Autism Spectrum Disorder Diagnosis

Our foster son (soon to be adopted- yippee!) just met with the Developmental and Behavioral clinic today. I’m sure you can guess from the title, we received an autism spectrum diagnosis. To be more specific, Autism Spectrum Disorder with Global Delays with Speech Impairment.

We knew we had some delays. He’s been in physical therapy since he was three months old.

We knew he had speech delays. He’s been in therapy for that for the last seven months or so.

He’s pretty caught up in PT, but still lagging behind in speech. Although, I believe his receptive speech isn’t too far off target. But his expressive is still significantly behind.

They gave us a severity level of 2 – or moderate…

We figured something was up. Knew this was a possibility. But I kind of expected a mild case (a 1) if we received any diagnosis. So this 2 is kind of throwing me a little. I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was to hear the words.

I’m pouring over the stacks of papers they sent home with me and have barely scratched the surface.

I’ve called and texted numerous people to give them updates since they’re involved in the case. I think I remembered everyone…

And with that done,  I’m now dealing with hearing the words and what it means for our family. What it means for my son. And what I keep coming back to is the fact a whole world of resources and help just opened up for us.

Obviously no one WANTS a diagnosis that complicates things. But we don’t get to choose. My daughter didn’t want a epilepsy. My sons didn’t want ADHD. Depression and anxiety? Nope. My kids didn’t want those either. Migraines? Scoliosis? Please. But you know what? We have them. We live with them. We manage and thrive with them whenever possible. Sometimes we win, other times we take a small break before getting up and trying again.

This diagnosis is no different. And there’s help to learn and manage our stumbling blocks.

I didn’t have access to that support before today.

My brain thrives on information and I have access to it. How wonderful is that? We’re so blessed to live in this time of medicine. I’m grateful to be in this moment when there is more help for my son than ever before.

We’re hoping that with time, the early interventions already in place, and adding more services specifically for this leg of the journey, we’ll be able to help him move from a moderate level to a mild level. There are no guarantees, but we’re going to do our best.

WE ARE SO BLESSED.

It All Started 15 Years Ago…

Before I was a mom, I had all sorts of free time and I drew. In art class at school my teacher had me on a different schedule of “Draw whatever you want, ask if you have questions. Next year take AP art.” It worked for me 🙂

I wanted to keep doing it, but it takes a lot of focus and being in the zone for me. With kids, that just didn’t happen very often.

Then someone introduced me to stamping. I knew about stamping, but just the wooden block ones at the store. I didn’t realize people sold SETS. And that you could do so many different things with them. I was in love.

That was almost 15 years ago and I’ve been paper crafting ever since.

I’ve expanded my knowledge base and exceeded my craft corner space. I’ve added so many different options to my stamping journey, but with the cards on the blog today, I kind of kept it old school – mostly. I did use a couple of dies to cut a few things out.

 

My father-in-law just turned 90. His birthday party is in a few weeks. This might be his card. Even if it’s not, I channeled him a little as I made it.

 

I’ve seen these stamps – the girls with no faces – I’m not exactly sure why they don’t have faces – but it was on clearance and I was intrigued! It looked like a lot of fun to color.

 

I needed a quick birthday card. For the guy my daughter’s dating. It doesn’t really scream guy to me, but I ran out of time. But I like it anyway 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

Social Worker Appreciation Month – Have You Thanked One?

Social work is a hard and often thankless job. The hours are long and the pay is low, but it’s some of the most important work out there. It takes someone special to do this kind of job.

We have been SO BLESSED to have THE SAME caseworker for the baby’s case the ENTIRE time. If you haven’t been in this world, let me tell you, this is HIGHLY unusual. Our case is almost 2 years old and our worker has been a stabilizing part of it. She made a tough, scary situation easier.

To thank her and show her our appreciation, I made a few things.

Here’s everything together. I made the boxes and bags, too, using my WRMK Template Studio 🙂

Up close of the shirt. I found the saying on Pinterest and designed something in Silhouette Studio to fit my needs. I use Siser glitter HTV in mint and now I think I’m in love with the sparkly htv 🙂

I used the same htv on the mug. Also a saying I found on Pinterest that I put into Silhouette Studio and played around with. I even got to use the conical warp tool!

I used my mug press attachment for the first time and I’m kind of in love with that, too! I do wish I’d made it a little smaller, but it’s a live and learn thing I guess 🙂

The mug says: You can’t fix crazy. All you can do is document it.

This card though.

It should have been easier.

I inked the flower stamp in different colors using a stamp positioning tool. But the effect was a little washed out. I did pick lightish colors though. So I grabbed my markers and inked up select areas of the stamp and stamped again.

I still wasn’t happy, so I got out my prismacolor pencils and added details and colors by hand until I was happy. And I LOVED how it turned out BUT I felt like there was too much white space. Hence the bricks.

I used my Cameo’s pixscan feature to cut out a mask for the stamped image. Then I ran some paper and a metal die through my Evolution Advanced die cutter to make a brick stencil. I masked off the flower and inked up the background. But it was a little, eh. So I got out my pencils and enhanced the bricks. Then I felt it competed too much with the flower. That’s the image you see right below.

So I did some fussy cutting (one of my least favorite things to do) to rescue the flower. Then used some other metal dies and an embossing folder to come up with what you see below. I was finally happy with it and called it a night. You can see the finished version below the bricked version 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh, the flowers on the are mine because my husband’s awesome 😉

Xoxo

Birthday Six-Pack Box Card

I LOVE it when my husband asks for a card.

He needed one for his boss the other day and this is what we came up with.

I’ll let you in on the inside joke: we don’t drink. His boss knows that. This is probably the only six-pack his boss will ever see my husband carry 🙂

Thanks for stopping by!

Xoxo

File used for the card: Sunday With Dad