Gavin shaves his head and he has for years. He likes it but it also makes hygiene much easier for him as well. I cut Gavin's hair before he went to see his mom and go to the birthday party this past Saturday. All I'm going to say is, he cleans up well, doesn't he.. ☺ ♥
The plan for this morning, assuming everyone cooperates, is to get the kids to school, go walking, take Gavin for his blood work and fill our five gallon water jugs. That should take Gavin and I until lunchtime. Again, assuming everyone makes it through the day at school, I plan to spend the time while Gavin's sleeping off his meds, getting some writing done. I want to get my Jabra Elite 85h Noise Canceling headphones review done. Jabra has been very patient with me and while they've told me not to worry about it, I want to get it done for me. It's important that I live up to me end. I have review products coming in this week and I need to get caught up. Hopefully, this all goes…
I mentioned earlier that things were pretty rough here in The Autism Dad household today. The kids were struggling and overwhelmed by everything going on around them. My goto solution in a situation like this is getting the kids out of the house and into nature, at least weather permitting. That's exactly what we did. Mind you, it wasn't easy to get them out the door and we didn't go anywhere fancy, but we didn't need to. Emmett was struggling with his clothes today, specifically his shirts. He was getting very frustrated because nothing felt right against his skin. I told him that his body is probably just stressed out and if he can find a shirt that doesn't bother him too much, getting out of the house and being…
It's not uncommon for there to be what I refer to as fallout following any type of stimulating event, in regards to an Autistic child. That stimulating event can be positive or negative, it doesn't matter. An example of what could be viewed as negative stimuli would be something like visiting the dentist. That's stressful for most kids but it's often a sensory nightmare for Autistic kids. On the flip side, positive stimuli could be something like a birthday party or exciting holiday. The point is, it's the stimulus that can create the problem. Fallout is simply what I've dubbed the behavioral issues I tend to see following one such event. In this case, it was a parental visit and birthday party. The visits are a positive thing, as is…
Let me begin by saying thank you for all the words of encouragement. I spent some time this morning, reading over at least some of the messages. I really really appreciate the support. Yesterday was a difficult day for me and I became saturated with stress and anxiety. It wasn't just one thing that lead to this. It was a combination of everything and it simply became too heavy for me to gracefully carry. That said, I finally fell asleep around midnight, but I had one fucked up dream after another. They all had to do with fishing, which was really weird. Anyway, despite the bad dreams, I woke up this morning feeling much better than I did when I went to bed. That's definitely a positive thing. As for…
I'm going be very honest with you tonight, I'm not having the best of days. I know that I'm going to have days where I'm doing okay and others where I'm barely able to breathe. Today is one of those days where I'm barely able to breathe. If I told you that I was feeling overwhelmed by everything, that would be akin to saying the Grand Canyon is just a ditch. It's an understatement of magnanimous proportions. Most of the time I don't think about my marriage imploding, how much responsibility I have, or how lonely this all feels. Most of the time I try to focus on the positive and continue working to forge a new path forward. Other times, however, I feel like I'm being buried alive and…
The kids left a couple hours ago and it's something that I'm still getting used to. I love every breath just to be around my kids. When there gone, it's like I don't know what to do with myself. Weird huh? It's something that I'll adjust to over time and they're never gone for more than 24 hours or so. It's good for them and I need to find things to occupy my me time. This is my exhausted but putting in the effort look. I mentioned yesterday that I was craving Chipotle. It's been a couple of months since I was last there and I figured, what the hell. Rather than just go get a burrito, I decided I should earn the burrito first. As soon as the kids…
It was a night of bad dreams and being kicked in the nuts by Mr. Emmett as he tossed and turned all night. I need to get something figured out with him because we all need to sleep. I gave up and went downstairs about 6AM. That gave me an hour to myself before everyone else got up. Gavin got up super early so that he could take his morning meds and sleep them off before he had to leave for his mom's. He actually did it and our plan seems to be working because he went back to bed for a couple of hours and is feeling better. Great job Gavin. ☺ Anyway, I have the boys ready to go and even cut Gavin's hair in time for him…