Soaking up fall

Tanner and I took some time to enjoy the park before the weather turned sour. Something tells me major cabin fever is coming up.

The best part

I hope not to offend too many people by talking about boobs, but that's what this post is about. (And I won't be saying "breast" during this post because I don't like that word.) If you don't want to hear about it, stop reading here. Don't say I didn't warn you.

The best part of losing weight right now is that my chest is getting smaller - finally! I am VERY happy about this.

When I was younger, I didn't have big boobs. And I was fine with that. I wasn't flat as a board either. In my mind, I was just right. They were the perfect size for playing soccer. I could trap the ball easily with my chest and not have any problems. The ball didn't bounce off at weird angles; it went exactly where I aimed it. I didn't get hit in the face or stomach by my chesty friends when I ran to take a shot on goal. It was a great thing.

Fast forward a few years to 2006 when I got pregnant with Tanner. My chest started getting bigger. I wasn't happy about this, but knew it was just part of the natural order of things. Once Tanner was nearly here, I got measured for a nursing bra. To my surprise - and utter horror - I was a 36 D! Before that I had been a 34 B. Again, I was not happy.

Since then, my chest size has been roughly the same. If I wasn't nursing, I was pregnant. I didn't slim back down much either so my weight didn't help my bra size. When I measured myself last night to see how many inches I've lost, I was happy to see another inch gone. Two weeks and I've lost two inches from my chest.

That makes me a very happy lady.

It's about time!

Finally, Ava has decided that she can crawl - the right way. She sure has waited a long time to grace us with her new skill (she's 13 months old for pete's sake!). She prefers to army crawl, as it can get her to the remote, toy, or Mom faster, but she's learned to move on her knees and I'm so happy to finally see her do it!

Also, I haven't lost nearly as much weight as Josh, but the five pounds I have lost are still definitely encouraging. We've been taking advantage of the nice weather to play outside and go on long walks. A park across from our church has a half mile track that we can use while Tanner's playing. We're also doing aerobics after putting the kids to bed while we watch our recorded shows rather than sitting on our duffers on the couch. We bought a bike pump and plan on riding our bikes before the weather turns wet. We've toyed with the idea of getting a gym membership that has childcare so we can work out together and keep each other motivated...but we're finding that our living room works pretty well.

Here's to losing 15-30 more pounds!

the illest

After a week and a half of smarter eating, I lost about 9 lbs.

Every day Brooke and I think about Bajio or something like that, and we've managed to fight it this long. Since last Tuesday, we only had one bad day. After a week of eating right I was craving Taco Bell, of all things, and I rewarded myself with a Grilled Stuffed Burrito. It was mediocre. I had tremendous diarrhea and regretted it.

But, Brooke and I were thinking about when our next visit to Bajio would be for a huge burrito. But, after weighing myself tonight, we're a little more motivated to work as hard.

Halloween 2009

For the third year now, we celebrated Halloween with Josh's family the Saturday before Halloween. This year, we went as a monkey, a chicken, Cleopatra, and a bunch of grapes. We ate dinner, painted pumpkins, played games, and had an all-around good time.






On Halloween day, Josh enjoyed a photography class with his dad and John, and then had to go to work. So Tanner, Ava, and I went to my parents' house for a little Halloween party of our own. We carved pumpkins, made monster munch (caramel corn with Reese's Pieces and candycorns), Halloweenies (hot dogs wrapped in dough to look like mummies - a common dish for many in the blogosphere this year), mummy pizza, soup, garlic bread, caramel apple dip, sugar cookies in the shape of cats, witches, ghosts, bats, and pumpkins, and root beer floats.

After eating lots of food, we ventured out for Tanner's first trick-or-treat experience. He did a great job signing "candy please" and all the neighbors couldn't get enough of his cute chicken costume. As you can tell in the pictures, Ava wasn't a big fan of her monkey costume, so I dressed her up in her skeleton jammies and she enjoyed herself wrapped up in the stroller.

We stopped by Home Depot on our way home to see Josh and get some more candy from his coworkers. All in all, it was a great day.

Tanner's 2nd Evaluation

We took Tanner to meet with the psychologist yesterday afternoon. For some reason, Josh and I were both hoping for (and thinking we'd get) a diagnosis. Unfortunately, this was only the first of three meetings the psychologist wants to have with us. Yesterday, she just observed Tanner while we talked about our concerns. She also wanted to see how we interact with him as parents.

There were a lot of things that she said are really positive about Tanner. He was trying to engage us in things he thought were interesting. He showed curiosity in her bag of toys. He was able to transition from different toys fairly easily. He had a good attention span when he and Josh looked at books. She said that all of these strengths are good because they give us something to build on.

However, there are a lot of things about Tanner that are a little different from a typical child. (Those dealing with Autism don't refer to "normal" children, only "typical" children - I love that.) He has very limited make believe play. We don't often see him creating situations beyond the base type of play you would engage in with a particular toy (e.g., stacking blocks vs. building a castle). Although, yesterday at the meeting he was "blowing" his nose using paper towels, and after doing that a while, he went over to the toy dinosaur and "blew" the dinosaurs's nose. Tanner also is very particular about everything being in its place. If he knows that the garage door opener goes on the driver side visor, he gets upset if it's on the passenger side. He gets easily frustrated with his toys if they don't work the way he wants them to. Another odd behavior is that instead of playing with his toys like a typical child would (animals, cars, etc.), he lines them up. He doesn't do this with all of his toys, but we've seen it a lot when he has toys of a similar type. I realized last night when we were getting him ready for bed that he has been doing that since before Ava was born, as early as when he turned one. When he played with his Noah's Ark set, he would always line the animals up. He also tends to like to play with the same type of toy over and over. He is really good at puzzles, he loves his trains and cars, and he loves balls.

After discussing some of our concerns about Tanner's behavior during certain situations, namely diaper changes and getting ready for bed, the psychologist thinks he has a few sensory issues that we should work on. For those of you who have changed Tanner's diaper, you know how hard it can be. The fact that he has super human strength doesn't help. The psychologist suggested that we try wrapping his upper body in a blanket or something when we try changing his diaper to help with the sensory aspect of him not feeling secure when his diaper is changed. We did that last night while getting him ready for bed and then again this morning. It worked in both cases. Because of these sensory problems, the psychologist wants Tanner to have occupational therapy.

Our next visit with her isn't for another month, but at that visit, she'll conduct the first of two tests. She said it won't really look like much because Tanner will just be playing with toys, but she will be watching for him to do certain things with the toys. Then, our third visit will consist of her conducting an actual test where she'll ask Tanner to point to certain things.

At this point, she is leaning toward thinking Tanner has a PDD (pervasive development disorder), most likely PDD-NOS (pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified) because of how social he can be. Our hope is that we'll be able to get Tanner all the help that he needs in order to be able to function as best as he can. We hope he'll be able to continue gaining more and more words so that he can talk. We feel like we're still in limbo and are trying to be patient throughout this entire process. We're meeting with our speech therapist next week to go over Tanner's preschool options. It'll be nice to learn what all is available to us to help him.

Calories in, calories out

I think I've never restricted what I eat. Ever. When I lived at home, I would even look for the sweetest or fillingest thing possible. Once I moved out I pulled out all the stops.

Even in the last couple years I've finished off the evening with a bowl of ice cream. Not even good ice cream. Just anything I could get my hands on.

Brooke and I have talked about changing our eating habits for the last few weeks, but the clincher came for me last Monday. I started my morning with a Full Throttle and a Beto's breakfast burrito. I ate as usual the rest of the day until, when I settled down with Brooke at the end of the night, I started to really feel sick.

I did a little calorie count, and with 4 Full Throttles, I had topped 3,200 calories. And this wasn't so incredibly unusual. So I went to bed the same way I did every night previous, a full tummy, a little indigestion, a little headache, and VERY tired.

Brooke and I have done a lot of online browsing. I discovered that if all I do is stay in bed all day, I'll still burn about 2,100 calories because of my size. So, I've dropped my daily calorie intake to about 1,500 (gasp, HALF of Monday's calories) and added a 1/2 hour brisk walk each day (which burns well over 100 calories).

We're on day four and I'm feeling great. When I get home I'm tired and ready to sleep, not up all night watching sitcoms. I'm not adjusting my position to accommodate my stomach discomfort. I'm not constantly thirsty because I'm finally drinking water again. I can tell this is better for me, just from the way I feel.

But, on my drive home I fantasize about chicken nuggets from Wendy's, ice cream, or cheating and having more than 3 oz. of salmon. Wish us luck. I keep telling myself that I'm going this so I can play with my kids and not get worn out, or even live a little longer to be with them.

Thoughts on the diet

This is our 500th post - woot woot!

Today marks Day 3 of our diet, and it's going well, all things considered. We've had a few temptations, but we've held strong. I've learned though that I don't much care for the crunchiness (for lack of a better word) of brown rice. As part of our diet, we eat the same thing each day for a week. It was all I could do to eat my plate of brown rice, green beans, and chicken for dinner last night. I'm eating it again tonight and I'm not excited. I do, however, like everything else we eat each day.

This morning before Josh left for work, he went shopping for the next week's meals (we only bought enough food for three days to get the hang of it). It's a lot harder to plan food this way, actually watching how many calories we'll be eating in a day. It takes more time, and I hope to incorporate a little more variety in the future.

I wonder how long it will take before we start seeing results. We're planning on weighing and measuring ourselves each week to track our progress. I just hope we see some good results to keep us motivated. I'm proud of myself for not giving in and munching on something whenever I feel like it. I hope I can keep it up.

On Tuesday night, I had been planning on making something out of all the apples we have thanks to my parents' neighbor. With limited access to food processing equipment, we opted to make a batch of apple berry freezer jam. Oh - my - yum! Not the best idea to make it on the first night of starting your diet. I wanted to eat it by the spoonfuls. Thank goodness I resisted.

Anyway, here is the recipe. I substituted the pomegranate juice for apple juice that I already had on hand. Seriously, it was so good. I think I like it better than the strawberry and peach jam I normally make. Give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

Diet: Day 1

Today marks Day 1 of our diet. We've decided to do the traditional diet method of changing what we eat. An actual diet diet. We're going to eat more nutrient dense foods while watching our total calories. We're also eating more meals throughout the day to help our metabolism work better. We're using Daily Burn to enter our calories and track our progress (it's free). So far, I've eaten breakfast and my morning snack and I'm not feeling hungry, which is a good sign. I think it will help that Josh and I are both doing it because then we can encourage each other.

We weighed and measured ourselves last night as well as took our "before" pictures. Yikes. Talk about depressing. However, I think we're on the right track. Once we get a hang of this new way of eating (we'll have to tweak things here and there - nonfat cottage cheese made me gag this morning), we'll start figuring out a good indoor exercise routine to help burn more calories.

Also, eating healthier will make me feel less guilty (and maybe less prone to over-indulge) as we celebrate these upcoming holidays with sweet treats. Wish us luck.

Out of nowhere

On Saturday, I was getting ready to blow dry my hair in the downstairs bathroom. Tanner had gotten out of the bath and was playing in the living room while Josh, unsuccessfully, tried getting his diaper and clothes on. Tanner came into the bathroom and lifted the lid to the toilet. I was a little nervous for him to be climbing onto the toilet without his potty seat (which we keep in the upstairs bathroom) for fear of him falling in. But, facing the back of the toilet, those cute little knees straddled the hole, resting on either sides of the seat. Tanner pointed his penis down and started to pee. (I normally would say "tinkle," but Josh thinks only old women do that.) I was so excited, but I didn't want to startle him by yelling to Josh to come see, so I went into the living room and quietly told Josh that Tanner was going to the bathroom on the potty. We were so proud of him!

My mom gave Tanner a potty seat a while ago, and Tanner's interest has been increasing over the last several weeks. Normally, he just puts the seat on the toilet, pulls down his pants (leaving his diaper on), and sits there. Then he grabs some toilet paper and flushes the toilet. A few times, he's taken off his diaper and we taught him to point down. But, he's never actually gone to the bathroom on the toilet. He hasn't shown interest in using the toilet since Saturday, but we were so happy that he went potty all by himself without us even prodding him to do it.

Craig and Ashlyn

Today I spent time with a friend of mine from work, Craig, and his wife Ashlyn. We found a great alleyway behind 17th and Washington.

Does anyone else...

...feel like they can't get out from under the everlasting and all-consuming pile of junk that clutters every corner and crevice of every room in the house? I took time last night to sweep and mop, do the dishes, wipe down the counters and stove, dust the computer desk, pick up the toys in the living room, and fold four loads of laundry. And still, today, it looks like half of the work I did last night wasn't really done at all.

I don't know what it is with me. I felt like I had a pretty good handle on things before I started having all of my back problems before the summer started. Well, maybe not a good handle, but I was at least able to clean up on a more regular basis. Once I became less mobile, I was okay with letting the floor stay cluttered with Tanner's toys since he'd be playing with them the next day. But now that my back problems are mostly resolved, I really have no excuse, right? I need a good kick start to get back to not only wanting everything in its place, but wanting to do the work to put everything in its place.

One-year check-up

I get asked over and over how old Ava is by people at church, at the store, pretty much everywhere. When I tell them that she just turned one a few weeks ago, they all seem pretty surprised. She's small. Tanner was small too, but Ava is smaller than he was. When we took her in for her one-year well baby check yesterday, her stats surprised even me.

Weight: 17 lbs., 8.5 oz.
Height: 26.5 in.
Head circumference: 18.5 in.

The measurements put her in the <3 percentile for height and weight. Her head size? 91 percentile. You'd think she was a bon bon on a toothpick. It's been a blessing, though, that she weighs what she does since I'm not supposed to lift/carry more than 20 pounds.

She's mobile, but only army crawling to get around. She's always been content to just sit there, which I think has slowed her progress. When I mentioned to the doctor that she hasn't started crawling and doesn't like to stand up (even supported by me), he said that some kids just don't want to get moving. He said that they tend to be pretty late walkers. Tanner started walking at around 15 and a half months, which I considered late, but now it seems like Ava will be behind him. The pediatrician wants to see her back at 15 months to check things out and see if she's improved at all.

Also, she wants nothing to do with sippy cups most of the time. I've gotten her to take a little bit of milk a couple of times, but she doesn't really like to suck from the cup. The doctor told me to just quit nursing cold turkey so that she'll be "forced" to drink from the cup. She's been a bit under the weather the last couple of days, and since she needs fluids to help get over that, I'll wait to stop nursing until some time after that. I'm ready to break the boob connection, but sort of not ready either. I guess we'll see what happens.

The Johnsens

The results...UPDATED

I'm going to leave the specifics to Brooke. I'll forget something.

But the long of the short from the memory of Tanner's father:

We took Tanner in to have him evaluated. We told them our concerns about his speech and behavior. We talked to a student/nurse lady. She talked to a professor woman. They came in and watched Tanner and talked to us for a while.

Though this was not an official diagnosis, she felt like Tanner is on the Autism spectrum. He doesn't have some of the classical features, so she felt like he has a more mild version.

Yesterday I went with Jordan and Alison to Ogden's Botanical Gardens for family pictures. Some of my favorites are posted here.

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Mom's Version of the Results

The student/nurse lady was a pediatric medical student who acted as an assistant and asked us some questions about Tanner's behavior and medical history. The professor is actually a developmental pediatrician involved with autism. Like Josh said, she thinks Tanner is on the autism spectrum because of his language problems and some of his behaviors. She can't officially diagnose him, but she said that based on her opinion and the opinions of Tanner's regular pediatrician and the early intervention people, the next step is to have Tanner evaluated with a psychologist who has the ability to diagnose ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). We have an appointment set up for a couple weeks.

The term she used to describe Tanner is as having Pervasive Developmental Disorder NOS. According to the website she gave us, PDD-NOS is "applied to the child with some characteristics of an ASD who does not meet full criteria for Autistic disorder or Asperger syndrome."

This website has a lot of information regarding treatment. She wants us to specifically look at the ABA treatment section. ABA is for Applied Behavioral Analysis. In this method of treatment, the behavior that the child needs to learn is broken down into each basic step and then taught to the child. For example, a typical child would easily be able to tell his/her parent that they like something by getting the parent's attention through touching his/her hand, eye contact, and saying "Mom/Dad, look." With ABA, you work with the child to get them to touch the hand. Then, you teach them the second task of eye contact and add it to the first of touching the hand. Then the final task is taught and combined with the previous ones so the child learns the exchange.

In addition to meeting with the psychologist through the health department, the doctor wants us to talk with the Northern Utah Autism Program and get in to see their psychologist. They offer a great preschool program for children with autism. Tanner is already on the waiting list for next fall. In order to get into the preschool though, Tanner needs to be evaluated by their psychologist. However, he can't be seen until he turns three. I'm planning on calling them today to get further information about their process.

The doctor also mentioned a few other things that she wants us to learn about. There is a condition called Fragile X Syndrome. It is the most common known cause of autism. Tanner doesn't exhibit many of the symptoms of this syndrome, but the doctor wants us to educate ourselves about it in case he starts having seizures or other related symptoms.

On the website she gave us, there are several other treatments listed. Some of them include diet changes. She also mentioned Tanner's head size as a cause for concern. The problem with that is that Josh and I both have relatively large heads. She said that if we get worried about how large it is, she recommends having an MRI done on his head. We don't think it's a big deal at this point, but we may change our minds down the road.

So, how do we feel about this? Fine. I think we both came away grateful to be one step closer to figuring out what Tanner's trouble is. I felt like the doctor was very informative and helped lead us in a good direction. If Tanner is autistic in any way, I'm okay with that. At least that's how I feel right now. Getting that diagnosis doesn't change anything. He's still Tanner and we've been dealing with these problems for a long time. So it's not like having an autism diagnosis will drastically change anything for us. Regardless of what's wrong, we hope to get him the help that he needs.

Evaluation Day

We're getting Tanner evaluated for autism today. Wish us luck.

Curtains

Last night, Hawley and I went to see Curtains at the Hale Centre Theatre. I had never heard of it before, but it was such a good musical. We had a great time!

A Tony Award Winner with 9 Tony Nominations! A Regional Premiere – just off Broadway! The Associated Press calls it “Musical comedy heaven!” There’s a murder in the cast – anyone could have done it! A Boston police detective ‘who cares as much for musical theater as justice’ comes to the aid. Will he find the killer? Will he save the show? Will love prevail? Splendid music by renowned Kander and Ebb with book by Holmes and Stone – this is Broadway candy! Fresh, new and fabulous – Don’t miss out or it's curtains for you!

It's playing through November 21, so check it out!

What's really important

I was going to blog about how Josh and I are sick of being overweight and how we're planning on starting a new eating regimen next week. We've been spending a lot of time thinking and talking about it, and making plans.

But, today I learned about a coworker whose newborn baby passed away after a few hours of life and I was reminded that how much I weigh doesn't matter. Not really. Not in the grand scheme of things.

Something borrowed...

While Brooke's away eating lunch with an old friend, Tanner and I took a few shots of Ava trying on Brooke's wedding dress. She loved it for about 2 minutes, which didn't give me much time to get exposure down (hence the radically different exposure between the two photos).

For photo nerds: this was really a chance to experiment with laptop tethering: using my laptop to control the camera and preview the photos on a 21 inch screen as they came out rather than on my little 2.5 inch lcd screen on my d80. Having my camera at Ava's level on a tripod with wires attached to a laptop on the ground (and a flash nearby) was too much for Tanner to handle. A lot of things that are off limits to him all within reach at the same time.

I definitely recommend it. For my fellow Nikon users I found a free program that will do this:

http://www.diyphotobits.com/2008/05/23/free-tethered-shooting-script-for-nikon/

On to my favorite photos of the bunch:

Pulled Pork

On Saturday night, we had the best pulled pork sandwiches. I got the recipe from dear old Prudence Pennywise. We skipped the home-made slaw because Josh isn't a fan. I made a few alterations like using regular white wine vinegar for the apple cider vinegar since that's what I had on hand. Oh man, it was so good! And to top it off, I got a 2 pound pork roast for only $3 and the rolls were $1.50. Talk about a cheap dinner with lots of leftovers. Head on over and make some for yourself. Mmm-mmm good.