April: Autism Awareness Month

April is Autism Awareness month. These are my two nephews: Elijah (5) and Noah (6). They are the loves of my life. They are SO sweet and full of love and I couldn't adore anything more. They are both autistic. And it absolutely breaks my heart. I've been laying in bed unable to get to sleep the last two nights because I'm so angry about Autism. Let me fill you in on some of the basics about this disorder and hopefully it will help you to understand why.

Autism is a complex disorder that has no known cause or cure.

1 in 150 children are diagnosed with some form of autism. For boys, the number is 1 in 94.
This makes it more common than pediatric cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined.

Symptoms can range from mild to severe and span 3 general areas:
-Language development
-Social development and behavior
-Repetitive and odd behaviors

No two children with autism are alike. My nephew Elijah is more severe than his older brother, Noah. Elijah is 5 and is nonverbal, not yet potty trained and has difficulty being in new environments with people who are unfamiliar to him. He is very frustrated with his inability to communicate his needs. He loves to do certain activities over and over again such as watch the same videos endlessly, throw rocks, and jump in the pool over and over.

Noah is 6 and now has a large vocabulary of words. He is still unable to form spontaneous sentences and largely communicates through one or two word phrases. He is potty trained and loves to help his younger brother. Both he and Elijah are in special classes in the public schools with one on one attention from teachers. Noah loves to learn and enjoys practicing his flash cards of vocabulary words, shooting basketball hoops and lining up his toys in certain patterns.

There are some theories about the potential causes of autism. It is generally agreed that there is a genetic predisposition in children with autism that causes them to be susceptible to environmental triggers. A controversial theory that has been refuted by the medical community but is strongly held by a group of parents and a few scientists is that immunization shots given at a young age trigger autism. This is a lengthy discussion that I'm not going to go into here, but if you're interested, here are a few videos to check out on the subject:

Mercury Toxicity and Autism

Jim Adams, Autism & Chelation on Dateline NBC part 1

Jim Adams, Autism & Chelation on Dateline NBC part 2

I help my sister take the boys to a doctors appointment every week where they get chelation treatment. They are injected with a medication that helps rid their body of the poisonous toxins such as mercury and lead that their bodies are unable to process on their own. Their urine is collected and tested and we get reports of the amount and types of metals that are coming out of their bodies. This is somewhat of an experimental treatment but seems to be helping many children with autism.

One last thing I wanted to share on autism--and if you're still reading at this point, you are awesome!--are some early signs of Autism. These are important to know so that you can watch your own children and possibly help other parents out who you know. The earlier Autism is detected the more successful treatment can be. Here are some "red flags" to be on the watch for:

• No big smiles or other warm, joyful expressions by six months or thereafter

• No back-and-forth sharing of sounds, smiles, or other facial expressions by nine months or thereafter

• No babbling by 12 months

• No back-and-forth gestures, such as pointing, showing, reaching, or waving by 12 months

• No words by 16 months

• No two-word meaningful phrases (without imitating or repeating) by 24 months

• Any loss of speech or babbling or social skills at any age

Remember that Autism is very complex and mysterious at this time so no two children will display the exact same behaviors or symptoms. But these are some general things to look for.

One of the most frustrating things to me is that this epidemic is largely ignored by the medical community. Doctors are not taught about it in medical school. Parents take their children in to their pediatrician with concerns about their child's development and they are told that they are over-reacting and not to worry about it. And there is very little being done to find a cure. The effort is definitely out of proportion to the size and extremity of the epidemic. It breaks my heart to think of what we, as a society, may be unknowingly doing to an entire generation of children. We've got to put an end to this disorder.

If you are interested in finding out more about what you can do to be involved, check out these sites:

Autism Speaks
Cure Autism Now

Thanks for reading what has to be my longest post yet! I would love to hear anything you have to say--leave me a comment!

Swimming season is here!

My sister brought my nephews over to my pool today for a little swim. The pool is heated part of the year but it's getting really warm out so it won't be long until the heating is unnecessary.

It's always so fun to watch them swim because they love it SO much. They can just jump in over and over for hours.

I had fun taking some photos of Noah (6) and Elijah (5) which is always challenging because they're both autistic. I watched a "Larry King Live" recently and found out that more kids are being diagnosed with autism than AIDS, cancer and diabetes COMBINED. The number is 1 in 150 kids now. With the rate for boys being 1 in 94. Autism has really reached the level of an epidemic and is getting very little attention for how prevelant it is. The cause and a possible cure are still unknown.

Anyhow, my nephews are super-cute. Here's a few shots of Elijah. I love his floaties :)



And Noah hit a mile-marker today. He lost his first tooth! Unfortunately it was in the pool somewhere. Notice in the photo on the top of this post, he has a whole set of teeth and on this one, he's missing the top middle one on the left:


I don't think he even noticed :).

Elijah's 5th Birthday

My adorable nephew Elijah turned 5 on January 5th but the poor guy didn't get to celebrate his birthday until just last week. He was sick for awhile and then the family just couldn't all get together until now. But I don't think he noticed. He's autistic, non-verbal and still hasn't caught on to the birthday thing. But I was excited because he seemed to enjoy his party for the first time in his life! He usually goes in the back room to watch videos when a lot of people are in the house because it just overwhelms him. But he hung out with all of us the whole time!

My sister is such a great mom - Elijah is on a VERY strict diet and can't have like 30 major ingredients so she found a way to make a special cake just using nuts, egg whites and powdered sugar! And it was good.

Here's some more fun pics from the party. I just had my point and shoot so they're not too fancy but I still wanted to document the event.

Me and my cute dad:


Elijah playing with his favorite gift - large legos:


My brother-in-law, Josh, giving his best pose for the camera:


Me and my sis (aka. super-mom):

Worden Family Portraits

I have to say this is my favorite family I've ever done family photos for. Definitely NOT the easiest. But my favorite. This is my sister, brother-in-law and two adorable nephews. We've attempted family photos numerous times throughout the years and it's always more work than usual because Noah (6) and Elijah (5) are both autistic. Noah's gotten a lot better and will hold still and try to smile at the camera. But he's easily distracted and Elijah is usually the distraction. The boy won't sit still and won't look at the camera no matter what a loud fool I make of myself :). But I love them to death so we always do our best. Even though it takes a lot of energy, we always end up with some cute photos in the end. The best thing to do is keep moving. So we do things that are fun for the boys. Noah loves swinging:


And recently he's taken up basketball:



It's pretty amazing. The basket towers over him but he ends up making his under-handed shots a good percentage of the time. Here's some more cute shots of him playing:



And a cute one of Josh and Noah. Josh is so good with the boys.


Here's my sister taking Elijah down the slide:


After some fun on the playground equipment we went on the merry-go-round. Elijah lit up.



And finally we ended our outing with a ride around Freestone park on the train.


I love this one of Elijah. Poor guy was SO cold by this point.


And one last shot of the whole clan:


I love you guys!!!

Thanks for the love

Yesterday was my 30th birthday and I wanted to thank so many of you for making me feel so blessed. Saturday my friend Jessica took me out to lunch to one of my favorite spots and then to a movie.


Then yesterday I went to lunch with Scott, Julie and the boys. I also got to talk long distance with my friend Michelle from North Carolina. And my friend Shannon from New Hampshire sang to me on my voicemail :). Thanks to so many of you also for the emails, cards and calls. It was kind of an emotional day for me just thinking about how thankful I am for my friendships. I am truly blessed with life-long friends who are so faithful and true.

Today I got to hang out with my mom, sis and nephews in the afternoon. I took some cute photos of my youngest nephew, Elijah who is 4. Both of my nephews have autism and are so special. Elijah's favorite thing to do is throw rocks. He can sit in the backyard for hours.





And then tonight my parent's took me to dinner at Shabu Fondue. It is one of my favorites. You get to cook your food in front of you and then for dessert dip things in chocolate! It's entertaining and yummy. Here's me with my birthday dessert:


Amazingly the birthday fun isn't over. It's more like a birthday week this year. Julie, my sister and mom are throwing me a party Friday night that I'm really looking forward to! I feel so spoiled. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all of you for pouring on the love and for being such amazing people who I feel honored to call friends.

Noah

This is my super-cute nephew Noah. He turns 6 this Monday. And that's his mom, Natalie, my younger sis. I got to hang out with them today which is one of my favorite things in the world to do. Tomorrow is his last day of kindergarten and my mom and I went to his class to visit him and observe today.

He was so proud to have us there and showed off a lot. After school we went back to his house and he promptly took off his clothes down to his underwear--which is what he always does at home--and started to play. I guess it's good to be comfy at home. Anyhow, I got some fun half-naked kid photos.

He loves being in front of the camera and seeing pictures of himself. And I think he might take after his aunt because later tonight he stole my sister's phone and went around from person to person in the house saying, "smile at me," and taking pictures with it. The only problem is he always had the camera backwards and took all super-close-ups of himself. But we're working on it. The passion is there and that's what's important. Technical skills come with time. :)