It's been a VERY long time!

It has been such a long time since I posted on here. I check it constantly of course, but I think I have become so consumed in surviving my life that I have withdrawn a bit from the places I should have probably been venting to keep my sanity.

That being said.... here is my life in a nutshell.

I found out I was pregnant last april. It was a surprise since we were done after our 3 boys. But it was a wonderful surprise and we were blessed with our daughter, Kaitlyn, on november 21st. Due to many problems with the pregnancy she was over 6 weeks early. Initially she did very well and was discharged from the NICU at 7 days old. She had some problems that I could not pinpoint exactly, but slept all the time and wasn't hitting any developmental milestones. In january she caught RSV and was in the hospital for 4 days. While there they caught her Apnea and oxygen problems. She did OK awake, but her sats would drop during her sleep and so she was discharged from the hospital on Oxygen. She is still on Oxygen 24/7 as of now due to illness after illness. She has several apnea episodes a week. We hope in the next month to get her weaned  off oxygen during her waking hours. She is behind developmentally, but I think on target for her corrected age. We love her to peices. She has been a huge blessing in my life.

Trevor, my oldest will be turning 9 in a couple weeks. Since the last time I updated on here, he has been put on 3 meds for autism related issues, started one on one therapy weekly, sees a psychologist monthly, and has turned our lives upside down. I had to pull him out of a charter school he was attending and put him back in public school since the charter school let him fall through the cracks. They dissolved his IEP intending to move to a 504, and dropped the ball and left him with no services. We are currently starting over from the top basically. It is sooooo frustrating and draining on me. With the birth of Kaitlyn, we have had to hurry and finish two bedrooms downstairs for him and our middle son, Jordan. Becuase of his meltdowns we had to move the boys ouf of their room to do major repairs on their shared bedroom so we can move the baby in. His life has really truly been turned upside down in every way possible. Our family dynamics changed, his home life is chaos and school is all new with a new/old school. (He attended 1 and 2nd grade at the school he moved back too). This is the worst thing you can do for a child with autism who relies on that structure and stability.

Our youngest son, Josh, is going to be 4 in June. I joined this blog when he was 18 months. Time has flown by! He is doing pretty good, just slow and steady as usual. He still uses his g-tube for 85% of his nutrition and is maintaining a healthy weight. He has added a new diagnosis as of last fall. ADHD. He has been seeing a developmental pediatrician for a year and a half. We just started him on adderall a couple months ago. Our hope is that if he can focus more we can work on speech with him. He can say about 10 words and signs about 35-40. We are currently working on getting the PECS going at home. With his Speech Apraxia, it is very slow progress. He has so many diagnosis and is so complex that it seems like we can only take one little thing at a time. It gets so discouraging when you try to figure things out on a grand scale for him.

I hate to admit that I am overwhelmed, but I am. We are in the process of building two bedrooms in our unfinished basement for the older 2 boys. We started on Feb 21st and we have carpet being layed on April 14th. Our house is in complete chaos. All of this on top of the problems we have with two kids with special needs, and a baby who is needing some extra support for the time being. How do mom's with multiple children do this? Because I am starting to think I am not cut out for this. I have no idea what I am doing any particular day, or even hour right now.

So ladies, what do you do? How do you cope? I need some advice!!!

Application for an ipad?

I have heard a lot about applications for ipads that are similar to PECS. I think one of them is called verbal victor. Has anyone heard about these? Where I can find them? Which is best for young children? Anything? I am going to ask our speech therapist as well but last time she admitted she didn't know much about it. Thanks guys!

Need an ipad for your child?

Hello everyone, I just stumbled across a blog that is giving away 20 ipads to special needs kids awarded on merit/need. The give away started March 3 and just goes until they are out of ipads. I don't know much more than that, but wanted to pass on the info. Click here to check it out - and if you win one, let us all know!