This blog explains how Brendan was diagnosed with autism at 13 months and it will also follows his day to day experiences. His journey will explain how and why getting early intervention works. He will go from being non verbal to verbal to not needing any more therapy. He will define the odds and prove that getting diagnosed with autism at such a young age helped him live life like a normal kid. As a parent always listen to your gut!
We now have Team Brendan shirts for
sale. The money we raise for the shirts will be donated to Team Brendan Walk
Now For Autism Speaks foundation walk. Even if you are not walking or live in
another state you can still purchase a shirt and show your support. We have
men's, ladies, children and toddler sizes. The adult short sleeve shirts are
$20, The ladies Racer back tanks are also $20 and the kids shirts are $15. If
you would like to purchase a shirt please email me at
Brendanslifewithautism@gmail.com with your size and choice of shirt. If you
would like me to ship it to you please include your address. I will send you an
invoice with the options of how to pay. All orders must be placed by October
8th, 2014. Thank you for showing your support.
I honestly can't believe I am so far behind on blogging about Brendan's progress. But I am happy to report that overall he is doing great. He is making progress everyday! Life for the Schroeder's have just been extremely CRAZY! With Haley starting 2nd grade and all her after school activities has been a big adjustment. The homework she has been getting so far is completely overwhelming for me. But we are finally getting into a routine. Wedding season has arrived so I am back to working again. Taking most of the summer off was nice but time to get back to work on the weekends. As most of you know I have also started selling IT Works products. I am extremely passionate about this company. I LOVE all the products myself so I wanted to start selling them so my family and friends can enjoy them too. My goal was just to make an extra $200 or $300 a month but I have to tell you I passed that up in just under month and a half with the company. I now make a lot more in only being with the company for 3 months. The best part is I can do it all when the kids go to bed. It doesn't take anytime away from my crazy schedule during the day. This company is changing our lives and giving us the opportunity to add more therapy for Brendan. Thank you to all our family and friends who are helping me get my business going. Visit www.wraptogetfit.com and join my team if you are interested in making any extra money.
This is Brendan at his cousin's birthday party at Pump it Up. He has no fear!
This is Brendan;s new favorite gesture he puts his finger by his mouth and says,"hmm" when he hears or is asked a question. It is so funny!
Brendan has been doing amazing during therapy. He is mastering so much of his program that his therapist can't even keep up with him. My little man has a personality that will brighten your day. He makes me laugh 99% of the day. He is starting to imitate words however they are so random and sometimes are only a onetime thing. With his additional diagnoses of Apraxia it is really challenging for him to talk. But he is working so hard everyday to beat this. I mean I just can't express how proud of him I am. I know I have said it so many times but he is the hardest working 2 year old! I couldn't be a more proud MOM! Of course we have had our days that the last couple months that have been physical and mentally exhaust me but it is so worth it.
This is by far one of my favorite videos Brendan saying, "My Turn" for the first time
I have watched this video 50 times!!!!
Brendan Loved looking at Toys in a magazine
Brendan and Haley playing at the splash pad
Brendan is now learning to using his PECS cards on a sentence strip. So he is communicating with his pictures in a sentence!
Brendan mastering sorting!
I am working really hard to make our 2nd annual Autism Speaks walk a success. Raising money and awareness is so important for Brendan's future. We would for you all to join us and walk on October 26th at 9:30am at Tempe Beach Park. Please message me and I will give you more details.
I honestly can't even believe it is that time of year again. We are preparing for our 2nd annual Autism Speaks Walk for Team Brendan. We had such an amazing first year last year. Our family was so overwhelmed with the amount of support everyone showed us. I have been working hard to make this year even bigger and better.
The walk helps raise money for treatments, causes and finding a cure. We will be walking one mile in a group in support of Brendan at Tempe Beach Park. It will take place Sunday October 26th, 2014 at 9:30am. This a walk is for the whole family to come out and enjoy. Strollers and wagons will be allowed however no pets, bikes or scooters are allowed on the walk. I will have Team Brendan shirt available if you haven't gotten a shirt yet. I am also adding women's tank tops and men and women's hats. I will be posting those soon for purchase.We would really love for you to join our team. Please register all walkers even kids. When you are on the home page of the walk website go to the left side and enter Team Brendan and then you can join our team.
You are all invited after the walk to join us for a picnic lunch at Scottsdale McCormick Railroad park. We will have crafts and fun activities for the kids. This lunch is say thank you to you for supporting Brendan in his journey with Autism thus far. We couldn't have done this without all your support.
This year I have put together a fundraising party. We are having the party on Sunday September 21st. You will have the chance to purchase Thirty-One bags, Origami Owl Jewelry and IT Works wraps. All of us distributors of each of the company's are donating a portion of our profits to Team Brendan. This is a chance to get a head start on some Christmas shopping. If you are unable to attend you can purchase all 3 of the products from the links I have listed below. Since I am the distributor of IT Works I am going to donate a portion of my sales for the whole month of September. So if have been wanting to sign up now is the time to do it! If you are already a loyal customer of mine your September orders will be included in this as well. So if you wanted to try out more of the products this is the month to do that! I hope you all will participate and help Team Brendan meet its fundraising goal.
I am so excited to share with you a company that not only has amazing products but a company that is 100% involved in the community! A couple months ago I came a across a Facebook post that Autism Speaks posted about a company called EWING Irrigation who had close to 500 people participate in the P.F. Chang's Rock n Roll Marathon & half marathon. They were running to raise money for Autism Speaks. I immediately started to follow their company on Facebook. In late April I sent the company a letter sharing with them that I think it is amazing that they have a company who all gets together and supports a cause that will help change a child's a life. I shared how autism has effected my life. I shared some of Brendan's story with them and how much he LOVES being outside! I also explained to them that my husband works two jobs at 70 hours a week and that I would love nothing more than for him to spend his only day off once a week with his family and not outside doing yard work. I was inquiring about having them put artificial grass in our backyard. This is something I wanted to do for my husband and especially for Brendan. Within about 15 minutes of sending them my inquiry I got a response saying that they would love to help my family out! They offered to give us there cost on the green and they would do the installation for free. I was in complete shock! I was of course in tears and couldn't believe that they would offer to do something like this! You just don't hear of company's doing things like this anymore. I had decided to keep this a surprise from my husband and give it to him as a father's day gift/birthday gift since those were only 2 day's apart. He was so excited when he opened his gift and realized he was getting artificial grass. This truly meant that we could focus and enjoy more time as a family.
BEFORE
The regional manager Jake Ray had contacted me and said he was the one who was going to be handling the installation of our grass. We set up a time for him to come over and take a look at our backyard and do some measuring of the area we were putting the grass. Jake arrived at the house with Jeramy Webb who was a Ewing Service Professional from their Tucson location . I introduced them to Brendan and then we headed to the backyard. Jeramy who to me looked so young said to me, "I really enjoyed reading your blog. You have a lot of great information in it." I was honestly a little taken back because I thought what would a young man find so interesting about a blog with a child who had autism. It completely warmed my heart that my blog was spreading the awareness across all ages of people. He then says to me,"I sent your blog to Playfield USA the company that manufactures our grass and they have decided to donate your grass to you." I looked at Jeramy and Jake and immediately start to cry. There were no words that I could even form at that time. I really couldn't believe that this was happening. I express how grateful I was to Jake and he said,"you need to thank Jeramy he is the one that submitted your blog." I turned and gave Jeramy a big hug and of course continued to cry. They both came inside and actually spend time with Brendan. They were amazed on how Brendan was communicating with his PECS(pictures) to get his wants and needs. It was super special that they asked questions and wanted to learn more about autism.
July 22nd was here and it was the day the Ewing crew arrived to install the grass. I had the pleasure of meeting Roy Mosel the Manager of Ewing Scottsdale, Brian Lemieux Ewing Service Professional, Kyle Ellsworth Videographer with Ewing and of course Jake Ray and Jeramy Webb were also here. They had asked me prior if they could video the installation process because they wanted to do a "how to video" on installing the grass. Of course I said yes. These poor guys were outside working so hard in what ended up to be the hottest day of the year so far at 113 degrees outside. I just kept feeding them food and drinks to keep them alive in this heat. Brendan was having his therapy inside as he normally does except that he just kept asking to go outside. He wanted to go out and help the guys! lol When the guys were finished I asked them how they work in this heat all the time and they all said, "we don't we all work inside in the stores. We just came out to do your house." So if I already didn't feel special enough then they tell me that and I wanted to hug each one of them.
AFTER
My grass turned out better than I could of ever imagined it. Ewing is by far the most amazing company. Every single staff member that I have had the pleasure to work with as been generous, helpful and so nice. If any of you are wanting to get artificial grass or anything done to your yard, you or your landscaper can get materials and supplies at Ewing! They will not disappoint you. They will WOW you in every way possible!
From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for everything you did for my family! Thank you for your all your support with Autism. I hope your company inspires other company's to get this involved in their community.
Here is the information on the grass that was installed. The turf is Ewing Premium Synthetic (EPS) Turf www.epsturf.com and the manufacture is Playfield USA. Also here is Ewing Irrigations website www. ewing1.com. Please visit their Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/ewingirrigation. They have locations all over Arizona and all over the United States.
I also want to give a special thanks to Doug Fleming from Fleming Sprinkler/Landscape for doing all the prep work prior to our grass going in!
I have decided that every couples months Brendan just needs to take a vacation from therapy. Since we have come back from vacation he has been working harder than ever and making lots of progress. A break definitely works for him to just let go and have fun! Brendan has been introduced to lots of new skills the last couple weeks and he has exceeded everyones expectations. I normally over load you with lots of words but today I am going to over load you with videos of Brendan!
June 17th we packed the car up with not an inch of room to spare and headed to Carlsbad for our first stop. Brendan did amazing on the car ride over. I couldn't of asked for anything more from him. We spent our first night with friends who live in Carlsbad, so it was super fun getting to catch up and let all the kids play. The first night in the hotel Brendan figured out how to climb right out of the pack n play. Yes he is like spiderman when it comes to climbing. He can climb anything! So getting him to sleep was not fun but I absolutely expected this to happen.
We got up on Wednesday and drove to San Diego and went to Sea World. We arrived and the first thing we did when we got in went to customer service and let them know that Brendan had special needs and we needed to make sure he would be able to stay in his stroller during the shows. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to see a show. He won't just hang out and sit with you so this was our only option. They never even questioned me and gave us a tag so Brendan's stroller would be considered a wheelchair. It was a lifesaver, we were able to enjoy the shows in the handicap section. It was a little awkward, we did get a lot of stares. But oh well we did what we needed to so the family could enjoy the day. Brendan spent a great deal of the day in the stroller playing with his iPad. There was a little kid section that he got to get out and play. It was like a big water/trampoline area. Brendan was happy to be free and run. He was running and playing and did a little quick interacting with some other parents around. I noticed he kept hanging out in this one area so moved to be closer to him. I had a mom come up to me and say,"your son is such a sweet happy boy". I responded and say,"wow thank you so much." Thank goodness I had my sun glasses on because I started to cry. To have another mom and a complete stranger who knows nothing about our daily struggles with Brendan tell me that, was such a special moment for me.
On Thursday we headed to Lego Land with my brother, sister in a law and my nephew! This place was great for my daughter and my nephew. Unfortunately all the rides Brendan couldn't sit on my lap so I know he wouldn't just sit next to me so there wasn't anything he could go on. There was a toddler play area with little houses that he could build with big legos. He actually went up to a little girl stacking blocks and stacked a block for her on her tower she was making. I was so excited to see him playing with another child. But after he stacked the block for her he purposely knock it down and the little girl started to cry. Yep that would be my kid. Oh well it was a plus to see him with another kid playing. In the toddler section that had a small train ride. Well once Brendan laid eyes on the train that is all he wanted to do. He would just watch the wheels of the train going around. When it was time to get off the train he cried. So we got back in line foe the train but he doesn't understand the waiting part. He would have rode the train all day! Lego land was a success!
This would be the little girls tower he knocked down!
Friday we packed up the car again and headed to Huntington Beach Hyatt Regency to meet my family to celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. We arrived to the Hyatt and wow what a beautiful place! We were all so excited to be reunited with my whole family! We had plans that night to get pictures done with everybody and the we were going to have dinner celebrating their anniversary! We headed to pictures and has soon as we get to the area of the hotel where we were doing them Brendan started to get fussy. I get him out of the stroller to get in the pictures and he starts to have a complete melt down. We were in this kinda of big hallway area and it was super windy. Well Brendan wanted nothing to do with getting his picture taken. I felt awful because he was totally ruining the everyone's picture. We ended up just letting him have his train, passie and blanket in the picture to just try and keep him from running away. My first thought was it was dinner time so he was hungry. I really didn't know what was going on. He had been so good right up until the pictures. So I haven't seen the pictures yet but I can almost promise he will be crying in all of them. We headed to dinner and he was great. It was late so I packed his jammies and he ended up falling asleep at dinner. We had so much fun at dinner with everyone. I have the most amazing grandparents I could ever ask for. I can only dream to be just like them someday. They are a big inspiration to me and I absolutely love them so much! They are everything to me!
Saturday we were up early as we normally are and we decided to head to the beach. The beach was just right in front of the hotel. I was fully prepared to go to the beach knowing that I wouldn't be there very long if Brendan didn't like it. We took him to the beach a couple weeks ago and he was not a fan at all. I sat him down on a big blanket with his iPad and he was good. He sat there and just played the iPad. I don't even think he looked up or knew he was sitting on sand. Well after about 20 minutes or so the wind started to pick up and he jumped up in my arms and started to cry. I didn't really know what was going on, I thought he was cold because I was cold on the beach. It was still early and the sun wasn't out yet. I took all the towels and wrapped them around him and he pretty much cried himself to sleep on me. As he slept on me I started thinking that the start of his behaviors both related to the wind. The night of pictures it was super windy and then he was fine on the beach until the wind came. This is the joy of having a child on the spectrum. You have no idea when and what is going to trigger there sensory system. I would have never thought wind would bother him. When he woke up he was crabby so we left the beach and went to the hotel to swim. The pool had 3 different watersides. We took Brendan down the smaller one first and OMG he laughed the whole way down. Well from then on we must have went up the waterside stairs 50 times! Brendan just has no fear!
Brendan is sleeping under the towels!
We spent the next 3 days at the pool 99% of the time. We did go walking around Huntington and did a little shopping. Overall Brendan did so good on our trip! A couple little hiccups but nothing we couldn't handle!
Today we had an appointment at the Melmed Center. I always get super nervous for these appointments because so far every time we have gone I felt like more new issues and diagnoses were brought up. But as I was thinking about the last 3 months I was actually going into this appointment knowing that he hadn't had any big regressions and he was making some progress. So for the first time we left the appointment with no new diagnoses!!!! He told me to keep doing what we are doing!!!! That was a great feeling!
June 17th, 2013 is a day that I will never forget. Today is the 1 year anniversary that has forever changed our family. The day that Brendan's doctor gave him his official "Autism Spectrum Disorder" diagnoses. The feeling I had that day is something no parent should ever have to feel. Just thinking about my emotions on that day literally makes my knees weak. This past year has been such a roller coaster ride of up's and down's. I have watched Brendan make progress, regressive, cry, fight, fall asleep during his year of therapy. We have had some amazing therapist and some not so good therapist come in our lives. But we finally have the most amazing team working with Brendan. When you spend close to 50 hours a week with them they actually just become part of your family. Brendan's therapist treat him with so much love and care and I couldn't be more lucky. They even treat Haley with the same love and care.
I want to thank all of our family and friends that have supported Team Brendan this year. We had one of the largest groups at the Autism Speaks walk in October. We ranked in the top 10 of the donations raised. I couldn't have been more proud to be part of Team Brendan. I am so excited for this years walk which is on October 26th, 2014. I know we will have an even bigger team representing Team Brendan! We also were part of the Autism Society of Greater Phoenix bowling charity. We were definitely the largest team! We all had so much fun bowling and our team won so many amazing prizes. We will be participating again next year which will be sometime in April 2015. Thank you, thank you again. We wouldn't have made it this far without your love and support.
I have been watching older videos of Brendan when he first started aba therapy and it is so crazy how far he has come. Brendan truly is the hardest working 2 year old. As we begin the 2nd year of our journey in the autism world I hope life starts to get a bit easier to manage. I know as Brendan gets older we will face many more challenges but I am confident that we will get through them! I sit here with my eyes filled with tears. I have so many emotions about our experience so far but I know god has a plan for everyone and he gives me strength daily to get through my days. I love you all so much! I can't wait to see what this year brings!
Brendan finished his last day of therapy yesterday and was amazing! He knew how to do things we had never even asked him to do before. What a way to finish before we take a week off of therapy! We are now on the road headed to San Diego & Huntington Beach! My next post will be all about our trip!
I have made a video of the progress Brendan has made this past year!
