I notice that life around here is always going through phases and changes. We are all changing and adapting all of the time. It’s not just our age that changes, but our interests and hobbies. For children, it is also that they are learning new things at a faster rate than us adults too.

Such is life, keeping its steady pace ever moving forward, as we constantly learn to adapt and keep up to living it day by day.

Right now we are in a pretty sweet phase in life.

I’m 24 weeks pregnant now and baby continues to move a lot. I feel like I’m at the stage where I have the most energy right now. I’ve still been busily working at my cookbook, which I’ve now completed the recipes for. Hopefully everything will be printed up and copies will be available this summer! I can’t wait to share this with you!

There are recipes from breakfast through to dessert and the recipes are all made with wholesome ingredients, with the baking mostly sweetened naturally with pure maple syrup, though there are some sweet treats in there too that use a bit of organic sugar. This time around, I have also included many gluten-free and soy-free recipes as well, or have at least given gluten-free and soy-free options on the recipes. There is no tofu in this book at all. It is all as close to nature as it gets!

 

Baby has been enjoying all of the delicious healthy food that I am now able to consume and my belly is getting more round in front as he grows.

We also put up the crib already because I want to get things done before I get too big and it gets too hot.

Our weather has been beautiful! Warm and sunny with a nice breeze, (my perfect kind of weather) and green. We are planning on planting some things in our garden this weekend too.

Autumn is growing into a young lady now. She is at that in-between stage where she’s not a kid any more, but doesn’t really know who she is. She has begun her journey to finding that out and separating herself from the rest of us.

Lately people comment too about how much she looks like me and she hates that! She likes to think that she is not like me at all and will never be, (“When I grow up I’m not having any kids, I’m going to work and travel”) but I know she still obviously will be shaped by the upbringing I gave her. Plus, I like to tell her that I’m a really cool mom! 🙂 I remind her too that when she grows up and moves out she’ll have to cook and clean for herself and buy everything she needs with her own money, so I think that helps her to realize that she has it good and shouldn’t be in such a hurry to grow up just yet, even though I’m pretty sure we all didn’t realize that until we were grown up and gone from home and fending for ourselves.

These are the lessons you learn through retrospect and living life. I think we all rebel against our upbringing and try to correct the mistakes we think our parents made with us when we get to the point where we are living our own life and raising our own kids. My mom worked full time, my dad did too, and I knew that I always would want to stay home with my kids if I could so that I wouldn’t miss out on their lives. Since my mom worked a lot she also never had much time to cook, so that is why I also love to cook and bake homemade meals for my family. These are some things that I missed out on as a child that I wanted to give to my own.

Kesa is still our goof. She likes to make people laugh and be silly, but she is also growing up too fast! I see her teeth changing and with that, a change in her maturity as well. She’s becoming more independent too. Her copying Autumn doesn’t help either.  She’s growing up faster than Autumn was! I guess that’s how it goes when you have more than one child.

Still, I treasure our walks together where she sometimes even still holds my hand and the cooking and baking that we do in the kitchen.

 

In homeschool we’ve been working on math and also I got the girls some workbooks to work through to just refresh their minds on many topics learned throughout the year. We’ll likely continue those through the summer to keep our minds thinking and learning. That, and reading of course. Right now Autumn is really into the Goddess Girls series. It’s an easy read for her, but she finds the stories fun and is collecting them. She told me that her favorite unit was Ancient Greece, so that was nice to hear and nice to see her interest in it continue.

Our next unit of study planned is nature study. Botany for Autumn with plant classification in more depth and for Kesa, a nature journal where she can observe, write about, and draw things in nature. I also ordered them the game, Wildcraft so I’m looking forward to playing that all together.

We had to get a new floor put into Serafina’s bedroom because this house is carpeted throughout, except for the kitchen and bathrooms. She has been good about keeping her clothes on for the most part, but she’s still in between potty training and not wanting to wear her pull-ups, especially when dirty. As you could assume, this can be a messy thing. That is what happened in her room, a big mess, and so we decided to get the carpet taken out and vinyl flooring put in to make it easier to clean if there are accidents, which there usually only are at night. We don’t know if she does it because she’s bored or rebelling about bedtime, or just doesn’t want to be feeling dirty (most obvious). But if it happens in the night we can’t do anything about it until morning. So basically that would be the biggest issue we face with autism is the fecal smearing that still sometimes takes place (maybe once a week). That was also one of the first signs we noticed of Serafina having autism.

Other than that, life with Serafina’s autism is just about consistent things we do every day like talking to her, getting her to point to things, getting her to hold our hand and getting used to staying close, simple sign language, and working on the potty training.

I know that these struggles are not unique to us and though it may sound nightmarish to those who do not have a child with autism, all non-verbal kids have behavioural difficulties and many children do not potty train for a while and do have issues with fecal smearing. Craig and I keep the hope that things will change (as they always slowly are) as she gets older and we continually work at them daily. That’s all that we can do. Oh, and love her a whole bunch!

For us, the biggest thing is to give her a calm, peaceful, and loving environment to thrive in. She has so many people in this family to love her and care for her and it is nice to see her for the most part a really happy kid. Of course she has her moments (even days), but 90% of the time she is compliant and easy going and we are grateful for that.