Top Ten - A Year in Review {Part 3} - Journeying Outside My Box

Today we’re continuing in our Top Ten series, looking back over the year at the Top Ten most read posts. Today, we are at numbers 5 and 4 in the series. One of these is a page that tells about our family, not just a typical post that I wrote. Reading back through it reminds me of how far we’ve come.

If you missed the first 2 segments, you can find them here:
Part 1
Part 2

And now, on to today’s posts.

Number 5 - Our Journey (you can find this page up top, just under the header)

I posted this on Facebook a while back, but never got it moved over to the blog, so I wanted to do that. It’s more for my “collection” of stories, but it documents our journey across the years, and I don’t believe I have that as fully in any other post.

February 7, 2025 - If you’ve been following our journey with Picasso, we have a much-awaited update and finally some answers on our end.

Some background for you:
*Picasso - famous for artwork left on walls, beds, cabinets - often with pen, and sometimes Sharpie. Twice, with nail polish.
*He is almost 7 years old and we’ve been searching for answers for quite some time. (Update 2013: almost 9!)

He was born in May of 2004, after a tough pregnancy, but he and I were in good health. He was a very needy baby and had quite a period of ups & downs through his very early years. Tim & I knew that something wasn’t right, but we were really never able to put our finger on just what was wrong.

We began to seek out consults with our pediatricians but there was nothing they were able to find medically wrong. We apologized to more than one friend, on more than one occasion, for our son causing injury to their child(ren). We had serious doubts about our parenting skills, but then we’d have long periods of great behavior, and a lot of learning and growth. Continue Reading by clicking here…

Number 4 - The Big One

A few weeks ago, we went through “The Big One” - one of the biggest meltdowns/breakthroughs that we’ve ever had with our son. It was “the big one” in terms of the severity of the situation. And I was so torn, as I knew that it was progress, yet it was so hard to see that in the midst of everything that went wrong.

He struggles with imperfection. If he has created it (in any form – written, drawn, crafted, etc.) and it’s not perfect, then ultimately, it’s not okay in his mind. We’re working so hard to change that, but please, for a minute, consider the stress that the need for perfection puts on us as adults. And now, realize that our son has just turned nine years old, and already carries more need for perfection, due to his special needs, than I carry as an adult. It’s devastating when something doesn’t go right. To Continue Reading, click here…

Tomorrow we’ll round out our countdown with the Top 3 posts of this year. I hope you’re enjoying a review of this year, and this look back at the Top Ten posts. I’m enjoying seeing what God has done, and how He continues to direct our paths!