All things Cotterell

We had such a fun summer and it is hard for me to believe that school has begun. Porter started school on Tuesday and seems to be doing pretty good adjusting. He was really ready to go back and he was not a fan of summer break. He has had a pretty good week at school with a few bad moments but overall he is getting back into things. It has been a bit of a weird week for me. He is now kindergarten age but his class is different and he is in a class with kids at his level so that means lots of different ages and grades are in his class. I have to be honest it has been hard to see another milestone not reached. I think since he was born I have thought about the day he would go off to kindergarten and what that would be like. Having been a preschool teacher we would get to help prepare the kids and see them off. It was such a big deal and I have always been excited to see my kids go. Because his birthday is in September that meant that he would be going a year later. When he was a baby I worried about this. But when he was diagnosed I felt relieved to think he would have more time to catch up. Here we are at kindergarten and it is hard to admit that he has not caught up totally. It is a little hard to watch all the kids in the neighborhood his age go off to school. I worry about next year. I wonder if he will be in a traditional school and if so will they let him attend a regular class. Here they do clusters and kids with autism attend a different school. I worry that because he is autistic they will cut him short when he can do so much. I wonder what will happen when he is with typical kids. Will they make fun of him? Will they be mean to him? Will they not want to play with him? Will they only see that he is different and keep themselves away? As he has gotten older the kids are more aware of his differences and it frustrates them. He can be hard to play with because he makes up such strict rules for himself that he thinks everyone should follow. He doesn't understand when someone does not want to play and that can result in kids hiding from him to get away from him. More than once in the last year I have watched things happen to him that break my heart. It feels like what I have been dreading for years is now becoming the time of life he is hitting. He can no longer get away with his social inadequacies because kids his age now have social skills and they know how to share and they can talk, and so they can see he can't but they are too young to understand why he is different. Instead they naturally turn away from him. He will get so frustrated when they don't want to play and he can be clueless when they say hurtful things (which honestly is a gift). I try to explain to him why kids don't want to play. I try to help him understand what they are playing to help him be able to join in, but it is really tuff. The kids in our neighborhood are getting so they are familiar with him and they seem to be fine with him around but I have seen things like nobody wanting to sit by him. I was in his primary class a couple weeks ago and the kids were talking turns getting to find clues and nobody wanted to call on him and give him a chance. He got so frustrated. He had been waiting so long and he was being so patient, but they would not call on him. The teacher told one of the girls that she needed to call on Porter and she started to cry. She said she did not want to call on him because she doesn't like him. It took all I had not to chew her out. I constantly find myself telling myself that kids don't understand yet. I am thinking about going into primary and talking with the kids about Porter and his differences to help the kids understand. I just need to be ready for their questions and for the things they will say. Porter has made tremendous progress this last year and it has been wonderful. At the end of the day though it is hard to see that his social inadequacies are what keep him apart. Nobody wants their kid to be teased and nobody wants their kid to be isolated from the other kids. It feels sometimes like I have to accept that he will and that I have to be ok with it, because it is part of the package, but it is hard to watch and even harder not to get angry when it is a natural reaction. It is a new step and milestone I need to find peace with and learn how to handle. It is important that I do because next year Nickelle will be in school. She will begin to notice even more than she already does that he is sometimes treated different. She will be treated sometimes different too because of her brother. I need to be able to model for her how to handle that and how to educate others. Wish me luck because this is my new goal.

As for other things going on. Nickelle this summer was able to take a dance, singing and performing class. She had so much fun and learned a lot. She had her big performance a week ago and she was a star. Porter told her over and over "Nickelle, you were a star. You were a rock star". She was hilarious up there. The best was that at the end of every song she would hold that last pose for a long time and just soak in the applause. We laughed so much that night. I was amazed with how many people came to see her. It was so wonderful. It is hard to be the sister of Porter. Everybody loves him and is concerned for him. They are always asking about him and want to know how he is doing. He gets extra attention from the family and from Dallin and I. It is hard to sometimes be in his shadow. It was great to have a night all about her. She loved every minute of it and it meant a lot to Dallin and I that so many of our family called her or came. We even had our favorite neighbors who came. She and I went on our first shopping trip just us girls. It was so much fun. We listened to Hannah Montana and sang as loud as we could. And then I took her to the mall. How sad is it that my kids have never really been in a mall. Trust me though Porter and the mall are not a good combo. We went to pick up just a couple special outfits for her. She had the best time trying on clothes and touching fabric. I was laughing so hard because shopping is not my favorite thing. In fact I try to avoid it unless I have to and when I go I am a get in and get out kind of person. Not Nickelle. She had so much fun, you would have thought I took her to disneyland. She picked out this cute blue dress because blue is Dallin's favorite color and she loves to wear something she knows he likes. She loves it when he picks out what dress she should wear on Sunday. She notices everything anybody wears. But the thing I love about her is that she finds something to compliment everyone she sees. I have never heard her say something was ugly or look at someone and think they were weird or anything like that. She finds something she sees that is beautiful about everyone she sees and then tells them. It will make me laugh. We will be in the grocery line and she will tell the person behind us how much she likes their purse or how she likes their hair, shirt or whatever. She will tell people that she thinks they are so nice or how she thinks they look like a princess. When people stop us everywhere and I mean everywhere about Brinley's hair she will tell them that her sister is so beautiful and that she has her Daddy's hair. She makes me feel beautiful all the time and she loves to pick out what Dallin and I will wear. I wish I could claim that I taught her these things but I did not. My fashion sense is pretty pathetic and I get so embarrassed when people compliment me that I don't think to compliment others. This is just her nature and I love it. I am learning from her and try to be more kind and find something to say to everyone that is nice about them. I have even started dressing up a little more because she makes such a big deal about it and I love it. She is such a sweetheart and I love her so much.

Bennett among keeping himself into everything has become quite the talker. He loves to ask me "is this cool Mom?" He LOVES any type of vehicle and amazes me with what he can remember about them. He is Porter's shadow and wants to do everything Porter can. He is really interested in using the potty because the big kids do and I am the only one dragging my feet. Potty training is such and ordeal and I want to wait until the kids are both settled in school. He asks me all the time if he can go potty before he does. He cares about what he wears and wants to wear shirts with something he considers "cool" on it. He is such a funny kid and I can't help but laugh at him It will be great with Nickelle going to preschool again so that he and I can have time just the two of us.

Brinley took her first steps two weeks ago which was awesome. Everyday she tries to get a little farther. She is so cute when she walks and I love it. She just had her 6 month developmental testing in therapy and she has really caught up a lot. She still is a little below with her gross motor but actually she is behind now in language so when we make her new goals I am sure they will now include some speech. She is such a sweetheart. She has gotten a little less shy and she does not have to be right by my legs all day. Walking really helped with that.

Dallin has not been able to ride as much as he would like but I think he still had a fun summer riding. He was able to help out at the tour of Utah and he was able to meet some of his hero's which was really cool. He had an interesting summer with accidents though. He broke his arm this summer and also had to get 8 stitches in his hand. He has been able to do lots of fun things with the deacons in our ward. He went on a river rafting trip which was fun. He and I have been able to do a couple things which is always great and we were able to go to Midway a couple times. He is truly my best friend. He is an awesome listener unless he falls asleep. He has a gift. He can fall asleep even when we are having a disagreement. I love this man.

I have had a weird summer with my back. On and off I will run into lots of trouble with it. My poor yard looks awful because I can't get out there and the house is not a whole lot better. The last two months have been the worst and somedays I can't even walk at all. I hate that I have to take a bunch of pills for it so that I can get through the day and I am very sleep deprived. I go into a specialist on Monday and I am hoping he can help me figure out what is going on. I have been going into physical therapy and I do my stretches all the time but I am still not getting better. I have some ok days but it can quickly take a bad turn, so it has been frustrating. I was doing really great at loosing weight and now I can't even walk around the block so things are really not changing there and it is hard not to be discouraged. But it has made my kids really help out around here. There is nothing I have changed about getting them to help but Porter and Nickelle have been really cute about trying to take care of me and they have really been my helpers at home. I am so grateful for them. More than anything though I have enjoyed being with the kids this summer. As exhausting as it can be to have them home all day and me not being able to keep up with them, I have loved them being home. I love being home with them and I love being able to be their Mom. I love that I was able to spend a lot of time with Dallin this summer. He is so thoughtful and whenever I am down he lifts me up. He always can get me laughing and we can have fun doing pretty much anything. It was a great summer and I hope you all had a good one as well.