A wife's day off

Greetings in the name of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. How are y'all doing? I pray that this blog finds y'all in good health and spirits. Things are going good here at the Jones household. I miss the cooler weather that we had last week, but I am grateful that the summer hasn't been as hot as last year.

Today, my wife got a day off from the house. She left for the day to do whatever she wanted while I took care of the kids and the things around the house. It is something I have been wanting to for my wife for a long time but have never had the opportunity. I know that being a stay-at-home mom is the hardest job in the world and it is a job that doesn't offer a day off. You don't even get a sick day when you are a stay-at-home mom. The problem is, with our lifestyle, Saturdays is the only day that I have to be able to get the thousands of projects I have piled up done. But this weekend offered a perfect opportunity for me to tend to the kids and my wife to have a day off. I did have a few things that I wanted to get done, but I would be able to do them while the kids played outside.  Lol, yea right. Well, my wife left the house this morning after breakfast and I kicked the kids outside. I got a few things done but nowhere near what I wanted. Normal children are high maintenance, but an autistic child is very high maintenance. But you know what? It did turn out to be a great day after all. After lunch I tried to do some laundry and my daughter wanted to get the slip and slide out. I was getting irritated because I knew I would have to stop doing what I needed to do to help her. Now for those who don't know, we do laundry by hand. So it isn't like I can put the laundry in the washer and than help her. But she promised that she can set it up herself. I knew she couldn't but I said OK. Sure enough, she didn't know how to set it up and I had to stop the laundry and help her. After it got set up, she started ... kind of slipping and sliding. I had to laugh. My daughter would run and then gracefully fall onto the slip and slid. This made it so she couldn't slid very far. While this was going on, my autistic son was wanting me to push him on the swing. I was getting nothing done. But my heart was softening and I started thinking, 'What is more important?' So I teased my daughter about how she slides and decided to show my daughter how it's done. So I started slip sliding with her. Than my son started to join us. Oh, he was having a time of his life. It really turned out to be a good day.

As parents, we often let our busy schedule and busy days take over our life. Our families lifestyle really keeps us busy. The only electricity we have is two solar panels to charge our cell phones and our laptops. We do everything the old fashioned way. This does take more time. But we do need to keep in mind what is important and make sure we always make time for it. There is nothing more important than family. We need to make sure that we set time aside for family and just have fun. Even if it means to set a chore aside for later.

Well, it is getting late and my wife has returned from her day out. It is time for me to make time for her. Y'all have a great day.

Take care and God Bless,

The Oklahoma Tomcat
www.twitter.com/oktomcat

Being Thankful In All Circumstances

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  How are you doing?  Things are going good at the Jones household.  I am currently in Dublin, GA heading to Kansas.  I am currently showing that I will be in Kansas Thursday morning.  I am low on my 70 hour clock so I can’t drive too many hours.  After lots of delays, Micah finally got his leg braces and will be getting his wheel chair. We have also found good therapists to help him with communications and with his fine motor skills. It has taken us a long time but we are very blessed.  God has given Paula lots of knowledge to help Micah while we were without any help.  We have found out during this time that while there is lots of information and help for children with Asperger's , there is almost nothing for those who have classic Autism.  We are asking God to help us help others that are having this same problem.  I am seeing that God is doing some amazing things through Paula.  She has been writing a book on our experience and it is really turning out great.

It is Thanksgiving week.  Lots of people are busy either traveling to family’s house or getting things ready for a huge meal.  Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  I love the traditional Thanksgiving meal and relaxing with family.  It is also an annual reminder that we should be thankful.  It is a time for us to reflect on all that we have been blessed with and to give thanks for those blessings.  I see a number of my friends on Facebook list things that they are thankful for during the month of November and I love reading them.   But I notice something.  They only list the things that are good to them.  It is easy to be thankful for the things that we like but how about the trials?  How about those days when nothing goes as we like, are you thankful for those days?  Should we be thankful when we lose our jobs?  How about when we miss the bus or when someone does us wrong?  Should we be thankful for these things?  I know, “That is easier said than done.”  I can’t agree with you more.  But I also know that when God tells us that we should do something, it means it isn't impossible for us to do.  It means that we need to lean on Him to be able to do it.  There are lots of verses that tell us that we must be thankful IN ALL THINGS.   This means both good and bad.  The reason is because God is in control of all things.  He is Sovereign and He loves us.  He tells us that ALL things are for good and we must have faith that He is telling us the truth.  Do you believe that God is Sovereign?  Do you believe that God loves you?  Do you really believe it?  One of the problems we have as humans is that we THINK we know what is good for us.  We also forget that God uses us to help others and sometimes that requires us to sacrifice our self for the good of others.  A very popular example is patience.  Did you know that God requires us to have patience?  This is a very hard thing for many of us and we need God to help us get patience.  Guess what that means?  We must go through trials to help us get patience and those trials will not feel good to us.  How about if a neighbor needs his or her self-esteem to be boosted?  God may allow you to go through some real tough times and lead someone to you who can help you.  This can actually accomplish two things because God may also see that you need to be humbled.  Many times people will be blessed with lots of good things and then end up running into lots of hard times.  This is because when things are going good, we tend to forget God and we start boasting about OUR achievements.  We need to be humbled every once in a while. Most trials we run into though is caused by us.  Should we be thankful for these trials?  I say yes.  God could have stopped the trials but He chose not to and for good reason.  The best way to learn a lesson is to suffer the consequences for our actions.  The worst thing you can do to a child is to eliminate the consequences when they do something wrong.  God loves us, so He lets us suffer the consequences when we do wrong.  Of course, He is with us and helps us through the trial, but He doesn't take the trial away.  If our mind is in the right place and we are not blaming others for what we are going through, we will come out of the trial saying, “Wow! That didn't work out.  I won’t do that again.”  Sadly, this is the hardest trial for us because human nature gets in the way and we refuse to admit or see that the trial was our own doing.  This causes us to repeat the thing we did wrong.

Every trial we go through is for good and we should be thankful for them.  This Thanksgiving, think of the trials you have gone through and thank God for them.  Then, make a promise that from now on, you will thank God every time you go through a trial and that you will take a good, honest look at the trial and see the blessing that came out of it.  Take care and God Bless.

Love,

The Oklahoma Tomcat

References:  1 Thessalonians 5:18, Psalm 107:1, Ephesians 5:20, Colossians 3:15-17, James 1:17, Philippians 4:6, 2 Corinthians 9:15, Psalm 106:1, Psalm 105:1, Colossians 4:2, Psalm 118:1-18, Psalm 20:4, Psalm 30:12, Romans 1:21, Psalm 100:1-5, Psalm 23:1-6, Isaiah 12:4-5, Philemon 1:4, Psalm 9:1-2, Psalm 95:2, John 14:1, 1 Chronicles 29:13

Micah Nathanial Jones

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. How is everyone doing? I pray that this post finds everyone in good health and spirits. Everything is going good out here. I am currently in Kannapolis, NC. Werner has been keeping me quite busy. In fact, I keep running out of my 70 hrs. I got to thinking about something today. April is Autism Awareness Month. April is also Micah's Birthday. That is very interesting. On July 26, 2010, Micah was officially diagnosed with Autism. I thought it was interesting that he was born the same month as autism awareness. I don't remember when my wife first suspected that our son had autism, but I do remember it was early. Micah had started showing signs that something wasn't right pretty early and I thank God that I have a very smart wife who caught it. When my wife first brought it up, I was in denial. I remember reading a book while in the Navy that was written by a mother and her autistic son so I knew a little bit about autism. There was no way that my son had autism. My wife had actual experience with an autistic child so she knew a lot more then I did. She picked up some books and read more about it and even had a check list of the signs. Sure enough, Micah had the signs. I was still not totally convinced though. I remember even noticing every time Micah did something that wasn't an autistic trait and saying, "Did you see what Micah just did hon?" We took Micah into the doctor and had him evaluated and the doctor saw what my wife was talking about and agreed that Micah was showing signs of autism. The doctor then had him seen by a couple of people who worked with special needs children and they agreed that Micah showed signs of autism. This wasn't looking too good, I thought. We were then scheduled to take Micah to the OU Medical Center. It took a long time to finally get the appointment but the day did come for us to take Micah in. They did LOTS of tests. Now, by this time we figured Micah had Aspergers. After the medical team was done testing him, we found out he didn't have Aspergers, he had the actual autism. My wife and I was totally shocked. Since that day though, Micah has made lots of improvements. God has really done quite a bit and even more amazing is that our family has worked together. It is really amazing even seeing our daughter helping and interacting with Micah. She is the one I thought would have a hard time because Micah would be getting special treatment. Think about it. If she has a fit, she gets punished. Micah has a fit, we have to find out what is wrong. To a little girl who doesn't understand autism, that seems unfair. But she is very good about it and loves her brother very much. She shares and interacts with him a lot and I know it has helped him a lot. It is kinda hard not to interact when you have a big sister always around wanting to play. The biggest help in Micah's improvement though comes from his mom and my very smart wife, Paula. Paula is amazing. Even before Micah got evaluated at OU, Paula was already having a game plan ready to help Micah. She was already doing therapy with him before the state started doing therapy on him. She knew that early intervention was important and wasn't going to be waiting around for others. Even the therapists are impressed with Micah's improvements and tell Paula that we are the easiest family to work with because we are so active with Micah. God has told me before Micah was officially diagnosed that Micah will not be cured but that Micah was going to be a testimony to God's grace. You know what? I am seeing how God is working in Micah's life. How God is using the love of our family to help Micah grow up to live a normal life. I know that Micah will grow up to live a normal life. Yes, he will still have his autistic traits that will never go away. But Micah will grow to live a normal life. I also see how God is using the Autism that Micah has to grow our family. As I said, Abigail is wonderful with Micah and so very caring. Another thing Abigail will do is go into Micah's crib and either play or even share her snacks with him if they are up early. If Micah and her wakes up before Paula, she will go into the kitchen and get her snacks. She then will go into the bedroom, climb into Micah's crib and share her snacks with him. Isn't that special? I really think that God is using Micah to help teach Abigail about caring for others. Well, I have to get some sleep. I will be posting information about Autism all month at www.facebook.com/oktomcat. You can also learn more about autism at www.nationalautismassociation.com. It is very important to catch autism early and that is what autism awareness month is all about. It is important that you know the signs because you may come to know someone who has an autistic child and they don't know it. You may be the person that can bring it to that persons attention and help the child. The earlier it is detected, the easier it is to treat. Take care and God Bless. Love, The Oklahoma Tomcat