I'm still here friends. I've such been having an off few weeks. I'm not sure if I've ever shared this before but I have struggled with fibromyalgia on and off through the years as well as endometriosis. The fibromyalgia has not flared up this bad for a while... I think it may be due to the fact that I went off of gluten for almost a year and a half and then decided to see how I felt going back on. After a month of gluten and now feeling the way that I do, I know that it contributes to feeling terrible. There is probably a number of other factors added in there, but I think that is a big part of my health as a whole right now. I know also with the extra stress that has been happening with having my little sister and her new son living in town, i'm struggling with low adrenal function. Hopefully I'll come down from this episode soon. I always feel so bad for my family but it's good for me to learn to let my family take care of me. I have a better grasp on how to prevent episodes of fibro, and I have a better grasp on what i need to do on the days where I am really hurting. But i still struggle with taking the time that I need in order to function to my full potential. But when i take the time, everybody is happier.

I was thinking about Daniel, and about his speech disability, and the conversation that i had with our dentist and his wife about their Apraixic son. The wife (Hazar) was commenting about all of the speech therapy appointments and how hard it is to find someone who specializes in that certain disability. They fortunately found one, but they have to do so much driving because the therapist is located an hour from our city. It got me to thinking. I really hate, i mean HATE driving all over the place to different appointments. It drains me out, and not to mention it irritates my circulation and blood clotting issues. The thought of driving down to Portland 3 times a week for an hour at a time for therapy physically makes me want to throw up. seriously. I've been reading this book on apraxia.. and it's wonderful and very informative. It is called " Becoming verbal with childhood apraxia". It is written by a speech therapist who is an expert in her field. Whenever she talks about her patients she always talks about how she works with the patients for only a few weeks and then teaches the parents how to work with their child and then she MOVES ON. She leaves the tools needed to help the children with the parents. I like her. I do think that it is important for families.. especially those families who have two full time working parents and children have to be in a public or private school setting.. to have a speech therapist and get regular therapy. BUT in our case i am really thinking about this whole therapy thing. I am no speech therapist... well at least i am not considered or qualified to be a speech therapist, but i have read read so many texts on speech therapy and different techniques i feel like my eyes are going to bleed. So i looked into the woman who wrote this amazing book i am reading and i discovered that she does workshops on apraxia and techniques to teach those who have it. I also discovered that she has an audio series on apraxia and even online courses. So the wheels in my head started turning. As most of you know I am for homeschool, and i get much disaprovement on homeschooling my children esspecailyl because they are special needs. (Not from friends who know me, but from strangers who hear of our unique family). If i am to be the one that is around my child all the time, knows him best, why don't i educate myself on therapies and techniques on apraxia. All the speech therapist would do anyway would be spending about 4 sessions getting to know Daniel and getting comfortable and hope that we catch him on a good day to work with him and then the speech therapist would then turn around and teach me how to work with him because Matt and I are 90 percent of his therapy time. Okay sorry if this is a big jumble. What i am getting at is that i made a command descion to educate myself on apraxia. I ordered the 5 hour seminar and materials and I am going to be teaching myself to be a speech therapist to my child. Yes i realize that I am probably going to get a lot of people telling me that I am not a speech therapist, and that he NEEDS to go see a professional, and he is going to have issues because of it. I'm willing to take that risk. I'm willing to stand up to the opposition. Because I KNOW, that i can do it. And I KNOW my son, and I AM DETERMINED. To some studying and learning how to work with such speech disorder may seem harder then to just drive to a specialist.. but to me, the learning and doing it myself seems easier. Now of course I am still planning on staying in touch with Daniel's current speech therapist so that i have a "professional" to bounce ideas and questions off of, but I feel this is a right step. With the change in our family schedule I actually have time to myself in the evenings to study and to plan out well.
Can i just tell you that I AM EXCITED! I am excited about learning more about my sons unique disability and learning about how I can help him communicate with the world. he is such a precious little boy and I want the very best for him.

as always please excuse the terrible punctuation and spelling errors that my spell check does not check or change. I'm not really in the mood for grammer checking tonight! I jest wanted to get my thoughts out!