Autism Parenting Woes Archives - Page 7 of 8

If I had hair, I’d be pulling it out

This week is going to be totally thrown off because of the holiday. I'll be a day off all week long and I'm sure it's going to cause a few hiccups. ☺ While Emmett went to bed not feeling well and had a really tough time falling asleep, I'm hoping he'll be okay for school. He had a tummy ache again but also some serious post nasal stuff going on and that always upsets his stomach. Thankfully, Elliott and Gavin seemed to be doing just fine when they went to bed. I have somewhat selfish reasons for really hoping the boys make it to school today and that's because I want to go walking. Actually, Lizze and I both want to go walking. We're trying to walk every day we…

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September 6, 2016

I don’t know what the right thing to do is

I'm a little hesitant to give Gavin his IVIG infusion today for a couple reasons. First of all, he's not been feeling well this weekend. He's doing okay now and isn't complaining of anything but it seems to come and go, so there's no telling if or when he'll be under the weather again. Secondly, even on a good day, he's been suffering side effects from these infusions and they've been pretty rough. With him already being under the weather, I worry that the infusion may cause him to get sick. There are times we put it off for a day but that's not something we like to do very often at all. Plus, Gavin's very focused on his routine and deviating from that stresses him out. I'm…

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September 5, 2016

Autism Parenting Woes / Emmett John / My thoughts

That moment when you resign to the fact that you’ll not likely be getting much sleep tonight

As of 2am, two of the three boys are sleeping soundly. Emmett on the other hand, is currently close to joining his brothers in sleepy town. The only different is that he's on the couch in the living room and not in his own bed. Unfortunately, that means that I'm on the adjacent couch, wishing I was sleeping. Poor Emmett has had such a rough time getting to even this point tonight. His tummy ache was pretty bad but thankfully, his eyes are now closing for longer periods of time. Before long, he's going to be very much asleep. I snagged this picture because he's so precious and I wanted to permanently mark this moment in time.

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September 5, 2016

Autism Parenting Woes / My thoughts

School starts tomorrow morning and I’m not sure how it’s going to go

The boys start school tomorrow and not only are we not totally ready but I have no idea what we're going to do for Emmett as far as shoes and socks are concerned. Just talking about it with him and Dr. Pattie tonight, had him in a panic and teetering on a meltdown. The boys have clothes for tomorrow but I don't know what Emmett's going to wear on his feet. At this point, we don't even have a plan. My hope is that between the excitement of him returning to school and brushing his feet, everything will be alright. Assuming we get the boys off to school, Lizze and I are going to start our daily walks. I'm really looking forward to that. It's one of…

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August 23, 2016

Autism Parenting Woes / Gavin

A heartbreaking update on Gavin

Gavin had his IVIG infusion tonight and seems to have done better this time around. He went to bed feeling fine but he's not been sleeping well. I've been watching him sit up in bed, stand up, sit back down and go back to bed. He's done this a few times tonight and I have no clue what that's all about. I'm not even sure how awake he is. I haven't seen him do this is in a little while so I'm hoping he'll sleep now. While we're on the subject of Gavin, I thought I should probably update everyone on what Gavin's emotional status is. In short, not so well. He's spending more and more time alone in his room. He's going on some really weird, borderline creepy missions.…

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August 23, 2016

Autism Parenting Woes / Sleep Issues

Two of my three kids with #Autism are still awake at 2am

Not long after my wife and I went to bed, both Elliott and Emmett woke up and can't go back to sleep. Rather than battling to keep them in bed and ultimately losing, I opted to eventually just camp out in the living room. It's honestly, the best chance I have at getting them to go back to sleep. Getting them to go back to sleep means that I can go to sleep. Sleep issues like this are very common with kids on the Autism Spectrum and subsequently their parents as well. It really does make life so much more challenging.

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August 22, 2016

Autism Parenting Woes

Meltdowns, Bouncing and Think to Breathe Mode

OMG.... The boys are so hyper today and are literally bouncing off of any surface they can. Elliott didn't sleep much last night because his bed had been vandalized by Maggie. See the previous post for this crazy story and the video to prove it. The level of sensitive that Elliott possesses is such that he took it very personally, that Maggie picked his bed to pee on. He thought she was mad at him or something and just felt terrible. Anyway, he might be a little punch drunk right now from lack of sleep. Emmett's just all over the place today. He's happy then frustrated and angry. He sorta cycles through these emotional states but does so at a volume that is beyond that of an outside voice. Gavin…

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August 19, 2016

Autism Parenting Woes / Dentist / Elliott / Gavin

I’m exhausted, scared and overwhelmed

It's been a trying day from start to finish. We had victories and moments of sheer terror today. I'm going to skip the part where Gavin wandered off and ended up lost for short time that seemed like forever because you can read that here. I wrote a post about that earlier and frankly, I don't have the energy to rehash it right now. Just check out the link if you want to catch up on that. While we were getting everyone ready for the out of town trip to the dentist, I told Gavin that I wanted to trim his sideburns. They were getting kinda scraggly and needed touched up. He told me that he wanted to do them himself, using the new razor he got for Christmas last year.…

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August 16, 2016