Happy 13th Birthday, Ashton!!

Ashton James McCormick

Born 4/14/1999 at 5:04 PM

5lbs 14oz, 17.5in long
Reston, VA
Proud Parents: David & Jennifer McCormick

Sweet as pie and cute as a button!

You had beautiful hair, a beautiful sweet face, and the wisest-looking eyes I've ever seen in a newborn. 

Look at that sweet, smiley, inquisitive, cheeky grin!

Here you are at 1year-old (I'm thinking you were 13-15months old)....

before you slipped into the world of Autism....

Look how fast you grew! Here you are with Mommy, at age 2. 

What a handsome little boy you were becoming!

Little did we know that you were about to rock our wold with a diagnosis of Autism.

Look what happened a couple of days after you turned 3!!

You became a BIG brother to a little brother!

That little tiny baby was the key to bringing you more into our world,

instead of you existing solely in your Autism world. I love you both so VERY MUCH!

Look at that smile! You LOVE your little brother so much!

Around the time that you were 5, and your brother was 2, your relationship with him changed. You were more aware of his presence, and therefore, craved being in his presence. He made you (and still does) very happy and elicits giggles and grins from you like no one else can! You call him baby swinub (thanks Pokemon for that, lol) and teasingly call him a kookie baby when he's crying. You're such a stinker to your brother! lol But you love him like no other, and he's your bestest best friend! :)

Look how big you were getting! Here you are at age 7, and wow!

Such a handsome little dude but you hated to have your picture taken. There are very few from this time frame where you are looking at the camera AND smiling. STINKER! :P You look lost in your thoughts, and you probably were :) I wish you could have told us what you were thinking about.

I know we can't see your face in this picture but here you are at age 8, holding one of Grandaddy's lizards. Around this time your infatuation with animals peaked and you LOVED lizards and dinosaurs and all things creepy, crawly. Yuck! ;) But I have to admit, knowing what your face looked like holding the bearded dragon, you loved this experience. 

Christmas of 2008 (age 9).... you'd been pretty sick with pneumonia prior to Christmas and was still taking daily 2-3hour naps. But you were awake long enough for me to catch an awesome picture of you smiling, yay! :) You loved Christmas that year and had a great time opening presents - your first year of really "getting" Christmas and that all those presents you were opening were for YOU! :)

Family camping trip in July of 2009! 10 years old! You LOVE the water and it shows! Look at that big smile you have on your face, and the scary thing is, you THINK you can swim, even though you can't! ;) Stop giving me so many grey hairs!!! :) 

Your first Surfers Healing experience and you got one of the best surfers around to take you out - Kalani! You were 11 years old and you had a blast!! :) To be honest, I think Kalani did too! :) Again, you adore the water and I'm so glad you got to experience this, at least once, little did we know, that the following year you would get to do it again! :)

You got to experience Surfers Healing again in 2011 at age 12. But this year, you got to meet Izzy Paskowitz, co-founder of Surfers Healing :) You loved meeting him and remembered seeing him on TV so you called him famous! :) You had a great time chatting with all the surfers that year and it was amazing the amount of social growth you'd experienced in such a short amount of time :) You had a blast, once again!

and last weekend - a week before your birthday you participated in your second race with Team Hoyt of Va Beach, with Joe Moss pushing you! You LOVED it and it was great getting out and experiencing the wonderful autism community in our area and the family and warmth of the Team Hoyt family! You are LOVING IT! :)

look at you NOW! A TEENAGER!

So anyways ... yes you, my son, are now a teenager! Wow what a journey it has been! A wonderful roller coaster. Yes, I said wonderful! For all the things that we have gone through, both good and bad, it's been wonderful watching you learn new things, overcome the challenges that Autism causes you to face, and become the wonderful young man you are becoming! You are so funny! Hilarious as a matter of fact! You pick the most unexpected moments to come up with some of your funniest sayings! I can't remember any right off the bat, but know son, that you keep us laughing with you, all the time! You have a beautiful personality.

So sweet and caring, yet so funny and stubborn - all wrapped up into a handsome package that is 125lbs and 5 foot tall! YOU are amazing! When I think back on the last thirteen years, I can't believe it's gone by so fast! You were just that tiny newborn that everyone so afraid to drop. That sweet little baby that had such a hard time with formula and foods. That little baby that rolled over just before you turned 3months old! That sweet smile you have always had. Those eyes that portrayed a soul far wiser than his years. You were a beautiful baby, a beautiful child, but I can no longer call you beautiful. You are a very handsome young man with the most intriguing eyes. Hazel - but with a green overtone and blue and gray highlights in them. Absolutely breath-taking. You still portray a soul far older than your years. You are so SMART! You know far more than you let on and boy, are you quick and sneaky! Sneaky like a fox we say. You enjoy movies (all kinds... though as of late, you seem to enjoy action movies like Hunger Games, John Carter, and you greatly enjoy the older James Bond 007 movies) and you still greatly enjoy books (you're moving away from comic books and enjoying some more age-appropriate reading material, though I wonder how much of it you understand). I do think you comprehend far more of what's going on in the world around you, than you let on. You are like a window that's left slightly cracked open. You let everything soak in - a little bit at a time. But when a wind gust comes and blows in, that window opens up suddenly and you let it all come out.

You make people fall in love with you. Look at your wonderful teachers, both past and present! I still keep in touch with your VERY FIRST preschool teacher (and multiple other teachers from over the years) because they still love hearing about you, seeing how you've grown and watching what you're becoming. 

With everything you've gone through in the last two years, from a less than ideal placement into the WONDERFUL placement that you're in now in regards to school, you are amazing! You came through it all with such an amazing amount of courage and bravery! It took a lot to get through everything you did but you succeeded baby boy! You are awesome and TOTALLY ROCK!

We all love you very, very much and are so VERY proud of you! I hope you have a stupendous day today, tomorrow at your party and in a couple of weeks when we do a party with your friends!

I LOVE YOU and HAPPY, Happy 13th Birthday to the best teenager in town!!!
-- Mom

Our face of Autism - Day 13 of 30

LOVE THIS ONE!! It's a couple of years old but he's so darn cute!!! :)

Our face of Autism - Day 12 of 30

You silly goose! You put that noodle on your nose to make you look like Master Shifu from Kung Fu Panda. ;) What a personality!

Our face of Autism - Day 11 of 30

LOVE this face!! totally makes me laugh whenever I see this picture

Our face of Autism - Day 10 of 30

Love that sweet sleeping face .... this was taken 6yrs ago on a family camping trip :)

Our face of Autism - Day 9 of 30

Ashton, yesterday looking for easter eggs at Grandma & Grandad's

Our face of Autism - Day 8 of 30 (HAPPY EASTER)

Moose Ashton! ;) I love this picture!! (from 2011)

TASA Autism Awareness 5K

What a great day! COLD and WINDY! But so much fun and the guys all did so GREAT!
David ran with a time of 43:06 - great job Honey! :*
Holden ran with a time of 30:37 - great job Little Man! :)
Ashton and his runner, Joe, ran with a time of 27:57 - great job Joe!!! :)

Enjoy the pictures!

Ashton and Joe Moss

David (hubby), Joe (Ashton's runner), Holden and Ashton

Team Hoyt VB Runners and Riders for the Autism Awareness 5k

Ryan Carroll (Team Hoyt VB runner & Cousin)

David, running! 

Holden, running and lookin at me

and now he's just ignoring me LOL

FAMILY PICTURE!!!

Holden with the basket he won at the raffle :)

Basket that Holden won

Our face of Autism .... Day 7 of 30

Ashton with his Dad, his Team Hoyt VB runner and his younger brother

David (hubby), Joe Moss (runner for Team Hoyt VB), Holden (little brother) & Ashton

Amazing, wonderful update!

Wow.

I had meant to post an update and a bit of our Autism story before the first of April to kick-off Autism Awareness Month but time has gotten away from me!

First off the obvious. easter is coming! Ashton's turning 13 in 8 days! Holden's turning 10 in 11 days! This means, I'VE BEEN BUSY!!! :)

But oh what a joyful busy it's been. I look back on the last year and remember this time last year with a distant, far-off glance at a horrible time of our life. Ashton was doing horribly in school, had been suspended once and was gearing up for the second suspension. He was doing everything his soul could to let us know the placement wasn't working. I was fighting the schools to them provide what Ashton was entitled to, a Free and Appropriate Public Education. It took us until the fall of last year to finally get him to a place where things were looking up.

And that brings me to today..... I had the pleasure of going in to visit Ashton's class to drop off some books and puzzles. (by the way, having an open invitation to visit whenever I want is AMAZING, WONDERFUL and makes me feel WELCOMED and not like a burden the way I felt at his old school). Ashton's classmates circled around him and said "Ashton, You're mom and brother are here! Oh Look! Hi Mrs M!" Just their happiness in seeing me was amazing. This is such a wonderful group of kids and teachers; I could not ask for a better and more appropriate placement for Ashton if I had handpicked it myself.

He's got teachers who genuinely care for him, love him and enjoy every little quirk and trait he exhibits. They don't see them as deficits, but rather as tools that they have to learn to access to help him learn to his full potential. They see the smart and wonderful young man he's becoming. They UNDERSTAND him, and if they don't..... they try and learn to! A true feeling of acceptance is what you feel when you look in on this classroom. The kids are happy. The adults are happy. It's not a sterile, uninviting environment. They have a WINDOW in their classroom!

Anyways ..... the update. He's doing great! He comes to the table now for group work and doesn't run away. I don't think he's doing a lot of work yet, but hey, half the battle was getting him there and getting him to stay there. He's come so far since he's been in this class. The teachers were reading his IEP/PLOP from last year and they are absolutely astonished and amazed that the kid in their classroom is the same one they are reading about on paper. He's absolutely 100% done a 180 degree turn-around since he's been in there, and for the better for sure. We're right now on a slippery slope with meds. He started on Adderall XR in January and he's only on 10mg, but hoo boy has that been messing with his sleep (or, we think that's what's messing with his sleep). We started him on Clonidine to help with sleep and that coupled with Benadryl and Melatonin seems to have allowed him a great night's sleep last night 8:15pm-6:30am). We'll see if that continues over Spring Break. We're not giving him the Adderall XR over Spring Break (he doesn't need it for home) and see if we can get his sleep back on track. I know that *I* need the sleep and I can't imagine he's been doing super great given his poor sleeping. Although, according to school he's really been doing well.

So .... the last time i posted an update, I was pondering what we were going to do in the fall with Ashton, because he just wasn't picking up on the academic piece of his day. He's doing great in the elective and PE and the social periods, but that academic portion was just proving to be difficult. Well he's doing better now overall, so that helps. Plus, his teacher is pretty certain that her class make-up is going to be changing in the fall and that means she'll have more 1:1 attention that can be given to Ashton, which is what he needs. This means, not having to move him to another classroom.

YES! *happy dance*

Things are finally falling into place for him. He's happy! He's WELL-LIKED (!!!!) and there's even a girl who has a serious crush on him!!!!! :) :) :) :)

This has all made me one VERY HAPPY mommy! I can't begin to express how proud I am of Ashton, and of Holden too. They're both growing into such pleasant and well-liked young men. Despite their own sets of issues they each have, they really are thriving and become productive members of society.

I LOVE MY BABY (ok.. so they're not babies... but they're MY babies) BOYS!!!!

Our face of Autism .... Day 6 of 30

This was Ashton, deep in thought at the park back in August of '06.... just love it!

Our face of Autism .... Day 5 of 30

Perfect eye contact. Beautiful Smile. CRISP AND CLEAR PICTURE! = my favorite!

Our face of Autism .... Day 4 of 30

Those eyes! They get me. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME!

Our face of Autism .... Day 3 of 30

Ashton pretzel-hands! ;) He cracks me up.. he does this EVERY TIME he eats pretzels!

Our face of Autism .... Day 2 of 30

With one of his very favorite people, Kalani - his very first Surfers Healing surfer!

Our face of Autism .... Day 1 of 30

Love this crazy, silly smile and not looking at me face! :)

April: Autism Awareness Month

I plan to do a Our Face of Autism picture every day in the month of April. Sometimes it may be the "sibling" of our face of autism, or "family member" of our face of autism - but doing a multitude of pictures really puts an interesting perspective on things.

I hope you all enjoy it!

1 in 88 children has Autism

Coming on the forefront of Autism Awareness Month, the rate of Autism has increased from 1 in 110 to 1 in 88 children being diagnosed with Autism, with 1 in 54 boys being diagnosed as calculated by the CDC. In 1999, when Ashton was born, the rate was 1 in 500!

In the thirteen years since Ashton was born, the rates have increased over 460%!!

Amazing. Appalling. Disabling. Staggering. and just plain ole sad.

WHY such a dramatic increase?! Just in the last two years alone, the rate has went from 1 in 110 to 1 in 88 ... that's a percent increase of 23%!

We have to consider and accept that there may never be any one known cause for autism, at least not in the foreseeable future for the millions of families affected by autism. But that there are excellent and worthwhile treatments that are available that allow these special children and adults lead more independent lives. (I had to think about what term to use, fulfilling doesn't seem right as it leads you to think that an individual with autim's life is not fulfilling, nor did normal as it makes it seems to personify that a person with autism is not normal and they are.... independent is the best way I can describe the way I want Ashton to be as an adult). However, those treatments often come at a very steep cost, both financially and emotionally.

We need to come to the realization that no one way of treating autism is the right way. What works for one child, may not work for another. What one family can afford, another may not. But, what the government and the schools can do is more easily uniformly teach their staff, teachers and administrators how to interact, teach and love these special kids, to at least get them out on the right track.

We're fortunate. Ashton's a very happy, social and smart nearly 13-year-old. He is pretty high functioning in the grand scheme of things. He does not act, nor will he likely ever act like his chronological age. But he's so incredibly sweet and funny and quirky. He's our very sweet boy whom we all love very much. I wouldn't want to change anything about him, other than to help make his life easier. But, he leads a very happy and fulfilling life, but he's not where he can be independent and these are skills we need to start working on as his parents, to help him be more successful as he starts to go through these hard teenage years.

But wow ... 1 in 88 children and 1 in 54 boys. Absolutely staggering and jaw-dropping.

Shamrock Race weekend 2012!

THANKS to our friend Shelley for making this posters for the boys!!!

Hello everybody! Today was an absolutely FANTASTIC day! Beautiful, warm temps and a WONDERFUL day for some runnin'! Holden ran in his first 'solo' longer (meaning, nobody was running with him) race (the TowneBank 8K) as well as his second Operation Smile Final Mile! Ashton was pushed in his first race, also the TowneBank 8K by, Julia Dwyer, runner for Team Hoyt VB! 

It was very cool to watch the race progress and see people we knew running (we saw some wrestling teammates and families, saw some kids Holden has wrestled before) and of course, the teachers from Western Branch schools as well as the parents of some of Holden's classmates.

Anyways, on to the results...... :)

Ashton and his runner, Julia, came in with a time of 47:37 for the 8K! He LOVED it!!!!

Holden came in with a time of 52:16 for the 8K and 8:48 for the Final mile! He had a faster time than some of his former preschool teachers for the 8K (Sorry Ms Cerza and Ms Starkey!). He also ran faster than some of his friends from his school for the Final Mile! 

Holden had also raised money for Operation Smile as many of you may know. He ended up raising a grand total of $785.00! WTG Little man!

VERY proud of BOTH boys! For Holden for doing such an awesome job in both races and for Ashton, he was very well behaved on the course and his runner said he was wonderful! I saw him a couple of times on the course and he looked as calm and as happy as can be! We did realize a couple of things - we need to give Holden a very specific spot to meet us after he runs..... he ended up crying because he couldn't find us (he had moved from where I told him to stand), but was found without too much of a hitch. I had forgotten to get Ashton's runner's cellphone number so it was a bit tricky trying to locate her. I did finally find her on my way back to the equipment trailer for Team Hoyt. But now we've learned and we know for next time! :)

So, here are some pictures...... unfortunately, none of EITHER of them running/riding. I got a couple of Ashton and all were blurry and got none of Holden :( Booo! :( But here's the few that I got :)

wait?! You mean I have to run that WHOLE marked path?! ;)

Ashton and Holden before the race

Ashton in his stroller and Holden

Ashton and his runner, Julia 

Team Hoyt of Virginia Beach runners and riders - this is Ashton's FIRST race with them!

Holden, at Corral 6 (where he started)

Holden, with his WBI classmates who all did a fantastic job in the Operation Smile Final Mile!

WBI Shamrock Final Milers!

Julia Dwyer (runner from Team Hoyt VB) & Ashton with their medals!

Holden with his Final Mile medal

Holden with his 8K Finishers Medal!

Holden's finishers bib that I received in email this morning.
I took a screenshot of it! Pretty impressive if you ask me!

3 Month Follow-Up

So the boys had their 3month follow-up with Dr. Madren.... everything looks and sounds good!

Ashton has lost another 1-1.5lbs (he's now 123lbs) and has grew another 2in (59.5in)! 83rd and 27th percentiles, respectively. NOT BAD!!! I think he's actually a tad bit taller than the nurse measured him at, but he wasn't wanting to stand up straight. But I'm 4ft 11.75in and he is taller than me, I think. Or maybe I've shrunk over the years! lol

Holden has GAINED 3lbs (woohoo! He's now 55lbs!) and has grew 1in (51in). 5th and 8th percentiles, respectively. SO happy to finally see a good weight gain and a growth in height! Yay!

We're keeping Holden's meds as is.... we're upping Ashton's Adderall XR dosage. He's currently taking an approximately 7.5mg dose. I say approximately since we're halving the 15mg capsules when we empty them into his food. I think he could use a small tiny dosage boost but the 15mg was WAY too much, you may remember me saying he was lethargic, wouldn't smile and wouldn't eat on that dosage. We think 10mg will probably be his optimal dose, which is still quite a small dosage considering his size. But if it works, no need to have him on more meds than he needs!

Such a great appointment - short, quick and to the point. They go back in June for their annual check-ups. Hoping for another pound or two of weight gain for Holden and for them both to grow TALLER. I'd rather see Ashton's weight stabilize (he's lost over the last 6months, which for him isn't horrible, but we don't want him to keep losing) rather than lose, but we'll see.

Love these kinds of appointments!!!