This has been one of the most trying weeks of my life, and the day I woke up feeling like I couldn't handle one more altercation... shit hits the fan once again! I made it very clear to my family and husband that I do not care who it is, if anyone should get in the way of my children getting better and the help we need, they will be cut out. This includes anyone adding undue stress and negativity to myself as I am their main caregiver and if I am surrounded by constant judgement and negativity then I cannot be affective as their caregiver. I'm done with the fighting, i'm done defending myself. I beat myself up enough knowing my mistakes as a mother i don't need anyone else kicking me while I'm done.
My husband and I have been split up for over 3 weeks now and I have yet to even consider worrying about that or figure out how to fix us because my main and only focus is my babes. My teenager was affected in a huge way after the last fight and my oldest is amazing at coping and dealing with life but it was too much for him. It was at that point my switch flipped and I could see how selfish my husband and I have been for 2 years and how selfish my family and I are being now. So hopefully after our talk everyone is understanding of me when shit hits the fan again and I pack my 3 boys up and we disappear! My hope is that the fighting with cease and the support will begin, I don't ever want to cut off the people I love but I won't allow my children to hurt anymore.
Brian keeps telling me hes doing alot on his end to get all of us under the same roof so I guess time will tell, but I explained to him I havent' had time to worry about our relationship so it's whatever. Hind site I'm thinking this situation is exactly what we needed to take the focus off ourselves and realize how selfish we have been and hopefully do what best for our boys. I believe taking the focus off us is exactly what we needed to be the partners we needed out of each other!
Sorry for the rambling, I have alot I want to write but not much time right now. Still It helps me so much to at least get it out and part of it off my mind! On a side not, there is hope on the horizon! The boys have their in home assessment set up for Jan 16th so we can get the answers I am desperate for! Even if it's something as simple as a behavior issue at least we will know and we will gain the skills to help my toddler excell and be happy. Welp, babes are calling, gotta jump off here.

Braylon and Coop

Is it Autism or some other emotional disorder??

      So despite the recent opposition surrounding me about my feelings towards whats going on with my Braylon Michael, I followed my instinct and made the calls necessary to to get my son evaluated and get my family and my baby the help we need. When I talked to the head assessment coordinator yesterday she let me know in the end that she is certain he will qualify for the early intervention program, just based on my observations and answers to her questions. Of course she can't diagnose him over the phone but she is passing our info on immediately to the intake lady to get the ball rolling.
       My recent concerns for my baby are that he may have a high functioning form of autism or something similar and even if not autism I can say with confidence that he is suffering from some sort of emotional distress. My family closest to me chalks up his behavior as just being a 2 yr old, yet it's been going on for a year or more now. They believe his regression and emotional outbreaks are due to all the stress our family has been under the past few months or blame it on me for not allowing him to get the exercise he should be getting. I do the best I can, given that I am the full time caregiver of him and his baby brother. Cooper doesn't make it that easy for me to take braylon out all the time and let him run wild! I do the best I can with the resources that are available to me!
      Now I'm not saying they aren't correct in probably all 3 of those statements. Being an almost 2 year old will make him a little more emotional. The amt of stress and arguing going on between my parents and I now, but my husband and I before will def add stress to my baby. I have expressed to my parents on several occasions I can't keep having this negativity around my boys. I can't understand how they were mad at my husband and I for arguing yet the fighting continues here between us. And yes he would benefit from playing alot more.
       What my parents and some are not seeing is the regression I see. They don't see how often my baby boy slaps himself in the face or hits his head on something. They don't fully grasp the amount of emotional outbursts he has in even ONE HOUR!!! He barely says 15 words but knows just as many signs as he does words. He took to signing very well. We started teaching him this past year so he could communicate with us until he talked more, but the talking has yet to come. He wont repeat the words I speak but he repeats the syllable sounds I make. When I say "right foot" he repeats the sound of my voice but says "dut dut", he does that with most every word I try to get him to say.
        Going in public with Braylon is sometimes a nightmare, but sometimes it's alot of fun. I don't visit my friends anymore, mainly because I feel like I have lost any sense of identity outside of dirty diapers and tantrums! Also I get way too stressed out when we visit people because when Brays tantrums start at someone elses house it's almost too much for me to handle and my anxiety soars thru the roof and its all I can do to get out of their door with some dignity. I love my little man more than life itself and want to show him off, I want others to enjoy the sweet, funny baby I know, but I don't have it in me anymore to go thru those meltdowns in public or at a friends house. It kills me inside to watch my baby appear to be in so much emotional pain and I have no idea how to ease it. My parents believe I am the cause, because they noticed that when I'm not around Bray isn't quite so emotional or bull headed or rotten! What i can't get them to understand is, when they aren't around he's not as crazy for me either!! The more people that are around it's like he just cant stand it. If his routine is broken even a little its the end of the world.
       I have spent many nites in self loathing at how I may have handled braylon that day. I would never abuse my boys but my patience is running extremely thin right now. With the recent split with my husband, the demands of my boys and the constant judgement or fights with my parents, I feel as though I cant take too much more. All the while my main focus right now is on my baby. I told the woman yesterday that my biggest fear is that I will screw him up somehow and I cant bear the thought of ruining any of my children. I am begging for the tools and coping skills to give braylon everything he needs from me and sometimes I think the ones closest to me don't get the extreme passion I feel inside to make this all better for him.
      I am not concerned about an autism diagnosis or any other one, I will love my baby no less than I do now. I am just ready for answers and a care plan so I can assure that my baby will be happy and healthy to the best of his mental ability! Welp, he is done eating now so it's time to go chase the wild man <3

Life and times of the precocious toddler!

    

     I have been sitting here for several minutes trying to figure out how to start my story out and after several attempts of trying to find the catchiest words it occurred to me that my initial plan was just to get my story off my chest for my own good, so why did it matter how interesting it sounded?? There is so much going on right now and my brain can't seem to make heads or tails of anything, so I was hoping if I sat down and started writing I would be able to sort thru it all and make sense of the unfolding of my life with Braylon including all involved.
     At 35 I thought it was ridiculous that while I was pregnant with Bray, they kept labeling me as "advanced maternal age"! Every time I heard someone say that I got so irritated and thought, "for crying out loud people!! I'm flipping 35 years old, not like I'm old!" Having been labeled as advanced maternal age came the pep talks from my docs as to the risks of pregnancy at that age, risks towards myself and possible risks to baby. I never took any of it serious because I knew I wasn't going to do anything stupid to hurt my baby and quite frankly I wasn't "that OLD!" 
     Looking back I have come to the conclusion that I am a stubborn idiot, BUT an idiot who in the past 2 years has been blessed with 2 of the 3 most beautiful boys I have ever laid my eyes on! It's true, just ask their dad!!! I say 3 because I have a 17 year old young man, he may not have been as cute as them from the beginning... in fact he kind of looked like a bull dog for his first couple months!!! Today however; he was a handsome young teenager with one of the most amazing smiles I have ever seen. In fact, all 3 of my boys have smiles that put a sparkle in their eyes and tears in mine. 
     My current story began 2 years ago when I gave birth to my Braylon (middle bub) but began to unfold during my pregnancy with Clayton Cooper (little bub). Braylon has always been a special one! He pulled himself up in his crib before 5 months, took his first steps at 7 months and has pretty much blown us away by his crazy intelligence and endearing personality. It's been obvious from the beginning my lil B was special! Unfortunately I did not recognize  the signs of post partum until after the fact, so Braylons and my first 6 months together did not go the way I feel it should have gone.
    See, prior to becoming pregnant with Bray I had spent almost 15 years as a single mom with my son Mason. We lived with only one other man and that ended before he turned 2, so for the most part it had always just been mason and myself. That's a novel of a story in and of itself so I'll do my best to stick to the topic! For several years I had been told by my docs that I wouldn't be able to have more children so I lived with this heavy on my heart for about 4 years until I met up with Brian Michael (he is enough to fill an entire new blog, but again, Ill try to stay focused!) Shortly after I started being intimate with Brian I went for an appt. and was told I should have no problem getting pregnant, however; due to having a prolapsed bladder I may have issues carrying a baby, but pregnancy is not out of the question. This news was like a dream come true for me, I just had to convince someone to knock me up so I could finally complete my little family! Hind site, yes I realize I was not thinking rationally but I didn't care at the time, all I cared about was knowing there was a possibility of getting pregnant and that thought thrilled me! Brian and I talked about my appt and his eyes lit up with excitement for me as he smiled and listened to me ramble on about how exciting this was and he had mentioned that someday he wanted to be a dad. Well, I'm sure you can guess what happened next!!!
     Fast forward to present day. Brian and I are married, living separately right now, but we are still together hoping to work things out. We now have Braylon Michael and Clayton Cooper as well as my Mason Clay and it has occurred to me that my husband and I took on too much too soon and we paid for it as well as the children.
     Braylon and I had a rocky time from the get go, aside from having some post partum issues, bray has always been a very independent and not very affectionate child and I have been very high strung and selfish for several years. Lil B met every milestone, up until recently, way before he should have. This baby boy came out of me as a toddler ready to be a man! He was in a hurry to do everything! For the most part up until Braylon was a year old I didn't have too many concerns about him other than the fact he wore me DOWN!! I have never in my life seen a child with so much energy and at the same time seemed like sometimes he was just agitated to be alive.
     I used to joke with people, when they asked what was wrong with him during an emotional melt down, and tell them "oh, he's just pissed off he's alive!" Now, I'm eating my words. I first noticed a change in his behavior when I was hospitalized during my last 3 months of pregnancy with cooper. Whenever his dad or my parents would bring him to visit me he would throw these crazy tantrums to the point that I was embarrassed. It was during one of these visits that I noticed him hitting his head on the floor of my hospital room or the wall. I was very concerned by this behavior and did so much research and chalked it up to him just having a hard time adjusting to me being gone and as long as he didn't do it to the point of hurting himself then it's not that big of a deal. 
     I delivered baby Coop at 35 weeks and was finally allowed to go home and try to resume normal life as a mother of a newborn premie and a 16 month old! Even with all the stress added to our house after me coming home I was pleased to see Braylon stopped hitting his head and things seemed to be going back to normal. Now by normal I mean, he went back to his crazy self but without the head banging. He still threw nuclear melt downs and still drove me to crazy town and back daily! Braylon also knew how to make me smile just as quickly as he made frown. His smile could melt the coldest hearts and if it didn't then You just didn't have a heart. Now up until this point, at 17 months old Braylon had excelled thru his milestones and continued to amaze us. It was after I got home with coop that I first noticed Braylon genuinely did not like affection and if his routine was disrupted, it would be hell to pay. Even back then I didn't feel like there was something wrong! I just assumed I had given birth to the cutest, most stubborn mule I had ever met in my life! 
      Sadly, by the end of summer this past year, we ran into difficulty with our current landlord and we were asked to leave  our home. I couldn't play a victim roll as it appeared that she was trying to run everyone out of the trailer hood so we decided not to fight her and gave up, swallowed our pride and moved in with mom. Well, the boys and I moved in with mom and dad but daddy did not. This was the first time I left Brian. 
     The first week with mom and dad was like hell week only worse!!! Braylon did not adjust well at all, didn't help that every move I made was questioned by my parents and if they didn't like how I did something with my kids, well they let me know right then and there. Needless to say it became too much to bare in a short time and I went to a hotel with my boys and my boxer. The nite before we checked into the hotel was at that time, one of the worse notes every in the history of bad nites and mornings with children! We stayed with my best friend and I guess Bray couldn't stand it so he stayed in a constant state of melt down, until we checked into the hotel and it seemed like a switch went off in his brain and happy Braylon came out to play for a few days!
     In that short few days of being in the hotel Brian and I decided we needed to be together so at the end of 5 days there we moved back in with mom and dad. After a few weeks of lots of fighting and tears, mom and dad finally started working with me instead of against me when it came to my boys. This seemed to put Braylon into a learning stage of his life. He still had melt downs but he also became affectionate and started speaking more. He has been learning sign for several months but it was nice to see him communicating more and especially nice for me to get cuddle time with him! 
     Well then Daddy decided it was time to tuck tail and run and thats what brings us to our current situation. A situation that causes me to lose sleep on most days! Although Bray is extremely intelligent, I can tell you there is something off about my baby. And my gut led me to our family doc who took me serious and is referring us to a program filled with a team of early intervention specialists who have promised me to make a formal diagnosis and put people in my life that will allow me to be exactly what Braylon needs from me :)
     Welp, I'm going to conclude my story here for now. Still have so much I wish I could say but given that it took me 3 tries to write the last sentence above, it's probably WAY past my bed time! and my precocious, spirited and beautiful braylon will let me know in about 2 hours that it's time to get up!!!! I wish I weren't so tired I would go back and proofread lol but my eyes are crossing SO if anyone here read all this, I thank you very much and i would like to invite you back as my story unfolds! I have so much more to write but that will wait until tomorrow.