Category Archives: Jayden

The impact that it had on me was astounding

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I’m raising a sneaky little snake.  Jayden lost his tooth last night and stuck it under his pillow with so much excitement in him I felt it flow through me.  The kid is almost 10 and believes in all the magical things still – including the tooth fairy.  He goes up later that night to go to bed and looks under his pillow to check on his first molar that he’s ever lost, and it was GONE!  After searching EVERYWHERE for it, we decided that he just needed to write the tooth fairy a letter explaining what had happened.  At that point Ella decided that she would go up and help him find it – the little sneaky butt girl led Jayden right to her pillow where his tooth was!

Yesterday I saw Jayden’s sensory issues truly affect him – pretty much broke my heart in two.  We went to a birthday party at a place called Science Works – there was a lot of kids, and a lot of parents, and a lot of noise which all caused Jayden to end up in the corner with his ears plugged. It made me so sad for him, but it made me feel so secure in our decision to bring him home from public school.  I wonder how many times something like that happened at school and how his mom wasn’t there to snatch him up and flee the situation.  I know that there are a lot of kids out there that have this and their parents probably aren’t putting them under a rock like I’m probably doing, but I can’t stand to see my sweet Jayden feeling that way. 

All of the kids at the party looked like they were having so much fun and clicked and connected together – even my Ella – but Jayden was a different story.  He didn’t cling to any of the boys, just played with himself.  I went to some of the exhibits with him and he honestly didn’t care that he was looking at the stuff by himself.  That’s just him – he’s okay with who he is and that some kids probably find him odd.  He told me recently when we were discussing how one of his really good friends at school called him gay that “friends just sometimes are there and sometimes go and do their thing, and that’s okay.”  Saying I’m thankful that God trusted US with HIM is a complete understatement, because I will probably learn more about life through that little boy than I ever could have without him.  And he’s right, friends do come and go and they leave their marks on your heart, teach you a lesson that you needed, and when they’ve served God’s purpose in being in your life they flutter off.  It’s like seasons, they change.  One of my favorite quotes is “Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened.”  I hope that Jayden will be able to keep his optimistic views on life and people that he has forever.  My goodness that boy is amazing.

I was introduced to Stephanie Nielson’s blog {Nie Nie Dialogues} yesterday.  The impact that it had on me was astounding – all of the petty stuff that I’ve been worrying about suddenly felt so insignificant, and the bigger picture of life shone down on me and put chills all over my body and tears in my eyes.  For somebody to have such an enchanting and positive outlook on life after having 80% of their body burned is UH-MA-ZING!   I then went and found her {interview done} on Conversations, which is a Mormon podcast that sealed the deal on my new addiction to her life.  WOW. There are no words that can even explain what that interview can do to your faith and your direction in life.  Yesterday I felt down about all sorts of happenings going on in my life, especially the challenges that Jayden is and will be going through throughout his life – But the Nielson’s story touched me.  It just sheds light on the fact that we can and should find the silver lining in life.   

Simple days with my babes

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Spring break…..

Heaven.

I was spending a majority of today cleaning, doing laundry and having a much needed tea party with my girls, when a beautiful feeling of peace entered my soul.  Not having the pressure of something hanging over your head is something quite wonderful.  The past couple of weeks have been extremely stressful and having these quiet moments to soak in my children are WONDERFUL.

I’ve been working on something big for my love of photography.  I can’t wait to reveal it ~ no big date set yet.

In 1 week my little baby girl will be 4 months old.  She is amazing.  There really are no words that I can muster up right now to tell you how much my heart literally skips a beat when I see her smile at me.  It’s funny how you never realize something is missing in your life until it is there.

Right now I feel extremely complete.

Have I talked about how Jayden is in tap? Well, he is…. and I LOVE it and he loves it even more. Friday he had his first tap recital…. talk about CUTENESS! Here – see for yourself!

The Official Diagnosis

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Last Sunday I packed 2 of my kids up in the car and drove 3 hours away to do something that’s needed to be done for  a very long time.  I’ve blogged many times about my concerns with Jayden and autism.  I’ve blogged about taking him out of school, because he’s socially awkward and was being picked on.

I had an idea of what to expect.  10 hours at a facility meeting with specialist after specialist searching for some  sort of an answer for what has been going on with my son for years.

I walked in expecting to hear the words that no mother wants to hear.  The words of “Yes, your son is autistic.  Yes, this is something he will live with forever.”

I didn’t hear those words.

I heard something equally heart breaking, but I didn’t hear the word autistic.  I heard that my son has a communication disorder.  I heard that my son has ADHD.  I heard that my son has Sensory Processing Disorder.  But I didn’t hear the words autistic.

Jayden has a communication/language disorder called Semantic Pragmatic Disorder. Here is a snippit from Wikipedia to give you an idea of what this disorder entails:

Pragmatic language impairment (PLI) is an impairment in understanding pragmatic areas of language. This type of impairment was previously called semantic-pragmatic disorder(SPD). Pragmatic language impairments are related to autism and Asperger syndrome. People with these impairments have special challenges with the semantic aspect of language (the meaning of what is being said) and the pragmatics of language (using language appropriately in social situations).

I feel like a failure of a parent.  I always knew that something was different…. not by any means in a bad way, but just special.  I never knew the extent that Jayden struggled to understand at times what people meant.  When he said “I don’t understand” he really didn’t understand.  Why didn’t I pursue this sooner?

When we walked out of that all day appointment I looked at his sweet little face and I swear my love for him grew even more…. which is something I never thought was possible.  This innocent, sweet little guy was made in a way that he can’t be tainted by this cruel world.  He truly doesn’t “get” a lot of things.  He needs his mommy in ways I never knew he needed me.  And my heart is aching in ways I never knew it could.

He doesn’t “get” it when kids joke around with him.  He’s so literal that his feelings get hurt and I’ve always wanted to just protect him and keep him close to me.  This whole thing makes me feel THAT much better about my decision to homeschool him.  I can’t fathom throwing him out on the recess field now and expecting him to understand what the kids are saying and doing to him, when he LITERALLY can’t.

How did I not know this?  How did I not have a light bulb go off after the millionth time of him saying, “I just don’t understand.”  I thought it was Jayden trying to get out of things or his sensory overload taking place….. I never thought that he was struggling to understand the meaning of the things I was saying.  This picture I took of him the other night which was him not understanding and getting his feelings hurt.  Talk about heart breaking.  And even more heartbreaking is the way my heart feels for every time I got annoyed or frustrated at him for not “getting it”.

I’m taking a deep breath and being thankful that at least I did pursue it.  We know what we’re working with and now we start therapy.  We’re going to get him into an Occupational Therapist to work with him on the Sensory issues and a Speech Therapist to work with him on the language disorder.  With the ADHD I’m currently experimenting with a drink called {Celsius}, which has ZERO sugar and has caffeine and B vitamins.  AND it’s working!  I’m noticing that when he drinks the drink before it’s time for school work that he’s MUCH more focused!!

I have to move on from here on out and not dwell too much on what I should have done.  I guess the bottom line is at least I finally figured it out right?  I don’t know if this is even possible, but I swear I walked out of that appointment loving my little buddy even more.

Sisters

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Tonight I caught my girls looking quite delightful like this…………

and while snapping that picture, eyes closed and the quietness of our night began………

and my heart had the most peaceful feeling overcome it. These girls will always have each other. These girls will always be sisters, and will always have that life long best friend that every girl needs.

I didn’t expect the love to be alive so early. I prepared myself for jealousy, and resistance – I was blessed with love instead. These little moments shower me with a vision of the most delicious, delectable bond that my girls will have with each other.

My family doesn’t put relationships with each other in the highest importance.  It’s so sad to me that in my family most relationships are damaged and treated like trash.  I know it’s cruel to say, but it’s real.  Even my own relationship with my sister is non existent.  Not by my choice, because I love my little sister with every ounce of my soul.  She’s my sister, she’s supposed to be my best friend.  But unfortunately, she’s at a place right now where she doesn’t want her family.  And that’s okay.  All that we can do is be here for when she realizes that we’re here unconditionally…. we will all always love her; whether she realizes this in 6 months or 6 years.

With my family, my husbands family and the dysfunction we stem from, I am determined to give my children a solid FAMILY foundation.  I don’t want my children to ever turn on each other, became hateful towards one another, and choose to destroy their relationships with each other.

I will never stand for it.  PERIOD.

I want to always see my children like this with each other ~

and while I know things won’t always be perfect, I am determined for my children to realize and know in their heart how important they are to one another.

Effecting my other babies

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Today is 2 weeks & 5 days of us being a family of 5.  I don’t think it’s been going extremely fast as I feel like Aliyah has been here with us a lot longer than that.  But she hasn’t and I’m sitting back and realizing how different things actually are.

I didn’t expect things to change much, because what’s another kid in the scheme of things?  Things are actually changing with the other two.  Things that I don’t want to change are changing.  I’m holding a lot of this in and it’s probably not a good thing, but I’m very emotional about the differences in their personalities that I’m noticing.

Jayden’s not listening as well as he did before.  I’ve been frustrated with him and my patience is worn so thin already from Ella’s new behavior issues that I just at times CAN’T HANDLE ANYTHING MORE.  It seems like when I’m at my breaking point Jayden starts acting out.  Then I sit here thinking….. holy crap what in the world am I going to do?  Then after I’m acting frustrated and irritated with Jayden I start to feel so guilty.  I expect him to always be good and be my helper, but I can’t expect these things always from him.  He’s 9, and he’s so patient and understanding when it comes to his sisters.  He knows that they’re younger and that they require more attention, and he never complains.  I owe it to him to be patient with him.  I owe it to him to make sure that I am putting aside time EVERY, SINGLE DAY for just the two of us.  Just the two of us to talk, to read, to watch a movie together….. I HAVE to make sure that he’s getting his special attention from his mom.  I HAVE to remember that he needs praise for all of the things that he does for me.  I can’t forget to let him know how grateful I am for all the help he gives me, for the hard work he puts into his school work, and for the amazing big brother he is to both of his sisters.

My Ella.  Oh my sweet, sweet girl who seriously has my heart grasped in her little hand.  She’s been my baby for the past 3 1/2 years and all of a sudden when I look at her I don’t see baby anymore; I see a girl.  Ever since I came home from the hospital she doubled in size.  She’s become more independent and doesn’t “need” me as much anymore.  I still cling to the snuggles I get when she crawls into my bed in the middle of the night.  As much as I don’t like her in my bed, it still gives me a sense of her still being my baby girl in a way.  She’s been amazing with her new baby sister.  No jealousy, just love.  She’s been a struggle though in other ways.  She isn’t listening.  At all.  To the point where I seriously just want to freak the freak out.  My patience with her has worn EXTREMELY thin and I find myself just praying that we can have one day of her cooperating and not making things difficult for me.  Actually, not even a day…. half of a day would be lovely.

But I need to realize that life for them has changed.  For Jayden it’s changed drastically, because not only has a new baby entered his life – he’s now being homeschooled.  I need to find the patience within me that they need.  I need to realize that they’re acting out because life as they knew it has changed.

Many people have told me that 3 kids is hard, and I’m realizing now that it’s the effect on the other children that makes it hard.  Adding Aliyah into the mix isn’t hard; she’s not hard.  It’s just having everybody find their new place in this growing family.  It’s me having to allow Ella to become a little girl as she so abruptly flees from being my baby.  It’s making sure that Jayden doesn’t feel like he’s getting lost in the mix of little ones.  These are the things that are hard as a mom for me.  My heart aches thinking that they might silently be struggling inside with the new changes in our life.

But in the end I know they love Aliyah so much, and I know that this too shall pass.  And until then I will lavish in these beauties that I call mine.

We’re Homeschooling! And I’m STILL pregnant

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I really got quite used to my blog break.  I must say though…. I NEEDED IT!  With everything going on in our lives right now, I needed 110% focus on my life.  Tonight as I sit in a very quiet living room, with my children fast asleep, I felt the desire to come on here and talk a bit about things going on.

I’m still pregnant!  Last doctor’s appointment was a week ago and I was dilated to a 2 and doctor didn’t think I’d make it all the way to my induction date.  Kinda put the reality of oh baby right in me!  Next appointment is Thursday and I CAN’T WAIT to see if there’s any progression.  The contractions have come more frequently and some even contain pain…. not cool!  In 2 weeks from today I will be induced, and I will get to kiss the sweet little face of my baby girl.

We are officially homeschooling!  The first week was a whirlwind and I thought to myself…. holy crap what in the world are we doing?!  There were days that Jayden would go to his room crying and I’d sit and think how is this going to work?!  Then amazingly, together we’d get down on our knees and pray to God for guidance, patience, understanding and it works.  We HAVE to start out our homeschool day with a prayer or strangely it just doens’t work.

Jayden’s thriving and loving it.  I’ve noticed Ella & Jayden becoming even more close {didn’t know that was possible} and that in itself makes me gleam inside.

Speaking of Ella we joined a preschool co-op!  She goes twice a week and LOVES IT!  I think it’s great for her too, because she’s still getting the homeschool setting (we rotate houses and who teaches weekly) but gets to be with other children her age.  We currently have 3 kids and will do a max of 4.  Ella’s been learning a lot lately.  I try to do school with her when I do school with Jayden.  She’s doing a Letter of the Week curriculum at home.  I’m not pushing her or drilling in her head things that I want her to know, I’m just introducing her and letting her take her time and enjoy letters.

So… the Garibays are happy, healthy and EXTREMELY busy!  I should be having more time to blog now that I feel things dwindling down a bit.  I had to get used to the new schedule of not working and homeschooling.  It’s working and we’re loving it!

The moment I pray for God to have some answers for me

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I’m just going to pre-warn you all that there is probably going to be some MAJOR rambling with this post…. I’m upset, and I’m confused and it’s times like this that I wonder why God entrusted me with children…. what if I make a wrong decision?

Shortly after I posted my {post} on Jayden being an Out of Sync Child and then my {post} on him realizing he’s different, I received a phone call from a friend of mine.  Our children go to school together and she had something VERY upsetting to tell me….

Let me first give a little background on her daughter Hailey & Hailey’s friend Riley.  These girls have been going to school with Jayden since Kindergarten.  They have ALWAYS looked out for Jayden and stuck up for him when they’ve seen a problem with the way other children are treating him.

Hailey came home to tell her mom that there were boys that had Jayden cornered and was holding Jayden around his neck.  Hailey, Riley and another girl went over and told the boys to knock it off and basically saved Jayden from these boys.

I am heartbroken.

I am speechless.

I am utterly at a loss for what I’m supposed to do here.

My first instinct is I would like to pull Jayden out of school and protect him from the evil kids that are hurting him.  But I don’t have the confidence in me that I can do as good of a job as his teacher does.  He has so much help to help him succeed in academics, and I feel like I’d be at a total loss.  But I don’t want ANYBODY hurting my child.

There’s been a lot of talk about bullying lately.  I just read a fantastic {post} by Single Dad Laughing regarding bullying, and if you have read it I HIGHLY suggest that you do.  It’s long, but heart felt and something EVERY parent & teacher needs to read.

2 days after writing the above:

Jayden finds everything to be a game.  He doesn’t quite understand what a bully is.  To Jayden, it’s a game and he doesn’t see the severity of it.  To Jayden he’s actually getting some kind of attention from one of his peers.  He’s been more effected by kids who call him weird than kids you have threaten or done physical harm.  But how many times of some kid telling him he’s weird or gay or sucks balls {yes, that’s one of the newest ones} can I allow to happen?  Eventually with so many times of being told you’re something you eventually begin to believe it right?

My friend’s husband is a special education teacher and recently had taken my kids along with his daughter to Jayden’s school one evening to let them play while I got some homework done. Jayden was telling him that he always plays by himself at recess, and Jeremy asked him why he would play with himself when there’s so many kids to play with. Jayden said that because the other kids think he’s weird.  This does things to my heart that I can’t even begin to describe.

I do not want my son to have his “social” time that is so important for children to be negative like that. I feel like I can create a positive social atmosphere for him. Why should I have him somewhere where people are continually putting him down?

I’m not going to lie, making a decision of taking your child out of school is a VERY hard decision to make.  I don’t want to completely shelter my child from society, but at the same time I do.  I don’t want him to graduate, go off to college and be completely clueless to the world.  I don’t want him to miss out out on playing sports in school if that’s what he wants to do, or going to prom, or the thrill of having a crush on a girl at school.

BUT I don’t want him to learn ways from other children whose parents don’t care about them and treat them horribly.  I don’t want my son to have to deal with people putting his self esteem down because he’s “different”.  Then comes the academics side of it all.  Budget cuts keep happening, programs I find beneficial for children are being taken away…. example: MUSIC!

I am really starting to think that trying to do homeschool with Jayden might be the way to go.  There’s an amazing FREE program available in our state called {Connections Academy} and it just seems like the perfect thing.  I can create a positive social atmosphere for Jayden, which I just really feel like he needs.

I really would love any and all advice from anybody out there will to give it to me.  Please share with me why you are homeschooling, your successes with it, if you’ve done Connections Academy your thoughts on it….

This is such a scary decision for me.

He knows he’s different

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Today we were watching Horton Hears a Who and Jayden says about Gordon, “Mom, he’s different or unusual huh?  I’m unusual aren’t I?”

I’m telling you that it seems like this past week with Jayden has been a roller coaster of emotions.

My reply to Jayden was simply this, “Jayden, everybody in this world is different and unusual, because if we were all the same how sucky would that be??”

Yes, I said sucky.

Tonight I just felt this heavy heart with things going on that I haven’t quite finished my blog post on regarding him and I just had to grab him and hug him.  And I told him, “Jayden I hope you know how special you are and that you are so loved by everybody in your life.”

“Mom, why did you tell me I’m special?  Is it because…. you know… I’m…. you know…. unusual like in Horton Hears a Who?”

When they say parenting is hard, you don’t realize quite how hard it truly is until you are a parent.  I know God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, and I know Jayden was placed with us, because God knew that we’d be the best parents for him.  So I need to have a little faith in myself as we embark down this road together.  I won’t have all of the answers for him, but I sure as hell can try!  And if anything, I will make sure that he knows that his mom is ALWAYS here, ALWAYS loving him, and ALWAYS accepting him for who HE is, because HE is everything to ME!

4th Myaversary ~ *Heavy Image*

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Yesterday was our 4th Myaversary.  4 years ago yesterday we found out our baby girl was no longer alive inside of me.  Hardest most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced inside.

I talk about {Mya} often.  She’s not something I’ve pushed under the rug and moved easily on with life.  She is a part of me, and she is my daughter.  A daughter I haven’t met yet, but a daughter I felt inside of me.  She was growing inside of me, she kicked inside of me, she grew into my heart while she was inside of me.

We always send off balloons to Mya to heaven every year on our Myaversary.  I don’t know why we’ve never taken pictures of the balloons we’ve sent to her before, but this year was a special balloon and we took a special trip for her.

This year I wasn’t sad like I am normally on our Myaversary.  I think it has a lot to do with the if there was a Mya, there’d be no Ella.  Mya served a beautiful purpose in mending a broken marriage.  Mya served a beautiful purpose in bring a family that was so close to be broken to knowing what we mean to each other.  Mya made a way for Ella to enter this world into a family that was a family.  A family that was loving.  A family that was stable.

Mya, I thank you every day for making our family what it is today.  And that is something to celebrate.  And this face right here, is a face of a little girl with pure joy and happiness in her heart…. and I couldn’t fathom a life without her in it.

Our trip to the Oregon coast was a fun trip, but the wind was horrible! Made it very unenjoyable for Ella, but I did manage to get this cute picture of my family

Ella spent the majority of the time screaming if I didn’t have her covered entirely in a towel to protect her from the blowing sand. Such a bummer, because the weather was BEAUTIFUL! Here’s my 2 wind blown babies.

This windblown baby loved everything about the trip…. loved the water, the wind, the birds to chase and I don’t post much about my Sophie girl… but here she is

and my wonderful husband managed to get this beautiful belly pic of me at 27 weeks pregnant with our newest baby girl that will be joining our family in December.

Then it came time to let go of the balloon for Mya ~ I found this special rose balloon, so I sent her off a Rose. You can click on the picture to make it bigger.

Our trip was quick, but it was a beautiful day. We celebrated what a beautiful little girl gave us, taught us and helped us become.

Mya,

I love you more than I’ll ever be able to explain. You will always be a special part of our lives, and we will always continue to celebrate our Myaversary. I know that you are with us, and that you watch over your little family. I know one day we will get to meet, and until that day I hope that I will continue to feel you around me.

I love you ~ Love, Mama

The Hard Parenting Moments

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Stepping out of the bathroom with a huge grin on your face because YOU ARE PREGNANT, you aren’t thinking about the challenges that are going to come along with those 2 beautiful pink lines.

I can still remember walking out of the bathroom and my husband being on the phone with his dad and me smiling holding up the test.  I just was imagining all the cute little baby clothes, and baby feet, and first steps and tickles and giggles.  What I wasn’t thinking about was the challenges that would arise.

What I wasn’t thinking about was that one day while at the park my son was going to be called gay, because he had to encounter heartless children that unfortunately are not being raised with any morals what so ever.

My innocent, little son because he told a kid “Nice bike” is deemed “gay”.  My son knows what being gay is, because he has a gay aunt.  My son knows what being gay is, because this isn’t the first time he’s been called a derogatory name like this by a child who unfortunately is being raised by parents who have no grounds to even be able to have a child.

I as an adult can understand why children act like this.  I can comprehend the fact that this is what they are being raised around.  But my almost 9 year old son cannot.  His sweet little soul asked me, “Why would they call me that?  I’m not gay.” All I can say to my son is…

“You are going to go through your life encountering people who are nasty, people who have a very hateful outlook on this world and towards people.  You are going to have many people attack you as a person because you have morals, you know what’s right and what’s wrong and you care about other people.  Instead of feeling hurt inside over these words that are crushing, I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to pray that whatever it is that’s hurting these people in their lives that they find peace.  Pray that they will soften their hearts and stop lashing out on the world for their own miseries.

No matter what, always know that if you can keep yourself composed and never stoop down to their level and always just wish the best among all of those around you, especially those who hurt you, you will be extremely blessed for this.  I promise that instead of feeling bad inside, you will feel good inside.  You’ll feel like you gave that person something they don’t have, and something they probably never were blessed with.”

As a mom this hurts.  I don’t ever want my children to feel the hurt that can come with other children’s anger and hatred towards the world…. Or should I say their parent’s anger and hatred shining through them?