Signing Time came to Gavin's school! Rachel and her daughter Leah of the awesome PBS program Signing Time put on a show for all the kids last week. Their story is pretty amazing and inspiring. You should read about them on her website: SigningTime.com. Sara has been a fan of Rachel's blog since she started it. Now Rachel's made videos to teach babies how to sign. Some babies can start signing as  early as 5 months! Wouldn't it be great if your baby could actually tell you what he wants instead of just crying like every other baby on the planet? Crying is so outdated. It really is. By five months, if he's got adequate control over his hands, he ought to be communicating with them, right?

It was so funny to see Gavin just star struck, sitting in the front row, sheepishly showing off all the signs he's learned from Rachel and Leah. I think he didn't believe that they were really the same people we've been watching on TV for two and a half years. After the show, Gavin was too wonderstruck and bashful to get his picture taken with them. Signing Time has been a big part of his life. We started watching that show when he was about 18 months old and still not talking. He had been diagnosed at around 14 months with PDD/NOS, which is pretty much what they call autism until the kid gets that official diagnosis when he's 2. We found that we could get him to use his hands to signal three of his basic needs, like Drink, Eat and More. Signing Time was just such a great show through that time, and we all love the music. We always liked to watch it after bathtime, before bed. It's one of the rare kid shows that we actually look forward to watching because the songs are beautiful, not cartoony. Both Gavin and Garrett still love it and request it now more than ever, after seeing Rachel and Leah in person. We don't use as many signs anymore, but they both know a bunch when asked. Gavin started talking at about two and a half, and we've obviously been pushing the use of speech pretty hard.

Now that we have Bodie, it'll be fun to see if we can get him to communicate with us earlier in life through signing. We need to re-sharpen our own skills too. We've had all of the PBS episodes saved on the DVR, now we're going to get the baby series from her website and let the learning begin for Bodie. We already know the baby likes Rachel a lot. He was all smiles when she held him after the show. See him below with Rachel and Leah. (Bodie's in his Goo Goo Ga Ga outfit created by my wife, for one of the only modern design baby boutiques on the web: Snugfits, of course! The BabyLegs came from mom4life.com, another terrific momtrepreneur)

As always, Surfers Healing was awesome this year. It was huge turnout, bigger than ever! Gavin even had his own little fan club there to "Ooh and Aah" over him! It was an unforgettable day, especially since Sara was starting to go into labor with Bodie! We knew from the previous two births that she labors slowly and methodically, so we felt it best to spend the beginning stages of labor at the beach! It sure beats staring at the ceiling in a hospital room!

Gavin did pretty well this year. I was worried he would be scared, because he's been a little bit leery of things lately. We had a bad experience at the waterslide in town this summer. I spent ten minutes talking him into trying it with me, and he loved it! That is, until the very end when we flipped off the tube under the water. I felt pretty awful about that. He was only submerged for a second or two, but he got a nose full and came up screaming. I lost a little bit of his trust on that day, I think. When it came to surfing, though, he was prepared. We showed him lots of surfing videos and home movies of a younger Gavin surfing in prior years. He really loved it, but he wouldn't let his feet touch the board. The poor surfer had to hold him up the whole time!

It was a perfect day at the beach. Gavin's entourage included his Grammy and Papa Geno, Aunt Mollie, his school counselor, teacher and developmental therapist. All of these awesome, caring people got such a kick out of seeing Gavin's happy face while he rode the waves. We feel lucky that Gavin has so many people in his life that love him. It takes a village to raise a child, and Gavin's village is full of the best.

If you haven't seen the "tribute to Surfers Healing" video we made, you should go watch it. On our home page, click the "learn more" in the green box, and it'll take you to a page with the video. Or, here's the address:                          http://www.snugfits.com/Surfers-Healing.html

It's funny how children learn words sometimes. It's hard to teach some words to Gavin that aren't tangible objects.  Especially abstract words like "summertime".

His first impression of that word came as we were leaving the local Jungle Rapids amusement park. The water park section was closed, and he saw the huge slides with colorful flags at the top and said "Flags!" I said "Yep. When it is summertime, we can climb up those stairs and see the flags, then go down the big slide!" He wanted the flags right now, and started to get very agitated. (He's obsessed with flags, especially the American flag) I just kept telling him that we have to wait for summertime. He doesn't like to have to wait for a future event. Everything must happen in the present for him. Finally I got him wrestled into his car seat, and we were on our way.

The next day, the first words out of his mouth were "Okay, now go summertime!" That was just priceless. I love it when he uses new words, and so does he. Meaningful sentences like that are pure manna. There was a time when we didn't know if he would ever talk to us. Some children with autism can't speak at all. It is such a blessing to be able to communicate with Gavin!

So now, in Gavin's head, summertime means big waterslides with flags at the top. Words need to be attached to something he can see, so I've been telling him summertime means the grass is green, the trees have leaves, and we wear shorts. Yo Gabba Gabba (his favorite show on Nick Jr.) did an episode that backed up my definition of summer, so I think it might be sinking in. When Foofa and Brobee sing about it, the message really hits home. Now he says randomly "Summertime. Its hot!"

When I set up the "slip and slide" for these kids in our backyard, however, Gavin's eyes got really big and he said "Little Summertime!" For him, that word will probably always be attached to waterparks, which is fine with me. As you can see in the picture, every good waterslide needs flags at the head of it. Those were Gavin's idea.

Disney World was a magical place for this family to visit. It really was extraordinary. These boys were just as high as a kite for the whole week. The plane rides were fantastic! Waiting at the terminal for the gate to open was a bit tumultuous, as is anything to do with waiting for a child with autism and an unruly two year old. It was about 5:45 a.m. at the airport in Raleigh, and these boys were running roughshod over the entire Terminal A. We just pretty much let them go at a full tilt, frenzied pace to release all that excited energy before we got on the plane, and I think it helped. Dirty looks were abundant at our gate. Our fellow travelers didn't realize that the boys' energy would have to be dealt with either in the airport or on the plane, so it was win/win for everybody. We were so worried about what would happen once we were sitting on the plane, and Gavin was just great! He just sat there soaking it all in, wide eyed and intrigued by everything. It was so easy. Garrett was a typical squirmy and restless 2 year old, but he actually did pretty well. Thank God the flight was only about an hour and 20 minutes.

These boys had a blast at the parks. It was so much fun. We did all the rides. Well, Gavin and I did all the rides. Sara has a rather large bun in the oven, and Garrett is too short for a lot of the stuff. The teacups were an immediate favorite for these guys. We must've rode in those teacups 6 or 7 times. I know we did every color of teacup at least once, at Gavin's persistent request. Space Mountain was the first "scary" ride we went on, and Gavin laughed the whole time! It was unbelievable! I had forgotten just how scary it really is, but he loved it. At the end of the ride, however, Gavin had a full fledged meltdown. When you come back out into the light and you have to wait a few seconds before the safety bar releases to let you off, he freaked out big time. He felt trapped in the rocket, I'm sure. When that happens, he's over the edge and off the deep end and there's no explaining to him that we just have to wait a minute. So we left Space Mountain with a bad taste in our mouth, and he didn't really want to do any more rides like that. I felt like a bad dad. The "cast members" there are so great. A girl selling hats and souvenirs saw Gavin crying in Sara's arms and came right over to cheer him up. She just talked to him for a few minutes about all the fun things to do there and gave him some Mickey Mouse stickers. It was really sweet.

Overall, the 2 things that made this trip really easy and less stressful were the stroller and the Guest Assistance pass. Having a stroller was priceless. Well, actually it wasn't priceless it would've been $30 a day, but we brought our own. It's a big blue tandem stroller that we checked on the plane, it counts as one suitcase, and you can take it right to the gate! It was harder than heck to steer through a very crowded Magic Kingdom, but absolutely essential if you plan on staying all day there. The guest assistance pass let us get on all the rides without standing in line for more than 5 minutes, ever. It was really great. We brought a note from Gavin's doctor explaining his difficulties, and we got a little red pass for the whole week. You can use it on any ride. If there was a Fast Pass entrance, it counted as a fast pass. If not, you just go in through the exit door and hop on the next Teacup, Flying Carpet, Dinosaur, Dumbo, Race car, Pirate Ship, etcetera.

Now, at breakfast, Gavin and I watch YouTube videos of the rides we did. He remembers the precise order in which we did each ride, and we watch the videos in that order every morning! We've got some home videos too, but we've been too busy since we got back to even think about looking at them. I'll post something on YouTube if it's worthy.