Prep for Autism
22 May 2012 Leave a Comment
When I was a little girl I didn’t fit in very well I wore dresses when the other girls wore jeans. I had a different family from the other kids at school. Although at home those were the happiest years of my life at school they were hard and traumatizing. I spent a lot of lunches alone, I made up songs, I read books everything I could get my hands on even the encyclopedia.
My Aunt, her girlfriend and 2 kids lived upstairs from us. My little cousin was four when he passed away he was the size of a baby and still ate baby food. We called him ducky Warren. He didn’t speak very much but he had a smile that could light up the world. He was a very happy boy and we all loved him very much. That is when I started caring so much for the under dogs.
When my daughter was born I had a next door neighbor who liked to come over to play with her. I’m not sure of her exact disability, but she had the mentality of a child. She loved kids so I let her play with LPS whenever she was outside after a while I started letting her come in the house too but that was difficult because she would trip or slip on things easily and I was afraid of her getting hurt or breaking something. I let her play with my kids for years. She was around until My David was 2 when she started being hostile and ended up going to live with her mother in another state.
I think all of these things helped me to understand My David and prepared me to have patience with him. He may have a hard time communicating but he still loves. He may not fit in but he still is a kid and deserves to be loved. I truly believe that God gave him to me knowing that I was the mother he needed and that he was the son that I needed too. Before My David I thought that I was weak, fragile even. I thought that I couldn’t handle upsetting things, I couldn’t even look at my dad with out crying towards the end so I left. The worst part of that was that it was what everybody expected because that is who I was at the time. My David came and he only slept 20 minutes at a time, but I took care of him and he healed me by pulling that strength out of me. He looks just like my dad and that healed me too. Now I know that I would do anything for my kids even if it is hard they hold me together.
Nana
22 May 2012 Leave a Comment
We call my mom Nana and I don’t just mean me and the kids. The neighborhood kids and even the adults call her Nana too. She is always making neighbors into friends and friends into family. Their kids listen to her like they would their own grandparents. With some of them more than they would their grandparents she has their respect. She watched them on short notice when they couldn’t or didn’t want to go some where with their parents. She feeds them some without their knowing it came from her. She hates to see anybody go hungry especially children. She’s loaned out video games and gamer magazines. She’s gives them chores to do when they needed some extra money. She has such an open heart that many times it has been broken. People that we consider family have hurt us just as blood family often does, but it doesn’t keep her down. She is a role model for strength and love. I hope I can be as strong as she has become.
innocence lost - the siblings
22 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
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Katie and Brooke ~ Photo by Kathleen Connerton
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Their innocence lost, they had to be braver and more generous than children should have to be. ~ Eustacia Cutler, speaking of her other children – Temple’s siblings.
My heart is breaking.
It’s too much tonight.
These kids – these amazing little people – carry the weight of the world on their far too fragile shoulders.
Lil Big Boy
28 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in Raising Kids Tags: doctors, hair pulling out stress, kids
Little boy is sick again, some stomach virus, the same one My David had at the end of last week. On top of that allergies have been driving us crazy it’s been just warm enough to have tree pollen and not warm enough to turn the heaters off. I’m dreading how ever long he’s going to be home for this one. He already doesn’t want to go to school and every time he has a break or gets sick it’s worse trying to get him to go back.
I had an I.E.P. for him last week it totally drained me and accomplished nothing. The teacher doesn’t want to add gross motor to his qualifications for special ed and doesn’t want to do physiological evaluations until just before he starts Kindergarten so about a year from now. She’s still saying she doesn’t see any signs of anxiety with Lil Boy.
I have another person that works with him we are going to do a Deca test, social/emotional test, so we have that to bring to the school district. Then we can get the ball rolling on switching him to the other local school district. I’ve been told they only take kids from my school district the qualify for more than speech.
I also have the lovely job of finding a pediatrician for Lil Boy so he can have his hearing tested and I can prove that there is nothing wrong with it. He doesn’t answer when the teacher calls his name, to me that is a big alarm, but she thinks he needs his hearing checked. I also have to get him back to the ENT to say whether his speech delay is due to his tonsils being large. I have to wait until he’s not sick or allergic to do that because every time I’ve taken him to the doctor, the doctor would blame the large tonsils on him being sick.
The good news is he’s making good progress in Speech and fine motor. He’s no longer holding the crayons like he’s going to kill the paper. Except when he is trying to kill the paper. Also he knows his name and can recognize it in print.
I need to get me in too because all of this stress has me pulling my hair out and I need something. Also, I’m going to try to get my drivers license and need something for that anxiety too. For anybody that doesn’t know I hate driving, have been frightened of it since I was a little girl and have never had a license.
Off topic My David is Autistic and he knows it. We were watching a news program about new findings with Autism and he said “I’m Autistic”
Shut In Mama
10 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
I have recently realized I am totally shut in my house on most weeks.
I take Little Pop Star to baton once a week, drop her off and pick her up. I don’t know any of the parents there so I hardly ever talk to anybody during these trips.
I went to a PTO meeting this week I haven’t been in a long while, I knew the principal and one teacher, I recognized one other parent. I was late and because of Little Boy not feeling well I had to leave early. I didn’t recognize the new President of PTO or the Treasurer because I hadn’t been in so long but they seem like people I would like to be friends with.
I some times talk to people that I run into in the grocery store, but even that is less frequent because people must be forgetting about me. My cousin didn’t say hello to me when I saw her in the store. The grandfather of Little Boy’s sister, who came to my wedding didn’t know me when I said hi to him. I’m pretty sure I haven’t changed much, most people say I look the same. Maybe it’s just that nobody sees me and they have forgotten I exist.
This gave me the urge to start volunteering at the school or going places where there are adults but then I come back to the same reasons why that won’t work.
I turned on the computer and reached out to people I can be myself with and not have to leave my kids with strangers to do it.
Also posting a recent picture soon so none of my friend will not know me when they do see me.
I No Like School!
30 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
Little Boy doesn’t like school he tells me all the time. At first I thought well it’s just a phase, just something he’ll get over.
This has been going on since November.
He started wetting himself at school, the school thinks maybe he’s just distracted and doesn’t want to go potty.
Am I just an anxiety ridden Autism Mom looking for problems, I don’t think so, but how would I know.
He’s been going to bed easily for weeks now he thinks he need a bath as soon as the sun goes down, but I deal with it to try and resolve this. This usually means dinner at 6. Am I hungry at 6 no, but I deal with it because schedules are good for children. Yet the teacher is assuming that it must be something at home that makes him not want to go to school. I don’t think so!
I don’t fuss over him leaving, I have even been leaving him more often without him getting upset. I actually shower during the day whether he’s home or not and he doesn’t cry about it any more.
Wits End hold on I’m getting there!
My ASD Child's Most Annoying Habits... (You know the one that really drives me up the wall.)
28 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
- Repeating something until you say what they want to hear lol.
- Constant humming … sometimes I can tune it out but theres other times it absolutely drives me insane…. worse than nails down a chalkboard.
- Licking the walls, snowbanks, and other related things.
- The extremely high pitched screaming out of nowhere just for pure entertainment in public lmao well maybe I kinda find that amusing.
The Simplest and Most Ridiculous Things my ASD Child Ever Had a Meltdown Over was...
28 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
- Because we were out of string cheese.
- Somebody commented on how cute his boots looked on him.
- Because I put 7 marshmellows instead of 6 in his hot chocolate drink.
- He had 3 twizzlers and not 5. He has a thing about everything being 5.
- Because he missed the first minute of his daily Rosary on TV.
- Because school was closed.
Most Expensive Things Our ASD Kids Have Damaged or Completely Destroyed.
24 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
- My spare time.
- A remote control by peeing on it.
- Our entire house.
- Every vacuum I ever had. We have to get a new one every two months.
- A brand new Sony PSP by throwing it in the dumpster.
- My toilet, he flushed batman down it to watch him swim and clogged it to the point that not even the plumber could get it out.
Foood and Autism
14 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Autism, Raising Kids
Corm in the chili, no bar-b-Que sauce for the meat what were we thinking! Something green, it better not even come near my David’s plate.
I dream about making one pot meals or casseroles , I know the kids won’t eat them though so it’s hot dogs, chicken nuggets or pizza. My daughter will eat vegetables even spinach and she likes fish, but squeaky wheel gets the oil as they say. The closest we get to putting vegetables on My David’s plate is sneaking it in the spaghetti sauce pureed of course.
Most people don’t understand this parents with typical children will say something like well all kids want to eat those things or if you keep giving it to them eventually they will eat it. My David has literally thrown up trying to eat cooked vegetables. He will not eat the other foods he will go hungry not just for one meal but for however many meals there are where his foods are not served. I’ve tried vitamins for him, even the expensive liquid ones, until he noticed they were in his cup and wouldn’t drink. I got fed up with having to dump the cup and give him something else after hours of him not drinking anything.
I have tried making the fake nuggets, the all beef hot dogs and the pizza with peppers or other vegetables, but he can always tell. I hope at some point this will improve. We almost had an improvement with Yo-Gaba-Gaba try it you’ll like it song but it doesn’t work any more.
