Emmett is very clearly in a fever flare. He's in a horrible place, and seems to have lost his ability to talk without screaming. He's been screaming all morning. I know he's miserable, and I don't blame him for any of this but it's not easy to maintain the mindset, when there's so much screaming. I wanted to share a time line of sorts, that show his temperature as a fever flare is overtaking him.
Last night was filled with meltdowns, freak outs, and trying to figure out what the fuck was going on. Emmett was complaining of a tummy ache but he couldn't express anything more than it hurts. It's really hard to know what's going on when he's unable to help us better understand what's he's dealing with. There's no question he was upset about his stomach but we couldn't tell if he was hunger related, constipation, or nausea. When we asked him about describing what he was feeling, he just melted down and screamed I don't know. He ended up falling asleep without a huge amount of trouble. He struggled a bit because he was convinced that he was going to puke, and didn't want to sleep on the top bunk. Lizze…
It's been a mixed bag this afternoon. Everyone is glad Mommy is home, but it's also been a long weekend. Elliott's doing well, but Emmett is really struggling. I'm fairly certain that Emmett is entering into a fever cycle. I've been tracking his temperature over the last few days and it's been mostly 99°F or higher. That's not technically a fever but it is indicative of a fever cycle, along with inflamed joints. He's been unbelievably difficult this afternoon. He's overreacting to everything, melting down as a result, and driving me crazy. The poor kid is miserable, and there isn't anything we can do aside from extending an insane amount of patience his way. On a positive note, Nokia Health sent me something pretty amazing, and it's been a huge…
The paycheck came today and I decided to take the family out to Cracker Barrel for dinner. We haven't been out to dinner as a family for a long time, and there's good reason for that. We haven't had the money to do things like this for awhile. Secondly, it's fucking hard to get three kids with Autism organized, and cooperative, all at the same time. Just getting out the door was a nightmare. I came damn close to forgetting the whole deal because I'm in an enormous amount of pain, and running short on patience. More on that later. We finally made it to Cracker Barrel and surprise surprise, Emmett has a mini-meltdown because he can't decide what he wants. That's another reason we avoid these situations. lol Our…
We had a really challenging day. Rather, Emmett had a very challenging day, and subsequently, so did the rest of us. Any parent would gladly take away their child's burden and shoulder it themselves, but when it comes to Autism, there's no possibility of that. No matter what we do, sometimes we just can't help him. For me personally, this was an emotionally draining day because Emmett was completely out of sorts for most of it. The main issue for the first part of the day was clothing related. He couldn't wear any shirt. There's one shirt that he can wear, and we can't find it. It's got a picture of a pug wearing sunglasses and headphones. It's nowhere to be found. His other shirts are bothering his shoulders. He…
It was a rough night. Emmett woke up after a really bad nightmare and never went back to bed. He woke up shortly after midnight, just as Lizze and I were going to bed. There was zero chance of getting him back to sleep and in order to prevent him from waking anyone else up, further complicating things. As per the usual in situations like this, we moved to the living room in an effort to salvage whatever sleep I could. My efforts were fruitless because he never went back to sleep. This of course, sets a terrible tone for the day, that I'll have to attempt to overcome.
It's been another horrible night. Elliott has yet to fall asleep, and that means I didn't get any sleep either. About half way through the night, Emmett joined us in the land of people who should be sleeping, but aren't. Lizze has class in about an hour, and I'm barely able to even focus my eyes on the tablet I'm using to write this. I'm concerned that Elliott's having so many sleepless night, even while taking Melatonin. God help me today, I'm going to need all the help I can get. Frankly, a nap wouldn't hurt either.
My goal with this post is to help you understand the meltdown process from start to finish. I'm hoping to reinforce that meltdowns are not behavioral problems. Meltdowns do not require discipline and aren't indicative or bad parenting or a bad child. I am using an example that happened in our lives recently, to help you better understand meltdowns. We went to the grocery store in order for Emmett to pick out his birthday cake. It was a momentary lapse in judgment, and believe me, I paid the price for it. In truth, Lizze, Emmett, and I paid a price for it. The store had tons of ice cream cakes, but the only white or yellow cakes had a graduation theme. The theme was only plastic decorations that could be…