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

Swaddling, A Gentler Approach to Restraining a Child

Our trip to the dentist office the week before last really made me wish I had been a little more prepared for that visit. I was so sure that Dr. Moody wasn't going to attempt to put Levi's full crown back on his molar, but I was sadly mistaken.

Over the past several weeks, Levi decided he didn't like the crown that Dr. Moody had repaired his molar with 2 years ago.  I looked at what Levi was "picking" at in his mouth so many times, but never saw anything that could be causing a problem. Several weeks later, I walked into my bathroom, and there his crown was laying on top of the sink. I knew it looked familar, but couldn't place what it was right away. But then, Levi's tooth came to my mind, and a quick trip through the house to find the little thing proved me right. He had managed to get it off!  So he had been slowly working it off his tooth. It reminds me of a prisoner digging an underground tunnel slowly to freedom, you know, like you see in the movies! I have to think that for some reason, it was really bothering him and he decided to handle it. I would say he was pretty determined!

Back when we had Levi's crown put on, he had other obvious dental work that needed to be done. Because of our inability to be able to reason with Levi and his high level of sensory overload in this type of setting, our only option was to have it all done at the Children's Hospital while under anesthesia. Because of the fact that Levi hadn't had any dental work done since then, I reasoned that we would need to put the crown back on the same way.

And I was wrong.

And the following 20 minutes, after I realized I was wrong, was way more stressful than I would have liked any one of us to go through.

Dr. Moody assured us we could all hold him down, and this is when I had wished I had been more prepared. It took me, Caleb, Rebekah, a nurse and Dr. Moody to hold him down. It was one of those times where I really had to assess if we really had to do this. I had traveled too far and Levi's tooth had already been exposed for 10 days, since it took that long for the office to get us in. It had to be done.

Holding a 9 year old child down, trying to keep his arms and legs from flailing around and trying to keep his entire body from twisting back and forth was not easy, and it definitely was not safe. It really wasn't safe for any of us, but especially Levi. I still can't believe he didn't get punctured in the roof of his mouth with one of those "tooth pokers". I did not like what we had to do at all. It convinced me that from now on, I will always be prepared when going to doctor's appointments.

When we lived in Florida, Levi had to go to the Emergency Room. When they told us that they would need to draw his blood, Trevor and I looked at them and said this would be the biggest challenged they had encountered in a while (to say the least). I was so thankful that the head nurse was a well seasoned older nurse that had a whole bag full of tricks, and the one she taught us that night has saved us from many more experiences like the one we had at Dr. Moody's office a few days ago.

She taught us the art of swadding a child that needs to be restrained. It is much gentler than any other form of restraining that we've come across. I wish we had known this when we first started having little ones. One of the awesome things about swaddling, is you can do this with older children. When I swaddle a child, I explain to them that it will keep them safe and help them to feel safe.

An oversized baby blanket works well for infants. A twin size, flat sheet works great for a larger child. Ideally, you would want to fold the sheet so that it is about as wide as the child is long from shoulder's to feet.

Here I am using my Mobi Wrap and I am swaddling Alyssa as if she is getting her blood drawn. Just leave the arm out that they will draw from. In the case of Levi getting dental work done, I would have wrapped both arms, making sure his arms were straight down while swaddling so that he couldn't pull them up and out during the procedure.

If you get the first wrap right...snug, and with the arm(s) straight down against their body...it makes the rest of the wrapping much easier.

As you wrap, make sure that it is snug enough around the legs. It will make it much easier to control kicking if the child is being super resistant and struggling a lot.

Here, the swaddling is complete with legs close together. This is much safer to restrain the child than simply holding them down. I hope this helps the next time you have a little one who needs be restrained at the doctor's office. 

We'll be leaving for the ATCA for our Son Rise Start-Up in just two weeks! We are very excited, and we're so much looking forward to what we'll be learning, and then coming home and starting Levi's program. We are still raising money for Levi's therapy room building. If you would like to make a donation to Levi's Mountain, just click on the "donate" tab at the top of the screen. We're so grateful for all of the people who have been so supportive and caring through this year as we've been campaigning for Levi's Mountain. It has been such a blessing to our whole family! 

Angela, Levi's Mommy 

"Spending" Ourselves on Others

Well...Rebekah and I leave for the Autism Treatment Center for our training to set up our SonRise Program for Levi, in 11 days. I can't believe it’s coming up so soon. It's only been just a couple times that I'm being able to recall leaving the family for so long!

 Originally, I had planned on taking Gemmie and bringing "big girl" baby sitters to stay with her while we went to the training. Then we decided she would be better off being home in her own environment for so long. Plus, car rides are hard on her still (and me ;)) So, I'M GOING WITHOUT MY BABY! (panic) I'm really trying to be practical about this, we need to be able to focus on this training...and she will be well taken care of.

 We had 700.00 to raise still when we had our last Old World Auction with all proceeds going to Levi's Mountain. We were able to raise over 1,000.00. The trip in a nutshell is totally covered (and a little extra for any surprise expenses).

 I am so aware of the "God Factor" here in the middle of all this, but He used our friends here to make it happen and we are deeply thankful to you all!

 So, his therapy room is the next project...and we have to get on it quick! We wish we could have this nailed down and ready for him by the time we get back from the training...but I'm not sure that's going to happen. We do have some idea's. There is a prefabricated building business that I'm going to stop by on June 12, and talk to the owner. I'm going to see if they get repo's. We may be able to set something up relatively inexpensive and we may even be able to get the supplies donated for the project.

 Would you please keep this project in your prayers? Doing Levi's therapy inside the house will work temporarily only...and may not work at all. Our home is not only very "un-soundproof", but there is way too much going on in our home (with 14 people) for us to be able to give him a distraction-free environment.

 ok...I am excited about this, but I'm starting to get the sense like I just dove off into one far end of the ocean and now...I'm just gonna have to swim! I know that God will give us the leading and grace to give Levi all that he needs! And that IS exactly what that is called, by the way. G R A C E. God is in the business of expanding our "abilities" and “resources” when we are wondering if we have what it takes.

 We all have some sort of a “life work”. Something that we feel is worthy to totally “spend” ourselves on. For me,

I’ve chosen my family as that life work. Yes, it IS a worthy cause. I’m not saying it isn’t hard or that sometimes I don’t fail or feel selfish, because it is…and I do. But it’s what my heart’s desire is. I want to give my family what God has intended me to give, to equip them with the tools to be successful in His Eyes. The awesome thing is that when we feel like we have given everything we have, He fills us up again…just so that we can keep giving. We don’t have to pull this “giving our all” thing off on our own. He has plenty of grace for us all. We don’t have to function in our own strength!

 So here we are, back to Levi. Even when it feels overwhelming and doubts and fears try to tackle my thoughts…We can do this! Perspective comes when we choose to BELIEVE that God IS who He says He is and that He WILL do what He says He will do!

 I love it!

Levi's mommy, 

<3 Angela

Serenity

Have you ever woke up way earlier than you'd like, and just couldn't go back to sleep? Well, here I am...with all kinds of idea's swirling around in my head. Mostly about Levi. I was thinking how sometimes we take things for granted without even realizing it. At least I have. I've taken for granted that all of my children, except one very special one, have been able to, for the most part, learn with ease everything they've needed to learn through their different stages of development. Maybe some things were harder to learn than others, but they've learned them.

 For Levi, it has been difficult learning things, that to a typically developing child, learns naturally.  Levi is 9 years old and still cannot do most of his own self-care. I bathe him, brush his teeth, help him wash his hands after he uses the restroom. Levi is able to dress himself, but usually puts his clothes on backwards and doesn't seem to realize it. Levi is still not able to do the academics of a kindergartener...but we're getting very close!

 He has excelled in a particular area this year and has made us all so happy for him! Levi is able to feed himself every meal with eating utensils. It took 6 or 7 years of consistent work at every meal for this, using the hand over hand technique. Now it's completely natural for him to sit down, bow his head (something we did not have to teach him) for the blessing and then pick up his fork and feed himself, even though the bites are humungous! We'll work on that later. For now, we'll take it just like it is, with a big smile! We are so very proud of Levi for being able to feed himself now. He worked very hard to hurdle this obstacle. For Levi, things that may seem small for most children are huge accomplishments and deserve celebration (along with a happy dance!).

 But, he can't talk. Unlike some children with Autism, Levi did not start talking and then regressed. There was, what seemed like the beginnings of language development around a year to a year and a half old. He began with the sound "ma-ma", but it never went beyond that. For me, it seemed that if he could make those sounds, he had the physical ability to speak. I worked and worked with him, especially early in the morning in our bed when we were waking up. There was something in me that felt like if I tried hard enough, I could get him to talk. And, believe me, I tried. Hard. There was something in me also, that felt like a complete failure. And I remember how heavy that failure felt. I felt like I should be able to help him... I feel for the parent that is just coming to terms that their child is not developing normally. No matter how much we want to talk about Autism Acceptance, there's something deep-down, in every parent that wishes that their child was normal. At least I do. Not for my comfort or convenience. Not at all. But for Levi. I accept Levi and love him just the way he is. But it is so very heart wrenching to see him struggle so hard. That's the part I wish I could take away!

 So...What I couldn't get off my mind this morning is this: language is a gift. It is precious. If I could somehow give my words to Levi, so that he could have words, this very minute, I would rejoice in doing so. I would gladly give, so that he could have.

 It's hard to understand why some children naturally learn to talk by the environment of words they live in. They start by making consonant-vowel blends first: da-da, na-na, ma-ma, ba-ba...and then these begin to evolve into words. LindyAnn is making all these sounds right now. And I have to be honest about something, in the backside of my mind, I am worried that she will begin to show signs of Autism. Maybe you wonder why. It's not a lack of faith or an irrational fear. For many parents, having one child with Autism could mean that it may resurface with a second and even third child. It is too common, that when parents have a child with Autism, their chances of having other children with Autism becomes much higher. Over and over I find myself having to choose to trust God here and completely leaving this concern with Him.

So where is the balance here?... because I have to bring myself around to having a proper perspective on where we are with our challenges.

 Recently, I've had the priviledge of meeting a very precious lady. We've talked on the phone and emailed back and forth a few times. In one of our conversations, she told me that she had a precious daughter who was Autistic, Gina. Gina, just a few short years ago, went home to be with the lord. Losing one of your children is so very painful. Gina's mama shared some of her resources with me and in one of the envelopes, was an outline of the program that she set up in her home, for her daughter. I cannot express to you how much this has helped me to gain a fresh perspective and to release some of the burden I have felt with the weighty responsibility we have with helping our Levi.

She named her program, "The Serenity Program", and she built the whole program on the "Serenity Prayer". Yeah, I know, we've all come across this neat little prayer so many times. But until my friend gave this to me, I had never taken the time to read this prayer...and meditate on the words and what they really mean. WOW! You know, it just is not in our power to change EVERYTHING... even when you want to badly enough.

 God, grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
 the courage to change the things I can,
 and the wisdom to know the difference.

 This is what I needed. We can trust God to give us the wisdom and discerment, not only with Levi, but with all of our children, to train and nurture them in a way that is fully productive, helping our chidren be all they can be. Loving them, and by doing so, teaching our children how to love. We know that doing these things are pleasing to Our Father.

 In light of this fact, and knowing that there are going to be things that we cannot change, communication in some form is possible. Verbal communication is what we're shooting for, because we believe that Levi can do it! Neither we nor Levi are afraid of hard work. So working hard is what we'll continue to do.

Parenting is in no doubt, challenging, but it is one of the most rewarding endeavors Trevor and I have ever experienced!

Angela, Levi's Mommy

Believe in your dreams...

 A new, deep respect has developed in me for "fundraising" this year. A new respect for those who have "dreams" that are too big for them to float on their own and enter the "World of Fundraising". Your dream has to be important enough to even come to that place. And it's humbling. Getting people to "believe" in what you're doing and rallying people to come to your cause is hard and emotionally draining. But when you believe in your dreams...you do what you have to do.

When you believe in your dreams...

Honestly, it was the dreams that made me believe in what we're doing. Two particular dreams.

Both were about Levi.

Both, he spoke.

Both, he said, "Mommy, I love you.". 

I've heard his voice in my dreams.


 Both times, it was so real, and so vivid, it was as if I could really feel him hugging me and feel his warm breath on my face. As I woke up, I had that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, because I wanted it to be reality. Desperately.


 I feel so certain that God gave those dreams to me as a gift.A gift that is the driving force behind doing whatever we need to do to give him the tools. I know deep down that those dreams were *meant* to motivate me and to help me BELIEVE that Levi will talk.

 Levi is such a precious little guy. He melts me right down to the floor when he crawls up into my lap and wraps his arms around my neck. He gets the sweetest little flat "sheepish" smile across his face that would most assuringly put a bright spot in anyone's day. When you celebrate his accomplishments, like wiping his mouth with a napkin at the dinner table, he is so pleased. Yes, he is precious indeed!

 I know we have said a million times, how we are forever thankful to all of you who have walked through this with our family. You have prayed, you have given, you have supported us with encouraging words. Many of you helped get us through our crisis with LindyAnn and prayed relentlessly for her when we didn't know if she was going to be able to pull through. But she did. I believe Levi can pull through this too! I cannot express to you how my heart feels, that we have had so many who have been willing to walk so much of our journey with us. Those of you who are family, those of you who we have only met once or twice, and many of you, we have never met at all... We have grown to love all of you so much. You have become like family to us. 

 Thank you for believing with us.

 Thank you for believing in Levi.

 Thank you for loving our family and leaving an imprint in our hearts!

<3 Levi's Mommy, Angela

An Update :-)

 The sale we had at WalMart on Saturday went really well. There wasn't as many people (shoppers) there as we had hoped for, but all things considered, I think that it was a success. We were able to raise almost $200, which was great for such a short notice event. We want to say "thank you" again to everyone who donated products for us to sell at the event!

 We have lots of goodies left over from the sale: MadeOn Lip Balms, Paperless Towels & Little Wipes, handmade hair bows and adorable feltie clips (you can see examples of the felties here), beautiful handcrafted earrings by Peggy Moody, and some new products from Polder's Old World Market that you can't get in our shop yet! We'll be listing these items on Levi's Mountain (Facebook Group) for sale. All sales will be on a first-come-first-serve basis, so if you see something you would like, claim it in the comments section and message me :-)

Thought we would put some pictures on here from the sale that everyone might enjoy. That is Gemmie and I up there, and Loran and Alyssa down there :)

 Oh, here are those adorable hair bows and feltie clips I was talking about! I wanted to buy one of every design...lol.

 We brought along a lot of utensils from Polder's Old World Market that we made for the sale, and we also had a good supply of baked goods (the top seller, of course). Some of the yummy baked goods were donated :-) Thank you Peggy and Joline!

 Those are some of Gina Jordan's lovely paperless towels and "little wipes" below. We have quite a few of these left, and they will be for sale on Levi's Facebook.

 I cannot believe that we've raised over $4,000 in the last 2 months! Wow! Our goal is to raise another $1,000 before our trip to the Autism Treatment Center of America in June. I know that we can do it! Anything that we end up not needing for this trip will go toward our second goal for Levi...a prefabricated building that we can turn into his therapy room. We could not have gotten this far without so many people's untiring help. I cannot say how grateful we are for that. Thank you all, so much, for climbing Levi's Mountain with us!

<3 Angela, Levi's Mommy