JJ Loves Books

 JJ loved books, (still does) the thicker the better. In the waiting room, at one of the first doctor's appointments I took him to he kept trying to get up and head for the door. I had him sit and told him not yet, we have to wait. I brought a tote bag full of books and coloring supplies. So I pulled some out and he happily sat for a little bit. Then he would try to head for the door again.

 When they finally did call our name I let go of him to gather up our stuff. JJ made a beeline towards a lady sitting next to the door reading a thick novel. He got into a tug a war over her book. I repeatedly apologized as I pried his hands from her book. 

MR

1,000 Books Before Kindergarten

 JJ only talked to repeat or sing nursery rhymes. So we knew that he could talk. He needed to hear words spoken, sentence structure, he needed to be introduced to new ideas. He needed someone to model all of this for him.

 I credit the free program, 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten, for teaching these things to my older children. We enrolled both boys in the program through our local library. I had kept a lot of my older kids' outgrown books, but the majority of  the books I read came from the library. 

 When we started the boys had very short attention spans, but loved to snuggle. I started by reading books with a sentence per page, like BOB Books. Then we worked our way up to level 1 and level 2 readers. Eventually we were reading longer books or multiple short books.

 We often reread books, but I only counted them on the list once. I wanted the boys to hear as many new words and new ideas as possible. I read a mix of fiction and nonfiction.  

 It helped. Lil' Bro was slightly behind in his speech, but had caught up by the end of the program. JJ started to talk more, though still not truly communicating. 

MR

Opinions

  Everyone has an opinion on how you should be raising your special needs child. Even those, who have never spent an entire day with him. "You should try horse therapy." "You should do ABA." "You should try aqua therapy." "He should participate in able-ball." Music therapy. This special diet. This very specific regiment and not deviate from it at all...

 MR

Trauma informed parenting

  Hubby and I are considered "trauma informed parents" because we watched some videos online and passed the tests. Needless to say these videos did little to prepare us for becoming JJ and Lil' Bro's parents. 

 We were told that we had to always remain in control and calm and that would regulate the child. Yet we are real people with real emtoions, not cartoon characters. Even blogs on autism said that if your kid is headbutting, self harming, or displaying destructive behaviors, it is the parents fault for not meeting all of the kid's needs. I guess they thought I should be all knowing and somehow sense every need and emotion of my noncommunicative child.

 The unneccesary guilt they are piling up on parents is totally unfair! I quit researching online because I was told this kind of garbage over and over. Instead, I trusted myself and through trial and error, and talking to those, who actually knew JJ, we found what works for him.

MR

Cute Kid Pics

  Everyone thought we were heroes for adopting the boys. They were excited for us and for "those sweet boys". However, when we shared anything negative about them people were horrified and we quickly went from hero to zero. We learned that most people, even good friends, just wanted cute kid pics. 

 The funny thing is we weren't sharing the nitty gritty details of just how hard it was. Most of it was just normal parenting complaints. Yet, we often recieved comments like, "You knew what you were getting into." 

 One woman loudly proclaimed, "they are nothing like what you said!" She said that in front of a group of friends after only watching the boys get out of the van and walk across the parking lot. She had not even met them yet. 

MR

Foster to Adopt

  There are a lot of misconceptions of what Foster to Adopt is. If you go online Foster to Adopt is often villianized, even by foster parents. People think that Foster to Adopt is people, who want babies and aren't willing to try to reunify with the parents. Foster to Adopt is actually for the kids, who have been through the system; for those who aren't going back to family. These are often older kids, sibling groups, or special needs children.

 Though JJ and Lil' Bro are biological brothers, they were living in seperate foster homes. They had not seen each other in several months, due to COVID. These brothers had very different experences in foster care. Lil' Bro went to one foster family before us. JJ got bounced around. We will never know how many of JJ's behaviors were from autism and how many were from trauma. 

 Foster to Adopt allowed us to reunite these brothers in a stable family. 

 MR

    

Meeting JJ

  We knew JJ had autism before we ever met him. I quite naively said that autism doesn't bother me. My brother has autism. My friend has a happy little nonverbal boy, who was always in his own little world. I was about to find out how different it is to be the caregiver.

 We met JJ through zoom meetings; it was 2020 and lockdowns were in place. He was normally in a high chair and staring off into space as hubby and I tried to engage with an autisic 4 year old through a screen. He completely ignored us unless we sang nursery rhymes. We sang a lot of nursey rhymes. 

 When we finally met in person, we found out that JJ looked through people not at them, did not respond to his name, and was addicted to the tablet, (hence his extensive knowledge of nursery rhymes). He was very pale and had no hand grip at all. He just sat rocking on the couch staring at the screen. 

 However, we were the parents God chose for this little boy. We had high hopes for his future. It was our job to help him reach his full potential. 

MR