Terrifying: One of my kids with #Autism wandered off while on vacation

The family and I just got back to our condo after a roughly two hour long excursion. We walked the entirety of Give Kids the World Village and then went to dinner. As we were heading off to the café, Emmett said something about taking a shortcut. We thought he meant looping around the sidewalk but instead, he took off running behind one of the buildings and was gone. It took us a bit to find him and it was terrifying. On one hand, I knew he could get out of the village and would be found, but at the same time he was gone. Lizze went in one direction, while the boys and I went in the other. Thankfully, she found him waiting for us at the café. We…

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Behavioral problems we’re dealing with while on vacation

We're having an amazing time in Florida and for the most part, it's going really well. There's so much benefit to having time away from our lives like this, but there's also a downside as well. The downside I'm referring to is in regards to Autism related complications. It's nothing terrible but it does present challenges that we don't necessarily see at home. Emmett's default setting right now is teetering on the brink of overload. There's so many awesome things going on that he feeling overwhelmed by the entirety of them. It's not anything that anyone is doing wrong, it's simply the nature of the beast. We've had some very public Meltdowns over things like his food touching and other sensory related things. When it comes to Gavin, he's struggling…

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Wishes Can Happen: Elliott’s still feeling like poo

Elliott is still feeling like poo on a bad day. His fever is down a bit and that's good. I'm not sure what we're going to do because he doesn't feel up to doing anything. I took Gavin and Emmett to breakfast this morning, while Lizze stayed back with Elliott. They were able to have breakfast delivered to them, so that was awesome. The weather is sorta crappy again today and it's supposed to rain for most of the day. I'm thinking we might stay in today and relax because noone is willing split up. We might do some of the things in the village while Elliott is resting. Emmett wants to go fishing and Gavin would probably want to come along.. Gavin's almost always super agreeable and will go…

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Wishes Can Happen: Houston we might have a problem

Things were going really well, especially considering all the issues associated with taking three kids with Autism on a fifteen or twenty hour cross country car ride. There are a few things that have proven to be understandably problematic but that's for another post. Unfortunately, Elliott is getting sick and at present is running a fever over 101.1°F. I'm not sure it's anything more than a headcold or possibly an upper respiratory thing. He's coughing, has a runny nose, sore throat and the above mentioned fever. I'm not sure what to do about this because we don't want to expose any of these kids to something. Some of the kids here are obviously very sick and the last thing we want to do is pass anything along to them. I'm…

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Wishes Can Happen: Legoland 2017

We made it to Legoland today and the boys had so much fun. Several parts of the park were closed, and the weather was kinda crappy but it didn't actually rain. ☺ It's pretty much an amazing place that awesome for kids and tales grownups back to their childhood. We were really lucky because the park was pretty much empty and we didn't have to wait in line for anything. It's pretty awesome to be at one of these places when few others are. I wanted to share the pictures from our Legoland adventures.. ☺ [foogallery id="66216"]

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Wishes Can Happen: Seeing the ocean for the first time ever

The boys had the most amazing experience yesterday. We were in day three of Gavin's Wishes Can Happen trip and it was time to visit the ocean. I talked previously about our hotel and how we were on the beach. Unfortunately, by the time we had arrived, the weather was horrible and it was dark. It wasn't until the next morning that we had had our first chance to actually see the ocean the way it was meant to be seen, up close and personal. ☺ If I had to summarize this experience in one word, I would first protest that to do it justice, I needed more words but then I would simply say amazing. It was absolutely amazing. The boys were in total awe. Emmett was particularly captived…

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We’ve arrived at Give Kids the World (@GKTWVillage)

We finally arrived at Give Kids the World today. It was about a ninety minute drive from Daytona Beach, so it was a quick trip, relatively speaking. We're mostly settled into our amazing condo and I was able to crash for a couple of hours. I'll explain how everything works in more detail later on. For now, all that matters is we've made it safe and sound. Give Kids the World is truly unbelievable and we would be out exploring but Elliott's not feeling good and Emmett is incredibly overwhelmed after the last two days. My goal for our first day is to do absolutely nothing. I want today to be a day where everyone gets their feet back underneath them and we collectively decompress. It's abundantly clear that we…

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