Clark Tribe Sunday

 Yesterday, The Clark Tribe had a great day.  We went out to Waterfront Park in Mount Pleasant, SC, along with a couple hundred other people, to watch The Blue Angels fly over the Charleston area.  Of course, Adrian was extremely excited about "going to the park".  Micah was just being his normal, happy-go-lucky yet starting to become mean, self.  And Sky and I enjoyed ourselves as it was a very beautiful day to get out.

Sky had an idea that we could do a picnic in the park.  I thought it was a great idea, so let's pack those sandwiches......  oh wait, the turkey sandwich meat was exhausted the day before.  We didn't let that stop us.  So we did what any other American would do in this situation...  That's right.  We turned to the faithful Mickey D's.  Now we usually don't do fast food, mainly because it's unhealthy and it tends to cost a lot more that preparing the food yourself.  But we looked through coupons and found a few "get a value meal get a sandwich free" coupons and ordered a healthy as possible.  For a family of four, the total was about $13.  So that's about $4.25 a person.  That's not bad.

We get to the park, find a spot in the grass, and it was great.  The sun was out, there was a breeze, and the boys were having tons of fun.  We got some good family pictures in (unfortunately sans me because I had the camera).  Adrian and Micah had a blast running around in the grass and enjoying each other.  Sky and I got to lay around on beach towels and just chill.  These would have been one of those great "if we didn't have kids moments" for people who are dating.  Not to say the kids took away from anything, because watching the kids play and enjoy themselves, really makes us, as parents, feel satisfied as if we did something right; it's just there wasn't a moment for us to just enjoy our own company because we had to constantly watch the boys to make sure they didn't wander off into the mirage of people that were there.

Granddaddy, aka Marvin (Sky's dad), makes his entrance.  I had called him earlier and he said he would come by to see his grandkids.  Of course, Micah cried as soon as he saw him (on going joke as Adrian did the same thing for about the first 18 months or so of his life).  Adrian, on the other hand, was happy to see him.  Marvin and Adrian had some good bonding moments, and then...

The Blue Angels showed up a little late, like 2:10 PM, but they flew over.  Adrian was completely in awe.  We didn't have the best view, as the Ravenel Bridge was in the way, but we did get to see a few of the insane "tricks" that the Angels had to offer.  By 3 PM, the show was over, and now it was time to transition to the "playground" section of the park.

Adrian, who a month ago was afraid to climb ladders or go across the loose boarded bridge, was running through the playsets as if they were an obstacle course.  Sky took Micah over to the infant swing set and they had their time while Marvin and I entertained Adrian.  Then it was time to go.

Sky, the boys, and I went to Wal-Mart.  Sky had actually commented on it having been a while since she went to Wal-Mart.  We did our grocery shopping and then headed home.  It was 7 PM.  I ended up going through the freezer and throwing out a ton of food.  A lot of it was over a year old with freeze bite all over it.  So now our freezer is pretty much empty.

Since I am the cook of the household, I decided instead of cooking meals for two days in advance, that I would try to cook in bulk.  I prepared some snow crab legs, flavored with Tony's, for Sky's dinner last night--steamed, opened, and extracted for her.  Funny how 6-7 snow crab legs are converted into a handful of crab meat.  I made my spicy Teriyaki salmon, hot shrimp and asparagus stir-fry, steamed rice---this will be Sky's lunch for the week.  Then I made myself some whole wheat spaghetti with sliced turkey cutlet, green onion, mushroom, and tomato sauce.

From there, we got the boys bathed and put to bed and Sky and I ended the night with the Celebrity Apprentice.

It was a great day, and I'm sure more will follow.  If it's sunny out, not to hot with a nice breeze, get out!  Enjoy life!

Thoughts From Dad

I thought I'd post some of my thoughts.

First off, my family is awesome.  I was thinking over the weekend that 6 years ago, Sky and I started talking on a "college dating" basis when she invited me over to her apartment and we sat around talking and watching People's Court.  Soon after she asked me to watch her dog Chelsea while she went on a week long adventure to see the birth of her Tau Beta Sigma sister's child...  Fast forward six years, married with two wonderful kids.  We have a big house, live in a quiet subdivision, and both of are kids go to an excellent school.

Sky is the epitome of an excellent mother.  She does everything for those boys and goes to extreme lengths to make sure they are getting the proper education and guidance.  She rushes to their rescue if they fall and get hurt and she holds them when they are crying and/or scare.  She laughs with then (and sometimes at them) when they are happy.  She looks for ways to ensure they are exposed to creative and new experiences.  Excellent mother, I can't say it enough.

Adrian is my ace.  He's my firstborn, and if you ever met him, you would know he's my son.  Most people say he looks more like his mother, which may be true, but he acts just like me.  Sky and I are sure he has Asperger's Syndrome, and Sky has stated that she is sure I have/had Asperger's as well.  I've come to terms that I probably have it, although I've obviously learned to deal with it.  As smart as Adrian is, I worry at times about his social and emotional development (areas where he is having trouble).  The kid can use a computer on his own, has the brain power to use logic to solve problems that may be complex for his age (3), and is speaking in understandable compound sentences.  You show him a picture of a classroom with a butterfly in it and ask him where the butterfly is...  he will tell you that the butterfly shouldn't be in the classroom.  He's a thinker, just like his dad.  I know Sky gets frustrated with him at times, and so do I, but I feel that I understand him better, because, let's face it, I have what he has.  Our brains function differently that others, so I have been told.  Two famous individuals that have had Asperger's--Bill Gates and Albert Einstein.  Who better to be categorized with?  I am just hoping that we can get him the proper assistance for his social/emotional development, because the kid is a genius and will change the world one day.

Micah is just the most pleasant (well, until about a week ago) baby ever.  He is 13 months now, walking, trying to talk.  He's smart and uses sign language to communicate.  Most recently, he has been described by Sky and I as being... "just like his brother".  Sure, that could be a good thing, maybe he's baby genius #2...  but we are talking about his tantrums.  I don't think it's anything out of the ordinary.  Baby opens drawer, parent tells him no, baby swats arm at you and cries.  Baby slaps parent, parent thumps baby's hand, baby looks angry and cries...  Standard Parenting 101 stuff.  We will have to watch him develop to see if he shows signs of Asperger's like his brother did.  But until now, Micah has been the "ideal" baby.  Five minutes out of the womb, he was chillin' calmly, no crying, active.  First night from the hospital, slept alone through the night.  First year, slept through the night.  Only cries when hungry or very tired.  Easy to put to sleep.  The dream child!  I think now he is more conscious of the world and realizes there is more to life than bottles, diapers, and naptime.  Time will tell.

Overall, I'm very optimistic.  Every family has its faults, but I would not trade anything in the world for what I have in my family.  Stay tuned as the adventure is only beginning...

Letting go, starting anew

The earlier post dealt more with catching up on the major happenings since the first post. This post will detail what I have been thinking about recently, since the possibility of Adrian being on the autism spectrum has been brought to the forefront. On Tuesday, I felt mostly relief. It seemed that finally someone was listening to me and that my child was NOT NORMAL. All of the idiosyncrasies, the compulsions, the emotional fragility...it just began to make sense. He has also been refusing to nap, and absolutely hates to go to sleep. In recent weeks, I have noticed increased aggression and perhaps even REGRESSION when bladder and bowel control are concerned. These unusual behaviors are mostly associated with him being told to do something that he emphatically disagrees with. However, the aggression and bladder control issues have also manifested themselves in the sleep routine. He has awaken frequently with screams, tantrums, and other odd behaviors for seemingly no reason at all. Last night, Adrian woke up three times because he peed his pants and wet the bed twice. Why? Who knows...he's been potty trained for months now. It has been emotionally draining to know that my child has what might as well be termed a chronic illness, one that could carry an immense and negative social stigma with it. But I will learn to deal. I will too surmount being the mother of an Asperger's child. I have let go of the child that I thought I had, an intelligent, witty, funny boy. I am now in the process of embracing a very similar child, yet I must add other adjectives such as emotionally fragile to the list. On the surface, it changes things slightly. Yet, it also changes things permanently. This is now who he is and I want the very best for him.

Catching UP...........

Since my last post, lots of things have happened. Adrian started a new preschool and was potty trained within 8 weeks.. and has turned 3 years old. My mother-in-law visited from Louisiana over the Christmas holiday. Micah has turned 1 year old, the pastor at our church went back to Korea, and Geoff started a new job. Since beginning at the new preschool, Adrian has had increasingly frequent behavior issues. He hits, slaps, kicks whoever and whatever is around when he doesn't get his way. Of course, this is seemingly innocuous or "normal" at 2years old. But most recently, he has become more violet and agressive. I was at my wits end when I was called at work (which is a 45 minute commute from the preschool) to pick Adrian up for agressive behavior for the third day in a row. Especially since they called as soon as I had gotten to work. I figured...I just need supernanny. He threw a chair at the teacher and then hit several of his classmates as they were standing in line. It seemed as though we have tried everything. Spanking, timeouts, verbal warnings, and ignoring (which landed us in the ER for loose teeth after an extremely energetic tantrum). The pediatrician essentially accused Geoff and I of not knowing how to talk to a 3-year old. He asserted that we were giving too many directives and talking to him too much. Well that's a bunch of you know what.

My immense frustration with Adrian’s behavior led me to do a quick Google search on behavioral therapy. I called Ashely therapy and they had an available appointment today. What a relief. The therapist listened to me and my concerns about Adrian. She thinks he may have Asperger’s or some other high functioning autism disorder. What a relief. It finally has a name! I have been doing my best to cope and parent with the limited (psychological) knowledge I have. He screams uncontrollably when he is upset. I’ve always been told “this is normal” But he is 3 years old now. It makes sense to me. He is intelligent, knows a whole lot, and has HORRIBLE social skills. Somehow, I never thought about such a possibility—that he might have autism. Recently, I had been coming to terms with the fact that there was something wrong. But I figured it might be OCD or ODD, given that he seems to have some compulsive tendencies and also is very very defiant. So we were referred to the Behavioral Disorders Clinic at MUSC, as those people should know whether or not it is Asperger’s.

Let's Get This Party Started!

So…It’s about time that we start this blog. This is Mommie’s attempt to chronicle life in the Clark (Stewart-Clark) household. It’s been long overdue. Just a few months ago, prior to the baby being born, I vowed I’d take a shot at being more….domesticated? So I first went out on a mission to purchase a scrapbook for each of the boys. After spending about an hour staring at different colored paper, stencils, raised sticky stickers and the like, I decided those decisions were to great for me to deal with at the time. Any anyone who knows me really well, knows what a difficult time I have making decisions. My mother (MiMi) will blame that on my astrological sign...LIBRA!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a compromise with myself, so as to not feel extremely guilty about one day not having said scrapbook to produce when one of the kids gets married, goes off to college, or just wonders if we really did throw them a first birthday party, I decided to purchase scrapbook envelopes instead. For me, it was a much easier alternative. And besides that, they were only $1 each! I figured that as things scrapbook worthy were collected, I’d just put them in the scrapbook envelope, and then at the end of each year, funnel through those items and make a real scrapbook. Well, that idea has gone okay, I guess, in that I actually DO put things in the boys’ envelopes (things like keepsakes from trips with MiMi, and various “firsts”, though I cannot specifically recall exactly what is in either of those envelopes). Within the past week, I’ve become addicted to other blogs and figured that starting a family blog would be a great way to archive those memories, and moreover, would be an even better way for me to try to improve my memory. For some reason my memory is horrible--perhaps because my daily work requires way too many neuronal connections. But I have yet to really figure that out. That’s a different story for another day.

I have to mention that as part of my blogging addiction, I spent several hours of my time--which should have been spent in more philosophical endeavors (i.e. working) —trying to select a cool name for the blog site. Here are those that didn’t make the cut and were voted off by members on the island.

1. Commenting on the clarks (I really liked this one, but that was one of the first ideas, and we NEVER use first ideas…there’s always better).
2. the clarks [inaudible]. I really like that one too, but every “user” knows that you can’t have any special characters like brackets in a url, right? Right :). The [inaudible] thing is an inside joke. It’s what daddy and I have recently used as responses to our conversations with Adrian and with each other when we can’t understand (in the first case) or hear (in the second case) what's being said.

Okay…now the really not so good ones

3. Clarkthoughts
4. clarkfalutin
5. clarkalimma
6. kimichiclarks…..we really do like kimchi a lot, but we’re not really a Korean family, per se
7. clarksoup…a stab at implying that we are an interracial family
8. clarkwire
9. clarknet

#8 and #9 for my husband and all other computer geeks

10. clarksmitten…it was okay if you read it clark smitten, as in you can’t resist us, but when crammed together, as would be in a url (internet address) it could also be clark’s mitten….and that just wouldn’t make much sense.
11. ulovetheclarks…this too was okay, but there was already an existing site called “lovetheclarks” and I didn’t want people to get their pannies in a bunch if they left of that initial consonant
12. clarked……like “smurfed”….as in an action verb....at first glance...stupid...after a few more seconds....really stupid

Forgot one

13. ClarkLOL, as in clark laugh out loud...well it only looked cool with LOL in caps, and like many of the other loosing titles just didn't have that je ne sais quoi.

I have lots that I want to discuss and be able to catch-up on, in terms of all of our experiences and perspectives as a family.