It was a really difficult day but that doesn't mean there isn't anything for me to be grateful for... Sometimes when your a special needs parent and despite your best efforts, you just can't tip the scales in your direction. This happens quite a bit in my life but on those days, I don't focus on what I couldn't do. The truth is that sometimes, the biggest victory of all is that you physically and emotionally survived the day.. 😉
Gavin's been through so much in his 15 years on this Earth. If fact, he's been through more in his 15 year than most will in an entire lifetime. Do you know how many times he's complained over the years? Zero, as in not one time. Gavin just takes whatever's dealt him and rolls with it. It's truly amazing.. It's really hard for me to see Gavin suffering and there is nothing I can do to help him. Gavin is one of those kids who just can't catch a break. His emotional and physical health are so complex that no one really knows for sure what to make of it. One of the things we do know for sure is that he doesn't have a functional immune system of…
Deep breath... Count to 10.... Get your butt in timeout.... Those are the things I kept telling myself today as I tried my best to help the kids make it through what turned out to be a very, very challenging day. Elliott has had no less than 6 meltdowns today. Emmett put his name on the ballot with a few meltdowns himself as well. The most concerning for me personally though was Gavin. For the sake of keeping this post brief, I'll just say that Gavin's spent a large part of today being very frustrated with himself. He's right on the edge of having a full blown stomping, kicking, screaming and self injurious meltdown. It's been so long since I've seen him like this and I'm not sure what's…
I was going through the left over papers from last school year and I stumbled across this. It was written by Elliott about himself. The circumstances in which he wrote this are unknown to me at the moment. I really felt a surge of pride for him when I read it. He spends so much time feeling down, anxious, overwhelmed, angry and just generally freaked out, that reading what he wrote about himself feels so good. I'm not gonna lie, I teared up a bit because when you have a child that's struggling, seeing any sign of positivity breathes new hope into your life.. I realize that the note is from earlier in the year but that doesn't matter because sometimes you just need a little reminder for hope…
I mentioned in a previous post that we are moving to our school schedule about 2 weeks prior to the first day back. The boys need ample time to adjust and then a helps to accomplish that. I've been up and moving since my alarm went off this morning as well. No desperately needed naps for this guy. I pushed through the exhaustion and found my second wind. 😀 I got my 20 minutes on the treadmill, which kicked my ass but I feel really good. I do not like walking or running on the treadmill because it's harder to track actually distance with any degree of accuracy. Walking the track at the park is like my absolute favorite thing to do at this point in my newly single Dad…
If you haven't seen John Oliver's Last Week Tonight, you're missing out. Tune in every Sunday on HBO... I wanted to start sharing these because not only are his monologues amazing, they're also incredibly entertaining as well. We all need to laugh and this is a great way to actually learn something while you're doing it.. This is probably not appropriate for kids... https://youtu.be/7y1xJAVZxXg
Kids on the Autism Spectrum are creatures of habit that typically don't do well with change. My kids are no exception. When it comes to starting back at school, I've found that if we begin practicing our back to school routine a head of time, it sorta smooths out the transition a little bit. My kids go back to school on September 1st and so I've begun practicing bedtimes and wake up times with the boys. I've set their bedtime for 9pm and wake up time for 7:15am. My goal is to give them a little bit of time to adjust to everything before they have no choice. I'm getting excited because in about two weeks, I'll finally be somewhat of a break during the day. I'll still…
Gavin is such a good kid and he's come such a long way over the last year. Lately however, I've been seeing quite a few steps backwards and it's got me a little bit worried. It's really kinda bizarre because as he's slipping, as I have affectionately dubbed it, some old behavioral issues are resurfacing once again. I fear before too long, I'm going to be seeing full fledged meltdowns/tantrums again but that's for another post at another time. For the last few weeks, I've been trying to get Gavin to stop pointing with his middle finger. If you didn't know him, he would honestly appear to be telling you silently, to fuck off. That's not what he's doing but I can think of a million situations this could get him…