The Scariest Place on Earth?

A couple of mornings ago I woke up in a cold sweat at 5am. I'd just had a dream that I'd lost Cameron outside the gates at Disneyland and was powerless to find him. While for many people Disneyland is the Happiest Place on Earth, for me it is (quite literally) the stuff of nightmares. Just thinking about Cameron in a place that big and that crowded makes me sick to my stomach.

I think the dream probably popped up because I'd just had a conversation with my friend Emily about a scary incident in the church parking lot a few weeks before. Cam had darted away from me in the church and into the parking lot, straight into the path of Emily's backing SUV. She looked carefully before she pulled out and even saw Cam paused momentarily on the sidewalk. Suddenly he made a beeline for our van, which took him right behind her car.

In the meanwhile, I was struggling through the crowed lobby trying to reach him and only cleared the doors in time to see him just feet behind her bumper. I screamed his name loud enough for even the monks to hear (those of you who live here will understand that). Emily heard me and slammed on her brakes.

I was terrified.

She was terrified.

Cam was completely oblivious.

He acted like he didn't even hear me. (His ears probably heard me, but his brain was so focused elsewhere the message didn't get delivered.) He just continued trotting to our minivan. His face was completely composed and his eyes just stared blankly at the van door, waiting for me to open it.

I really think I lost a year or two of my life that morning.

As I lay in bed, waiting for my heart to stop pounding after the nightmare, I spent a lot of time thinking about Cam. We've been so encouraged by the progress we've seen him make. He is finally beginning to be able to tell us what's on his mind. He's able to sit still in primary for greater amounts of time. Some days Cam can tell us what he had for lunch or about something he did at school. We've also seen progress in his receptive language (ability to process and understand what he hears).

I guess what I realized that morning is that even with all the improvements, the Autism is still there.

Each improvement may even bring a new Autism-related challenge.

His improvement in understanding language, in the case of the parking lot incident, actually PUT him in danger.

A few months ago, he probably would have stayed by my side in the hallway. Instead, he understood we were leaving and that triggered the 'going home' routine in his head. He knew that meant getting his coat on, going outside and getting into the car.

Kids with Autism often have a difficult time deviating from a routine. He was locked into the routine he knew, almost like tunnel vision.

Kids with Autism are also often unaware of danger. Any four year old running through a parking lot would have stopped if they'd heard their mother scream like I did. At the very least, they would have turned their head a little, noticed the car, or would have reflected some kind of emotion after something like that. Not Cam. He was COMPLETELY unaware.

These new realizations were also driven home this week as I peeked in on sharing time. This part of primary has been hard for Cam before. We don't expect him to be able to understand what is happening there yet, but we're working on helping him sit still so he doesn't distract others. We'd been encouraged as we'd seen how far he'd come in these efforts. But, when I looked in on him Sunday, he was standing up in his row with blank eyes and a bobbing head, making random noises. Not only was he completely checked out, he was starting to vocally 'stim' which is something he does only when things are really bad.

I'd love to think that this journey we're helping Cam along is all straight road, without any dips or curves. That we'll be able to measure his Autism-related progress like we measure his height--perhaps gradual, but all up. Now I'm wondering if it is more like a maze. You never really know where you are or what is around the next corner.

Even given some of these disheartening realizations, we have so much to be grateful for. Cameron is very high functioning and is delightful to be around. He is often happy and affectionate, which is not commonly a part of Autism. This makes things much easier.

As we have fasted and prayed to know how to help him, we feel the Lord's guidance in so many areas. We see His hand in Cameron's diagnosis; in continuing guidance of what treatments will be of benefit to him and which treatments to avoid; and in some areas where we simply have to acknowledge the tender mercies of the Lord in helping Cameron where his parents could not.

Atta' Boy, Cam!

Why We Live Where We Live

After a morning of household chores for most of us and a long run for Dad, we headed out geocaching Saturday afternoon. Elise opted for a play date with her friend Olivia, so we invited Max's friend Justin to come along.

Horseplay

As we were hunting around in a little copse of trees for a cache, we could hear Cameron say "I found it. I found it." Brett ignored him until he felt Cameron tug on his coat sleeve and turned around to find Cameron with the cache already in his hand! It was a tiny bison tube hidden in the cracked bark of a tree, but his sharp little eyes identified it before anyone else was even close. Way to go, Cam! You're first solo find!

'I found it! I found it!'

Natalie LOVES pinecones


I'm sure there's a spiritual lesson
behind this great tree


Never did find this one

Justin's first find was under this big rock

Ready . . .

Set . . .

Go!

How you know it's time to go home

A Day Home from School

We color and paint

We channel our inner cowboy

Or our inner pirate

We shoot our sisters

We take hostages



We play on the Wii



We watch Nova on the computer



We read to our little sister



We make cookies for FHE

We complain of boredom until Mom suggests we help fold the clothes . . . and then we are magically occupied. Then we help Mom anyway since she says we can watch Star Trek while we do it.

We make dinner and we hope that Dad will come home a little early so we can go geocaching in the dark for FHE.

Why Natalie is Getting a New Bed . . . Tomorrow!

Muggles No More

We may have just found the perfect activity for our family. Or as close to it as you can get. Part treasure hunt, part gadget/technology play and a big serving of the great outdoors. We took the kids out geocaching with Brett's new GPS unit during the holiday break.

It was cold and there was snow on the ground, but we just bundled everybody up and headed outside anyway. Max was at a friend's house, so we took our almost-child Katie with us instead.


First stop was the old Chester Cemetery. (No grave digging . . . I promise.) This is an old rural cemetery with a lot of nature paths. We couldn't find this cache in spite of the fact that Katie, who had been there before, told us where it was. ('Katie! Katie, don't tell us unless we . . . . sigh, nevermind.')


Then we went to Terrace View Park where it took us a few minutes, but we were finally able to find the cache. Eureka! With that, we were no longer Muggles! Muggles is the term, lifted from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter stories, that geocachers use to describe non-geocachers.

Old Eagle Eye was the first to spot this one.

Look how tiny it is! But, we found it.

It was getting dark but we decided to try for one more. Someone had placed one just outside the grounds of the Spokane Temple. Katie had also been to this one, so we were careful to remind her not to tell us where it was unless we asked her to.


As we pulled the van off the road, Katie pipes up "It's right there under the 'P' sign." Lesson learned: Only take Katie geocaching to places she hasn't been!


Sure enough, there it was: a little film canister shoved into the gap between the signpost and the sign. So, we signed the log and put everything back where it was, nice and safe.

We went out the next day to Sullivan Park, this time with Max and without Kate. We did lots of tromping around in the weeds, but found all the caches we were looking for there. My favorite part was finding something funny in one of the caches: the 'Tote and Chip' card of Kyle Leavenworth, a priest in our ward. When Max saw it, he got all serious and said "We'd better get it back to him or he can't carry a pocket knife." We assured Max that since Kyle will soon go away to college that he's probably allowed a pocket knife without having his 'Tote and Chip' on him. We ended up with a last cache at the waterfall at Mirabeau Park.

As we walked back to the car, a tired Elise asked 'Can we take a break from geocaching tomorrow?' I guess no activity is perfect! Maybe if we brought M&Ms?

Grandma's Fear Factor

Over Christmas vacation, Grandma Audrey offered to pay her grandchildren if they would sample her 'green drink,' which consisted of the juice of lots of green leafy things like spinach, kale, etc. Only Krysten was brave or broke enough to take the challenge.

We appreciate Grandma's efforts to help her grandchildren eat healthfully.

A Very Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. I thought I'd post a few pictures.

The kids ready for Church in their Pre-Christmas finery. Cam loves hats and wore this one with his Sunday clothes the whole morning. I was just grateful he took it off before we left for church.

Natalie in the Christmas dress all three girls have worn. She would fuss if the hat started to slip off and would bring it to us to put back on. She and Cam share a passion for hats.

Opening stockings Christmas morning

Is Santa nuts? Giving a little girl play make-up?! That is PRECISELY why kids love Santa. Santa doesn't care if it makes a mess our you'll shoot your eye out with it, he simply gives the best gifts ever.

Brett's traditional stocking stuffer of yummy cheeses. In this case Dubliner and an aged cheddar.


Grandma's Blankets
This year Grandma Borders gave our kids an especially wonderful gift. She made each of them a blanket. They are cute, warm, cozy and like having a hug from Grandma herself.

Max's blanket was extra special. It was made from some of Grandpa Border's old clothes. Some of the patches still had the pockets on them. Max found kleenex, a flashlight and a dollar in some of the pockets.

Elise loves her pink and green frog blanket.

Grandma chose the perfect pattern for Camille.

Natalie's blanket is similar to Elise with small froggy stripes. For some reason I didn't get a picture of Cam and his blanket. It is red fleece on the back and a blue plaid on the front. Of all the kids, he's probably the most attached to his blanket.

Kids' gifts for each other
This year we had the three older kids make gifts for their siblings. It was a wonderful way to help them think about each other and be excited about the giving aspect of things. Camille made warm fleece scarves for everyone. Max made wooden dice ornaments for the girls and a wooden sword with a hilt of his own design for Cameron. Elise made playdough for Cameron and Natalie (and herself!) and homemade flubber for Camille and Max. Cameron chose gifts for his siblings from the dollar store. That way he got to choose whatever struck his fancy in the store. In this case it was Silly String for Max and Dad, a Santa hat for Camille, an ice skater figurine for Elise and a mermaid book for Natalie.

Natalie strolling her playdough around the house.

Other Gifts
Dad got his birthday/Christmas GPS unit and found a DVD of the first season of Chuck in his stocking. Santa brought Mom DVDs of the 1980's versions of the Scarlet Pimpernel and Ivanhoe (much to Brett's surprise--that Santa is a tricky guy). Mom also got Photoshop so she can fix some of the mistakes in her pictures. The family got an rolling ice cream maker, conference cds and Old Testament DVDs, Super Mario Brothers and Wii Sports Resort, and DVDs of Tom & Jerry, Pink Panther and Harry Potter.

Camille got a jewelry making kit, a purse and the last three books in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.


Max finds a dollar in one of the pockets on his blanket. He also got an mp3 player and binoculars. He was probably just as excited about some of the Wii games our family received as his own gifts.

Cameron's gifts were probably my favorites. He got a huge box with dress up stuff in it: cowboy hat, pirate hat, viking hat, jester hat, pirate 'hook' and spyglass. He also got a cap gun and rifle set with holster and neckerchief and a Woody doll from Toy Story.

Cameron wasn't the only one excited about his hats.

Natalie's personal favorite was the viking hat.

Along with the stroller, Natalie also got a baby doll with magnetic accessories that stick to her hands and mouth and a flap book.

Elise had one of the best stories of Christmas. She got a pink fishing pole, a Three Musketeers Barbie and a tea set. We had almost bought her a 16" Madame Alexander doll, but changed our minds.

After Christmas, her friend (our 'extra child') Katie came to the house with two Madame Alexander dolls she received. (Cute story. She got the blonde one for Christmas and begged her Mom to let her use her Christmas money to go buy a brunette one so she and Elise could play together with them. The dolls' names? Katie and Elise, of course.) Watching Elise handle those dolls with something akin to awe and near reverence I knew that I'd screwed up. We should have gotten her the doll and I was going to do something about it.

So, Monday night, the doorbell rang. When Elise opened the door, she found a wrapped gift with a note from Santa saying he'd found it under the seat of his sleigh when he got home and apologizing for missing one of her gifts. She opened it and found a strawberry-blonde doll with blue eyes. She was so happy that her eyes and face glowed.

While on his break from work, Brett made beds for all three dolls. Elise's is a single and Katie's a bunkbed that can split into singles. They are so happy. The under-stair nook in the girls room has been converted to a bedroom for Olivia and both Camille and Elise have had a blast making doll furniture and decorating Olivia's new digs.