Obsessions

I have really been enjoying my children lately. Not that I haven't before, but what I mean is I am really enjoying this age and this stage of our lives. Most of you know that almost two years ago Josiah was diagnosed with high functioning autism. It has been the neatest thing to me to watch him grown and develop and function through his autism. Most people, if you haven't spent much time with him, wouldn't know that Josiah had autism, but you might think he was a silly little boy, not really desirous of talking to many people that he doesn't know well, and also a little hyper, and if he does talk to you, you might notice he has some obsessions. These obsessions, to me, are the most intriguing thing to me in regards to Josiah's autism.

Before Josiah was diagnosed with autism, he had a love that was great. This love was of Veggie Tales movies. This love of Veggie Tales started when he was around 9 months old. Whenever the Veggie Tales theme song would come on and he would bounce to life dancing and singing and so excited. For many years, I could never get Josiah willing to watch any movies other than Veggie Tales. I didn't mind, I mean, if he was going to love something so much, it could have been something worse. I noticed that after Josiah would watch one of the different episodes, he would completely memorize the video. He would talk to us about the videos and the characters with way more knowledge than anyone should have, and most of the time we didn't know what he was talking about. This obsession with the Veggie Tales was not only with watching the movies, but one of his favorite things to do was go to Goodwill and look and see if they had Veggie Tale movies. He would go into a Goodwill, run over to the movies racks and start calling out excitedly the names of the movies and whether or not we had that movie at home. This was such a delight to him! Around 4 1/2 years old, he finally watched another movie besides Veggie Tales and immediately had a love for Toy Story. He watched it once or twice and basically had the movie memorized. At night, when it was time to go to bed, we had to start setting a timer for 15 minutes and instituting this time for Josiah to "say his movies" as he lay in bed. So, for 15 minutes he was allowed to recite his movies and when the timer went off, there was no more talking and it was time to sleep. This was a wonderful way for Josiah to understand that there is a time for everything. It worked well! Josiah has now branched out, but still doesn't watch too many varieties of movies. He has his favorites, and with these favorites, he has them memorized backwards and forwards and loves to break out ofttimes "saying his movies". Some of the movies that are his favorite are: Monsters Inc, he Incredibles, Cars, Finding Nemo, and by far, Lilo and Stitch has seemed to be his favorite movie EVER! He loves hearing about all of "Jamba's Experiments" and loves learning their names and numbers...which brings me to another of Josiah's obsessions...

He loves numbers and anything to do with numbers. We hardly ever watch TV and don't have cable, but we have been known to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy two or three nights a week. We had to start turning the TV off or muting it during commercials because before we knew it, Josiah was memorizing phone numbers in the commercials. His favorite was a lawyers commercial and he would tell everyone to "Call Kalfus and Nachmann on the Hurtline now" and they would state the number. Oh goodness, he loves numbers. In the movie Lilo and Stitch, before you watch the movie, in the directory, you can watch a special about all of the experiments. There is an English speaking narrator telling about the experiment, their name and their number. Josiah now lays in bed at night reciting the experiments, their numbers and functions...which leads me to another obsession....

Josiah also loves movies or shows that have a narrator. We have recently been watching a National Geographic special about Animals in the Wild. His favorite is one where the English speaking narrator speaks of Arctic Polar Bears and Arctic White Foxes. He is so funny! He hates it when the movie is silent and just shows what the animal is doing, Josiah gets frustrated and wants to hear the narrator.

Also, speaking of numbers, Josiah's teacher contacted me and said that he was showing significant boredom when in math class. She said that even when she was almost positive Josiah wasn't paying attention to the lesson at hand, he would work quickly on his papers and then move on to working on his classmates papers or telling them how to do their work. So, they decided to move him into what she called "the gifted math class". He is doing wonderfully and keeping up well, He simply loves his numbers!

These are not the only obsessions Josiah has. He moves in and out of obsessions quickly, but one he has had for a long time, but has recently seemed to take a back seat to others is in regards to anything with "fire". The fire alarm at school sparked this. While he is now okay with the fire alarm, in the past, he really goes crazy when the fire alarm in school goes off once a month for training. This sparked an obsession with fire alarms in public, a fear of fire sprinklers in public places, emergency signs in public places, fire trucks, fire extinguishers, and emergency exits in public places. This was a hard obsession to work through with Josiah. He was afraid that if anyone touched any of these things that fire would come out of these things. Thank goodness, we seem to have overcome most of this obsession!

A few other obsessions:

• Bugs - he loves his play bugs and loves to read about them and loves to know what they eat
• Hair - can't stand to have his hair brushed, or for me to wet down his hair
• Toys - can't stand not to take some toys with him everywhere he goes...has to have a toy in the car and a toy to sleep with
• Asking the same questions over and over again even though he knows the answer
• Can't stand for us to go a different way somewhere other than the way he is used to..for example, he used to scream and cry if I told him we were going to Meemaw's house an I took the interstate as opposed to the backroads that we normally take...guess which way we ALWAYS go to Meemaw's house now?

Anyways, I have just been fascinated as of late in watching how my little boy's mind works. As far as his autism, it definitely manifests itself in his obsessions more than any other area of his life. We work hard trying to make him understand things and by helping him understand his own obsessions. This truly is a gifted boy I have been given from the Lord. I am amazed the more and more I watch him and help train and guide him daily. I love him so much!

Happy New Year!!! 2013

"How few there are who have courage enough to face their own their faults, or resolutions enough to mend them!"
 ~ Benjamin Franklin

Over the past few weeks, I have been reflecting over the year 2012. This time of reflection is, on one hand, a little bit depressing, or maybe embarrassing is a better word, while on the other hand, it is extremely motivating to me. I look back on where we have been compared to where we want to be. It seems like every year we miss the mark. Without fail. I seem to start out the new year with such great ideas and plans, but I usually fail to see them through. This year may or may not be the same way. I am praying to the Lord and trusting that we can make some changes this year, though.

Here are some areas we are eager to see changes in our life:

Eating out: We have a habit...a really bad habit. I won't even begin to tell you how much money we have spent eating out this year because, well, it is embarrassing. This has been such a weak area for us and we try every year to make changes. We sat down last night and I presented to my DH the amount of money I calculated, from our bank statements, that we spent eating out. It was not pretty. This year, we decided things were not going to change unless we had a strategy. So here it is:

GOAL: Eat out no more than two times per month while ultimately aiming at only one time per month.
 
WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOAL:

• Put it on the calendar and schedule it
• Have food ready for dinner [which is our worst time]
• Don't tempt each other, and when we are tempted, stop and pray with each other.

We have come to the realization that we are teaching the kids many bad habits with our eating out. It is time for some reversal of these bad habits! So far, in January, we have scheduled wo times we are going to eat out. My friend and I got back excellent results from our diabetes check-ups and we promised each other a couples night out to dinner when we did, so we are going out tis Saturday. I also have family coming to visit and we have scheduled one time to eat out while they are here. We have already scheduled a February date and a March date for eating out. I will keep you updated on how we are doing. Please pray for us!
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Menu Planning and Grocery Shopping: I love to menu plan. Have I ever mentioned that? In 2011 I tried a specific challenge and planned all of our dinners for the whole year. I realized many things in this venture. While it was neat to do this, it was not practical and it became boring. So, I won't be doing that again. But, it is a proven fact that people who menu plan and make grocery lists, and shop from their lists, save money for their family.

GOAL: Menu plan, Make Grocery Lists and go shopping only 1 time per week

WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOAL:

• Spend Thursdays menu planning, spend Fridays grocery shopping
• Be thorough, ask the family what items they really want and "need" that they can't seem to do without this week. Try to be accommodating but reasonable.
• Don't be a Nazi about it. You can make more than one trip to the store, it's no going to kill you. The point is, stop making every day trips to the store as this is a money waster! [Yeah, I counted 274 trips to KROGER with our debit card in 2012]

We have yet again come to the realization that our habits are playing a bad role in our kids lives. I really feel like we are teaching our kids not to be content and not to appreciate what they already have, so we are really striving to make these changes.
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So, the last goal I want to share is in the spiritual realm of things. We feel it very important to teach our children from the Word of God, but we sometimes become a little lackadaisical in our day to day walk. At dinner time, we go over memory verses and we sometimes read from the Bible story book, but we want more and we want to give the kids more, even though they may not understand of appreciate it now.

GOALS:

• Spend time in the Word of God daily with the children
• Continue to work on Scripture Memorization
• Spend alone time in the Word of God, preparing my own heart
• Pray with the children and take time to Count our MANY Blessings

WAYS TO ACHIEVE GOALS:

• I have started reading in the Proverbs with the kids every morning at breakfast. [I have already missed a day this week!]
• Continue after dinner devotions where we write notes for our "Count Your Blessings" Jar and work on our memory verses.
• I will read my Bible in the mornings as well.

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So, here you have it. Just a few things going on in our families and how we are trying to change our lives for the better and for a closer walk with the Lord and a more glorifying walk.

What are you doing differently in 2013? I would love to hear from you!

Family Notebook, Part 1

Happy Day-After Christmas! I am hoping you all had a wonderful holiday with the family, a joyous time of giving and a great memory making venture! We had a great time with my husbands side of the family. Since I spent my Thanksgiving time with my family in Georgia we were not able to see them over Christmas. I am a little sad, but thankful and content!

I have been spending a lot of time lately thinking about this year and what I want to change and do differently in this next year. There are a lot of things and a lot of areas of my life and my family's life that I see changes necessary. Basically, I need help. What do I need help with, you ask? I need help with organization and time prioritizing. I have been thinking about the kind of help I need and what decisions I am going to make, for the betterment of our family and the functioning of our everyday lives.

So, this brings me to the MAIN part of this post. A Hodges Family Notebook. Yes, you read that right. For years now, I had played with the idea of a family notebook, I have attempted to kind of put one together, and then I kind of get lazy. Well, I have been doing a lot of research about a family notebook and have seen some awesome ideas [go to my boards on pinterest if you don't believe me!] and I have decided to really, really try to implement this notebook for me and my family for this next year. What is a family notebook? Well, I am glad you asked! I want our family notebook to be our "hub" of information, our "go to" for just about everything we need, when we need it. Here are some of the things I plan to include in our family notebook:

Addresses/Phone Numbers - I can't tell you how many times I have had to call my mother in law, or sister in law, who are both wealthy with information, and it would be nice to not have to take time out to call them and ask them for information that they have already previously given me...and I bet they would appreciate it as well!

Birthdays/Anniversaries - I have a goal this year, and to meet my goal [which I am not going to reveal, because I don't want my family and friends to know if I fail!] and this is an essential tab to have in the notebook.

Emergency/Doctors/Medicinal Information - Danny and I have some health issues and we need to keep all of our information in one place so we can have fast access to give to doctors or maybe in case we have an emergency. Also, there is a lot that goes along with having a special needs child. We have lot of appointments, lots of records, and lots of info to keep up with. This section should help me with all of that info.

Menu Planning/Recipes/Groceries/Coupons -  I have proven time and time again that I can save a significant amount of money if I plan my meals for the week or month and then grocery shop based upon these plans. On average, when I meal plan, I save about $50 a week. That is a lot of money and a necessity when we are a one income family.  I want to keep my favorite recipes, tried and true ones, in this section, and also my inventories and coupon planning [I am by no means an extreme couponer, but I do use coupons when I can!

Bible Reading and Scripture Memorization - I have joined with a PB group of like minded brothers and sisters and we plan to read the Bible through in a year, and I am real excited about that. We also want to plan our devotional time with the kids a little better and this is a perfect place to keep this information for both my hubby and I to get to.

Daily/Weekly/Monthly/Yearly To do lists -  This will include a daily agenda, appointments, and things I need to get done around the house.

2013 Calendar - This will be the main place I will keep appointments and obligations

Fitness/Food Log: Self  explanatory...I hope...

Finances/Budgeting/Bills - We are starting this new year hopefully really in tune with Dave Ramsey and his methods of budgeting and paying off debt. We really need help in this area and I am really in need of a specific and organized location to keep my records.

So, this is what I am working on at the end of this year. What I want is to hear back from my friends, especially those with families, and I want to hear if you have a home management notebook or method, and if so, what is it. I would love to hear your ideas and stories, etc. so please get back with me. You can email me or message me on facebook, or leave a comment here [I know, that is not always the easiest thing to do!]. Please share your thoughts with me. If you want to know more about my research, you can follow me on pinterest and look at my pins and boards. I have pinned a ton of sites that have tons of free printables and tons of information on how to create a family notebook and the purposes of a notebook of this sort. Let me know what you think!

Reflections of 2012

Here we are at the end of the year. I usually spend a lot of time at the end of the year reflecting on what has happened this year and where I am physically, mentally and spiritually. I am usually down in the dumps about my reflections, but I am trying not to be that way this year. I want to look back on this year and truly look back and think about the good things that have happened, the bad, and the downright ugly. There are so many things to look back on and want to change or do better at. Then there are some things I feel like I did well with, but need to amp it up, so to speak. Then there are so many things that I fell so drastically short on, so many ways I failed or bombed. That's okay, though. I always try to go into a new year with a new plan, new year's resolutions, so to speak. I always seem to start out really well, but then I dwindle down to my comfort zone again. Anyway, these are just some thoughts I am having while I am reflecting. I hope in the next couple of weeks to have some realy good thoughts down in multiple areas of my life and I will share some of my plans for the upcoming year with you all. In the meantime, what are your plans for the new year? How do you come up with plans for the next year, or do you even plan at all? I really would love to hear from you all!

Pain That Will Make You Cry Like A Baby!!!

I want this post to be very informative and very helpful to all of my friends and family. I want to talk to you about home remedies for toothache pain. There are some important things that you need to know, and this past week/weekend has given me a lot of experience and I have a lot of advice for you!

Okay, when you first start to experience dental pain, you have a short window of opportunity to decide whether or not the pain warrants a trip to the family dentist or not. Some things to consider are what day of the week is it? Some dental offices can not see you right away, especially if you are not an established patient. If you are an established patient, you will already have a leg up because dental offices are generally good to their established patients. Also, just how bad is the pain? Is it a sensitivity or is it actual pain. Don't dilly-dally! Make that appt!

Okay, if you are near a weekend and the dental office can't see you until the next week, you are going to be in some inevitable pain, so there are some things to think about. If you have tooth pain and it is GREAT, there is a great chance that you have an infection. A lot of dental offices are not able to fix yout tooth until you have been on antibiotics for a day or two, so you might want to consider going to an urgent care center so you can get started on your antibiotics and get some pain medicine if necessary.

Here are some awesome home remedies to try until you can be seen for your appointment:

  Salt Water: Mix a heaping spoonful of salt in a small glass of lukewarm to warm water, swoosh around inside your mouth for as long as you can, spit out. Repeat a couple times.

Cloves: Rest a clove against the sore area until pain goes away. You can also use a drop or two of clove oil (too much can be toxic) on a cotton swab and hold against the tooth

Alcohol: Swoosh a bit of whiskey, scotch, brandy or vodka. A strong mouthwash that contains alcohol will do the trick too.

Hydrogen Peroxide: Swoosh a bit of hydrogen peroxide. Try diluting with a bit of water.

Vanilla Extract: Saturate a cotton ball with vanilla and hold in place. Can also use a cotton swab dipped in extract.

Almond Extract: Same method of treatment as with Vanilla (above). Peppermint Extract: Same as with Vanilla (above).

Tea Tree Oil: Just a drop or two will do the trick. You can also add some to a cotton swab and hold in place or add a few drops of tea tree oil to a small glass of lukewarm to warm water and swoosh this around.

Oil Of Oregano: Mix a few drops with a bit of olive oil, then saturate a cotton ball with mixture. Can replace the olive oil with lukewarm water if preferred.

Apple Cider Vinegar: Soak a cotton ball with apple cider vinegar (ACV) and hold it in place. Can also try regular household vinegar.

Ginger Root: Take a fresh piece of ginger and chew it a bit.

Garlic: Take a clove of garlic, smash it and apply (settle it inside cheek). You can also mash some garlic with salt.

Onion: Slice a piece of fresh onion and hold it inside your mouth. The onion needs to be freshly cut (so it provides a bit of onion juice).

Cayenne Pepper: Make a paste with cayenne pepper and water.

Black Pepper: You can use this full strength or make a mix of pepper and salt.

Baking Soda: Take a cotton swab and moisten it with a bit of water, dip it in baking soda (coat the swab really well with baking soda) then apply. You can also make a mouth rinse by mixing a heaping spoonful of baking soda in a small glass of lukewarm to warm water, dissolve the soda then swish the mixture in your mouth.

Ice Pack: Cover an ice pack with a face cloth or towel then hold over your cheek where the problem is. This will help numb things. If that doesn’t work, try the opposite–a hot compress (not too hot that it burns your skin).

There are many, many websites out there and information out there that can help. I personally tried all of the remedies above. Unfortunately, my infection was so bad that the remedies only lasted for a couple of minutes and the pain was then greater than ever. The one thing that helped when ALL ELSE FAILED was Ice Water. For 18 hours I had to swig a little bit of icewater and swish it over the infected tooth. As long as I did this constantly, the pain was somewhat alleviated. One word of advice, don't drink all of that water that you are swishing...if you do, you will find yourself vomiting at 5 in the morning because you are drinking too much water.

  Keep in mind that home remedies are not cures. They are just ways to help alleviate the pain until you can see the dentist.

I hope some of this information helps, and may the Lord bless you to feel better soon if you are in pain with a toothache!

Enjoying The Day

I am so excited. We have company coming in this evening. The kids are really excited because it is their little cousins. This is going to be so much fun!We are going to have a big homemade pizza party this evening and just enjoy each other's company. These times don't come around often enough! I have enjoyed picking up around the house with my little 14 month old tag-along buddy. He is the youngest of the kids I watch right now...until Monday! He goes wherever I go and I forgot how much I enjoy having kids this young around. He is a delight. I am also thankful my husband would go to the grocery store with two little three year old girls and do the grocery shopping for the week for me. He is so sweet! Off for now! Get out and enjoy your day!!!

My Little Sponge

I never knew Josiah could or would be THIS excited about school and learning. He is literally my little sponge. He has learned all of his letters in upper case and lower case, and he knows all of the sounds of his consonants and vowels. We can't go anywhere without Josiah telling us what letter EVERYTHING starts with. I can almost say it is like a new fixation for him...but this is a good one. He also is counting like crazy and can count by himself to 100 and is so proud of himself. He doesn't really understand what reading really entails, and is not really into wanting to read, but he loves sounding out the letters in words and doesn't realize he is reading some simple words. Josiah also loves teaching Bethany what he has learned, and Bethany loves hearing what he has to teach. At the beginning of every week on Monday, the teacher sends home 5 front and back pages of "optional" homework. It is suggested by the teacher to do the homework one page a night and turn it in on Friday for stickers on his chart and "husky bucks". He begs me every Monday evening to do all of his homework. We do it all that night, and then he begs me for more. He also asks the teacher to send him home extra work because he already finished his. He loves to sit and do what he calls "seat work". Bethany and the other kids love to do it with him too, so I have to keep them all supplied with pages to work on. If there is no homework to do, there is usually some fussing, but I can usually turn the fussing around if I give him some pages to color. Coloring has always been something that Josiah has NEVER liked to do, but now, he loves to color and practice staying in the lines. I let him do it as much as he wants because it improves his fine motor skills and hand strength, an area where he is lacking. So, I am just so proud of my little boy and so glad that he is soooo in love with learning right now. I hope this love for learning and doing things lasts for a long, long time! Happy Saturday and Happy First Day of Fall!!!