help Levi grow.

We are so thankful to you for giving us the opportunity to help Levi. Now I realize that you were also affording us the tools for our family to grow as individuals.

I KNOW you want a peek into the practical side to our life right now, so I'm going to give you a quick run down of what's going on around here. :) Trevor and some of the kiddo's are in the basement beginning to close Levi's room in this very moment. The original plan was that the room would get finished while Rebekah and I were in Massachusetts. WEEELL, I was told that the entire dynamics of family life meshed with running a business was completely modified once Rebekah and I stepped out of the front door to start our trip. I don't see how that possibly could be??? haha

The trip was great. The training was empowering! Thank God Rebekah went with me. The practical tools we left with are vast, from exactly how to set our playroom up, to how, when and what to join Levi in, how to eleviate tantruming, when to know when Levi is available to learn and this is just the tip of the iceberg! AND, I can't leave out that Rebekah and I came home with MANY therapy and educational toys for Levi's room, to add to the ones that have been gifted by you! <3

Since we've been back, we have patiently been waiting for today, when his playroom would get started. Each day, we have been working with Levi in the little girls room and he is absolutely loving it. I mean he is absolutely LOVING it! Levi is so into his sessions, that he doesn't want to leave the playroom at all. Late last night, Levi came and got Trevor, walked him up the stairs, took him into the little girls bedroom, shut the door, locked it (heehee), and turned around and looked at Trevor with expectancy! He was ready to play! So exciting, because not only is he letting us know he's very into this "play thing" were doing with him, BUT he was COMMUNICATING clearly to us what he was wanting!

One area we are having immediate results in, is with Levi's eye contact.We have been working with Levi for years, so we have had fairly good eye contact, progressively for a while now. Because of this, I wasn't sure if I would really see a dramatic increase in this area. Boy was I wrong! I am seeing what I believe to be almost "normal" eye contact. In other words, instead of seeing lots of referencing, I am seeing much longer contact at once. I'll be putting Levi on a Developmental graph of sorts so that we will better see and track his progress.

I am so excited to start recording some of our sessions with Levi so you can see us in action. Give us some time to finish getting set up. I know you will enjoy watching.

Thank you so much for helping us reach this goal. It feels so good to be where we are, brimming over with excitement, daring to dream "big dreams" once again, that we will climb GREAT HEIGHTS with Levi!

We love you so much,

Trevor, Angela, Loran, Caleb, Mary, Rebekah, Christian, Amelia, Elisha, Abigail, Levi, John~Micah, Alyssa and Gemmie