The Douger Chronicles

May Days

It's been a while since I've posted, so I'm going to smash all on May into this one. This will be mostly pictures, sensory overload, I know.....

Early in the month we welcomed our newest little cousin, Boston Noel Isaac, to the family. Congrats Bry and Nat and big sis and bro Maycee and Braxton. He is adorable and we are so excited to have him here!






Then, on a very chilly and damp morning, we went to the zoo with Tate's school class. It's one of Tate's favorite places and we had fun despite the weather. Tate has always had a little bit of a love affair or a connection of sorts with the giraffes. We spend over half of our time with them and he even tried to talk me into taking a giraffe home, if only it wasn't as tall as the house!

Tate also translated what the gorilla was signing to his keepers for me. That's a skill I want him to keep, it helps with both man and ape (although I think most of the apes we meet are outside the zoo). I might need to take a refresher course to help him stay up on it if it's not used in his class next year.

Finally, Last weekend we had a surprise 80th birthday party for Douger (my gramps), the most hilarious man I know. So much fun!

Um, this is Makaylee doing the "Bok Bok Salute" to Gramps. So chick-a-dee-licious!














So handsome! Buy War Bonds!

Shirt - An Evolution

Those of you close to me may have had the opportunity of seeing Tate's shirts (or one of them at least). It's his form of a blankie or wooby or whatever you want to call it. When he was about 15 months old (it was not long after he started walking) he pulled a shirt out of my closet and it became his. He took it everywhere with him. It eventually got lost at his baby sitters....
(Tate and Uncle Bry wearing "shirt")

So he did it again, pillaged my closet and found a new shirt. This one lasted until last year and was in really bad shape until he took a pair of scissors to it and shredded it. I was able to recover a few small pieces of it.

(Tate wearing shirt #2)

Thought we had finally outgrown the shirt phase until last summer when he discovered a shirt I had bought at Old Navy that I was going to return. No such luck, he had it out of the bag and said, "Hmm, I like this shirt." I knew there was no getting it back from him after that. It is now torn and in bad shape as well, so he has started rummaging my closet in search of a new one.

(Shirt #3, pretty much torn in two.)

So not wanting to surrender my wardrobe again (he had already tried to find a replacement) I decided to take him to the fabric store and let him pick out his own fabric for a new shirt. He picked a minky dinosaur print and I sewed him new "shirt" last night. It's in the shape of a shirt, but it's just 2 pieces of fabric sewn together. I am so hoping the ends his confiscation of my clothes. He kept telling me today how much he loves his new shirt and how soft it is and that he doesn't need the old ones anymore. I hope so, for my closet's sake. :)

(Shirt #4, and hopefully the last one)

So I finished reading the Book of Mormom last week for the first time in my adult life. I think the last time I read it all the way through was in junior high. Don't worry, I've never been comfortable talking about my feelings of such things as this, so no long testimony bearing here. I just wanted to document this somewhere.

I'm now reading D&C and at the same time watching my dad's copy of The Joseph Smith Papers. It was coincidental that I'm reading and watching these at the same time, but it's put the revelations in D&C in context and given little more of the history behind why they were given. It's an interesting documentary and worth watching if you have hours and hours free. (I've been watching it at work while I've been doing graves the past few weeks, tons of free time to fill.)

World Autism Awareness Day!

April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day. Autism Speaks started the Light it up Blue campaign and has 1000s of buildings light up blue on April 1 and 2 every year. We did our part this year and light our house blue as well. Seeing all of the pictures online of all the buildings and people's houses lit up blue helps me to remember I'm not alone in all of this. Thought I would share a few of my favorites...

Tate with our blue lanterns and my mom put a blue light bulb in the lamp in the front window.

This is San Francisco City Hall.

Tate had an incident.....

So about 2:00 today I get a call from Tate's school. "Tate's had an incident." I start panicking and going through every scenario I could of. His teacher went on, "We were cutting out some paper fish and he somehow cut his tongue with his scissors and has taken a big chunk out of it and we can't get it to stop bleeding." Only Tate would be so talented that he could do that. It's really not that surprising, he's been mouthing a lot more than normal since December or so, everything he touches that is small enough to fit in his hands ends up in his mouth eventually. So I headed down to school to get him. Poor kid, this is what it looked like...

I'm not sure how long his teachers tried to stop the bleeding, but I couldn't get it to stop either. After a quick trip to his ped, they sent us up to Primary Childrens in case he needed stitches in which case they'd have to sedate him. I ended up paying a HUGE copay for some popcicles and ice cream. If any of you haven't noticed, Tate has some pretty strict eating habits and one of those is nothing cold. It took a lot of begging on my part and some very creative ideas from one of the child life specialists at PCMC (she was a miracle worker, seriously) to get him to put those popcicles in his mouth. I got him to take 2 bites of ice cream and he got all panicky and started dry heaving. I wish I'd gotten a pic of it, the strongest reaction to a food I've ever seen. But finally after 2 hours of popcicle eating, the bleeding stopped so we didn't have to get stitches! YAY!

This is his gross frozen blood covered popcicle. Sorry if you have a weak stomache...

He looked like he'd been through something much more traumatic with all that blood and red popcicle all down the front of him. And to make the day that much worse, he broke his glasses. Not anything easily fixable, they are in two pieces. Oh, the adventures we have! :)

If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again. ~Flavia Weedn

When I was young (but thought I was so grown up), I thought I had my life figured out. I had a plan and I was determined to make it happen. I could never have expected the surprises life has thrown at me. That 18 or 20 year old me wouldn't recognize me or my life today. It seems the biggest lesson God has been trying to teach me so far is perserverance. I have had so many dreams shattered time after time and I've ended up on a path that is so far distant from anything I ever imagined. Some of this is due to chance, some to bad luck, some the result of others decisions affecting my life. But I do have to take responsibility and acknowledge that a lot of it is due to bad decisions I made. Each time my dream was shattered and my life upended, I had to find that one piece to cling to that would be the start of my new dream. And that is the important part, that I did find that one vital piece to start over with and be the foundation for my new life. Each time I've found more pieces to keep and more anchors to stabilize my dreams.

So here I am today, a 31 year old single mom of a child with autism. Every day is a struggle and a fight and I doubt myself and every decision I make. Soooo not the determined, successful woman living her happily ever after that I envisioned so many years ago. But the woman I am today is so much stronger and resilient than I ever imagined I could be.

I have decided to join the blogging world finally, mostly for myself to chronicle my journey and Tate's growth and to remind myself of the pieces I hold onto upon which I am building dreams for my future as well as Tate's. So here we go......