Taking the Scenic Route

Although the day started ENTIRELY too early,  (the kids were up before 5am…ugh) the day was really good.  We went out to my home church for the service.  It was a fun, interactive service and the kids both did well enough that we were able to stay in the pews (about 5 rows back) the whole time (until the little ones were dismissed for the sermon after the children’s story).  My dad did tech for the service (pretty normal) and my mom was in the praise choir, so she was up and down a lot as they performed. 

One rather amusing hitch was when the pastor called for the children’s story.  What he meant was children’s choir.  (the children’s story was to follow the choir) but he said “story”, so I picked up Zora to take her to the front, and sent Zane on ahead.  About the time Zane clears the pew and is headed up front, I catch the eye of my mom (standing with the praise choir up front) who is motioning me to sit down.  I was sort of confused, but went back to my spot assuming that maybe the story was too “old” for Zora.  (which was not the normal routine for children’s story, but oh well).  A moment later I realized that it wasn’t children’s story, but choir, and Zane got shuffled in with the other kids standing in the front of the church, front and center.  Zach and I both had the realization of what was happening at the same moment, but were in the middle of the pew and just sort of looked at eachother in shock and “what the heck do we do now?” look on our faces.  As my mouth stood open, in a semi panic, the choir began to sing.  Zane, instead of freaking out or melting down, started smiling the biggest smile and looking around at the kids surrounding him.  By the third verse he was (sorta) singing along.  Amazing.  Our own little Easter miracle.

We went to the farm for Easter dinner.  Grandma (mom’s mom) and Steve and Joy joined us.  It was a fun afternoon.  The kids got another basket filled with goodies from Grandma & Grandpa, and played on the farm until they were so worn out they fell asleep in their tracks.  At that point, we scooped them up and took them home.  A very nice day.

The photos and 3 videos

  (I didn’t start taking pictures until after changing them out of their Easter clothes, so I will need to dress them up again to get some pictures of their Easter cuteness)

As the grownups finish eating, the kids find their way to the piano.  (next to the dining table)

And a video of them playing: 

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The highlight of the day for Zane…Grandpa showing him how to work the backhoe.

A video of him taking the controls: 

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Zora spending time with Grandma while Grandpa and Zane are going for a walk.

The cat (Barnum, our old cat) was curled up in the planter and Zora kept bringing things to her.  (the white planter was the only thing there before Zora started moving things)

A video of Zora discovering the eggs have treats in them: 

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Grandpa & Zane return, Zora shoots out to meet them.

Zora snags Zane’s basket when he sets it down.

Zora shows me that she can drive too.  (the truck was not running, btw)

The kids help Grandma put birdseed into the feeders.

Hope your Easter was as joyful as ours!

Zora is still clingy, but not sick any more.  Zane seems to be better too.  Hopefully everybody will stay healthy so we can enjoy Easter this year.  We plan to go out to the farm, probably to church too.  Zane and Zach might spend most of that time out on the playstructure outside, but we will give it a shot.  Then to Mom & Dad’s for dinner and an afternoon of hunting for eggs and playing on the farm.  My grandma is planning on being out there too, which just makes me even more excited to go out there.  Not sure if Joy and Steve will be there though…they might be going to her family.  (I think they celebrate Easter, and if so, it is the only holiday they celebrate.  They are some variation of Christian, but they don’t celebrate a lot of the holidays)

Tonight I went to the Autism parents meet up and got into a conversation with somebody I have talked to online sometimes.  She has invited us to meet up with them on playdates before, but we haven’t been able to go.  We set a date for this Tues to get together. (she insisted we set a date and I was glad because I am having a tough time with depression and would have probably kept putting it off)  It was one of those weird moments when I felt like God knocked me on the back of the head saying “LISTEN ALREADY, WILL YA?” when I was talking to her.  She goes to the Mennonite Brethren Church on the west side, which I think I heard her say at one point at an earlier get together, but it didn’t really sink in because our car wasn’t going to make it to the other side of town reliably, so I wasn’t even going to the “regular GC” Mennonite Church that I kind of liked.  Going to the MB church didn’t really hit my radar, which is really stupid when you realize I am going to a Methodist Church now.  lol.

Anyway, she has an NT son Zane’s age, and autistic twins a year younger.  (and a toddler younger than Zora).  I would guess her to be around my age basically.  She also homeschools.  Now, we have been together on several occasions, so why I didn’t really let all this sink in before is beyond me. 

There is a person at her church that recently returned to this area and is teaching her autistic boys in Sunday School class.  She has been doing research and working on educational strategies for autistic kids for 20ish years and is back in this area to teach at 5 of the KCAC colleges (the league of private Christian Colleges, my alma mater being one of them) to teach the upcoming generation how to educate kids with autism.  She has been talking about developing a curriculum for homeschooling autistic kids too.  Since my son is about the same age, the mom friend thinks it would be no problem at all for my son to join hers in the Sunday School class.  So, a small class size with a teacher that is invested heavily in teaching autistic kids in a Mennonite (ok, MB, but who’s counting here  ) church, with other kids that are homeschooled.  Yeah….don’t ya hate the feeling that God has been trying to get through to you for months and you haven’t been listening.  lol.  *sigh*

So, we will give it a try.  I still like the Methodist church, and so far, the situation for Zane is a lot better than anything else we have run across, but the class sizes are still huge and I am not sure how much he is really getting from it.  It is sure a lot closer than the MB church, but our car can handle it now, and even though it is MB, it is probably a closer fit to our belief system.  (although the Methodist church really isn’t too far off).  It is worth giving it a shot.  After Easter, of course.  We are going to my home church on Easter I think.  The Methodist church doesn’t have Sunday School or Children’s Church that day, just 3 worship services and there is NO WAY I will walk into a new church on Easter.  Unlike most families, Easter and Christmas are the days I am least likely to go to church because it is so much more crowded, off routine, and more difficult for Zane.  At least at my parent’s church there is a quiet outside (rural church), with a play structure that he can go to if it is too energetic inside.  That, and people there know us, and know him, and therefore aren’t shooting us disapproving looks.

We went to the candlelight service at Church.  Zora made it through the first quarter of it, but I had to get Zach to come retrieve her during the children’s story because she would not leave the pointsettias alone.  When she started going for the advent wreath, Zach came and got her so I only had Zane up there.  I pulled him up off the floor (he was laying down *sigh*) and onto my lap and the rest of the children’s time was pleasant for us and I had time to realize that, despite the fact that I was originally the only parent up there to “help” my kids, there were now several more and the kids were causing more havoc than mine.  That made me feel less idiotic.  (because for about 2 veeeery long minutes I had one that was laying on the floor and the other that was like a little tornado in curls up there, and I felt like the worst parent in the world.) 

The other problem was continuing through the service.  Zane was having a problem sitting still (there was no children’s church service and the service was “advertised” as being kid friendly and kids of all ages were encouraged to participate) and at one point, while trying to arrange himself in his chair, he used the seat in front of him as leverage for a short bit and as he was pulling his legs back towards himself the lady in the chair turned around and grabbed his feet to shove them away faster and hissed “thank you” about three times in a row.  I was so shocked that I didn’t even respond.  I was watching him and he literally just barely touched the back of the seat and wasn’t kicking or anything, just touched it.  She spent the rest of the service shooting us daggers and mumbling.  lovely. (Ironically, she was louder and more distracting than he was, and she was the grownup) He really was doing pretty well IMO, just wiggly with the occasional very quiet comment.  (he almost never talks at the ‘normal’ talking volume, he is very quiet, although the excited comment of “fire!” when he saw the candles did make me giggle a little)  As I looked around the sanctuary there were several other kids in the same age range that were actually standing up and far more active and talkative, and we were actively working with him to help him remember that he needed to sit and be quiet.  Thankfully, most of the service was singing and that was better for Zane.  I was in too good of a mood to really let it bother me at the time.  In retrospect I was really annoyed at the lady though.  Not exactly the picture of Christian charity there.  (plus, I felt like “if they only knew how much worse it could be” and just wanted to kick her for being so intolerant.  Church is hard enough without commentary from the peanut gallery)

After the service we went by Heartsprings to see the “Lights on the Lake“.  After we went through it, Zane asked to go again, so we did.  He loved it!  He was talking about all the different lights as we went past and really doing an amazing job of commenting about them.  After that, we went home and I tried to get a few pictures of them in their church clothes (got ‘outtakes’, but no ‘postcard’ pictures) and then we baked some gingersnaps.  I put the dough in balls and each of them helped roll them in sugar.  Well, more accurately, Zane rolled, Zora squashed.  Zane’s turned into cookies, and Zora, although enthusiastic and having fun, ended up creating ‘playdough’.  lol.  It was fun.  Over the course of the evening we made fudge, a black walnut pie (like pecan pie), two cheesecakes, and an apricot pie.  I need a different crust recipe though because they end up being “patchwork style” crusts.  We also prepped the potatoes, made the crabmeat lasagna & a breakfast casserole so we just had to put them in the oven to bake in the morning.

In the middle of the baking/cooking, we gave the kid’s baths, then we sat down to read the Christmas Story and “The night before Christmas” and hung their stockings.  It was sweet.  Zora had trouble hanging hers, so Zane helped her.  Then we got some of the freshly baked cookies on a plate and put out some milk for Santa and put them to bed.

Right before bed we finished wrapping the presents (we had wrapped most of them the night before, but still had the books and a few random gifts), and then set the scene for the morning.  It was nice.  We were exhausted, but very happy and excited for the morning.

The “outtakes”

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

more later about a great Christmas day.

Both the kids have runny noses.  I was hoping it was just allergies, but Zane seems to be getting worse, so I think it is actually “sick” and not allergies now.  Fun.

Church went fairly well.  Zach was a little irritated with all the singing.  The singing ran over and cut the sermon short which really annoyed him.  There were supposed to be 12 points, and he barely got through 4.  Zach said it was like there was too much appetizer and then the waiter snatched away the entree just as he was getting started.  lol.   On the up side, it took 3 Sundays to have “too much song and dance” instead of it being the first Sunday.  We have gone to several churches where the first Sunday we showed up it was a “special” Sunday and was all song and dance.  It was a frustrating coincidence.  Trying to get him to go back to a church with no sermon is even harder than getting him to go to the dentist.  At least this time he knows it isn’t how every Sunday goes and he does really like the sermon and the pastor, it was just too short.

Zane did fairly well in Sunday School, but about 10 minutes into the Children’s Church he was wanting to lay down on my lap and not really do much after that.  He was able to keep it together enough to participate sometimes and he didn’t actually meltdown, so that was good.  When we went back up to the sanctuary for the end of church he just laid across my lap and wanted to be carried out at the end of church.  At home, he went straight to the loveseat and just laid there, drained. 

Zora was clingy for most of the Sunday School time period and just starting to play right before church, but seemed to have a lot of fun once she warmed up.  At home, she is clearly tired, but can’t get to sleep because of her nose and sinus drainage.  This could be a very long day.  *sigh*

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eta:  The really frustrating part, for me, is that Zach is a musician.  He has a beautiful singing voice, and can easily sing everything from tenor to bass.  His voice is rich with beautiful projection.  He has ZERO interest in singing in a choir right now (I asked him if he would enjoy the music more if he was singing instead of just passively listening).  I wish I knew a way to rekindle his love for music in this form.  He said that he used to love the music part of the service and doesn’t understand himself why it annoys him so much now…just feels like it is a tedious waste of time while he waits for the “good stuff”.   Us humans are complicated and unpredictable creatures, aren’t we.  *sigh*

Tears of happiness.  Seriously, this church is amazing. 

As is usual, Zach spent the entire time between leaving the service until he went to take a nap deconstructing the sermon, but he found more that he agreed with than disagreed.  That is a good thing.  He has determined that he really doesn’t like most of the church service besides the sermon (at any church), but the sermon is good enough to be worth the other stuff.  High praise from him.

The choke-back-tears came when we were enthusiastically offered the equivalent of a paraprofessional (something about Angel wings…didn’t retain the actual name yet) to go with Zane through at least the Sunday School, but I didn’t catch if they also go with them during Children’s Church or not. (but it wouldn’t surprise me).  What *I* heard when I heard that was that, for the first time since he was born, I will be able to attend a Sunday School class.  The person was excited to offer it too…they had recently designed the program and so far there was only one person using it, the daughter of the program designer.  (her child is a year younger than Zane and has Down Syndrome). 

Not only that, but another person at the church has started a program that provides Respite Care to the community once a month, and other churches are starting to participate to provide the same service on other weeks.  They staff it with licensed professionals leading some volunteers.  Can you imagine…4 hours where Zach and I can go out and do, whatever, without having to have my mom drive an hour.  The church is located right in the middle of “date” territory too…the nice theater we like is across the street, as is a huge bowling/game complex and a lot of nice restaurants.  Heck, we could just go back home and sit in a quiet house for a few hours if we didn’t have the money for an actual date.  That is so amazing.  I had heard of the service through other avenues, but hadn’t found out when/where, ect, and I assumed it was a service you paid for.  It isn’t.  Is is at no charge.  I could just cry. 

Other things I liked:  They had the kids looking up a verse in the bible, and the bible was NIV (my favorite) with a kid-friendly format.  (Called the Adventure Bible )  I was happy to see them trying to use an actual bible instead of just the story. (although the language used seemed really high level to me, but that could be because my “normal” is so different)  They also started the whole SS session with all the kids in a group singing a few songs.  That was nice too.  I didn’t recognize one of the songs, but I did recognize the other…it was a Raffi song.  We even have that song.  I don’t know all of the sign language they did with it, but I know some of it to teach him and I can ask the STs if I can’t figure all of it out.  It wasn’t signed exactly, just on key words, so that will help.

We have learned that Zach has to be the one to drop off Zora.  If I drop her off she throws a huge fit.  She takes a bit to warm up, snuggling with somebody for the first 5-10 minutes, then she is off to explore and play.  Today, when we went to pick her up after the last service, she was asleep.  *insert jaw drop here*  I was shocked.  Really, really shocked.  lol.