Having children that have autism can teach you many things. A natural curiosity for the human mind is definitely going to grow in you. The effort to learn about how your child thinks and what could possibly make their life better is always going to be something you want to have continually.
Poor Emmett went to bed and woke up with a headache. We had thought he would be returning to school today, but he woke up with his right eye stuck closed again. I spoke with the school, and even though he's been on the antibiotics for 24 hours, they aren't looking to introduce pink eye into the classroom. We decided it was best to give him another day on the eye drops before sending him back. When I took Elliott to school, I discovered that our car had been broken into again and everything trashed. I know I locked the doors because I heard the horn beep last night. The only thing I can think of is that it's unlocking itself and before you think I'm crazy, let me explain.…
I'm not looking for life to be easy. I'm not looking for anything to be handed to me either. What I would very much appreciate is a level playing field. Life as a full-time caregiver to four people with special needs is rewarding, challenging, never dull and absolutely exhausting. As an Autism and Special Needs parent, there are things I have to worry about constantly, that won't even show up on most others radar. Each one of these worries weighs heavy and keeps me up at night because my brain is continually trying to find solutions to the many problems facing my family. There are so many things I wish I could change about my life, but my wife and kids aren't one of them. Sure, I'd take away their…
Gavin's been in a really good mood today. He's usually a good mood kind of person but today was a bit different. I've been working with Gavin for years on being able to goof around. He's so serious all the time, and if you try to joke around or tease him a little, he tends to freak out. We've been practicing making stupid jokes and some harmless, good-natured teasing. The idea behind this is that Gavin can loosen up a bit and better understand the difference between goofing around and being made fun of. Gavin tends to take everything personally, and that's not always the appropriate response. It's similar to knowing the difference between someone laughing with you and someone laughing at you. Anyway, this morning, I made a joke…
It's been a long day. It's been a very, very long day and my anxiety is through the roof. Between Emmett and his fricking pick eye and Gavin with his incessant talking, and psychosis, I'm frazzled. Emmett has had two rounds of eye drops and should be able to return to school on Wednesday. He's tolerating the drops, but he's not happy because they burn a little bit. That said, he's doing a good job thus far making me both grateful and proud. A large part of my current stress and anxiety centers around Gavin. He's not doing anything wrong, and the challenges we face in coexisting with him are not his fault. Nevertheless, he's exhausting, and his constant talking is extremely frustrating. I'm struggling today, and I haven't been…
It took several phone calls, but we finally have Emmett on the path to recovery. We will hopefully stop anyone else in our house from getting pink eye. On the way home from picking Elliott up from school, we hit the grocery store and then grabbed Emmett's eye drops before heading back. I'm slightly frazzled in general today, and I was heavily focused on getting Emmett fixed up ASAP. He needs drops in both eyes, four times a day for seven days. He should be good to return to school on Wednesday. Unfortunately, Emmett is not a fan of eye drops by any stretch of the imagination. Hopefully, he'll cooperate, and this doesn't turn into an even worse situation. So we're clear, Emmett's issues with eye drops are sensory in…
I got Elliott to school this morning and called the doctor about Emmett on my way to go walking. They didn't schedule an appointment yet because they may just call in a script. Pink eye is pretty straight forward. Emmett is miserable, and they haven't called back yet. I'm going to give them until noon, and if I haven't heard back, I'll call back. I may just run him to the urgent care, if we can't figure this out soon. Pink eye is incredibly contagious and I don't want to have our own little outbreak. Outside of that, Lizze isn't feeling well, Gavin is acting weird and my walk went great. 😀
It was a long night. Emmett slept until 2 AM before waking up in a panic because his eye was glued shut. I applied warm compresses until I was able to pry his eyelids apart. I'm not gonna lie; it was gross. The good news was that my eyes opened without any issue, which likely means I've escaped pink eye thus far. I managed to get Emmett back to sleep, but he woke again a couple of hours later. This time, both eyes were stuck shut. That's right, he now has pink eye in both eyes and is twice as miserable. I was unable to get him back to sleep that time. As I said, it's been a long night. The good news is that Elliott woke up pink eye…