It's Not What you know

It is who, and if you want to put in your order you gotta go to the source. This is our first photo with Santa ever for Caleb. We convinced him that if he didn't let Santa know that he needed a pink donut maker and the cars where they fly through the sign board and a Ben10 book, how would Santa know and for once it worked. Poppy looks like she is 30 seconds away from tears, but I love it, even if they both are looking so grown up. Goodness how did December get to be just around the corner!

See I do Sew

A custom pair of pants for a Mathilda's market customer who had a little girl with a dress aversion. I think these are still super cute, even in the pant variety. The cute little russian dolls, met with cute red with white dots, and a heart pocket bottom and matching applique.

So glad to hear the positive response to Eye Spy too, I hope it is a goodie. I will whip into side bar action by the week-end.

Hey, Does Anyone Else Need a Date for Sunday Night

Lovely Prom Couple
Originally uploaded by foundphotoslj

Since the end of This is and On My Desk, I am feeling a littleis missing from my week. I found so many great blog and great topics in the short time that I have been in them and grateful to the hosts. I also found it a great way to get into blogging as a newbie. Miss Three Buttons was the first person to leave a comment on my blog and I remember it was so exciting.
In keeping I am thinking of starting "Eye Spy" every Sunday in the same theme as This is where each week someone can nominate a theme, but with eye spy it can be as simple as finding something begining with an initial, or a colour, or a feeling or a question. What do you reckon? Wanna join in? Just leave a comment if anyone is interested, I wanted to make it a little different but still kind of the same.

I am thinking "Eye Spy what I want for Christmas" might be a good one to start with.

Hair Today, Gone tomorrow

So I guess this counts as craft, it involved scissors and some amount of creativity. So you may remember that I had a shot at cutting the fringe of my innocent prodigy, well it was going from cute surfy to Billy Ray. So instead of getting him a pair of cowboy boots to go with his Achy Breaky Heart I graduated to the all over trim. He is also sporting the Freddo he got as reward, they are the big thing in Paris this year, don't you know darlings. Thank god he has a bit of curl in there, hides all sorts of sins. I even got a trim too, he wasn't going to trust those scissors unless he had a go at mine first.

I also have to say a great big heart felt thanks to everyone that had such lovely things to say in the post. It really, REALLY means a lot to me.

I Never Know If I should Write These

I always feel a bit funny whenever I do a post about Asperger's Autism and Caleb, I don't know why, maybe it is that I don't want to feel like he is being labeled or if it is because I deal with it everyday so I don't need to share anything but the positive side of it here - Anyway I digress.

I was talking with a friend the other day who was saying that she thought one of her friends son's may be autistic, and even though his parents were in denial that she felt she shouldn't say anything. Caleb's Asperger's is fairly mild on the spectrum scale and I had to fight long and hard when it came to finding professionals that would listen that there was something in my little boy that wasn't coping. Even now I get people saying that "you wouldn't know", "am I sure", or my all time favourite verse "All boys do that". I have got to say though a lot of the symptoms of Asperger's are normal toddler behaviour, just in the extreme. At the primary school we are sending him too eventually they had 12 boys with Asperger's this year, a friend commented "That can't be right, they must just over diagnos it". I digress again.

The photo above is of Caleb's trains all lined up, a really common coping technique. We have a lot of repetitive play and not too much imaginative, compulsive moments. He also manages really well in social situations and then tantrums once we get home as he works so hard to keep it together for outside people. At his peak, we couldn't leave the house, new places were just too hard, and we have slowly built that up over time to where most of it can be enjoying, even if 2 hours is about his limit. I have got to tell you I too have some great stories from snide people as I tried to calm him down, but that is for another time.

I guess the point I am trying to make, even if it is long winded, is if you think that there is something with your child you are concerned about, to search until you are satisfied with the response (not in an over-the-top ER kind of way). Caleb was at his peak of behaviors at the beginning of the year, and now after lots of work he is doing great. There is light and relief if you know what you are dealing with and you can give your child the tools to cope. I also discovered the best solutions for our major problems, (getting in the car seat, toilet training, showering, etc) were the ones that I came up with. I know him best, it too a long time though for me to trust those instincts. Blah - I hope this made some kind of sense, I promise more sewing tomorrow.