Oh what a week. There have been so many things building up in my life right now. The anniversary of my sister's death is coming up, I have been dealing w/ some health issues myself, the normal things going on w/ Nicole & Danielle is showing some signs of struggling in school. There are so more on the list that for some reason I don't feel comfortable talking about. By Thursday I got frustrated w/ some things happening at work and I just lost it by the time I got home. There were tears and even yelling at Rick. I just could not wait for the week to end.So my mom called last night and wanted to know if I wanted to take the girls to a little festival that was going on here in town today. I just agreed thinking in my mind that I just wanted to crawl in a hole and hide from everyone and everything. SO we get up and go this morning. And what a surprise to see me enjoying myslef. And why? To see Nicole laugh as much as she did. I am sure by now that nost of you know that Nicole was diagonosed w/ Crohn's last Jan. Well she has been so sick to really be happy. This awful disease has consumed her little body. And then these nasty meds that she is on has turned her into a monster. You just never know what type of reaction you are going to get from this child. There are times that she will just break down in tears for no reason or she will scream at you, throw things, and slam her door. To see this child laugh and enjoy herself was the best thing that a mother can expirience. And I just hope that we will be able to see the old Nicole more often.

Is it just me or is my daughter improving?

Yes I know I just got done blogging about my youngest who has a form of Autism and her meltdowns. But wait there may be a light at the end of that tunnel. See when Danielle was first diagnosed she was also diagnosed with tactile defensiveness. She could not stand to be touched and she hated loud noises. One of my fears during school was the tornado drills and fire drills. I warn the staff at her school every year that she needs to be prepared before a drill. But later on I came to realize something,what if there was a real fire or real tornado? You cannot prepare her for that. So at one of the IEP meetings the subject of social stories came up. The idea about social stories is to talk to the person with Autism about certain things that could happen and how to handle them. So that day I go home and I discussed with Danielle about how she would handle this situation. J ust a couple of days ago I was dropping my oldest off back at the school we were confronted by the school social worker telling us that we missed all the excitement. Apparently there was a small fire in the lunch room and the alarms went off and the fire trucks came. I was told that Danielle was fine so I left it at that. I had forgotten all about it until I was putting Danielle to bed. But when I remembered I asked her how she did. Her reply was" Mom the alarms were so loud and so were the firetrucks but I just followed directions and things were okay." I could not believe what I was hearing. Normally when things get overwhelming Danielle likes to run away from the situation. But not this time. I continued with telling her how proud I was of her.This was a huge accomplishment. So even though I know there will be several meltdowns to conquer I can now be somewhat relieved that Danielle is thriving out in the world even when I am not around to help her. So for all those parents out there who have Autistic children you have to know that there is hope. With some help our children can live close to normal lives.