Color my world

                     
   Is it possible to cough so hard that you pop a blood vessel? I think I'm about to find out. The empty Kleenex boxes are piling up like blubbery carcasses after a traditional Inuit seal hunt. To comfort, console and distract myself from this lingering cold, I'm blasting Christmas music from my Pandora "Bing Crosby Holiday" station. It's keeping me pretty distracted, seeing as how Pandora likes to toss completely obscure NON HOLIDAY songs into my very distinct HOLIDAY station. So I have to dive across the room and hit the "thumbs down" icon, effectively telling that song to "move along, you're not welcome here."


     No, it's not quite December yet, so it really shouldn't be legal to listen to Christmas tunes already. Too bad. I'm in the spirit despite my hacking cough! Brad, Emily and Georgia appear in the spirit, but Maggie is lagging a little behind this year. Not to worry, we'll infect her eventually! (with the Christmas spirit, not the stubborn cold) I'm actually pretty excited that Georgia is talking about needing to make her wish list. It's hard sometimes to guess what it is she REALLY wants. The standard gift for her, whether birthday or Christmas, seems to be multiple packs of Sharpies and reams upon reams of paper. Oh, also coloring books. Georgia ADORES coloring books. And she's got a pretty impressive coloring method. She has a thing for the color red. She goes through the pages accenting certain objects, or clothing pieces, with red first. Then she might go back through with blue, filling in other areas on each and every page. And again with the next color. Each page. One color at a time. Wash, rinse, repeat. She never just works on one page until it's complete. This fascinates me. It is a method which, in her mind, is totally logical. Here are two of her masterpieces. I *think*  they're done. (Right now she's working on the areas of a koala picture that she feels should be pink.)

     












                         

  I'm hoping that if Georgia does have coloring books on her list, we'll be able to track down at least one that she doesn't already own. It will be a challenge, but one that I'm sure we can take on! (and talk about affordable!) But what's on MY "Christmas wish list", you ask? Hmmmm....Peace on earth? Goodwill toward men? I'll settle for Peace in the Davis house, and a trip to Goodwill to see if I can find an aluminum Christmas tree!

                                                      (This here is my DREAM HOME!)
                                                     (And the dress. I want the dress too!)

There will be a quiz on this later

  I  thought it would be a good time to give a refresher course on a few things related to this blog. Namely: why I do it. Get your pencils sharpened and poised to take notes, and - as always- I believe it's good to grab a snack before travelling into my Blogdom. (That's sort of like a kingdom, only it's the realm of my blog. Although I can't say I really rule it. It's more like a puppet monarchy.)

                                                               
   This blog started so that I could keep folks informed of the wild adventures my youngest daughter and I were encountering at the Stowell Learning Center in California. I took her there in order that she might be helped to overcome her many, varied, and unusual learning delays. But aside from her learning issues, Georgia is also somewhere on the autism spectrum. Her diagnosis is considered to be PDD-NOS, which is an acronym for Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. Sounds pretty vague, right? Here is a link to a great definition on the Autism Speaks site: http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism/pdd-nos  If you don't follow that link, and read the page, you will fail the quiz later. OK, not really. If you don't read it, at least read the following paragraph that I've lifted right from the site on a description of three subgroups of PDD-NOS:

    "More helpful, perhaps, are studies suggesting that persons with PDD-NOS can be placed in one of three very different subgroups:

• A high-functioning group (around 25 percent) whose symptoms largely overlap with that of Asperger syndrome, but who differ in terms of having a lag in language development and mild cognitive impairment. (Asperger syndrome does not generally involve speech delay or cognitive impairment).

• A second group (around 25 percent) whose symptoms more closely resemble those of autistic disorder, but do not fully meet all its diagnostic signs and symptoms.

• A third group (around 50 percent) who meet all the diagnostic criteria for autistic disorder, but whose stereotypical and repetitive behaviors are noticeably mild.

As these findings suggest, individuals with PDD-NOS vary widely in their strengths and challenges."

  Georgia most definitely falls into the first category. I will admit to daydreaming at times, imagining her without all of her learning issues, the language delay, and have decided that she would probably be considered an Aspie! That wouldn't be so bad, huh? I mean, if ya gotta be on the spectrum.....

.....and that leads me to report that I recently stumbled upon a terrific resource for families with loved ones on the spectrum! It's billed as "the official social network and resource guide for Autism Speaks". It's like Facebook, but just for ASD folks! It's called My Autism Team. Go check it out: http://www.myautismteam.com/  As I've perused the site, I've seen many people lament that their extended family members just do not "get" autism, or their child's weird behaviors. We've been pretty lucky  in that regard. It has taken some folks a bit longer to "get it", but most all of our family, and friends are understanding and incredibly supportive!

  So.Over the course of the last 10 months I've talked about the ups and downs Georgia and I (and really the whole family) have gone through with our Stowell work, and life with a special-needs kid in general. I've never been on a quest to cure my child of autism. In fact I regard any treatment, therapy, or program which claims a *cure* to be nothing more than a snake oil salesman. (With apologies to any snake oil salesmen in the audience!) I do believe that with certain therapies you can help lesson your child's more troubling (or troublesome) behaviors. This can help tremendously with their self esteem, and with easing tension at home and school. But they are always going to be autistic. Georgia will always be Georgia! But I DO hope to *cure* her of dyslexia, and help her language to evolve to a higher level. And to that end, we will keep plugging along with our Stowell programs, and I'll keep dragging you all along with us! One of these days - I promise - I will try to covertly video tape Georgia reading, and post it here. One of these days - I hope - she will let me candidly video tape her reading because she's just so dang proud of herself!