We missed it. Three times.

Mom and I had a wild hair and decided to have Micah play hookie so that all three of us could go up to Yellowstone Park.  It promised to be a warm, beautiful day, and we just didn't want to miss the opportunity to enjoy nature while it's still decent outside.  I don't usually make it a habit of taking kids out of school, but I just really want to take advantage of doing something fun while I still can - chemo is tomorrow.  Vomit.

On our way up, we stopped at a dance shop in Rigby and I got a new leo, a wrap, and some tights.  I'll post photos of them soon.  My friend Megs is going to take pics of bald me teaching ballet tonight. We are making a photographic journey, the two of us. :)  I'm excited for you to see the pictures.

While we were in Rigby, we stopped at my grandparents' grave.  My grandma had this thing with pennies.  If she saw them on the sidewalk or whatever, she would say, "Someone in heaven is thinking about me!" and pick them up.  When she died, and we were all at the funeral home, my grandpa was just devastated.  He said his last goodbyes at her casket before they closed it, and as he was walking away, there was a penny, right there on the carpet in front of him.  He felt like it was grandma, thinking of him.  Whenever we visited grandma's grave, we put pennies on it.  And now that grandpa has passed on, we continue the tradition.  The grave is scattered with pennies.  So Mom, Micah, and I each put a penny on their grave marker:

We also stopped in Ashton to see this cool plane we saw lying in a field:

We ate pulled pork sandwiches in West Yellowstone and then headed into the park.  We saw some elk and bison on the way in.

 This guy was so massive:

So we got to Old Faithful, and it had just gone off.  We had just missed it, dang it!  So we decided to see some of the other geysers and pools.  My mom wanted so badly to see Morning Glory Pool.  She talked about how blue it was and how pretty it was...Micah was so excited.  He wanted to see that pool.  We had an hour.  We hoped to get to the pool and back in time to see Old Faithful erupt.  We started speedwalking:

We were lucky enough, on the way to Morning Glory, to see Castle Geyser...erupt?  Spew?  I have no idea what the proper term is there.  Sorry about that.  Squirt?  Anyways, that sucker...sprayed?...for like half an hour!  

Micah loved the "rainbow" from the steam:

We only stayed for about five minutes, but that was way too long to linger, because it set us back on our goal of getting to Morning Glory and back to Old Faithful.  So we set off at an even faster walking pace, which my foot was really mad about, to try to make it to Morning Glory.

It took forever, but we finally got there.  

I was dumb and forgot to bring my short lens, so I had my long lens and couldn't get a really good shot: 

And guess what?  It's really not blue.  It's green.  I guess it used to be blue, before tourists started chucking things into it.  Pennies, garbage...  So now it's not blue.  It's green.  Sheesh.  

When we were done at Morning Glory, a.k.a. Not Blue at ALL, we set off at a breakneck speed to reach Old Faithful in time.  My mom's knees are shot, so she waved us on and told us there was no way she could make it, so she decided to take the boardwalk and kind of meander back to Old Faithful Lodge and meet us there.  Micah and I took the asphalt road, which was more of a straight shot.

And oh, the WHINING.  His little legs were tired, which I get.  My foot was killing me.  But he's never seen Old Faithful!!  I really wanted him to get a chance to see it!  So we jogged, speedwalked, jogged, speedwalked, the mile and a half back to Old Faithful.  It went off when we were still just not quite there:

I literally took the above picture while I was frantically running.

By the time we got there, it was done.  Sooo disappointing.

So Micah and I headed to the lodge to recover from our basically 3 mile run/jog and wait for my mom.  We explored the old lodge:

Micah fell soooo in love with it and decided that we needed to spend the night there.  I assured him that we couldn't, because they don't allow dogs (Molly was in the car), they were probably completely booked, Grandma had a tee time the next morning, he couldn't skip any more school, and it was expensive.

None of these things deterred him.  He held on to his hope.  He even approached the lady at the desk and asked if there were any rooms available.  She told him there were two cancellations, and she told him the price.

For him, it was like that part on Dumb and Dumber, where the Jim Carrey character says, "So you're saying there's a chance...!"  When the lady tells him that the chances of she and he getting together were one in a million.

So he impatiently waited for grandma.  He wanted to ask her, confident that she'd say yes and that we'd get to stay in the lodge.  He would walk out the front doors and look around for her every now and then. Once, he walked beyond my eyeshot, so I stood up to go and fetch him back, but then I saw him walking back with my mom.

She told me that he had gone out to the trailhead and screamed, hands splayed back behind him, chest forward, "GWAMMA!!!  GWAMMA!  WHERE AWE YOU??"  And when Mom called back, "Micah!  Micah!  I'm right here!"  He stomped up to her, furious.  He was so mad that it took her so long to get back, and he demanded that we stay in the lodge.  Of course, she told him the same reasons I did for not staying, and he cried and wailed and rolled around on the floor...it was lovely.  

So then she told a little...half truth?  She said, "You know, we can't bring Molly into the lodge.  We'd have to chain her up to a pole by her leash, outside, all alone, all night long.  And then a bear would come and eat her."

That put an end to his whining.

We got some ice cream and started to head out of the park.  We had been driving for maybe 5 minutes when I noticed the time and said, "Well, whaddaya know.  Old Faithful is going off right now."  I had noted the time while we were in the lodge, and then forgotten.  If we had stayed five more minutes, we could have seen the dang thing go off.

Three strikes, and we're out.

Funniest quotes of the day:

Micah had to go potty, and he kept saying, "I have to twinkle!" instead of "tinkle."  And he wasn't trying to be funny.  He really thought that's what you say when you have to pee.  You have to twinkle.

While we were driving out of the park and headed back to West Yellowstone for dinner, Mom said, "I feel like eating something light.  Like a salad....or a hamburger."  I laughed and laughed.  Hamburgers certainly fall under the category of light fare.  I love her.

And how fares my Idahoan?

Micah, ah, Micah....  I love the kid.  I'm so glad I have him here with me.  I think if I didn't have one of my kids with me, I'd be in much worse shape emotionally. I still cry all the time about how much I miss my ninos, but having Micah here gives me so much comfort.

I think I've told you, but maybe not, the reason we kept Micah here instead of sending him over with Sadie, Dylan, and Ben:

CPS avoidance.

I know Micah.  Very well.  And I know that he gets really angry, like, all the time.  So angry that he will threaten people with sharp objects.  He will throw things at people and make them bleed.  It's an issue.  And with Ben working and Dylan and Sadie being latchkey kids - adding Micah to the mix would be a really bad idea.  Dyl and Sadie get along great, and they're pretty self-sufficient.  They have a phone that they can use to call Ben if necessary after school.  But Micah and Dylan don't get along, and Micah and Sadie don't get along.  Micah is the common denominator.  Always.  Micah and Sadie sometimes play so well together.  But mostly, they are toxic to each other.  True frenemies. And Micah...well, he's extremely social.  And he gets bored easily.  His catch phrase, his theme, is "I'm bored."  He says it like 100 times a day.  When he gets bored, he torments people (and dogs). Pokes them.  Throws things at them.  Gets in their faces.  After awhile, Sadie and/or Dylan will be like, "Enough!" and attempt to go to their room or into another room to get some space. And Micah will follow them to wherever they've retreated and continue to torment.  And things escalate until someone is crying and has a bruise.  Usually Dylan or Sadie.

Micah is just that scrappy.  He's beating up his 11-year-old brother.

Obviously, I intervene - I feel that's how I used to spend my whole day.  Playing referee.  But sometimes the owies occurred while I was racing into the room to intervene.

It's not that I haven't tried to keep him occupied.  Whenever I have a chance, I try to spend time with him; do something fun with him.  But when we were all together as a family, I had three other kids to take care of.  So I couldn't always entertain him.  I often used a phrase from Shrek 2:  "Find a way to entertain yourself."  He needs to learn the art of self-entertainment.  Every now and then he'll figure out something fun to do, but a lot of time, he just needs...direction.  It's hard.

My dad chalks Micah's behavior up to the "Sad Sixes."  He heard from someone that kids, at age 6, just cry a lot.  They're sad a lot.  I tell Dad that, if that's the case, Micah has been sad since the second he was born.  He's just extremely intense.  Always has been.  I'd say he's mad or sad maybe 75% of the time.

My gut instinct is that he has something going on in his little brain.  He has lots of family history with depression and other mental disorders; I really wouldn't be surprised if there was something going on with him.  A couple of years ago, I got him tested through the school district, and their conclusion was that he had some kind of depression or anxiety disorder, but that there was no funding for help with emotional disorders.  Just developmental delay, speech, etc.  I don't know if that's true; I kind of don't trust my school district anymore.

And then last year, I revisited the subject with his school counselor.  She said that his behavior had to affect his success in the classroom, as well as home and one other place.  I remember when we had Dylan tested for ADHD.  The conclusion was that it was affecting him at home, at school, and at church.  And it really was.  So he was able to get that testing done for free through the school district, and they sent their findings to our pediatrician, and we were able to get him some medication.

Anyways, last year, when I talked to his counselor (and it seems to also be the case this year), he had PERFECT BEHAVIOR in the classroom.  He was saving it all for home, it seems.  Same with at church.  A little bit of social anxiety, but mainly, really good behavior.  So we couldn't get that free testing.  I could have taken him to a child psychologist for testing, but we couldn't afford the $400. (Our insurance didn't cover it, of course.)

I just...want to know what's going on with him.  I'm following my mother's instinct.  There is something going on in his brain.  I feel it.  I know it.  I'm acquainted enough with mental illness to feel that that is the issue at hand with him.  So if he can get counseling or whatever to help him cope with life, that's what I really want for him.  I want to get him help.

Luckily, all four of my kids qualify for Medicaid in Oregon.  As soon as we get Micah up there, we can get cheap or free help from professionals for him.  Some testing to see what he's dealing with. Some help so that he's not so pissed off all the time.

The poor kid is stuck here with three adults and no siblings, and he's bored to tears, of course.  We arrange playdates for him, but when he gets home from those, it's back to the, "I'm so bored!  Who can I play with?"  It's exhausting, frankly.  My darling mom always comes up with ideas to help entertain him.  She got him a birdhouse to paint:

 We take him to museums:

We took him to the fair:

We took him to Heise (this picture is from the car ride up there.  Micah has adopted one of my scarves as his own.  He looooves that thing...):

 We went to Palisades:

We took him to Fall Creek:

 To the zoo:

We play games with him.  Here are our portraits of Ben and Sadie from playing Pictionary Man:

I mean, we are busting our butts to keep this kid happy.  It takes constant effort from all three of us, and that's the truth.

His redeeming quality is the funny crap he says.

 (On the first day of school.)

After my first chemo, Micah was coughing and fevering pretty badly.  We took him to the Community Care place, and when the doctor was examining him, he said, very seriously, "I have nipples in my throat..."  It turns out that he had strep throat. :)  

The doc had Micah lie down so he could kind of push on Micah's tummy, and suddenly, he burst out with, "MY UNDIES ARE TOO TIGHT!!"  I guess it had been bugging him for quite some time. While the doc went out to write a prescription for an antibiotic, Micah took off his undies and threw them in the garbage, electing to go commando in his pants all the way home.

When we were driving somewhere with Molly, my parent's dog, he said to her, "Molly, someday you'll be a woman."

Last week, Micah and I had to go to a meeting at the school (Micah qualifies for Title 1 for reading, and it was a meeting about that), and Micah looked all around at the mommies there.  Then he looked at me in my hat.  He said, "Why do you have to be bald all the time?  It's very boring."

Translation:  "Why don't you look like the other moms?"

So when we got home, I sat him down and said, "Okay, babe, why don't I have hair?"

"Because it fell out."

"Right.  Why did it fall out?"

"I don't know."

"What disease do I have that makes hair fall out?"  (I didn't want to get into the whole chemo thing.  That's beyond his comprehension right now.  For now, we're just saying that cancer makes hair fall out.)

"Um...the flu?"

"No, babe.  I have cancer. Cancer.  You went to a camp for a whole week where you talked about cancer.  That's what I have.  Did I choose to get cancer?"

"No."

"So it's not my fault that I don't look like the other moms.  But what's cool is that my hair will start to grow back in a few months, babe.  And before you know it, I'll look like the other moms."

"Okay..."

So for now, we just keep...giving him the attention he needs.  Not putting up with his crap.  Trying to protect the poor dog from him.  If the Oregon Medicaid will let us get Micah tested here, that would be really cool.  I'll cross that bridge once we get his card number.  They have taken ten million years to get it processed, of course.  

And you need to know - Micah is really great in a lot of ways.  He's extremely artistic.  He's the best snuggler ever.  He adores his cousin Ivy and is very gentle and kind with her.  I know there's a happy kid inside there.  We just need to find a way to break him out of this Angry Jail Cell that he's trapped inside.

She's MINE. Pffft!!

My mom, dad, Micah, and I decided to take a drive up to Palisades Lake today.  It was such a pretty day.  We decided to try to find a place along Fall Creek to picnic, and we came across a moose!  So cool.  We stared at and photographed him for quite some time.

He was magnificent.

Then we moved on, but to our dismay, the campground/picnic area was closed, so we turned around and came back down the same road on which we had driven.  The brown moose was still there, enjoying lots of drinks and just standing there.

Then this huge dude lurched out of the bush and trotted down into the water in a very aggressive manor:

The brown guy quickly got up onto the shore on HIS side of the river.  The Dark Guy took a drink.

Dark guy stood for awhile, staring at Brown Guy, like, "You'd better watch it, Brown Guy!"  Then he looked at us spectators like, "What?  You wanna piece of me, too???"

Don't worry.  I was using my really long lens.  We weren't close to these two at all.

Then  Dark Guy waded further into the river to again let Brown Guy know where he stood.  I wanted to get a shot of Brown Guy's retreat, but he was on my side of the river, and the brush prevented me from getting any kind of decent shot in.  I happened to take a picture of Dark Guy right when he was licking his lips after another drink.  But I think it's hilarious, because he looks like he's sticking out his tongue, like, "Nah, nah-nah nah, nahhhh!"

Haha!  This picture is priceless.

There was a hunter who had been watching for quite a long time - before we even first saw Brown Guy.  He told us that Dark Guy had a cow behind the bush that he was claiming.  Moose mating season is only two weeks long, and apparently, it's happening right now.  The hunter actually got drawn for a moose tag.  He had used a moose cow call, and that's what had brought poor Brown Guy down the river to check out if he could find a lady love.  Did you know that a moose draw is a once-in-a-lifetime tag?  It has taken him ten years of applying to get drawn.  But he can only hunt for moose on the Brown Guy's side of the river, not the Dark Guy's side.  We asked if he was going to follow Brown Guy and shoot him, and he said, "Nope.  His rack isn't big enough.  I want one with a bigger rack."

So like a man.  Always looking at racks.  Wah-wahhhh...  Sorry.  Boobs have been a lot on my mind lately, for obvious reasons.  Currently, Lefty is higher than Righty.  So we filled Lefty fuller and are hoping that gravity can talk Lefty into dropping a little bit.  Then we'll fill righty to match lefty and hopefully be done with the stretching part of my reconstruction.  I can't get my real implants in until after radiation.  So...Marchish?  Until then, I shall continue to feel like I have two hard bowls on my chest.

Micah was crying yesterday because Molly was leaving for vacation.  From him.  Not kidding.  He has caused so much trauma for the poor dog that she is a nervous wreck.  So she's on vacation at my sister Natalie's house.  She's good frenemies with Nat's cat, Meemo.  They hunt each other and have a grand time.  Until Molly gets up in Meemo's grill and Meemo waps Molly soundly on the face with her clawless front paw, then runs up to higher ground.  But paw waps don't make Molly a nervous wreck.  Those roll off her teeny little shoulders.  However, Micah's endless carrying around of Molly, poking Molly in the face, and "designing dresses" for Molly while watching Project Runway (Micah's favorite show) - including dressing her up in said dresses (which involve various sizes of washcloths and different pieces of ribbon, plus fabric scraps) - make her a nervous wreck.  So she's traveled to Northeastern Idaho Falls for her health.  Just like people in Jane Austen's era traveled to Bath for their health.

Anyways, Micah was devastated at the two day loss of Molly and came to me for comfort.  He fell upon my hard, high, Lefty Bowl to weep.  I felt bad.  It must have felt like clutching yourself to a big rock and trying to snuggle into it.  Ah well.  Hopefully the true implants will feel a bit softer someday. :)

How fares my Chicagoan?

Sorry I haven't posted about my Teeny Man in a long time.  I've received such a flood of adorable videos and pictures of him from his adoring auntie and baby-sitter - I had to transfer them from my phone to my computer, and then I had to go through them so that this post doesn't have 70 pictures on it.  (And BTDubs, Lex, that doesn't mean I want you to stop the flood.  Allow the flood to continue. May it flood for the next three months.)

Gage is doing SO WELL.  Example of what he said when he wanted chocolate milk before he went to Chicago:  "Ka-cut mikk?"  Example of what he said the other night when he was snuggling with Lex - "I want a-Chris a-make a-chocut milk."  Incredible.  He's using enormous sentences - SPONTANEOUSLY.  Without prodding or needing to imitate.  Here is one of my favorite videos of him.  He spontaneously said, "I have a cute bumb."  And Lex laughed so hard that he kept saying it over and over again, so she caught it on video for me:

I mean, don't get me wrong - he still often needs a sentence modeled for him.  He'll say one or two words to say something he needs.  Say he wants goldfish crackers.  Sometimes he'll still say "Goldfish."  Or "Goldfish crackers."  So then Lex will say, "Say, 'I want goldfish crackers, please!"  So then he'll imitate that sentence, and then she'll give him the goldfish crackers.

How do I know this?  Well, Lex and I talk at least every other day, and I FaceTime with her 3-4 times per week so I can talk to Gage.  Sometimes he wants to "talk" - which mainly involves him poking where he sees my nose on the phone screen and giggling, or leaning his head into the screen so I can give him a kiss.  But sometimes he's like, "I'm done talking with Mommy and want to play with my trains." (He says this in his head, of course.  He's not using sentences that are that long!) The other day, we were FaceTiming, and Gage got bored of me, and he had seen Chris take the dogs out to the front yard, so he ran over to the front door and yelled, "Kiss!  Hey, Kiss! [Chris]" It was really funny. He loooooves Chris.

So when Gage loses interest in interacting with me, Lex and I will talk, and I'll see her interacting with him and take mental notes on how I need to be with him when I get him back.  I want him to transition easily from Lex to me, and I mean to ape everything she has done to help him get as far as he has.  He'll have the same routine as he's had with Lex.  I don't want to unintentionally undo everything she has gotten accomplished with him.

What I also need to do is get my hands on some literature on autism.  I need to go to the bibliotheque. Knowledge is power, I say.  I want to know all I can do to help him.

As far as food, Lex has decided to have Gage go gluten free.  Her text will explain it better than I can:

"I took Gage to my holistic doctor and he said Gage is gluten intolerant.  Most kids are, but especially kids on the spectrum.  Research shows that when they go gluten free, behavior vastly improves because their GI system and neurological system feel better.  So we got all gluten-free snacks and food and some detoxing juice that improves brain and neurological function."

I'm completely uninformed about gluten-free eating, so I've been asking my friend Kathleen lots of questions.  I probably should also get some books on how to eat gluten-free.  I might as well put my whole family on it.  Sadie has GI issues, so it will help her.  And it will probably help Ben and I lose some weight.  This is all after I'm done with chemo, of course.  I don't want Gage to see the kids eating snacks or food that isn't gluten free and have to tell him no, he has to eat these other snacks...I want it to be a normal way of life for everyone so he doesn't feel deprived.  I'm going to have to try to find a way to afford it, too...our income has decreased dramatically with this new job change, so it will be difficult.  But I'll find a way. I have to.  For Gagie's sake.

Lex got Gage into this INCREDIBLE preschool.  From what I understand, there are only 8 kids and 5-8 adults in there.  And the adults are the teacher, her aide, a child psychologist, and several different types of therapists - occupational, developmental, physical, speech...  It sounds amazing.  He qualified to go four days a week for 2 1/2 hours per time.  We had to retrieve and e-mail Gage's assessment to get into Special Preschool last year and also his IEP, and the eligibility lady in Chicago was like, "Um, this is the worst assessment I've ever seen and this is the worst IEP I've ever seen." His IEP had him receiving hearing services, but at the time he started preschool, he could hear.  His tubes were in his ears.  And "receiving hearing services" meant that a lady from the school from the deaf would come observe him at school once a month, and she would come to our house and use instruments from the 1980s to test his hearing, which involved him wearing big heavy earphones which he was NOT a fan of, and the ability to signal when he heard a noise, which he didn't understand.  It was ridonk.

His IEP also gave no indication of receiving speech therapy.  I mean, this whole situation he was in makes me furious, but what really frosts my cookies is that I was begging them all last year for Gage to get speech.  And they kept saying, "We can't give him speech services until his speech emerges." I said, "I've got to believe that part of speech therapy is helping that speech to emerge..." and they said, "No, it has to be present before they can do speech therapy."  Which I found out was a BIG FAT LIE.

Basically, the school system here failed him.  Terribly.  And it makes me so mad that I could punch people.

Now, I don't know if maybe our district didn't have funding for speech therapists to help speech emerge?  All I know is that my daughter, when she was three, qualified through the school district for speech.  And she had total sentence fluency - just couldn't say several sounds correctly.  Yet, somehow, my son who had only maybe 5 to 10 words last year couldn't qualify through the school district for speech therapy.

The great thing about this school that Gage is in, is that now, he will have a proper IEP and a proper eligibility assessment.  We can take these documents, which are done CORRECTLY, to Bend and hand them over and get Gage into the proper preschool and therapies that he so desperately needs. I've learned a lot from this experience - the main idea being that I need to be more of a powerful mama.  I need to tap into my mother bear reserves.  And if he's not getting the help he needs, I have to arm myself with research and the law and fight for him.

So right now, Gage goes to this preschool, he goes to several different therapies every week, including hippotherapy, which he LOVES.

They don't have Gage ride in the regular manner.  They have him ride on his tummy, perpendicular to the horse's body.  Kind of like a sack of flour resting across the horse's back.

The reason they do it this way is that Gage needs vestibular motion.  He's always jumping, hanging upside down, and turning around and around to get dizzy.  This is his way of "resetting" himself.  When he's had enough of certain sensory input - especially noise - he does these actions to kind of make himself feel better in some way.  Sensory issues are a big part of Gage's particular "brand" of autism.  So when he's riding this horse, his head is almost hanging down, and it's getting movement back and forth, back and forth, as the horse walks.  This "resets" him and enables him to focus and do well when he's doing his therapies.  This hippotherapy place is actually where my sister works.  Coolest job ever.

Gage adores hippotherapy and especially adores a horse named Teddy, who is a gorgeous fjord horse.

He went on a playdate a few weeks ago, and they had an enormous stuffed horse at the house.  He got onto it just like he does at hippotherapy - like a sack of flour.  So cute.

Gage has a baby-sitter just a few times a week for a few hours each time, since Lex works.  She found this incredible baby-sitter who is actually working toward some kind of certification in autism. So she is perfect.  She sends pictures every time she watches him, and they're always doing something fun.  She took him to the Insect Museum there in Chicago - I'm sure it was like hog heaven for my little budding entomologist.  They go to different parks and do all kinds of neat stuff.

Gagie's current obsessions - bugs and Thomas the Train.  He has two Thomases, a Percy, and a James.  He knows all of their names, and when someone comes home, he says, "You hold Percy," or "You hold James."  So Lex and/or Chris will have to hold this train and carry it around with them.  If either of them puts the train down somewhere else, Gage insistently tells them that they have to hold the train.  Which I'm sure Lex and Chris love. :)  Haha!

One of the coolest things Lex has instituted for Gage is the use of transition boards.  You have a binder with velcro strips on it.  On the strips are pictures of different activities - brushing your teeth, taking a bath, going potty, etc.

Then you have laminated chipboard or cardstock with velcro strips on those.

When it's morning, you put in order, from top to bottom, the things you need to do.  So you'll maybe put the picture for "go potty" at the top, then "put on clothes," etc.  This really helps kids with autism in their transitions.  They have a hard time transitioning from one activity to the next.  I always had to drag Gage kicking and screaming out of the bathtub.  But after his bath, you show him the transition board and say, "What's next?" and he looks at it and sees the picture, and it might show a picture for "put on jammies," so then he goes, "Put on jammies!" and he willingly gets out of the tub to get dried off and dressed in his jammies.  After each activity, you or he takes the picture off the velcro and puts it back on the velcro on the binder.  It's sooo cool.  I have a video of Lex and Chris working with him on his transition board, but part of it is Gage going potty, and you can totally see his pee-pee in it, so I'll just keep it in my files. :)

Oooh, a really cute thing I almost forgot about - when someone gives him something he's asked for, he's encouraged to say "thank you," but he forgets if he's supposed to say "please" or "thank you" when he receives the object, so he just melds them together and says, "Thank you please!"

So yeah, I have a lot to learn, and I'm going to need to adjust my parenting to include all of these necessary things to help my kid reach his optimal potential.  But I'm excited to do it.  I needed the tools to help him, and I didn't know what he needed or what his exact issue was.  Now that I've got the information I need, I can make the changes I need to help him.

And Lex, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, thank you.  Thank you for helping Gage.  The things you've done for him will affect the rest of his life for the better.  You've made a huge impact on him and on our family.  I love you. :)