Meeting Spider Man!

Our Local Mall had a meet and greet with Spidey! We stood in line for an hour and ten minutes just to meet him!

He signed some cards for the boys and was just really nice!

After that we stood in line another 40 minutes for the sticky wall! Elijah loved it! I kinda want one now..look at that, eye contact, direct smile! Surely i can justify this purchase for his therapy room..i am sure his therapist would appreciate it lol

Such a fun family day!

Product Reveiw

I am still alive blogging world! My USB cord that i would use to down load pics is sadly no longer..but i should be getting a new one this week some time and all will be right in the world once again! So just to stay connected i thought i would do some thing i have been meaning to do for a while, give a holler to a fav product of mine that i actually bought with my own money and use and love. These company's i will promote do not even know i am alive but i want to share what i love with you all!

I decided to pick my E cloth first because i truly love it. Our journey to a more natural life style kinda just happened to us. Elijah with his Autism has many sensitivity's  Fragrances is one of them..and also i wasn't so sure if he would ingest the poisonous chemicals if he some how got a hold of them. So I started to eliminate cleaners about 1 1/2 years ago. A 50/50 mix of water and white vinegar is one of my favorites..its my all purpose cleaner. I use it for allot of things. And its super cheep to boot! A friend of mine knew i was trying to go chemical free as much as possible and told me E cloth was having a sale! I thought why not? They were relatively cheap and so i bought a simple starter set.


Click here to see the set i bought

All you do is add water and go to the terry like cloth..i use this for dusting..and the window shiner cloth is short of magical! It even cleans better than white vinegar. I use it on all my glass and metal surfaces...its amazing! I use the window cloth dry after i wipe down the mirror or glass or what have you with the terry cloth first. It has silver ions in it so it wont get all nasty and it cleans so well! If you click on the link below it will bring you to the home page and you can research it better there. Try it, i think you will like it! And sign up for the e letter...she is always having sales!


click here to visit E-Cloth

Elijah first day of pre school, 2012

Here is a video of Elijah talking!

as you can see, the question "what is your name" is still hard for him...

 but, he is doing great with his age! Enjoy!

Click here to see Elijah on his first day of pre school

Weird to think a Year ago...

...Well, a year ago this month (July) my Elijah was basically non verbal save a few phrases he had memorized from some movies ( "All Aboard"..from the polar express and "To infinity and Beyond"..from Toy Story) we had been 2 months into intensive ABA therapy and just starting to see some fruit from it. Looking back in this year, i have to be honest..i would not want to relive it. I know that sounds bad but it. was. so. hard. I had to hand my boy over to a team of 5 therapists and trust them. I had to learn to shut off every mommy instinct i had and while my baby screamed and cried for me over in therapy i had to ignore him..sometimes i just sat out side the therapy room door where he couldnt see me, and I cried. And there were days i would get emailed his schedule's for the next week , and i would cry in guilt because he would have 7 to 8 hour therapy days, and at that time he was only 3. Even today, after 2 weeks off of therapy..i received the email of his schedule for next week..and i am so sad. I am gonna miss him.

...But this is the best thing for him. It doesn't matter what i want. Elijah has come leaps and bounds. I am truly amazed..he is probably around a 3 year olds speech level right now. Because he learns to speak differently than a typical child it is hard to place him in a scale of where he is. He is doing amazingly. When he was diagnosed i thought once he learned the purpose of speech he would "catch right on" but that wasn't the case..speech truly doesn't come natural to him. A concept that is hard for me to understand compleatly. But he has to learn every thing. From, every person has a name, to gender, to the fact that he has a name and age (he still mixes them up) each one of those things i listed, has taken him weeks to learn..and he learns them one at a time (just his name and age took over 5 weeks) Right now he is learning where to put the word "its" properly in a sentence. But he is doing so stinking awesome! Many would have given up by now, he is constantly being corrected and always repeats and tries to do it the right way. If something was that hard for me, i would like to think i would raise up and be a tenacious as he. But i dont know...He is an amazing little boy.

Where is Elijah at? Well Elijah is very social..he loves to play with other kids. He some times does not understand whats appropriate socially (ex: if he is wrestling with another little boy in fun, he wouldn't understand when that boy is done, or had enough) He loves to laugh! I love his laugh! He is starting to love to be read to ..his favorite book right now? How do Dinosaurs say goodnight. He loves it. His behaviors have come way down. Like allot allot. No he is not perfect. And we still have melt downs, but they have been reduced by so much, that they are bearable to some extent. He is becoming well behaved. I mean, don't get me wrong, he is Autistic..but there has been so much improvement! He apologizes when he has done wrong, and even some times when he hasnt..but just sees some one hurting. He gives me hugs and kisses with out me asking, he picks flowers for my hair (how cute is that?) He is forming independent sentences, he is talking about his feeling (big deal) just tonight he says to me "i am scared", now even though he has never spoken a whole lot or answers much of my questions..i still act like i expect him to, so i asked him "what are you scared of?" and he answered me! "I am scared of falling down" (he was on the top bunk) Kris and I both got whip lash looking back at him in shock! He is starting to love to sing, and "Jesus loves me" and "I got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart" are sung daily by him. He recognizes the letter "E" as in "E for Whyjah" as he says. He loves being a big brother and makes sure Titus is obeying and coming when he is called. He loves to Hold Asher and hates when he cries. He loves to play with Julia, she is his best friend. The Lord continues to answer our prayers for Elijah. He is growing, forming relationships (last week he hugged his very awesome Sunday school teacher, so sweet!) uses his imagination and makes us smile. Elijah is amazing..and i cant wait to see what next year brings us!

Autism, Sensory Processing Disorder and a Therapy Swing

I am about to share with you something that has always made me nervous. Of all the things that i have discovered along my autism journey and discovering my son, Sensory Processing disorder was the one i have been the most skeptical of, and the hardest to accept. I, to be honest do not know why. Looking back now, its obviously a medical issue.But at the time of living in the craziness and honestly the emotional and physical strain this dis order can have on a family, i guess its hard to step out side of the situation. I want to include this in our learning about Autism month because allot of autistic's have this dis order..you can also have this order and not be autistic. I am not a doctor, but i will try to explain this to you in the best way i can, but please if you do have any questions or anything, please ask, or talk to a professional. My experiences is with my Autistic son, Elijah mostly and with the many Moms i have talked to whose children have this dis order. And i say many many times...Every Child is different, because we all process differently. So if you have a child or know a child with this, and not agree with something i say, that would not surprise me, we are all created differently.

   I did not know Elijah was having sensory issues originally. At the time of Elijah's very first evaluation, it was recommended to me to have an Occupational Therapist evaluate Elijah, because they saw the obvious signs. I just knew Elijah could never eat anything hot, hated baths, hair cuts, wearing clothes, he would freak out if he got dirty and freak out if i tried to clean him, he could not sit on a toilet, he couldn't be held up side down, he ate super sharp cheddar cheese, loved holding ice, and swinging on swings , didnt feel pain typically... long list so i will stop there. But in the craziness of just trying to survive the every day, i never stepped back and said wait, this is wrong. So when Elijah had the evaluation and flew through with flying colors in needing the therapy i was a little surprised. Until the first week he started, and i saw an immediate change in him. He became calmer more relaxed and more productive. 

  What exactly is this disorder? Well as humans we all have senses, touch, taste, feel, seeing, hearing. Elijah's sensory system is over developed in some areas and under developed in others. He isn't balanced like a person with a typical system is. Sure we all have sensory things we react to. I hate the feel of wool, the sounds of screaming chalk on the chalk board, and the taste of fish. But Elijah's sensory system dysfunctions to the point that he feels thing we don't, and his body will have un controllable reactions to sensory input. Sounds hurt his ears, Lights blind him, touch hurts him, being held up side down..he forgets to breath,  he has uncontrollable eye movements in certain situations, he tantrums and gets extreamly aggressive as an out put. All of these reactions are his body's way of dealing with the stress his sensory system is feeling at that moment. Try functioning a normal life in labor, that's kinda how a dysfunctional sensory system is like..your in pain and cant control it. 

  I want to show you how we help Elijah cope with this. It has taken us a year in some situations to help him regulate things...but allot of times you can de sensitize the system and have him get used to the feeling his body produces. He may never feel things like a typical person, but he can get used to what he feels and learn to control himself. Its allot to ask of a 4 year old. But he is getting there. This is called de sensitization. This will be a series, this is the first of it. 

Meet Elijah's therapy swing! He is not pictured here because he is, oddly enough in occupational therapy right now..lol. My typical kids love this too! Because we all have sensory systems, allot of Elijah's therapy stuff we do my non sensory kids love too! Its allot of fun! In therapy we are discovering what calms Elijah and what excites him, we stay far away from the exciters and cling to the calmers. The swing is a calmer. He could fall asleep in this. When he is having a hard time with dealing, we send him to the swing and make him swing away...and then, sometimes, its a pirate ship..and He and Julia are sailing through crocodile infested waters! LOL, its win win ;) And what kid wouldn't love a swing in their room? See therapy can be fun!

Our therapy Swing

Autism therapy sing

Prayers Answered

We just got back from Elijah's meeting, and it went wonderful! Better than expected actually. We were asked what we wanted and got it. Its days like today when all the sacrifice makes it so worth it!!! We only were reduced 1 hour of speech a week in the summer, and 3 hours of SEIT so instead of 24 hours he gets 20 and then 1 1/2 hours of OT. Thats really really good, most kids get their summer hours taken away! I started off the meeting thanking the school board, and got all teary eyed, man having kids has turned me into a sap! lol.. I thanked them for the amazing support they have been and told them how proud of Elijah i am. I printed up a few pics of him and showed them his beautiful face :) And we got down to business and it all went so incredibly well, i was on cloud 9!! Big smiles leaving the place, We also were    approved a PT eval, we have some issues with Elijah i wont discuss yet, but we will be doing a PT eval like i said and he will need some medical testing, it could be nothing it could be serious. I don't now what it is yet, but just a some prayers would be great. Thank you so much for the prayers, they mean so much. I feel like i won a million bucks right now :) We are gonna order pizza for lunch to celebrate and then daddy has to go to work :/ But for now we will celebrate our victory! YAY!

Prayers Please

Tomorrow we have a CPSE meeting..this is the technical definition of a CPSE meeting...


CPSE (Committee on Preschool Special Education) - The team that is ultimately responsible for conducting evaluations and recommending placement of children (3-5 years of age) in special education programs is the CPSE. The members of the CPSE should include under law the child’s parent, a parent member, a district representative, a general education teacher, a special education teacher, someone who can read and expound upon each of the social, psychological, and academic reports submitted, if transitioning from early intervention programs, an appropriate professional designated by the agency responsible, and a county representative at the discretion of the municipality should also be a part of CPSE meetings.


Basically I will be joining Elijah's therapy team and petitioning the school district. I will be asking for summer hours for Elijah (which are only provided if he shows regression during breaks) and asking for his therapy to continue next year as well. There are parents who walk away losing most services from these meetings, that has never been the case with us. The school district has always been wonderful. But we all know in the back of our minds it is possible. Can you just pray? That Elijah gets what he needs? I believe that summer hours are necessary this year. He has made great strides, but i am afraid if he months off of therapy we would be starting at a lower level in the fall. Elijah does show regression during breaks, but he has an amazing memory, so the regression isn't significant as they may require. But he is having a hard time right now, he cant distinguish between the question "what is your name?" and "how old are you?" he answers "Whyjah" to both...every thing he masters is allot of work, i would hate to stop that. The thought of having summers off does have an appeal to my selfish side, i have to admit. But my gut knows what my boy needs and its not the same for what i want. Especially with the new baby on the way. I always get so nervous, because I know what I am asking, Elijah's therapy is expensive. In other states, parents second mortgage their home to get the top notch therapy we get for Elijah, it even goes down to what county you live in. And even the school district. Its really a shame, because 50% of kids receiving ABA therapy are main streamed. It make cost allot for a few years. But in the long run, if Elijah can be an independent Adult (at this time we do not see a reason why he wouldn't be.. Elijah is very much a typical boy stuck in a body who doesn't understand how to communicate) It will be so much cheaper for the state. So just pray please, allot rest on this. Including my sons progress. I will let you all know how it goes! I appreciate all the prayers and support. It always seems when we are having a rough day, some one has something encouraging to say..that give me enough of a boost to go on and keep fighting. I appreciate you all more than you will ever know, you will just have to take my word for it ;)

How is Elijah doing?

Great!...and some times not so great. We have really good days, and some not so good days. But isnt that parenting?

Since becoming verbal (meaning using words) since June/July he has come so far. By leaps and bounds! We chose ABA as his therapy route. Its just amazing. I was worried if i was gonna be able to find a therapy who lined up with my thoughts and parenting style. ABA is such a gift. It goes after the behaviors while teaching the child. So i know when Elijah is in therapy he gets away with nothing. And his therapists are amazing. They respect my parenting style, and continue it in therapy. This consistency is key with Elijah, he needs the black and white rules and expectations.

Elijah can count to 10 pretty well, sing parts of songs, knows his shapes and colors. Can build amazing structures out of blocks, legos etc. Is #1 trained, and recently requested to use the bathroom for the first time (he will run and use it himself but never verbally request) He recently learned when asked for his name to say "Elijah" (or as he says whyjah) He says excuse me when interrupting, thank you when receiving and please when asking. Elijah loves to play pretend (no easy task for an autistic) often plays dress up, love to play with imaginex, dinosaurs, toy story dolls, and loves puzzles! He also loves trains, the play ground (green ground as he says) is starting to enjoy being read to and will sit to listen for a couple pages, although receptively he still is delayed enough that reading to  him is over his head. Elijah has an insanely amazing memory, the kid forgets nothing. seriously. He is a great color er, and loves to play in water. His best friends are his siblings who see he as an equal and they all get along so well! Its funny how they don't even notice anything.

Elijah still has a way to go, he just turned 4 and still isn't #2 trained. The toilet scares him, daddy is gonna build him something so he can brace himself better. We have allot of sensory issues there and this will take time, but we are forming a new plan, after seeking advice from other moms who kids have the same issues. He needs to be de sensitized and we will be starting that soon! He does really well for hair cuts now, only gets antsy at the end, but not anything unusual. He still hates to have water pored on his head at bath time, he freaks out and covers his ears but i have some sensory ideas i have been using and its gotten much better. Elijah wearing clothes is also gotten better...we have de sensitized him to those also. Getting dressed for him has become so much easier..he still prefers his comfy jammies but so do i ;) Elijah's eating habits have greatly improved, his pallet is broading and i am thrilled. We have his diet mostly under control and therefore his diapers are no longer toxic..yay!

Goals we have? #2 trained, cant wait for that. I will be starting some pre school with him. He still has some ways to go behavior wise, but has come so far i am not worried he wont get there. He still doesn't understand when to be quiet and why and those type of things. But with repetition he learns. Elijah is learning to apologize and "make it right" as we call it in our family, he still doesn't understand the concept though and often if one of us gets hurt or if one of the kids is being disciplined he will apologize..its kinda funny. He also doesn't like when we have to discipline his siblings..he feels like their protector. And often chastises us for chastising his siblings.

Elijah is a really happy kid, he has an awesome smile. He also is very smart. He retains all he has learned well. But getting him to understand what he is learning is difficult. Often we still revert to visual cues as he is a visual learner. Elijah loves to cuddle, and wipe kisses away so i have to re kiss him. He loves to play with other kids.

I will have to post a video of him talking some time soon, it is hard because he doesnt converse but he does express need!

My Bubby is a great kid. He is a favorite with the therapist because he has such a huge heart..he feels all emotion to the extream. I am so proud of how far he has come...every 2 weeks i have a meeting with his therapists (all 4 ABA therapists) and we set new goals for him to work on. Often they are speech related, his intelligibility right now is poor because he had a language burst. He continues to struggle with compliance and understand allot. But honestly he is catching up so quick, the more he understands the easier it gets!

What a bright future Elijah has! I believe there is nothing he cant do, he excels at all we ask of him and amazes us! But don't be fooled. All Elijah has learned so far has taken so much work. It is so well worth it. Good Job Bubby!

Parenting a Child on the Autism Spectrum

Man, this topic honestly could be a whole series. Parenting a child on the spectrum is no easy task. I mean, parenting a typical child is not an easy task..and then you throw autism on top of it..oh boy! There are so many layers to this subject...I will try to briefly touch on them all..i want to respect my readers time, and i really do not want to over post.

When Elijah was diagnosed, i was not in shock, i went in knowing, so when we walked out of the doctors office that day, digesting what Elijah was diagnosed with wasn't to hard for me. But dealing with what I needed to be for Elijah was over whelming for me. I don't have a special education degree, or at that point really knew nothing at all about what Autism is. What a long road i had ahead of me.

I wish i could say that road was smooth and paved for me. That i had allot of help along the way. But this was something Kristofer and i had to travel on our own. Autism has effected every aspect of our lives, no part has gone untouched by it. its a 24/7 often time exhausting job. We have plowed through sleep disorder issues, diet issues, behavior issues, privacy issues, not being able to shop like normal family, financial strains because of medical bills and testing Elijah had to have. Its just been insane this past year when i look back at what we have gone through. Holy Cow! If i dissected every hill, mountain we have had to climb..its just exhausting to think about. At least once or twice a week i have to sit down to dedicate time for phone and paper work. The list goes on and on you get the idea.

My goal when i started out as a parent was simple, just be a good steward with what God has given me. When Elijah was diagnosed, i prayed this would continue. And the research began, late nights, tuning into early morning at the computer.. researching every thing, learning every thing i could. Trying to weed through the extremist and coming up with logical conclusions. So much is up in the air about autism, and every one thinks they know all the answers, annoying frankly. How many studies have they come up with claiming to know "the cause" every one thinking they know all the answers. I really don't care at this point as to what causes it, that isn't my driving force. All I care is, how do i make myself what i need to be for Elijah? And so my journey began...

Every child on the spectrum is so different, if you think about it, every person on the spectrum or not communicates so differently. Raising Elijah is no different. I have had to learn how to think "Autism" when we have a situation with Elijah, i have to forget how a typical person thinks and reasons and go into "autism zone". I stop, and look and see what sensory triggers there could be, if its a communication thing or not and if he is just being plain old naughty. Its normally a mixture of the 3. This has taken much time, and i am getting there. Its almost like having a person live in your home who is from another country, who doesn't speak your language and has a compleatly different culture than yours. How do you communicate with them? How do you explain your culture to some one who can not understand a lick of what you say and tries to judge you by every action he can visually see? Its not easy. It takes time, often months and months dedicated to one behavior or action. As Elijah is becoming more verbal, it gets so much easier.

There are days I get worn out. Of course his worst days are when he is up for 2 or 3 hours a night, I cant just sleep through it. He needs to be watched at all times. Elijah would just wander out in the street stark naked if i let him. I couldn't trust him to know not to do that. So I often run off of 4 hours of sleep. We are slowly getting control of this..i refuse to put him on medication if we can figure this out with out it. if the days comes that we cant, we will cross that bridge when we get there. For now, we are making it. These days are hard, i home school Julia and being pregnant and having a 18 month old...well..some days are just days we survive. I really try so hard to have a good attitude with the kids those days. Ignore what i want to say and do and say and do the things that keep my testimony with my kids. What a test of self will and control!

I have learned so much parenting Elijah, it truly has strengthened me. I feel as though i have been stripped of all things that once i saw as important, like money, schedule's, privacy, church, food, home, and every thing has been affected and changed. When you are left with almost nothing, you begin to build up in a new way. Was the process pleasant? No. Necessary? Yes.

I was determined not to become bitter, very often parents on the spectrum become hard bitter people. The challenges they face every day wear them down slowly. Its sad..and lonely. Kris and I made the choice to excel. We have many many discussions, and we work as an team. We look at this as a positive experience. God gave us Elijah to teach us lessons and how to love in a very pure form. And through these lessons we have become stronger. We stopped holding things and ideals as important and truly held onto the things that God sees as important. If something makes our life more complicated with Elijah, we let it go. No "thing" is as important as my children. This wasn't an easy task. But battling to make our life "normal" became impossible. Our new normal is great. Yes it still has it challenges, what life doesn't? It still has its hard ships..what person doesn't? Instead we have focused on the every day miracles we see in Elijah's life, and how God is working through him. Its nothing short of amazing. Just stop and rejoice over the very small things...delight in the small milestones and cry tears of joy. Because of all this trial, I have been able to stand in awe at the blessings. I have so many many thing to be thankful for. My blessing truly outnumber my trials.

God has blessed me with a child with Autism.

Its Autism Awareness Month!

Thats right! April is Autism awareness month. I like to set this month aside to educate my sweet readers a little more on autism. I have come so far in understanding this diagnosis since Elijah was diagnosed a year ago.

Having your child diagnosed is very overwhelming. My biggest concern was his future..it scared me. And also if i was good enough for Elijah. Could i really give him all he needed? What a journey this year has been! Honestly, i am happy its behind us...because Elijah growth has been nothing short of a gift from God. Looking back, diagnosis was such a wonderful thing. Yes, it hurts to hear your child has "something wrong with them" but if you can move past that, its the beginning of great achievements. Therapy has done nothing short of empowered our family, when our day to day life was getting tough just to function. I have watched my little boy become the person i have always known was there. At 3 1/2 my son said mommy for the first time, it took 2 months for me to stop tearing up every time he said it. I still have many many moments where i tear up. Riding in the car, He is singing along to his veggie tales CD..and the moment hits me, even writing this i tear up, just thinking where we have come from, i am amazed. I had hoped that Elijah would make these leaps and bounds. But there was a part of me that was so scared he wouldn't. A part of me that was so afraid i would never know my sons favorite food, or DVD or color or toy (pizza, monsters inc, orange and legos btw).  This past year i have watched Elijah unfold, slowly, some times so slow that i dont even notice...and then sometimes, it hits me all at once, like the last week i was in a meeting about him, he comes up and blurts out a sentence..and i just stare at him, speechless, because i know i am supposed to respond to him, but i am in shock because i cant believe he just spoke an entire sentence  to me! I still have many of those moments, he still astounds me. I am so proud of him, there isn't a little boy who doesn't work harder than him. He works more therapy hours a week than allot of adults work. He has a long way to go still, but Elijah will get there. I have no doubt. This little boy of mine, he is amazing, tenacious, and my hero.

So welcome to my month of autism awareness, i hope at the end of this month you will understand a little more about it.

Please stop and think

Small list of what i hear about Elijah:

"Spank the child, he will learn". Only problem, what happens when you spank your child and it sends him into a seizure like fit?

"Autistic children are possessed by a devil"..haha..the stupidest one i have herd yet, obviously said by an uneducated  person who clearly knows nothing of developmental delays or anything about the brain

"We have never been close to him because he doesn't reach out to us" ..yeah because developing relationships is solely the child's responsibility

"sure i can baby sit, but will he be ok?" and then proceed to give me a 100 reasons why they clearly would not be a good choice

Trust me there are many many more, but i hate to think about them, because in my human flesh..it bothers me. People who do not care to try to see my son the way i do, or want to take the time to reach out.

They are out there and i encounter them all the time. It gets tiresome. Many parents get bitter when they have a autistic child, bitter at the world, who ,seems to constantly be judging them and obviously their poor parenting style. And its really hard sometimes. Because their is no greater judge of myself than me.  I just wanted to write this because i witnessed one of these happenings the other day, i watched it happen to someone else. I watched their shoulders slump, tears in their eyes and walk away defeated, because yes, part of what your saying is true. My child is "imperfect" and "different". But what you don't realize judgmental voyeur is, just to get my child to the store i spend 45 minutes dressing him while he kicks and screams, on the way to the store he falls asleep because he just spent 7 hours of therapy time that one day, which means i will be up until the wee hours of the morning with him. again. We are at the store shopping because my son is experiencing regression, and started eating (yes eating) our furniture and now we have to buy safe furniture, that will be expensive and non toxic so if he starts eating this furniture he at least wont be poisend. And by the time we get home we have therapy again tomorrow at 8am. So please, please, please before you judge, stop, don't open your mouth. because you don't know what those words will mean to a parent. Who battle every day to recover their child, who lose sleep, money and their life to meetings and therapy and being consistent and never allowed to be weak. Just stop, because God gave that child to that parent for a reason, and you do not have a special needs child for a reason. Just maybe God knew what he was doing.

I can not tell you how hard that was to watch, because its has happened happened to me...the first time it happened i burst into tears and ran out of the store with 2 kids in tow. And i cant bring myself to go back. So watch your words, your feeling all bold and cool now, but really your just a jerk.

My Gift

Have you ever received a gift that was a surprise? Maybe on Christmas or a birthday. I think you know what I am talking about, the gift you never thought you would get, never asked for and in opening it you don't know what to say. Not that it was bad, just unexpected. At first maybe you don't know what to do with it, what function or use it has in you home. And then over time, you wonder how you could have ever lived with out it, it soon becomes something you love to tell other people about. And then it becomes that much more special, because someone knew that it was perfect for you, even though at first you didn't.

That is exactly how I feel about Elijah. My perfect gift from God.