Yep…admission plus two teeny weenie itsy bitsy containers of popcorn and three sodas (none for me, thanks) = f-i-f-t-y…dollars.

We rarely go to movies. The boys have only gone to two…”Cars” and “Horton Hears a Who”.

When I saw the reviews for the latest Pixar film, “WALL-E”, I figured, “Hey… it’s Pixar…it’s rated G…it’s got robots…perfect.” One of the reviews that I browsed even stated that it “would be great for younger children” due to the “stunning visuals” and “lack of dialogue”. The kiddies would surely love the robots, the reviewer surmised. Sounded good to me, so off we went.

When we arrived at the theater, we settled the boys in their seats with their popcorn and waited for the opening credits.

As the movie began, I looked over and saw the sweet little faces of my two precious boys, eyes filled with wonder as they watched the huge digitally enhanced picture screen. I got the warm fuzzies. This was going to be a magical night at the movies.

As the opening credits began to roll, what unfolded before our eyes was…well…

…apocalyptic.

Dark. Landscape that appeared to be post-apocalyptic New York City. Garbage everywhere. Destruction rampant. Haunting music.

hmmmm.

…waiting for a cute little robot to come out and make this thing fun.

…they killed off Bambi’s Mommy in the first part of “Bambi” and everything turned out peachy.

…surely, the cute part is coming.

…waiting.

….oh, there’s a robot.

Out comes “WALL-E”…a little robot that is perfectly Disneyfied cute. (Although if you should HAPPEN to see this movie, tell me that “WALL-E” isn’t a blatant rip-off of that robot in that 80′s flick with Ally Sheedy, “Short Circuit”. I kept waiting for “WALL-E” to blurt out “NUMBER 5 IS ALIVE!!” and dance to a bad El DeBarge song. But I digress.)

When little “WALL-E” came out and did absolutely nothing to lighten the mood, it started.

Doug began to have a really great time.

Leaning over, he patted my knee and asked the boys sweetly, “Didn’t your Mommy pick out a really great film for us to see?”

When and I’M NOT KIDDING YOU an explosion that produced a MUSHROOM CLOUD went off, Doug was like, “Don’t worry boys, that’s just a mushroom cloud.”

oh. my.

We made it through a grand total of 45 minutes of film. Doug kept a running count of mushroom clouds…we were up to five when we walked out.

Now. While I’ve completely thrown little “Number Five”, er, “WALL-E” under the bus here, I must say that Doug and I liked it. Very much. But we’re weird. And we love satirical humor…which “WALL-E” had plenty of, mocking America’s penchant for excess and comfort. We absolutely want to see the rest of it.

But my children?

Well…Noah said it all when the fifth mushroom cloud graced the screen. He did his little “I’m all done” bit by cupping his hand over his ear, and saying, as if talking into a telephone, “Hello…is Noah home?”

May I politely suggest that whoever decided to market this motion picture to children was…well…let’s just say…ummm….

high.

Doug topped off our evening when we returned to our car. He looked over at me and said oh-so-sweetly, “So what’s our next family movie…”Silence of the Lambs”?

I’m glad that he had such a great time.

Pixar owes me fifty dollars.

Every time that I do one of these “Noah update” posts, I’m reminded of one of the reasons that I’m thankful for this little blog. It helps me to record and track Noah’s progress and since it’s in cyberspace, I don’t have to worry about losing the notes that I’ve written.

Progress and regression. For some children with autism, this is a common story. It certainly defines our journey with Noah. Sometimes, we’ll see surges of progress. New words, phrases or cognitive advances will send our spirits soaring. Then…at times… periods of regression will follow. Noah usually keeps a few of his newly acquired skills when this happens, but will typically lose some skills at the same time. It’s hard…but that’s the journey that we’ve been called to and I’m learning to endure it.

The most troubling and difficult regression that we’ve ever experienced with Noah…outside of his initial decent into autism (nothing will ever begin to touch that for HARD, so that experience is in a category all it’s own)…started in January.

I won’t go through the whole sordid saga again…you can look back in my January archives to read the story…but Noah had a reaction to Omnicef (a commonly prescribed antibiotic) that left him in horrible pain and unable to walk. He was hospitalized. Bad. Scary. Stuff.

Noah went spiraling downhill after that. He lost some language, developed some really strange behaviors and was just. not. right. From late January until late April, there were some difficult, dark days where I battled with fear that we would never get Noah back.

In late April, we added a lot of new interventions to his biomedical protocol. We began to treat persistent strep, added new supplements, started Singulair, and began using Methyl B12 injections.

Within a few weeks, we noticed a difference.

After about six weeks on the new interventions, Noah was back.

Two weeks ago, we increased his dosage of MB12 (more frequent injections). Since then, we’ve noticed a marked increase in language and improved cognition.

Noah’s teacher has noticed as well. She commented three times last week about how well Noah is doing with his schoolwork and how much more language he’s been using.

On Friday, Noah did two simple math problems on a worksheet at school.

Independently.

No…it wasn’t age appropriate math. He’s going into second grade, and the sheet looks to be something a pre-K student would work on.

I don’t care.

Noah did it. His teacher was flipping out…in a good way. So was I.

There have been times that I’ve felt like throwing in the towel on all of the biomedical interventions that we are doing with Noah. But every time that I’ve teetered on the edge of quitting, God gently nudges me back on the marathon course…promising me His Presence, Help and Grace to keep going.

So we carry on…encouraged…and full of Hope.

God is faithful.

My brain, that is.

This whole Children’s Ministry leadership thing is SO FAR out of my comfort zone.

I have no idea what I am doing.

Just sayin.

I’m trusting God here…and totally leaning on His Wisdom. And thanking God profusely for providing other people on our leadership team who actually DO know what is going on.

We’ve ordered all of the curriculum. It will be Discipleland for the younger classes and the Calvary Chapel curriculum for the older ones.

Tomorrow we’ve got another planning meeting. Now that the curriculum is “in the bag”, we’ll focus more on the nuts and bolts.

I don’t know what I’m doing with that either.

Well, I’m off to take my squishy brain to bed. Ya’ll have a nice Saturday…

…Me too.

It’s been a bit quiet around here lately.

Not my life…that’s crazy right now.

Just quiet on the blog front.

I’m not around the computer much lately, and when I am, I’m spending most of my time working on children’s ministry planning.

When I finally get time to sit and write, I find that my brain is rather squishy and will not allow me to form coherent sentences.

I think that things will slow down in a few weeks…maybe. We have a children’s ministry training session on July 12th, and much of the work that we are doing right now is targeted for completion for that session….so things just might slow down after that. Just. might.

I’ll update when I can…

The photo is a tad bit fuzzy, but woo-hoo anyway…