I Promise We're Still Here!

I've been blog slacking over here! I usually try to post something at least once a week, but I've missed 2 weeks now! Let me try to get up to speed here:

The weekend of October 7th we went up to my sister Jillian's for her oldest sons baptism. It was such a special weekend. We were able to celebrate Matthew turning 8 and support him in his baptism. His baptism was so sweet. One of the highlights for me was when Matthew was receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. After the blessing Matthew went around and hugged each and every person in the circle. He has one of the biggest, sweetest, most tender hearts I know. I think we were all in tears by the end of it, I know I was. I blame Jillian for this! We were all singing the closing song, "Families can be Together Forever" and Jillian grabbed my hand. I just started to ball!! I was filled with gratitude for my family and that I get to have them forever.
This particular weekend was full of tender mercies and miracles. I'll share just a couple more moments. The Saturday night of Matthews baptism we were all hanging out downstairs in Jill's basement and Desmond came up to me, out of no where, and did the sign for "food" ALL ON HIS OWN. I freaked out! I said, "Are you signing for food?! Are you hungry?!" and he did it again! I started freaking out even more! "Mom!! He's signing for "food" on his own!!", I yelled. I ran upstairs and grabbed a string cheese, went downstairs and gave Desmond some food!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Marshall wasn't there, so I called him full of tears telling him the miracle I had just witnessed. This was the first time Desmond had signed something on his own without any help or prompting! It was amazing!
My last story of this weekend was when we were over at my Uncle Wades and Aunt Sue's. My cousin just got home from serving a LDS mission and it was his homecoming. We were all over at their home, hanging out when Desmond started to have a meltdown. I think it was an accumulation of being over stimulated, nap time, and being somewhere unfamiliar. We took him to one of their back rooms so he could have some alone time, but he seemed to be getting more and more wound up. I did what our Occupational Therapist had told me to do.  I started spinning Desmond around. I was making myself sick with how much spinning we were doing, but it worked. Desmond calmed down and we were able to get him in his car seat for the ride home. Even though we had calmed Des down, I was about to have my own meltdown. I could feel the tears coming to my eyes as we finally got him to calm down. I started to feel, "Why Heavenly Father? Why? Why does Desmond have Autism? He can't talk to me and tell me what's wrong. He won't let me hold him, hug him, or comfort him. The only thing that comforts him is spinning and it's making me SICK!" These were just a few of my thoughts as I was trying not to totally come apart in front of my whole extended family and a bunch of strangers. As I finished putting Desmond in his car seat I turn around to go back inside and there is my Uncle Wade. He must have seen the look on my face or something (I can't keep anything from my Uncle Wade!). He came straight over asking if everything was okay. I just started to cry! My Uncle Wade grabbed me in a huge hug and I immediately felt so much better. He was a giant answer to prayer for me that day. All the questions I had been pleading to Heavenly Father in that moment of stress were answered by my Uncle Wade. He told me that everything was going to be okay, that Desmond was sent to me and Marshall for a very specific reason. He told me I was a great mother and that he knew I was doing the best I could. In my moment of desperation, my Heavenly Father sent over my Uncle Wade. I am so grateful for my family, for the gospel, and that I get to be with these amazing people forever. I can't imagine having to go through all of this without my family.

Since that weekend we have had quite a few appointments for Desmond. Most recently he was evaluated for more speech therapy and it went well. The speech therapist said that there are a lot of things that Desmond isn't doing, but that there are a lot of things that he IS doing well. He explained that Desmond's ability to "show" us what he wants is a good sign. For example, if Desmond wants us to fill up his sippy cup, he'll hand it to us. Or if he wants something he'll take our hands and take us to where he wants us to go. He then went on to say that it's important that we teach Desmond the importance of using language to get what he wants or needs. As the session went on, a lot of what he did was trying to get Des to "show" him what he wanted through play. He had a race car set that he was trying to get Desmond to "show" him that he wanted the cars to "go".
We continue to work on Desmond signing for "more", "food", and now "go". Desmond does a good job signing for these things, but is now using the sign for "food" for everything he wants. If we say, "Des do you want more?" he'll do the sign for "food". Things like that. We're now trying to get him to understand that each sign means something different.

Last week we went to this new "all abilities" park with Marshall's family and it was AWESOME! This is us on the train that goes around the park. Des really seemed to like it!

This is something Des has been doing for a while now, but I wanted to put up. Ha! He consistently sleeps like this. Blanket over his face, no Desmond in sight. It's hilarious!

And now, we're up to date!