How's Jay?

People always ask how my littlest guy is and I usually put on a big smile & say, "he's doing great!"

But I figured maybe I'd share a little of Jay's world with you after reading Jenny McCarthy's new book, "Louder then Words".

I just finished the book last night. It will be great for my in-laws to read to see that what we have been going through physically isn't so bad as compared to what Jenny's little boy went through. While I didn't get a ton from it, I am glad that other people are reading it and seeing what it's like to be the parent of a child with autism.

So, what's Jay's life like? We are blessed to live in Pennsylvania. My son gets 10.5 hours of preschool in an autism only classroom with a 1:1 student/teacher ratio. He gets 30 hours a week of TSS - Therapeutic Support Specialist -- someone who is with him at school and at home or in the community, helping to implement his treatment plan and helping him to learn to interact with the world. At school he gets OT, PT & Speech once a week. He gets 3 hours a week with a BSC - Behavioral Services Consultant -- his TSS's supervisor who works on developing his treatment plan & facilitating his progress. He also goes to an after-school program 2 days a week from 3-6pm that is autism only and has a 2:1 student/teacher ratio. He is transported to and from school on the bus. He has a Service Coordinator -- a county employee of MH-MR who oversees all his programs and gets me any info I need on services, grants, etc. He has a BCBA -- Board Certified Behavior Analyst who is the eyes who oversees the entire process and makes sure we are moving along the right path. He also is going to be going to a feeding clinic at Penn State Children's Hospital/Hershey Medical Center to help him learn to eat more foods so we can switch to a GF/CF diet (maybe) someday. And he goes to Johns Hopkins to see a pediatric orthopaedic surgeon who is treating him for his toewalking (we are getting ready to do casting/bracing). And ALL of this is paid for by the state. The only exception is Johns Hopkins, which our private insurance (Capital Blue Cross) pays for because it is out-of-state.

Yes, we are the exception with the amount of services we utilize, but my son has a very high level of impairment & if these services are available to me, you better believe we are going to take advantage of them. But even with ALLLLLL that work & all those services, we are still basically non-verbal, non-communicative, non-potty trained, eating 5 foods, biting everything (and everyone) in sight and still lost in the world of autism. Sometimes no matter how much work you put into it, at the end of the day you are still not any further ahead then when you started.

I am slowly accepting the fact that Jay will heal at his own pace, but yeah, I occasionally want to puke when someone tells me what great success they are having. I'm happy for them, but sad for me.

So how's Jay? He's beautiful, gorgeous, wonderful, funny, and the reason I am on this earth. I am blessed that God chose me to be his mother.

He is also frustrating, draining, literally exhausting, he causes me to cry every single day, has given me gray hair, makes me get headaches from reading for hours on end learning everything I can about his disease, he makes me lose my voice for yelling at him to GET DOWN from every high spot in the house, he makes me wonder if I did the right thing all those years ago when the little line turned blue.

But here we are and there is no where to go but forward. So that's what we do. Every day, one day at a time, one little step forward.

I'm going to stop now & go cuddle my angel. :-)

Stitches East!

Stitches! I love stitches. It's like sensory overload while drinking a caf-pow and eating a snickers. I went Friday and shopped as much as shopping with Beastie in tow is possible. I went Sunday and worked at the Uncommon Threads booth.


While there, my friends at Uncommon Threads found this fantastic sock yarn that they have decided to start carrying at their store. Lucky me, they need some samples knitted for the shop, so Beth let me choose my favorite and she bought it for me, on the condition that I let her display the socks I make for a bit. Yay! Can't beat that!

So I started Baudelaire on 10/14, right after I got home from Stitches-Sunday. I love the yarn, the pattern I am enjoying, but I really wish I had made the toe wider at the cast-on. I hate that little tiny 8 stitch toe-tip, but yet I always seem to forget how much I hate the look of it when I cast on.


I've just finished my first leaf motif and I am really enjoying the look of it so far. I also enjoy toe-up because you get to learn the pattern completely before tackling the leg portion where you are doing the pattern in the front & back.


I'm also buzzing along on my TWO entrelac scarves. Pics of that in the next post.

Happy needling, everyone!

Saturday Self-indulgence

It's Saturday! Horray for Saturdays! Granted, I don't work so maybe Saturday shouldn't be much different then, say, Thursday, but it is different. Hubby is scuba diving today, so it's not even like I get to spend the day with my sweetie. But I do get to watch football & knit. College football, far & away my favorite. And guilt free knitting because after all, it's Saturday, and honestly, I can't be expected to do chores on a Saturday.

I am desperately trying to finish some of my WIPs so I can start on some new things without too much guilt. Right now I have half a tofutsie sock to finish, one entire baby sock to finish, one entire grown up sock to finish, 2/3 of a charity sweater to finish and a crocheted baby blanket that is about half way done that makes me want to puke everytime I think about it.

So I think the plan for today will be to finish the second baby sock in the morning (since football doesn't start for another 3.5 hours) and the baby sock is a new "sockitecture" for me, using Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters book. Then that will be one completed checkmark.

During football I think I try to finish the tofutsie sock. I'm on the foot, about 2" from starting the toe decreases. With luck I can finish that during the Penn State-Michigan game. But if the game is going poorly, my tension will probably be off. Hmmm, maybe if Penn State is losing I will tackle one of the charity hats I am knitting for Hats for Alex. Then at least tension won't matter as much.

If it's charity knitting then it is guilt-free casting on, right???

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

If you are looking for the Material Whirled blog, it has moved! You can now find it here. This will now be my more personal blog, The Happy Needle Notebook. While you can still find fibery goodness & MW happenings here, this will mostly be my personal stuff, more knitting & autism stuff and less business-y stuff.

So, with that out of the way, let's talk about what is happening here in happyneedleland. I have become Ravelry obsessed. I have also become sock obsessed. I'm currently devouring Cat Bordhi's New Pathways for Sock Knitters.


I'm still on my first baby sock, and much like when I knit Elizabeth Zimmermann's patterns I am going on blind faith. I know these ladies are way smarter when it comes to pattern writing then I can ever hope to be, so I trust them to lead the way.

I'm headed to Etsy to go buy some alphabet stitch markers -- I tried to make my own, but it was dismal & I just resorted to markers that are dissimilar. Works for the baby sock, probably won't work so well when I need more then 2 markers. I have promised myself that as soon as I finish this pair of baby socks I will go back to my yarn over cable socks that I have been neglecting. But then look out New Pathway book, you are all mine!

AH!

Hi,

MW switched servers today and I am still looking for the new blog files.
In case you were wondering why any recent posts are gone.

ohm
Reenie