Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Ok so here's the true update on our life.  Some of Devin's autistic tendencies have been getting alarmingly worse lately...namely his self-harming.  In the last few months Devin has gotten worse about biting himself, scratching himself, pulling his hair and ears, his head banging has been getting worse as well.  Since he doesn't seem to be able to process pain he has no idea how badly he hurts himself...scary is an understatement!  So we've been making TONS of changes in his living environment to help him cope, obviously we scaled down the toys that are out, and organized them away in bins, we improved his "calm down spot", it's now a crib mattress with a Buzz tent and very soft arm pillow inside.  We also gave him his own room as sharing with Elizabeth was stressing us ALL out, so we moved Elizabeth into our room, and we have been sleeping on the hide-a-bed in our living room, at that point we had to get a storage unit to put excess stuff in and we tried to further de-clutter our little home.  All of these things have helped though quite minimally. And honestly sleeping in our living room is not a permanent solution...mostly because....well we're going to be adding a little one to our family in July(there's your announcement, I'll be more excited Jan 9th when I hear a strong and healthy heartbeat at 12 weeks...miscarrying even once kinda kills your early excitement) and we have nowhere to put a baby at the moment.  On top of all that...let's just say we're drowning in medical expenses...between my hospital stays, surgeries, tests and such, Elizabeth's hospital stays, surgery, and ongoing medical issues, and Devin's hospital stays and intense ongoing...probably never ending medical expenses, we just can't stay on top of everything, we did the best we could as long as we could but short selling our condo has become a necessary step to recovery.  Not ideal....but necessary.  Luckily my parent's have offered to let us live in their basement apartment that we're finishing and expanding, and then it will actually be bigger than our condo and most importantly have 3 bedrooms. And a little more room for us to spread out hopefully helping Devin feel less...."stressed" in his living environment.  It was an extremely hard decision to come to, as we absolutely love our ward and neighbors and are going to miss them so very much, but we know it's the right thing for our family at this time.  Devin will have to change therapists which is hard and not ideal in the least, but once again a necessary change for the greater good.  Elizabeth will have to leave The Little Gym but we plan on enrolling her into a dance and tumbling class at Bravo Arts Academy which is like 5 minutes from my parent's house(and less expensive!).  The wonderful thing about my parent's basement apartment is that it has its own entrance, own kitchen...even its own laundry room, it is totally separate from the main part of their home, you don't have to see my parents to see us.  Getting out from under our condo and living under my parents will allow us to get back on top of things, regain a savings, and build up a down payment for a house.  It will take a couple years but I'm so grateful for the blessing that my parents being able to help us like this is! As hard of a time as I'm having adjusting to the changes, I am so very grateful for the windows our Heavenly Father is opening up all around us, it reaffirms to us that we are doing as He would have us do, and that it's all a part of His great plan for us.  We weren't expecting to get pregnant....we're super excited that we are....but I must admit I'm a bit nervous to have a baby around Devin who is convinced a doll and a real baby are essentially the same.  Not to mention that Devin takes so much of my time, energy and attention.  As does a newborn, so I'm really counting on Elizabeth being a big help with this baby.  I must admit dealing with all this while my hormones are all over the place isn't real peachy either, I've probably cried way more than necessary over it all, in fact yesterday when I was filling Elizabeth in on it all, I was fighting back tears, as she's jumping around with excitement...oh how I wish I could have the innocent faith of my 4 year old! Then again I'm not getting a princess room out of this ;)  Tony is going to have an hour commute to and from work, but luckily he drives a commuter car, and is up to it.  Oh I guess I should mention that we're planning on moving around January 12th...yep just one month from today(and the tears start coming).  We're listing our condo empty for lots of reasons, but basically it will be easier on us and sell better to boot.  Well I think that's pretty much it....now y'all know.  :)