out of touch

I feel so out of touch with my blog! I was blogging every day and then sort of hit a snag. Last week was really hard but I so appreciate all the sweet comments and emails. Those made me feel so much better. I am also enjoying answering questions about autism concerns for some of your children. Anything I can do to help!

This weekend, Kylie and I had a shopping day on Saturday. We had so much fun together! I am really enjoying my time with her. We went and ordered my new glasses, ate lunch at a fun place, and stayed out all day! The grandparents kept Riley which was so nice! I like taking him places too, but sometimes I just need to make my girl feel special. So much attention is focused on Riley that I just pray that we always make time for her and she knows that we are there for her whenever she needs us.

Kylie is doing so much better with Riley, too. For a long time, she resented him for "ignoring" her or not making time to play with her. She took it so personal. Then Riley got into behavior problems and started hitting people. She got hit a couple of times so that added to the resentment. Now, she is getting older and understanding that he is not doing things to intentionally hurt her- that's just the way his mind thinks right now. We talk about it A LOT!

So, when we were in Barnes and Noble, we found a book that was written by Holly Robinson Peete. It's called, My Brother Charlie and it tells a positive story from a sister's point of view. I asked her if she wanted me to read it to her and she actually wanted to read it to me. So we sat down in B&N and she read it.

We talked afterwards and she realized some things that she may not have before she read the book. I was surprised at some of the insight that she provided. Later on that night, I saw her trying to help Riley in his room and talking with him in a sweet voice. I feel like this may be the beginning to a more positive relationship in our house. :)

We also got our sweet bedroom furniture delivered at the end of the week. Alan surprised my by ordering a 6 foot tall mirror to go with it. It's so nice to see myself from head to toe before I walk out that door. Now I now what areas I really need to work on! I can't take a pic just yet because we still have cable wires running amuck! I expect that will be fixed sometime this week! :)

Riley Fact:
Riley has never been really into trains. It's funny because I hear a lot of people relate trains to autism. I think that all little boys like trains and if your little boys likes them as a hobby- that doesn't necessarily put him on the spectrum. We had a really nice train table and Riley could care less about lining up those trains and watching them run, so I gave it to my parents to keep at their house. Last time we were over there, he wanted to build the tracks and then we ran the trains. No obsession there!