labels

I went to Barnes and Noble with Oliver the other day; or as it's called in our house, "The Thomas Store", thanks to the huge Thomas the Tank Engine play area they have there. Violet was at the farm with her daddy, so it was a special Mommy & Ollie outing. Unconsciously, I migrated over to the 'child development' section, looking at the autism books, and I came upon this:

Have you read it? My sister was telling me about it recently; she had bought it to read to her kids. I had heard of it, but never spotted it in a store before. I guess I had kind of hesitated, too, because the authors are Holly Robinson Peete and her daughter, Ryan, who I'm kind of the fence about. She's blessedly no Jenny McCarthy (i.e Playboy bunny, vaccine eliminator and autism "curer"), but she's still a tad too 'autism glam' for me. It's hard to read about superstars with a billion dollars who can get and try everything for their kid.

Anyhow, I sat on the floor and paged through the book that day. A lot of parts moved me.

The whole twin thing; how they grew together in their mommy's belly. How the typical twin had typical interests, but the autistic twin liked more unusual things. I liked that they used the word "autism"; I've never seen that in a children's book before. Tears fell when I read the part about how the mommy felt really sad after the brother was diagnosed. I like that Ryan talked about how sometimes she gets frustrated with her brother, but also wrote about the special things they did just the two of them.

I didn't buy it just then, but I felt like I would.

Then, last night, tossing and turning and stressing, I found myself thinking about "My Brother Charlie" and what it would be like to read it to the twins. Oliver would respond really well, I thought. Maybe even be able to relate a bit. I imagined Violet lingering nearby, not one to ask to be read to, but wanting to glance at a page here and there, and listen to mommy read.

It struck me then, what would happen when we got to the word, "autism". Oliver would say, "Just like Violet has!"

And Violet would hear. And she would say, "I NOT have autism!!".  Oliver would retort, "Yes you do, Violet! Mommy and Daddy say you have autism and that's why you have trouble sometimes!!"

oh.

How the HELL do I have a conversation like that? Its not that I'd ever lie to Violet or hide it from her, but how do you tell your daughter she has a developmental disorder? How do you tell her that her brain is different from all of her friends? How do you put a label on her at four years old? My stomach hurts at the thought of it.

No book for us. At least not now.

cowboy boots and silly tongues...

sweet girl is really into mommy's boots lately!

sharing Popsicles with Saydah!

at baby Penny's first birthday party. Yes, Violet is wearing a tutu.

videos of our days...

A couple of quick things:

the first video is of Oliver going down the slide. For some reason, the button on his cardigan caught in the top part of the slide, and he hung there, not going down, but unable to get up! Then as he gets loose, he spins down....



this video is of our little daredevil, Peanut Butter. Now that she has learned to walk, she is a major risk-taker! Her new thing is to climb up to the top of the slide at the playground, grab the handrail and SWING on it, lifting her feet completely off the ground. Scary for mama to watch!


this is a video of Violet reading. She LOVES her books, and will sit on the floor and babble to herself, turning the pages, uninterrupted (unless her brother grabs it out of her hands!). SO sweet.


this is two sweet babies playing on the slide (and who knew I could speak Japanese when Violet eats things off of the ground?)


finally, I let Oliver have his way for a few minutes with the dishwasher. Or should I say, IN the dishwasher. This whole time I thought he wanted to pull out plates and glasses, he really just wanted to get in to the inner mechanisms, and SPIN things!


We had a great, if chilly!, time at the playground yesterday! The babies seem to be feeling much better, thank goodness.

Both babies have been really into putting things IN places lately. As opposed to pulling everything out of the chip drawer or dumping the blocks everywhere, they suddenly like putting things in places, and are really good at knowing what goes where. They try to put my headband on their head, glasses on the face, shoes on the feet. However, I often find things in random places, and made a list, so I can remember how cute it is:

* pacifier in the frying pan (in the drawer)
* fire truck in my slipper
* my slipper in the toy piano
* my cell phone in the trash can (this one was only 1/2 cute)
* book in the vegetable drawer