Big Announcement coming super soon, like this weekend soon! That’s right my Hippies, I have been talking about his big announcement for a little while now and I am finally ready to let you guys know what is in store for this Hippy and my blog and this page and just everything. Try signing up for my Hippy Email list to be the first to know and stay up to date on all Hippy news! Please give this post a like and a share. Thank you so much my Hippies, have a beautiful day!
So for those of you who don’t know, I have been having several major health problems that have made me depend on my husband for a lot. Through this tough time my husband has pulled through now more than ever. He has completely stepped up and made it to where when i’m not feeling good I don’t have to lift a finger. He lets me sleep in every morning. He gets up with the kids all night and then gets them up and changes their booties in the morning, so I won’t have to bend over.
I just want to let you know Michael that I won’t forget about all of the amazing things you are doing. One day your going to get injured or sick and I am going to take care of you. All of the times you have to put the kids to bed, or get them up in the morning, all of the times you have to stay home on Thursday nights, all of the times you have to get the kids out of the car, your incredible. God has truly blessed me with an amazing husband and our kids with an amazing daddy.
I love watching you “Super Mother Slam” Andy after work, or paint Autaum’s nails when she asks. Your our superhero daddy, we need you. So if anyone happens to see my husband, at any point in time, will you please just give him a pat on the back or maby some words of encouragement. It takes ALOT to run a household by yourself, go to work, and take care of 2 kids and another adult.
Thank you daddy bear.
So as many of you do not know my beautiful daughter, Autaum, has been in therapy for about eight months now. It started with my dad noticing that she still wasn’t talking as much as he thought she should of been. I blew it off and told him that she would learn in her own time. As the months went on more and more people started making comments, family members, my husband, old ladies at the grocery store. It got to be overwhelming.
I never thought there was anything wrong or different about my child until we met a new friend at the library. We met a beautiful little girl and her mother one morning. This little girl was only a week or two older than Autaum. Right away this little girl kind of put me in my place. She was asking for things in complete sentences, she was running around playing, she was so advanced. I felt so bad that I hadn’t seen what everybody was talking about this whole time. Autaum had only three words, Mommy, Da-Da, and Dog. That was it. She was two months away from her second birthday and she really only said two words.
I quickly started noticing a decline in her behavior. It was like my once bright, shining star had shut down. She completely shut down. She was attached to my hip, she wouldn’t walk in the store, she wouldn’t go play (even at home), she never left me. She eventually stopped talking all together.
At this point I started trying everything I could possibly think of. I talked to her day and night about every little thing. I labeled everything. We read books together. I dug up all of my old certification class work and my old child development books. I had exhausted all of my resources. Can you imagine how helpless it feels to know your child is struggling and not be able to help them?
Long story short, we had her evaluated for everything. The results came back that she had an eleven month speech delay. ELEVEN MONTHS! She was almost a year behind. I was heart broken. No mom ever wants to even think that there could be something wrong or different about her child let alone be sitting in a room full of strangers with degrees in this stuff and have them tell you your child is almost a year behind.
Shortly after we starting having home visits from an amazing woman. Autaum called her “Ms.Carene”. I loved “Carene”. From day one she ceased to amaze me. I had tried every thing I could possibly google and still “Carene” would one-up me. All she ever did was play games with her but that’s all it took. “Carene” knew how to push Autaums buttons. Autaum started calling me “mommy” again, she started asking for food instead of pointing, she started to engage in one on one play and look you in the eyes. It was amazing.
Autaum continued her weird behavior just not as bad. She still wouldn’t go play with the other kids but I was able to pee without her in my lap. Other odd things starting coming out too, like she wouldn’t let me cut her nails or touch her ears, she refused to wear shoes or socks. There was like two strait months that all she would wear was Crocs or rain boots. I think Crocs have to be the ugliest shoes next to rain boots, but that’s what we had to work with.
One day “Carene” asked me if i’ve ever heard of Sensory Processing Disorder. Of course I haven’t. She then takes out this four page packet of questions to ask me about Autaum. Thirty minutes later she then explains that she has noticed some off things about my girl and if I would be willing to meet with a occupational therapist. Of course I would.
That first day of meeting “Resa”, her OT, was the worse. I think I cried for three days strait. It turns out Autaum does have SPD. I went to every website, I read every article, I researched myself into depression. I was so worried. What does this mean? Is she going to be labeled differently? Are people going to treat her differently? Do we have to warn people about this? There were millions of questions.
To finish off my rambling, eight months ago I felt like all was lost. It felt like I had completely screwed my daughter up. With tons and tons of prayer Autaum is officially graduated from all therapy. Her case manager who is also called “Resa” told me this morning that she has only seen two other kids, in her entire career, graduated from services. My baby did it! She did it! She did it! She did it!
Autaum will always have this disability and it will always effect her. We have given her all the tools we possibly can to thrive, the future is up to her and the big man upstairs.
Today is a day to celebrate! Not very often do you see a kid go through and conquer so much in such short time.
I do ask that you please share this post with everyone you know. SPD is a very serious disability, we were blessed with Autaums being not bad at all but most kids are not so fortunate. SPD is a disability that insurance companies are not recognizing, this means that for many they will not receive the services that they need because parents can not afford them. This also means that parents have to pay for all of their child’s equipment, therapy sessions, etc. and if you don’t have the hundreds of dollars that it takes you child will have to do without. SPD effects almost every aspect of that child’s life. Everything they hear, see, touch, smell, taste is effected, most often in a bad way.
Please do not take your senses for granted.
Through the next couple if months we will be raising money for the SPD foundation. I will be setting up an account where you can donate money. I will also be selling TShirts and hair bows. Our theme this year is Ladybugs since that was Autaums nursery theme. So spread the word and as always love someone with SPD, I know I do!
So lately I have been thinking and thinking and thinking. Thinking about the future and what it holds for us Garzas, thinking so much that I cant stop thinking. I am having dreams about it, its too much. In the midst of all of this thinking there’s one teeny tiny thought that is constantly lurking in the back of my mind, where is my “family”?
I don’t mean specifically the people who are blood related to me. I mean the people who are around me, the people I see on a weekly basis. The people who have watched my kids grow up, who have been with me from day one. The harder and harder life gets the harder and harder it is to be the light of the world. In church today the pastor went on and on about how if a “friend” has hurt you it is your job as a christian to continue to love and pray for them. But that is easier said than done.
I have so much hurt and pain bottled up inside from the past. I know everyone does. Its a special kind of hurt, a special kind of pain. Its a hurt and a pain that can only come from someone you once loved and trusted. How do you block out those nasty thoughts about someone? How do you let go of all the anger? I don’t think you do, I don’t think it is possible for any human to just forget that kind of hurt and pain. I think the only thing you can really do is pray. Pray for them. Tell the lord what they have done to you, tell the lord how bad it hurt, tell the lord that you are angry and you have hate towards them, but most of all tell the lord that you don’t want that. You don’t want that ugliness in your heart. Ask the lord what to do, ask him to help you, ask him for peace.
Our pastor also made it a point that no matter how much you continue to pray for and love someone they may never come around, and that’s ok. This stopped me in my tracks. I don’t want to hear that. I want you to tell me that everything’s going to be ok and that that person will come and apologize to me and we will live happily ever after. But that’s not reality. God doesn’t make our lives perfect, God doesn’t make people apologize to me, that’s not God’s job.
The theme of Andy’s birthday was “Anchor yourself to Jesus”. I had a quote I had stolen off of Google written on the fridge. It read “A smooth sea never made a skillful sailor”. This quote is burned into my brain lately. As the Garzas continue to plan for our future and what all that entails I cant help but to be thankful. I am thankful that we do not live in a giant house, that we don’t have money just laying around, I am thankful that we have to work for what we have.
To answer the question “where is my family”. There gone. My “family” is out taking care of their problems or dealing with their own hurt. It was selfish of me to get upset at my “family”, it was selfish of me to expect my “family” to be perfect. I am sorry. I try to love everyone and be there for everyone just as Jesus would do. I try to be the light of the world and shine as bright as I can. Sometimes my light isn’t always as bright as it should be, and that’s ok.
To all of the people that have screwed me over, to all of the people who have hurt me, lied to me, stole from me, or just plain aren’t there. Its ok. I cant just let go of all of the pain I have from you, I just cant. What I can do is pray for you, and I am. I hope that this blog reaches everyone who’s ever hurt me, I pray that you read it and it gets super deep down in your heart and I pray it helps you.
I also pray that everyone that I have ever hurt reads this too. I pray that you come to me and you tell me about what I did and I pray that we can talk about it and work it out.
As I go through this rough time you may see me cry, I cry about everything, you may see me fail, failure is essential to success, you may see me lose sight of the bigger picture, my human eyes are only so big, but you will never ever see me give up. I refuse to settle. I know my own self worth and I know I deserve greatness. Everyday I will wake up and I work harder and longer than I did the day before, everyday I will wake up and take more chances than I did the day before, everyday I will wake up and I will pray and I will beg the lord to pick me up and keep me going.
I encourage everyone to chase your dreams. As a wise Shia Labeouf once said “Don’t let your dreams be dreams”. Shia Labeouf has also said alot of other questionable things so were not going to go there. I guess what Im getting at is that its ok for your family to not always be there. Its ok to feel lonely, its ok to have hurt and ugly feelings. Its is not ok to let that hurt and anger turn into hatred and ugliness, its is not ok to be the one causing hurt or ugliness, and it is definitely not ok to let that stand in your way of greatness. You are worth it, you have all of the tools to make your dreams come true. Now go out and do it.
So I haven’t been on in a loooong time, Boo! There has been a lot going on around the Garza house. My dad flew in from Florida, my sister in law made me an Aunt, and of course, Mr.Andy turned the big O-N-E.
We started the day at the airport waiting, his flight was delayed by 30 minutes. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep 2 kids occupied for 45 minutes in the airport. It is also incredibly nerve wrecking, I was convinced that we were going to lose one of them. So apart from trying to keep them from not screaming I also do not want to let them go.
After we found my dad, the millions of pictures we took, and Taco Cabana (that’s about as Mexican as we get), we went to Mt.Playmore. If you do not know what Mt.Playmore is its basically a giant, adult sized indoor jungle gym. There is also an awesome toddler area with a tiny jungle gym and the coolest toddler toys. Andy tore that place up! He was smacking things, he was climbing on things, he was stealing toys, he was in paradise! So was mommy, they ran around for almost 2 hours. I didn’t have to get up, I didn’t have to turn the tv a million times, I just sat there and talked. It was awesome! I highly recommend the next time your tired and broke, on the verge of leaving a child at the park, or just can’t stand to watch that episode of Barney again, go to Mt.Playmore. Its hardcore cheap and you get more than your monies worth!
I am so glad he got to share his first birthday with his grandpa Troy. I know he wont remember this day, but I will. I love you my little Andy man. I am so proud of the sweet, loving, ambitious little boy you are becoming. You have my heart and you always will. When I say you are the child we didn’t even know we needed I mean that in its entirety. You were the missing piece to our perfect little family. Thank you God for allowing us to love this wonderful little boy, I promise I will do my best to never let you down.
Happy Birthday Andy!
Today is Monday, June 22nd at 3:30. Today I was putting you and your sister down for a nap. She was being bad as usual, you were as well but in a different way. When I look at you, in that moment, and I see your tiny little smile and your body bouncing up and down I just feel incredible blessed. I am a truly blessed woman to have you as my son.
Your outlook on life is so much different than your fathers and mine. You look at life like a giant place to explore. You go at things and obstacles with %100 of everything you have. I have never seen anything slow you down.
You make me love deeper than I ever thought I could love. A bond between a mother and son is unworldly. I felt horrible my entire pregnancy with you. I didn’t have morning sickness but I just had no appetite. I had to force myself to eat, it was horrible. So when I finally got to hear your weak little cry and just know you were ok, that moment changed me forever. You were the tiniest baby I had ever seen, but you had me wrapped around that tiny finger and I don’t think I will ever let go. I pray all the time that we grow together and we stay this close. I know realistically you will grow up and move to go to college and get married, but until then will you please stay my little crabby guy forever.
I pray that you will let me teach you how to be a gentleman. You will respect women, you will keep your hands to yourself. You will open doors and use all of your manners. You will me her daddy and you will have his blessing. You will have her back by curfew.
I also pray that you let your father teach you how to handle men. You will love and respect everybody the way Jesus has. You will keep a calm, level head and a godly heart in all situations. I can only imagine how hard it was for Jesus not to hit someone or call someone a name or even feel hatred for someone while they were calling him a liar, or whatever it was. I expect you forgive and have grace but know the difference between being a door mat. You will have respect in yourself and be confident.
I am so excited to see what great things God has in store for you and for your relationship. On a side note I just pray that the good lord will give me and your father the patience and understanding to parent your tenacious personality. We love you my baby boy. I am so excited for your first birthday in a couple of weeks.
P.S. Change your underwear and brush your teeth everyday, and I mean everyday!
Last Friday I turned 21!!! yay, Im legal. I am married, have 2 kids, and I just turned 21. Ahh I’m officially a grown up. It feels good. I had such an amazing birthday thanks to my wonderful husband and one of my best friends. They threw me the best party. It was small, just a few friends, but that’s all I wanted. We played games, we drank, we ate a bunch of crap, we laughed, it was perfect. Now leading up to the party I had a bunch of stipulations that of course I changed a million times. But my birthday team was on it. I wanted every one to dress up, because why not have a costume party in June, and I wanted there to be lots of chocolate, that one I don’t have to explain. So I was a kitty Cat, a 21 year old Kitty Cat. Which I felt the need to remind everyone over and over again, sorry guys.
This birthday has really just showed me how blessed I am. I was going back and forth about wanting to have a party. Every year something bad happens to me on my birthday. It never fails. One year I got hit in the head with a pinata stick and got a concision, it goes on and on. But my birthday team kept me in good spirits. You don’t normally expect your husband to have anything deep to say just on the spot but this was different. It was the Tuesday before my birthday and I was having the worse week, between the dog puking everywhere to my daughter peeing everywhere to the millions of flys in the house because I keep forgetting to order a new trash can. In the middle of a “crazy wife rant” Michael stopped me and said “well babe if you have a bad attitude then of course your going to have a bad birthday. If you stop and look at how hard we are trying you will see how amazing its going to be”. Man, did I feel ungrateful. I felt ungrateful for not seeing what my loved ones were doing for me, I felt ungrateful for not seeing or caring what all the lord has blessed me with. I took a look around my house, a look at my kids, a look at my life. I took a nice long look at my heart, was it filled with his word? Were my eyes set on him?
No. No they were not. I know God puts the words into my husbands mouth just when I need to hear them. I feel like God has to slap me around sometimes. I let my focus off of him. The good news is that I am not going to beat myself up about it, ain’t nobody got time fo dat. I sat and said a little prayer. I thanked my husband, gave him a little sugar. I thanked God for my life, I hugged my kids, and most important I changed my attitude.
It feels like everyday I have to talk to my daughter about her attitude. I tell her to change her attitude and I expect it to change right then and there when I say so, but its not always that easy. Attitude is your whole outlook on life. Its your perspective of the world and how you choose to handle things. As a mommy and a human I often forget that sometimes even adults need to be reminded to change their attitudes.
Keep your attitude, your heart, and your eyes set on the lord and everything will fall into place. Everything. I want to personally thank my husband and my friend for taking their time to do such a sweet thing for me. I want to thank my family for watching my kids so I could enjoy myself. I want to thank the lord.
Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.
I’m sure not many people reading this have even the slightest idea what SPD is. SPD stands for Sensory Processing Disorder it is also called Sensory Integration Disorder. Basically all this means is that my child’s body manages her senses differently than everybody else. Somethings can be hypersensitive or have low sensitivity. My daughters feet and mouth have low sensitivity, this is why she has an 11 month speech delay. Of course if you cant feel your tongue and teeth as much as you should you wont be able to talk as well. On the other hand her hearing and sense of temperature are very sensitive. I honestly haven’t been able to vacuum my house in months.
Now this is something that we’ve know about for quite some time now but have never shared with family or friends. We have started to share more and more as we ourselves get comfortable with the idea. It was a hard pill swallow, a really big, hard, pill to swallow. I’ll be honest, I cried for a week strait. I had no idea what this meant for my lady bug. Is she going to be labeled special ed? Is she going to have to live a special life? If this going to effect her learning? So many questions that I kinda read every article I could possibly find on the subject. It was even so bad that I was depressed and even in denial for a while. No mother ever EVER wants to think there’s something wrong with their child.
It didn’t help that upon telling my dad she retorted with “Now your just looking for stuff to be wrong with her”. Really? Really dad? Yes I would love more therapists poking their nose in my business judging my parenting or lack of. Yes dad, sign me up. Oh and the joys of having to clean the ENTIRE house every Wednesday for fear they might have to go to the bathroom, because lets face it, my house is “toddler clean” not “guest clean”. So that took a while to get over, but I still had this fear that people wouldn’t believe me or would treat her as if she was special.
I am certainly not trying to act as if my daughter is in a wheel chair and cant talk, not at all. Shes a perfectly happy 2 year old who, despite having a hard time with loud noises is the loudest person in the house. Explain that one to me please. She just needs a little extra care. This means that anywhere we go we have to get there before everybody else. Sounds easy? Of course its not! I have to get to the library 30 minutes early or leave for the park at 8. If we show up to a gathering and there’s already loud noises or kids there I already know we wont last long. This is incredible difficult when she wants to play and have a good time but I have to be the bad guy and make us leave because I know she can not handle getting into the bouncy castle. When we try to have “family date day” we have to plan it on a weekday because we know Chuck E. Cheese wont have a lot of kids there, almost impossible when hubby works all week. I cant vacuum, I cant use the blender or turn the dish washer on if shes awake. The TV and radio in the car have to stay super low. This is challenging when having guests over who are use to functioning at a normal sound level.
As if the loud noises wasn’t enough fun we have the lovely task of trying to keep this kids shoes on without having a melt down. For 3 months all we could get her to wear was Crocs and rain boots. Doesn’t sound like a problem huh? It was so embarrassing taking her to church in her best dress and rain boots. Not only do I think Crocs are the ugliest shoe known to man but they are terrible for her developing feet, and the smell. WHOLLY BEJEEZUS does this kid have some stinky feet. I guess what do you expect never wearing socks. But low and behold we have managed to find a pair of shoes that are great for her feet, anti microbial/anti fungal, and go with all of her outfits. I will post the link below.
http://www.zappos.com/tsukihoshi-kids-laguna-toddler-little-kid
Those are just 2 of the daily struggles we go through. I am really tired of feeling like I have to keep my struggles with her a secret. I feel like everybody should know and I should have more support from family and friends. I should be able to talk to my family about how hard it is to keep the floors clean or how much of a struggle it is to keep up with all of these therapy appointments, or that some days I just don’t have the time or energy to stand there and make sure her food is the perfect temperature. Ill be honest, there are days where i’m just like “I HAVE to vacuum, your guna have to get over it”. Its hard. Its really really hard to be the mommy and wife I want to be. I think ultimately the hardest part is dealing with peoples judgement. I have friends who give me dirty looks for letting her throw balls in the house, that’s part of her seeking the sensory stuff, or the moms judging me for not disciplining her for having a melt down in the middle of the library, shes having a melt down because YOUR kid is screaming and touching her, or to the annoying old lady in HEB that says “Oh she doesn’t have a speech delay she talks just fine” Um yes she does its only been 6 months of speech therapy but thank you for telling me she doesn’t have one.
On a side note: The next person to tell me she doesn’t have a speech delay or there’s nothing wrong with her..I do not know you. I am going to walk away before I go to jail for throat punching you.
It hard being the parent of a child with special needs. I thank God everyday that Autaum only has SPD. To all the mommy’s that have a child with special needs I applaud you. I understand how stressed out you are, I understand how tired you are, and more importantly I understand how much it hurts your heart to know there is no way to “fix” or to help your child. Just remind yourself there is nothing wrong with your child, they are perfectly made in God’s image just they way they are and as our SPD slogan goes…They’er “Just a little more sensational”. Don’t ever doubt yourself. You are being the best mommy to your little that you know how, and that is all it takes.
To My Autaum Rene’, Your the best!
Hello Ya’ll!
My name is Alison, and yes I say “Yall” alot get used to it. I am a stay at home mommy of two beautiful chunka bugs and a wife to the funniest man alive. My husbands name is Michael, hes 19, his favorite color is black and he enjoys playing the guitar. My daughters name is Autaum, she just turned 2, her favorite color is yellow, shes in love with Barney and she enjoys jumping. My sons name is Andy, he will be 1 in July, his favorite color is red, he enjoys smacking things and ripping the bows out of his sisters hair.
Enough about them, Just kidding, imagine though. So my day to day life is basically me attempting to keep my family alive and happy as easily and cheaply as possible. I am not very successful most of the time but I have picked up a few tricks along the way. I like to think of myself as a mommy Macgyver.
I hope you all enjoy, get a good laugh out, and most of all learn from my terrible, terrible mistakes!
HippyLife 