These past weeks we have seen some really beautiful fall seasonal changes! Every day I have been enjoying taking walks with Kesa. Since Kesa is the middle child, it is not always easy for her to get my first attention. It is also getting difficult to go walking with Serafina because she does not enjoy just sitting anymore, but wants to walk on her own, which is really just running and either Craig or I trying to keep up with her and keep her from running into the street. That is our latest autism challenge. So for now, Kesa and I enjoy our walks together because getting out for a walk is the way I relieve stress and do something for me.

I am also still sick with this cold! It seems to never want to go away, but the little things in life that we enjoy together help to take my mind off of the sickness and my complete and total sickness of the sickness. I have completed two rounds of antibiotics. I went back to the doctor last Friday because I was so sick and couldn’t smell or taste anything (and still can’t), he thought I might have a sinus infection, but it turns out I didn’t because they would have cleared things up and nothing has changed, so my illness is a viral infection and I will just have to wait it out.

 

Our walks together are a precious memory that I keep. She loves to be silly and make silly voices on the walk. Kesa also loves to play rock, paper, scissors while we are walking sometimes, but then we make up random other things than plain, old, regular rock, paper, scissors as well and it can get quite funny because of course our hands often don’t look like the things we are supposed to be.

 

 

The evenings bring some beautiful, colorful sunsets!

 

The other day we went up a big hill (our winter sledding hill) to enjoy some of the fall beauty and take a different route.

 

 

There have also been many geese coming back to the river in town, planning their migration. We like to say that they are having a goose meeting or goose party, they are always chattering away in their funny goose language.

 

 

 

Some other wonderful things that have happened around here these days are the changes that we have seen in Serafina since going on a gluten-free diet. We have noticed that she is less obsessive-compulsive, less whiny and more sociable. When the child development worker came to see Serafina after being on the diet a week she was shocked that Serafina was actually sitting and paying attention to the activities that she had laid out for her. She also did a bunch of puzzles! Still, sometimes she just wants to play with things her own way, by lining them up and matching them.

 

On Monday Serafina also went pee on the potty! She has been showing an interest in potty training (or rather, a lack of interest in wearing her pull-ups anymore) and so I wanted to dive into it full force. She has stopped wearing any pull-ups for about a week now and prefers to have nothing on under her sleepers or clothes. She also has gone to bed without a pull-up for the past two nights and has woken up dry and then gone pee on the potty. She still hasn’t figured out how to poo on the potty, and although things can get messy, she is making huge strides in this area. Hopefully it won’t take her too long. She did only just turn four and my other children were potty trained just after turning three years old.

 

And these girls always make life fun!

 

 

 

Autumn is still reading the Anne Of Green Gables series aloud and we are nearly done book three, with only three chapters to go! She reads aloud in the morning before breakfast while I do yoga.

 

Life is beautiful! I am grateful! 🙂