My First Blog Entry

Hello All!

This is my first official blog! I have been poked and proded from many different friends to begin a blog. I have no idea why I was so hesitant in doing this but decided to make it my new years resolution for this year and so here we are!

I am a very Happy Married mother of two beautiful boys Trey and Crockett. They are the greatest achievement in my life and I am so proud of them in every way. These two boys are so different and unique in every single way.

When my husband and I decided to get pregnant and have a baby, we had a bit of trouble. We tried to get pregnant for 2 years before we finally took a fertility drug called Clomid and we were able to conceive within a month! We had a vision of what this baby would look like. We just knew that we would have a boy (which we did) but as we both have and had blonde hair and light eyes now and as children, we assumed he would be a toe headed, fair skinned, blue eyed beauty. We had the sex and booty white complexion right but we were WAAAYYYY off on the hair and eyes. He had jet black hair and brown eyes! Who was this little man?! Born on Halloween of 2003 and weighing in at 9lbs 7oz and 21 inches in length, he was PERFECT in every way! From two weeks old, he slept through the night......he ate well, and adjusted well in all situations! He was by the book on everything, as a baby. He was a pure joy to have in our house! We were in love from the beginning.

We were under the incorrect assumption that we would have to use fertility drugs again if we ever wanted to have another baby so we did not use any form of birth control after having Trey. I think you see where this is going.........when Trey was 18 months old, we found out we were pregnant with our youngest son, Crockett. I wanted a girl desperately but God knew what we needed and sent us our baby boy that looked exactly what we figured Trey would look like. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a bit bigger than his brother, Crockett weighed in at a whopping 11lbs 15 ounces and was 22 inches long! He was not so much of a joy to have around the house though! He ate ALLL the time and was (and still is) a horrible sleeper, waking up at the slightest little sound!

Trey was diagnosed with Developmental Delays/High Functioning Autism at age 3 and a half and Crockett was diagnosed with Allergies & Asthma right around the same time as Trey was being diagnosed. Below I have attached a synopsis of the ups and downs in my life thus far. I know it's sorta long but you will really understand the ups and downs in our journey thus far if you read this overview.

Our oldest son, Trey, was born on October 31st, 2003. Our little punkin was two years old when we began noticing a change in him. He regressed in his language and stopped making significant strides in development. Being his primary caregiver, I was, of course the first to notice. I even asked his pediatrician if it was normal for him to have speech delays and they suggested that he was still young and to give him time. I didn't think this was the case and while trying to "deal" or "come to grips" with this possible lifechanging issue, we were also getting ready to welcome another baby boy into the world. We had our youngest son, Crockett on December 5, 2005, a little over a month after Treys second birthday. Around the time my husband came to the realization that there was truly something not right in Treys development, we placed him in a public school early intervention preschool program as a "typical" child. It didnt take that teacher, Ms. Stephanie, long to suggest to us that Trey be tested for Autism or Developmental Delays. I had only known a few people at this point who had ever had autism and that word struck fear in my heart that my son might not ever have a good quality of life. The only people I had ever seen with autism were unable to talk at all and had to have FULL care ALL the time. I put up a brave front and constantly acted as if it were no big deal and that we would work through this but deep down I was going over many scenarios in my head, all of which included my little punkin never speaking and always being dependant on me, for the rest of his life. The big question I had was, if Trey has this, what if we have more than one child with this!? It's more common among boys and we have a new baby boy! BOY was I ever further from the truth.

Trey was diagnosed as Developmentally Delayed just before his fourth birthday and was put into Ms. Selby's preschool class at Walls Elementary (after a friend highly recommended her). Ms. Selby was a beautiful beautiful teacher on the inside and outside! Her deep love for each child in her class was evident with every word she spoke and every hug she gave. Now don't get me wrong......she was sweet as pie but she was and is one of the strongest willed women I have ever met in my life.....exactly what my Trey needed! She pulled things out of him and had him doing things I NEVER thought possible! He grew leaps and bounds during the two semesters he was there. When Ms. Selby retired we had moved to Hernando and decided to put Trey in Hernando Elementary Preschool Early Intervention class with Ms. Nicole Lulow. You wanna talk about a strong lady and one that cared about her kids, you can talk to Ms. Nicole Lulow!! The things she made Trey do made him mad but he loved her all the more after each meltdown! Always giving praise, always giving of her time to ensure that they all had the best and most awesome centers, play areas and education! Trey was in her class for one year and his language and development skills came around full circle! I can not even explain the difference! Also, during this time period, we were introduced to SNAAP (Special Needs Athletic and Aquatic Program) at the YMCA in Olive Branch and the Dockery Foundation Soccer among other things. This year, Trey began his ABA which is Applied Behavioral Analysis, and his speech is so good that I can ask him a question and instead of echoing the question as an answer, he actually answers it! He has learned so many new things thanks to his Behavior Techs, ABA Techs, Occupational Techs, and teachers (Ms. Gwen---I love her!) and assitants! During these times of awesome improvement for Trey, my confidence that everything was going to be fine, came back! Trey has taught me things. He has aided in bringing a much needed awareness in our church for developmental delays and autism. We hope to host a training/information class at our church this spring for surrounding area churches and parents to come and learn about the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders) and working with children with ASD.

Now about my baby boy, Crockett. My Crockett was born with Eczema. It was relatively severe from birth but got worse and worse the older he got. His arms and legs were completely covered in itchy red bumps and rashes and his cheeks were constantly red, his eyes always had dark circle around them and it was miserable for him!! I finally realized that there must be something besides eczema going on here cause the ointments they gave him never seemed to work. I finally realized just what that might be when he was about 18 months old. We went to eat at Steak Escape and Crockett was still eating baby food. He didnt like real food except specific things like fries and vegetables. He was extremely picky! Since he did like french fries we gave him some. As he was eating them, he began gagging and choking and we yanked him from his chair.....this jarred him enough to where he vomited the fry and his stomach contents all over the floor. As we put him down, we also noticed that he had an itchy red circle around his mouth. I decided to make an appointment to the allergist short there after and found out that he was having an allergic reaction to the peanut oil that they cook their food in. This appointment told us that he was allergic to: Peanuts, Pecans (we just avoid all nuts), Bananas, Eggs & CATS (this was his most severe and only environmental allergy!). This explained alot and really helped in clearing his flare ups but it didnt completely clear him up. We found out just a few months ago that he is also allergic to: Chicken & Yeast. Now he is relatively clear and has remained that way for quite a while! Now we go to the Dermatologist for Eczema control and with that and his Allergist, we are golden.....as long as we have his "make it feel better" (his lotion for his dry itchy skin).My Crockett was also born with breathing problems. Not severe breathing problems but problems, none the less. He was 11lbs. 15 ounces when he was born and was taken straight to the NICU after birth because they couldnt get his skin to pink. He was officially the biggest baby to ever be in the NICU at Methodist Germantown. He wasnt in there for very long before he got to come back and be with us but that was the beginning of his breathing problems that eventually became Asthma. We were back and forth to the doctor about every few months with deep chest colds, getting Albuterol liquid to help him breath and not cough and gag on his drainage. We did just albuterol liquid for a while and then finally he was diagnosed with Asthma and we have our Nebulizer that we put Albuterol Respules and Pulmicort in (for preventing and reducing inflamation). He has to take a steroid when these meds dont work but most of the time he is good! So Crockett has been on Singulair since he was about 2 in order to control his allergies and asthma. We are hoping that he grows out of this asthma and allergies but we know God is taking care of our family no matter what!