Oh I do love a good birthday party! But it's fair to say Long Legs hasn't had many of these over the years, so today's birthday party was extra fun. You may have read a post I put on my FB page a few days ago about a mother who invited strangers to her daughter's birthday because nobody had rsvped and over 100 strangers turned up to celebrate with her. I totally understand why the mother did it as planning birthdays for Long Legs has never been just a simple who do you want to invite and what do you want to do?
Parties haven't been a big part of his childhood, either his own or as a guest at others. Once things started to go a little pear shaped socially for him, his birthdays had to be planned strategically. As any parent who has been in this situation knows, and I know there are
a lot of us, watching everyone receive a Christmas card except your
child or knowing the parties that are happening in their class but with
no invites coming his way, makes you do things other parents don't even
have to think about.
When he was 6, he had just started primary school and as one of the first birthdays for his class, I simply invited every single boy to his birthday. That way, with no way of knowing if he would make friends, I could at least ensure he was at least invited to their birthdays that year out of politeness. During his 6th birthday, all of the boys had fun playing the games in the swimming pool whilst he stayed in the corner of the pool splashing around on his own. My husband and I were bothered by this in one respect, but our son was having a party with a load of boys from his class. We hoped this gave him a fighting chance for the rest of the year.
I could honestly count on two hands maximum how many birthdays he has been invited to since we moved inter-state just before he turned 7. When he was 8, I decided to have a big party for him in the local park to try and assist in the friendship making process again. 3 children rsvped out of the many I had invited which made it less of
a party and more of a play at the park with 3 friends. I was devastated and I haven't bothered trying to organise a party since.
He started high school this year and got off to a slightly rocky start with his attempts to make friends involving some interesting manoeuvres on his part. Thankfully, he settled down pretty quickly, but kids don't forget. Having not had a party since his 6th birthday, I decided this year was the year and I let him invite quite a few boys to go karting with him today. As anybody who has ever gone karting knows, it is not a cheap activity. On any other occasion I might have suggested he took a few good friends, especially given my husband was out of work for two months at the end of last year. An expensive party would in any other household be the thing to go by the wayside at such times. But when he looks back at
photos of his birthdays, I want him to have memories of a party and not feel like he has missed out. And yes this was as much for me as it was for him. Most importantly, for socialisation reasons, I want the boys in his class to get to know the real him.
Today I watched him kart, go on amusement rides, play mini-golf and laugh with his group of friends and be totally involved with his own party. Obviously this is such a far cry from his 6th birthday. I also noticed he wasn't making any inappropriate social attempts to get anyone's attention, the boys were all running around having fun and let's just say watching them drive and hit a few tyres was making us parents cringe but laugh out loud. I now have the all important photos to record the day and he can go to school on Monday and share the memories of the day with his friends who he hopefully will continue to just be himself with and not feel he has to try so hard to fit in. I consider today's party to be very much part of the cost of raising a child with ASD. It wasn't just a party for a party's sake. Instead of spending a couple of hours in a psychologist's office talking about the theory of social skills, he spent several hours putting those skills into practice. I reckon the party cost about the same as 2 hours in his psych's office but don't know for sure. Once I am brave enough to look at the credit card statement, I'll add it to my yearly total. Til tomorrow x
Autism Angel
Sunday, 26 April 2015
Friday, 24 April 2015
April 24th 2015 - Snogging Ricky Gervais
Sleep deprivation and exhaustion is a funny thing. You either get seriously cranky, or go delirious. I decided today I would enter delirium. This morning my husband, as he left for work at the crack of dawn, did not get a wave with my happy smile, he didn't even get my usual grunt as he left. My mother did not get her morning facebook chat. Instead, I was head under duvet, deep in slumber, dreaming I was snogging Ricky Gervais! Yes people, you read that right. In my defence, Ricky was looking quite handsome. He wasn't looking like one of his Twitter photos in which he tries to pull the ugliest face he can. And by snog, I really mean more of a chin suck, no lips were locked and I ended up googling how tall he actually is this morning out of curiosity.
My children then had the pleasure of a mother who's eyes needed sticks in. as to amuse myself and keep me awake whilst driving them to school, I decided to entertain them. By entertain, I mean sing along to the songs the Short One likes to play on his iPad when he is in the car. One of his current favourites, I learned this morning, is Eye of the Tiger from Rocky III. This song is from my generation and you tell me who isn't tempted to sing the high bits? So there I was and eye of the tiger just can't help escaping my lips in my best high pitch. Long Legs rolled his eyes and told me how embarrassing I was - like the other drivers could hear! And the Short One told me I was ruining his favourite song! And if I didn't stop he would turn the music off!!! Yeah like that's gonna stop me. I kissed Long Legs goodbye and wound down his window as he walked into school and gave him a farewell 'eye of the tiger'. He didn't turn around to wave goodbye to me. Funny that. I have continued to giggle at myself all day, plus a few others. I like being tired, it's really funny! Til tomorrow x ps Ricky Gervais is 3 inches taller than me!
My children then had the pleasure of a mother who's eyes needed sticks in. as to amuse myself and keep me awake whilst driving them to school, I decided to entertain them. By entertain, I mean sing along to the songs the Short One likes to play on his iPad when he is in the car. One of his current favourites, I learned this morning, is Eye of the Tiger from Rocky III. This song is from my generation and you tell me who isn't tempted to sing the high bits? So there I was and eye of the tiger just can't help escaping my lips in my best high pitch. Long Legs rolled his eyes and told me how embarrassing I was - like the other drivers could hear! And the Short One told me I was ruining his favourite song! And if I didn't stop he would turn the music off!!! Yeah like that's gonna stop me. I kissed Long Legs goodbye and wound down his window as he walked into school and gave him a farewell 'eye of the tiger'. He didn't turn around to wave goodbye to me. Funny that. I have continued to giggle at myself all day, plus a few others. I like being tired, it's really funny! Til tomorrow x ps Ricky Gervais is 3 inches taller than me!
April 23rd 2015 - Cheese and Chocolate
Long Legs has in the space of 12 hours driven me absolute potty with a couple of things he's done and in the midst of my ranting to him, he has made me laugh. Rant was ended. I am so glad he has done this and I hope, given it's success rate so far has been 100%, he will keep doing it. You may think it's wrong that I am hoping my 12-year-old son will help keep me calm when it should be the other way around. I do count to 100 on a daily basis. I also lose my rag on a daily basis. I feel like I should know better, and I do, but all the education,
training and knowledge in the world does not prepare you for what it's
actually like on the western front.
I shared a post the other day on my facebook and twitter pages about a mother who said she was glad her son was on medication for his ADHD. If you read the post you would have seen how she felt like the motherhood gig was clearly not her forte because she was such a cranky and impatient mother. Once her son was on medication she realised that she was in fact a good, patient mother. The medication either made her son's issues disappear for the day or were reduced. Having some semblance of 'normality' gave her the patience she needed for when his issues returned at the end of the day once the meds had worn off. As much as it is not PC to say she's happy her son is on meds, she also likes how she feels as a mother because he is. I get that.
I resonated with this piece because there is pretty much not a day that goes by where I don't feel like the worst mother ever because of something I say or do to my boys because of a lack of patience. One is on meds, the other isn't. I would love to say the medication has such a dramatic transformation on my eldest that I don't find him hard work when he is on them. Unfortunately, as much as they do dramatically help his attention and impulsivity, they are not little miracle pills. The Short One's issues cannot be assisted by medication and although I do not find him as exhausting as his brother, he is still fairly draining on a daily basis. I know the combination of both of their issues plus the years of having to deal with them has sucked out my back up reserves of patience and so I literally have my daily reserves to work with. It's a bit like a device being charged up for only 5 minutes as opposed to an all night battery back up; it's going to run out fairly quickly.
If you haven't read the post, here is something else she said. " Lucas isn’t the only one who’s been suffering here. ADHD had been wearing all of us down, especially me, his primary caregiver. I’d been worrying for so many years that the constant negative feedback Lucas received at school would condition him to believe that all he could expect from life was an endless torrent of people begging him to pay attention and telling him his best wasn’t good enough. A justifiable concern, for sure. But I nearly overlooked what ADHD had done to the rest of our family. To me."
So here we go back to the beginning and my hopes that my son will help keep me calm when he has one of his moments. Last night, for the third night in a row, he played up at bed time rolling around in the sleeping back his friend used at the weekend, squirming like a caterpillar under our bed and refusing to come out. He has insisted every night that he wants to sleep in our room, which is not helped by the fact his brother has been sleeping in our room since we returned from the UK in January - that's another story! My husband had a moment of genius when he said the problem was we've turned his fan off because night time temperatures have dropped dramatically this week. He clearly is soothed by the sound of white noise which must block off whatever noises he can hear which hinder him dropping off. We put on calming music on night 2 to give him some noise and left his fairy lights on and off he dropped.
We forgot to do it last night but getting into a routine of giving him these new techniques to help drop off takes us a while. He on the other hand very quickly gets into bad habits which become his routine. His new bedtime routine tends to go on for about half an hour and last night, whilst I persisted for quite a while simply asking him to get up off the floor and go to bed, with a constant answer of 'no', my patience eventually lost and the yelling won. Naturally he was not impressed with me and as I am frequently told when I raise my voice 'you're mean!'. As he stomped off back to his room yelling at me for being a meanie, I yelled at him 'if you won't move, what do you want me to do? You can't just sit there saying no all night?!?' To which he replied 'give me cheese!' We both started laughing, I gave him a cuddle and then put him to bed where he stayed.
Pretty much the same happened this morning, he stole chocolate from the fridge which is something of a habit of his and for which we have told him umpteen times the rules about taking food without asking. So after the third minute of letting steam pour from my ears in fury, I again could not hold it in any longer and yelled 'what bit about the rule, do not take chocolate from the fridge do you not understand? Why do you keep doing it?!' To which he replied 'because I like chocolate.' I really have no argument with that. Cue more laughter. Tonight the fan will be back on, if it is too cold to be facing him, I will simply point it towards a wall but at least the noise will still be there. I will also have a kilo of cheese under my pillow in case of emergencies. Til tomorrow x
I shared a post the other day on my facebook and twitter pages about a mother who said she was glad her son was on medication for his ADHD. If you read the post you would have seen how she felt like the motherhood gig was clearly not her forte because she was such a cranky and impatient mother. Once her son was on medication she realised that she was in fact a good, patient mother. The medication either made her son's issues disappear for the day or were reduced. Having some semblance of 'normality' gave her the patience she needed for when his issues returned at the end of the day once the meds had worn off. As much as it is not PC to say she's happy her son is on meds, she also likes how she feels as a mother because he is. I get that.
I resonated with this piece because there is pretty much not a day that goes by where I don't feel like the worst mother ever because of something I say or do to my boys because of a lack of patience. One is on meds, the other isn't. I would love to say the medication has such a dramatic transformation on my eldest that I don't find him hard work when he is on them. Unfortunately, as much as they do dramatically help his attention and impulsivity, they are not little miracle pills. The Short One's issues cannot be assisted by medication and although I do not find him as exhausting as his brother, he is still fairly draining on a daily basis. I know the combination of both of their issues plus the years of having to deal with them has sucked out my back up reserves of patience and so I literally have my daily reserves to work with. It's a bit like a device being charged up for only 5 minutes as opposed to an all night battery back up; it's going to run out fairly quickly.
If you haven't read the post, here is something else she said. " Lucas isn’t the only one who’s been suffering here. ADHD had been wearing all of us down, especially me, his primary caregiver. I’d been worrying for so many years that the constant negative feedback Lucas received at school would condition him to believe that all he could expect from life was an endless torrent of people begging him to pay attention and telling him his best wasn’t good enough. A justifiable concern, for sure. But I nearly overlooked what ADHD had done to the rest of our family. To me."
So here we go back to the beginning and my hopes that my son will help keep me calm when he has one of his moments. Last night, for the third night in a row, he played up at bed time rolling around in the sleeping back his friend used at the weekend, squirming like a caterpillar under our bed and refusing to come out. He has insisted every night that he wants to sleep in our room, which is not helped by the fact his brother has been sleeping in our room since we returned from the UK in January - that's another story! My husband had a moment of genius when he said the problem was we've turned his fan off because night time temperatures have dropped dramatically this week. He clearly is soothed by the sound of white noise which must block off whatever noises he can hear which hinder him dropping off. We put on calming music on night 2 to give him some noise and left his fairy lights on and off he dropped.
We forgot to do it last night but getting into a routine of giving him these new techniques to help drop off takes us a while. He on the other hand very quickly gets into bad habits which become his routine. His new bedtime routine tends to go on for about half an hour and last night, whilst I persisted for quite a while simply asking him to get up off the floor and go to bed, with a constant answer of 'no', my patience eventually lost and the yelling won. Naturally he was not impressed with me and as I am frequently told when I raise my voice 'you're mean!'. As he stomped off back to his room yelling at me for being a meanie, I yelled at him 'if you won't move, what do you want me to do? You can't just sit there saying no all night?!?' To which he replied 'give me cheese!' We both started laughing, I gave him a cuddle and then put him to bed where he stayed.
Pretty much the same happened this morning, he stole chocolate from the fridge which is something of a habit of his and for which we have told him umpteen times the rules about taking food without asking. So after the third minute of letting steam pour from my ears in fury, I again could not hold it in any longer and yelled 'what bit about the rule, do not take chocolate from the fridge do you not understand? Why do you keep doing it?!' To which he replied 'because I like chocolate.' I really have no argument with that. Cue more laughter. Tonight the fan will be back on, if it is too cold to be facing him, I will simply point it towards a wall but at least the noise will still be there. I will also have a kilo of cheese under my pillow in case of emergencies. Til tomorrow x
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
Apirl 22nd 2015 - Hair Today Gone Tomorrow
I had my hair cut yesterday for the first time in 5 months. The last time I had it done was a couple of days before my husband was made redundant. He got the call that his employers had gone belly up whilst we were in the UK and this meant he was out of work for the 2 months we were there. I am the only one in this family who actually pays for her hair to be cut so I simply haven't had it done whilst we get back on financial track. The reason no-one else pays for a hair cut in this family is that my husband is from Yorkshire. And my boys have ASD.
Ask the mother of a child with ASD what her preferred method of torture would be if the choice was taking her child for a hair cut or having a hot poker pressed to her skin, she would choose the hot poker any day! I have had years of torture as the only way to get them to have a haircut was to do it myself. This usually involved me doing a couple of snips and then boom! Long Legs used to run around the house screaming because the hair felt like cut glass on the skin. The Short One is fidgets and squirms and jumps up when he's had enough regardless of whether he looks like one of the 3 Stooges.
I took Long Legs to a hairdressers when he was a toddler once, any attempts after that were disastrous. So I took to snipping his hair myself when he was asleep (as I suspect a lot of us have done at some point) just so he could see out of his eyes. The Short One started off quite promisingly and I was able to take him to the hairdressers but he has got worse over the years. He used to quite happily sit and have his hair cut by a hairdresser, by sit happily I mean not fidget and squirm every time a pair of scissors went near him. As I was doing his brother's hair, eventually when we moved states and I lost my hairdresser, I just started to do his too. Silly me.
I thought we'd had a breakthrough with Long Legs a few years ago when he had his hair cut in the UK. I don't know whether it was the fact the hairdresser was completely camp and over the top that made him sit still or that we'd persuaded him to have his hair cut by the same hairdresser who cut his equally hair cutting phobic cousin. He had, at this point in his life, just started brushing therapy with the OT. Now I must point out, the brushing technique is NOT an evidence based practice. That just means, not enough kids with ASD have shown enough improvement after this therapy. For us, however, it most definitely had a significant effect and Long Leg's sat still in the hairdresser's chair. Back to Australia and without a hairdresser I was back to my snipping and although Long Legs was better with me, it was still pretty painful.
In the end it got so bad with both of them I just said, no more, I am never doing this again! They screamed, I screamed, hair went everywhere and it was, well torture. As Long Legs entered senior year at primary school, the rules about length of hair became very strict and after a warning from the teacher that he would have to wear it in a pony-tail, I decided to bite the bullet and took him straight to a new barbers that had opened. This then involved Long Legs sitting there refusing to get in the chair for a very long time whilst my face was trying to convey to the hairdresser and the other people in the room that he wasn't being a brat. Eventually he got in the chair after the addition of a little bribery, I mean positive reinforcement. I then took the Short One a few days later, my nerves couldn't cope with both on the same day, and he obliged the first time. However, the second time we went back, Long Legs sat there good as gold but the Short One had such a bad experience with a different hairdresser, who seemed to think when I said 'no clippers' I meant, 'please keep bringing the clippers out and put them near my son's ears, even if I shake my head furiously at you and say no', that he has pretty much refused haircuts since.
When we were in the UK before Xmas, Grandma's hairdresser came to give them both a haircut and they did pretty well, but the Short One moaned like buggery that he didn't want it done. Before we returned to Australia and back to school, we couldn't get Grandma's hairdresser to come back and do them again so Daddy took them to Grandad's barber. Long Legs turned up later looking like he'd had a hair cut, the Short One, not so much. That's because he'd refused to get in the chair! Alas, the haircut Long Legs had had, was actually short lived.
He started high school this year which has a strict uniform policy and a stipulation in the school guide that hair is not to be extreme or dyed. So he had a much shorter cut than usual but it turned out to be too long. He returned home the day of his formal school photo to inform me that they refused to take his photo because the school rules (not actually stated in their prospectus!) are no hair over the ears and it is not allowed to be touching the eye-brows. I spat the dummy for a while and then sucked it up. I did after all choose a high school for Long Legs which had strict rules and boundaries because this is what suits him best. So then I panicked at the thought of how do I get his hair cut around his ears and got ready to do battle.
Thankfully, a rather interesting looking footballer came to my rescue who goes by the name of Namar. Now, if like me you have no idea who this dude is, you can be assured that as a footballer, his hair is not short back and sides. Long Legs agreed to a hair cut as long as I made him look like Mr Namar. I pointed out that I didn't quite think Long Legs would get away with the dyed blonde spikey fringe or the no.1 clip up the back. So we compromised on it being quite short up the back (and around the ears!) and that I would give him a long enough fringe for the flickability factor. Success! Child happy, he actually loved the feel of the short hair. School happy, photo taken.
So term 2 has just started and I said to Long Legs, better have a quick tidy up, that fringe is at least 1mm over the eyebrows! As much as he tried to tell me he could just sweep it to the sides, I convinced him, a quick snip was all that was needed. I suggested the previous time that it would be helpful if I could use Daddy's clippers and he wasn't completely averse to the idea but I chickened out and stuck with the trusty comb and scissors. This time, having just done Daddy's wig, I suggested them again and lo and behold he did not do a Usain on me as the buzz of the clippers started up but sat there and let me clip. I clipped his hair. Around his ears we went without a flinch and then he requested a 'V' shape to be cut into the back of his head which I diligently did for him of course. It made my life sooooo much easier and I can at least think about his next hair cut without getting night terrors. He has made so many advancements lately that I think he must be on a roll. I wonder what else I can introduce? The Short One will, however, be getting a quick clip in his sleep over the next few days...
Til tomorrow x
Ask the mother of a child with ASD what her preferred method of torture would be if the choice was taking her child for a hair cut or having a hot poker pressed to her skin, she would choose the hot poker any day! I have had years of torture as the only way to get them to have a haircut was to do it myself. This usually involved me doing a couple of snips and then boom! Long Legs used to run around the house screaming because the hair felt like cut glass on the skin. The Short One is fidgets and squirms and jumps up when he's had enough regardless of whether he looks like one of the 3 Stooges.
I took Long Legs to a hairdressers when he was a toddler once, any attempts after that were disastrous. So I took to snipping his hair myself when he was asleep (as I suspect a lot of us have done at some point) just so he could see out of his eyes. The Short One started off quite promisingly and I was able to take him to the hairdressers but he has got worse over the years. He used to quite happily sit and have his hair cut by a hairdresser, by sit happily I mean not fidget and squirm every time a pair of scissors went near him. As I was doing his brother's hair, eventually when we moved states and I lost my hairdresser, I just started to do his too. Silly me.
I thought we'd had a breakthrough with Long Legs a few years ago when he had his hair cut in the UK. I don't know whether it was the fact the hairdresser was completely camp and over the top that made him sit still or that we'd persuaded him to have his hair cut by the same hairdresser who cut his equally hair cutting phobic cousin. He had, at this point in his life, just started brushing therapy with the OT. Now I must point out, the brushing technique is NOT an evidence based practice. That just means, not enough kids with ASD have shown enough improvement after this therapy. For us, however, it most definitely had a significant effect and Long Leg's sat still in the hairdresser's chair. Back to Australia and without a hairdresser I was back to my snipping and although Long Legs was better with me, it was still pretty painful.
In the end it got so bad with both of them I just said, no more, I am never doing this again! They screamed, I screamed, hair went everywhere and it was, well torture. As Long Legs entered senior year at primary school, the rules about length of hair became very strict and after a warning from the teacher that he would have to wear it in a pony-tail, I decided to bite the bullet and took him straight to a new barbers that had opened. This then involved Long Legs sitting there refusing to get in the chair for a very long time whilst my face was trying to convey to the hairdresser and the other people in the room that he wasn't being a brat. Eventually he got in the chair after the addition of a little bribery, I mean positive reinforcement. I then took the Short One a few days later, my nerves couldn't cope with both on the same day, and he obliged the first time. However, the second time we went back, Long Legs sat there good as gold but the Short One had such a bad experience with a different hairdresser, who seemed to think when I said 'no clippers' I meant, 'please keep bringing the clippers out and put them near my son's ears, even if I shake my head furiously at you and say no', that he has pretty much refused haircuts since.
When we were in the UK before Xmas, Grandma's hairdresser came to give them both a haircut and they did pretty well, but the Short One moaned like buggery that he didn't want it done. Before we returned to Australia and back to school, we couldn't get Grandma's hairdresser to come back and do them again so Daddy took them to Grandad's barber. Long Legs turned up later looking like he'd had a hair cut, the Short One, not so much. That's because he'd refused to get in the chair! Alas, the haircut Long Legs had had, was actually short lived.
He started high school this year which has a strict uniform policy and a stipulation in the school guide that hair is not to be extreme or dyed. So he had a much shorter cut than usual but it turned out to be too long. He returned home the day of his formal school photo to inform me that they refused to take his photo because the school rules (not actually stated in their prospectus!) are no hair over the ears and it is not allowed to be touching the eye-brows. I spat the dummy for a while and then sucked it up. I did after all choose a high school for Long Legs which had strict rules and boundaries because this is what suits him best. So then I panicked at the thought of how do I get his hair cut around his ears and got ready to do battle.
Thankfully, a rather interesting looking footballer came to my rescue who goes by the name of Namar. Now, if like me you have no idea who this dude is, you can be assured that as a footballer, his hair is not short back and sides. Long Legs agreed to a hair cut as long as I made him look like Mr Namar. I pointed out that I didn't quite think Long Legs would get away with the dyed blonde spikey fringe or the no.1 clip up the back. So we compromised on it being quite short up the back (and around the ears!) and that I would give him a long enough fringe for the flickability factor. Success! Child happy, he actually loved the feel of the short hair. School happy, photo taken.
So term 2 has just started and I said to Long Legs, better have a quick tidy up, that fringe is at least 1mm over the eyebrows! As much as he tried to tell me he could just sweep it to the sides, I convinced him, a quick snip was all that was needed. I suggested the previous time that it would be helpful if I could use Daddy's clippers and he wasn't completely averse to the idea but I chickened out and stuck with the trusty comb and scissors. This time, having just done Daddy's wig, I suggested them again and lo and behold he did not do a Usain on me as the buzz of the clippers started up but sat there and let me clip. I clipped his hair. Around his ears we went without a flinch and then he requested a 'V' shape to be cut into the back of his head which I diligently did for him of course. It made my life sooooo much easier and I can at least think about his next hair cut without getting night terrors. He has made so many advancements lately that I think he must be on a roll. I wonder what else I can introduce? The Short One will, however, be getting a quick clip in his sleep over the next few days...
Til tomorrow x
Tuesday, 21 April 2015
April 21st 2015 - Blah!
Some days, are days like today. I had a unique experience of breaking up a physical fight between my boys after school because one touched the other's Lego. I had legs and arms akimbo pushing them apart whilst they continued to scream at each other, so I stood in the living room making a very loud, very high pitched noise for a loooooonnnggg time to diffuse the situation. They both burst out laughing and carried on playing. I poured myself a drink and collapsed. The End. Til tomorrow x
Monday, 20 April 2015
April 20th 2015 - Run Forest Run!
Today the groans were audible from my bedroom. First day of term upsets me more than the boys. Back to the usual routines, which for me are memorable, but alas routines for the boys are not so entrenched. The Short One will stand there in nothing but his undies and declare that he 'doesn't know what he has to do!' I of course reply, 'are you planning on going to school in the nude?' Yes we have been doing the same thing for many years. Yes I have visual schedules. But the Short One will not use it because there is one thing on the list which he doesn't do any more. The visual schedule is laminated for heaven's sake and he wants me to just get rid instead of just missing out the steps he doesn't need to take. Long Legs is much more independent these days but if left to his own devices completely, he would have lost all his teeth years ago as he fails every day to see the importance of cleaning his teeth.
The Short One had his first senior cross-country today, a proper run around the school course. In true cross-country style, it had been raining the night before so there was plenty of mud to trudge through. I always thought the Short One would have my capacity for running, think Phoebe running in Friends with her legs going everywhere. He has consistently got faster every year and he may well do the same as his brother and get better every year. Long Legs made the top 3 only when he was Grade 6 and this year in Grade 7 he came first. The Short One today was in the top 10 but I was too busy shouting at the top of my lungs (I learned from best when it comes to being the most embarrassing mother at sports events - my own mother) to actually count how many were in front of him.
I always feel a little bereft when they are back at school and I need a day or so to remember what to do when they are not here. But before I knew it, it was time to pick them up and head off to see Long Legs' psych. She is a fabulous woman who really knows how to talk to tweenage boys. Long Legs always rolls his eyes and moans that he has to go but he always has a grown up talk with her and they both come out laughing. She spoke to me today about the fact that he loves learning 'hands on' and suggested we start incorporating learning social skills and increasing his confidence in a practical setting. I mentioned how I had just started taking him to the go-kart track for those very reasons and intended to make it a regular thing and I could tell without her saying it that she thought I was a genius ha ha! So I handed over my credit card for $250 feeling proud of myself and backed up in my choice of 'therapy' which as I said the other day, could look to an untrained eye as a luxury. After today, a trip to the go-kart track looks positively cheap. Today's costs are $270. Til tomorrow x
The Short One had his first senior cross-country today, a proper run around the school course. In true cross-country style, it had been raining the night before so there was plenty of mud to trudge through. I always thought the Short One would have my capacity for running, think Phoebe running in Friends with her legs going everywhere. He has consistently got faster every year and he may well do the same as his brother and get better every year. Long Legs made the top 3 only when he was Grade 6 and this year in Grade 7 he came first. The Short One today was in the top 10 but I was too busy shouting at the top of my lungs (I learned from best when it comes to being the most embarrassing mother at sports events - my own mother) to actually count how many were in front of him.
I always feel a little bereft when they are back at school and I need a day or so to remember what to do when they are not here. But before I knew it, it was time to pick them up and head off to see Long Legs' psych. She is a fabulous woman who really knows how to talk to tweenage boys. Long Legs always rolls his eyes and moans that he has to go but he always has a grown up talk with her and they both come out laughing. She spoke to me today about the fact that he loves learning 'hands on' and suggested we start incorporating learning social skills and increasing his confidence in a practical setting. I mentioned how I had just started taking him to the go-kart track for those very reasons and intended to make it a regular thing and I could tell without her saying it that she thought I was a genius ha ha! So I handed over my credit card for $250 feeling proud of myself and backed up in my choice of 'therapy' which as I said the other day, could look to an untrained eye as a luxury. After today, a trip to the go-kart track looks positively cheap. Today's costs are $270. Til tomorrow x
Sunday, 19 April 2015
April 19th 2015 - Spongebob Snooze Pants
An event rarer than a lunar eclipse happened in our house this morning. Firstly, we all slept past 7am on a Sunday morning. But more amazing than that, Long Legs slept past 8am. I then went on to lose nearly 2 hours of my life by going to see the Spongebob movie. Let's go back a couple of weeks when the film first came out. The Short One was desperate to see it but as there were lots of other films out at the same time, I 'suggested' Spongebob might need to be left til the weekend because Daddy would want to see it too. The Short One was happy with this and it soon became entrenched in his mind that he could not go and see it unless Daddy was there too. I had a day at Uni last Saturday, perfect opportunity to go. Daddy decided to take them elsewhere. The Short One was not impressed. Mummy less so. The Short One is so desperate to go, I suggested it as an option when we had a trip to the movies in the week. Long Legs declared all the films too babyish, on the back of going to see Fast and Furious 7 for his friend's birthday, declaring I only see M films now Mums. Ha ha, yeah right. The Short One said no, because he had to go with Daddy.
Yesterday, Mummy suggested another perfect opportunity to go. As you know, if you read yesterday's post, Daddy decided to go the water park. The Short One by now is getting grumpy. His Spongebob t-shirt is virtually walking out of his chest of drawers itself to climb onto the Short One's body. So this morning was to be the morning all was well. I prepared to wave them off and rather stupidly said, 'you don't want me to come too do you?' 'Of course I do Mummy.' Ah well, it can't be as bad as the reviews are making it out to be. Well actually, I haven't read those reviews but I've heard they are not good. It would be fair to say they are pretty accurate. Praise the Lord for Antonio Banderas, the only reason I did not stuff popcorn up my nostrils in an attempt to snuff myself out of the misery. The movie makers knew what they were doing casting him in the role as an appeasement to all the poor mothers out there who were being made to go and see this film. But the stinger, the absolute nails being pulled out by pliers moment has to go to the Short One after the film ended, who then declared it 'boring'...
We decided (the husband and I) to increase the agony by then popping into the shop for some food. The Short One's pain knew no bounds and Long Legs who was expecting LL2 to return for a play, after his comatosed state last night, was equally unimpressed. We made it out alive and without the need to deny all knowledge of knowing who 'those children' belong to. I joke of course about shopping nightmares but it's really no joke on occasion and emotional regulation, which is an issue for both my boys, as it is I suspect for every child on the spectrum, can be very difficult to understand if you don't know the ASD reasoning behind it. The ASD brain can be very fixed in the way it thinks, that's why a lot of ASD kids need routine and to know what's happening and when. Any detour from things happening the way they expect can lead to a multitude of emotional responses.
The Short One expresses his inability to cope with things by crying. A lot. The Short One, if you did not know him and did not understand the agony he goes through when he doesn't understand why something is not going the way it is being played out in his head, you would think he was a spoiled brat who threw a tanty every 10 minutes because he wasn't getting his own way. It's very exhausting trying to pre-empt his every thought which of course is his thoughts, not words, so we have no idea what he's thinking and have to channel our inner psychicness. When I made Long Leg's birthday cake the other day, he had apparently asked to help me decorate it. Whilst I stood there decorating it on his actual birthday with Short One in the same room as me, watching me, I forgot his request. And clearly, given that he was watching me, he was that absorbed in the tv or Lego too much to remember himself. However, later on, his memory returned and he threw a major wobbler. He wanted to help me and I should have remembered.
Long Legs turns green and goes by the name of Hulk when he can't cope. Long Legs has improved dramatically over the years. His current displays involve shouting the word 'no' a lot and running away. I should be grateful my walls get left in one piece but it is highly frustrating. Last week he ran around the street refusing to get in the car because he had no warning that we were going out. Again, if you didn't know him, you would think he was being a very rude, insolent brat. Which to be fair, his method of choosing to tell me he is not happy with me is not acceptable so it's definitely something we have to work on tomorrow with the psych. Today he stomped around when we got home from the movies because his brain was stuck on the fact that LL2 was meant to be here today with him. He was that exhausted he fell asleep relatively drama free last night but he spent the day waiting to hear if LL2 was coming over today to play still. A message finally arrived from LL2's mother saying she was bringing him over, which I will confess, doing a little happy dance to.
Apart from a trip to the movies, the purse has had a day off today! So I'll leave you with a few stories from The World of The Short One. His brilliance showed no bounds with this. 'Mummy, in the film Ghost, how come the ghost can walk through walls but when he sat in a chair, he didn't fall through?' I had no answer. Later on when we were sharing a bath, his curiosity led to the opposite end of brilliance when he stuck his finger in the bath tap to see what happened. 'Mummy, my finger is stuck and it hurts.' Again, speechless. After our bath, he decided to show me his ridiculous by putting my white bra on his head with the cups over his eyes 'Mummy, look I'm Wall-E!' Head shake and eyes roll. Til tomorrow x
Yesterday, Mummy suggested another perfect opportunity to go. As you know, if you read yesterday's post, Daddy decided to go the water park. The Short One by now is getting grumpy. His Spongebob t-shirt is virtually walking out of his chest of drawers itself to climb onto the Short One's body. So this morning was to be the morning all was well. I prepared to wave them off and rather stupidly said, 'you don't want me to come too do you?' 'Of course I do Mummy.' Ah well, it can't be as bad as the reviews are making it out to be. Well actually, I haven't read those reviews but I've heard they are not good. It would be fair to say they are pretty accurate. Praise the Lord for Antonio Banderas, the only reason I did not stuff popcorn up my nostrils in an attempt to snuff myself out of the misery. The movie makers knew what they were doing casting him in the role as an appeasement to all the poor mothers out there who were being made to go and see this film. But the stinger, the absolute nails being pulled out by pliers moment has to go to the Short One after the film ended, who then declared it 'boring'...
We decided (the husband and I) to increase the agony by then popping into the shop for some food. The Short One's pain knew no bounds and Long Legs who was expecting LL2 to return for a play, after his comatosed state last night, was equally unimpressed. We made it out alive and without the need to deny all knowledge of knowing who 'those children' belong to. I joke of course about shopping nightmares but it's really no joke on occasion and emotional regulation, which is an issue for both my boys, as it is I suspect for every child on the spectrum, can be very difficult to understand if you don't know the ASD reasoning behind it. The ASD brain can be very fixed in the way it thinks, that's why a lot of ASD kids need routine and to know what's happening and when. Any detour from things happening the way they expect can lead to a multitude of emotional responses.
The Short One expresses his inability to cope with things by crying. A lot. The Short One, if you did not know him and did not understand the agony he goes through when he doesn't understand why something is not going the way it is being played out in his head, you would think he was a spoiled brat who threw a tanty every 10 minutes because he wasn't getting his own way. It's very exhausting trying to pre-empt his every thought which of course is his thoughts, not words, so we have no idea what he's thinking and have to channel our inner psychicness. When I made Long Leg's birthday cake the other day, he had apparently asked to help me decorate it. Whilst I stood there decorating it on his actual birthday with Short One in the same room as me, watching me, I forgot his request. And clearly, given that he was watching me, he was that absorbed in the tv or Lego too much to remember himself. However, later on, his memory returned and he threw a major wobbler. He wanted to help me and I should have remembered.
Long Legs turns green and goes by the name of Hulk when he can't cope. Long Legs has improved dramatically over the years. His current displays involve shouting the word 'no' a lot and running away. I should be grateful my walls get left in one piece but it is highly frustrating. Last week he ran around the street refusing to get in the car because he had no warning that we were going out. Again, if you didn't know him, you would think he was being a very rude, insolent brat. Which to be fair, his method of choosing to tell me he is not happy with me is not acceptable so it's definitely something we have to work on tomorrow with the psych. Today he stomped around when we got home from the movies because his brain was stuck on the fact that LL2 was meant to be here today with him. He was that exhausted he fell asleep relatively drama free last night but he spent the day waiting to hear if LL2 was coming over today to play still. A message finally arrived from LL2's mother saying she was bringing him over, which I will confess, doing a little happy dance to.
Apart from a trip to the movies, the purse has had a day off today! So I'll leave you with a few stories from The World of The Short One. His brilliance showed no bounds with this. 'Mummy, in the film Ghost, how come the ghost can walk through walls but when he sat in a chair, he didn't fall through?' I had no answer. Later on when we were sharing a bath, his curiosity led to the opposite end of brilliance when he stuck his finger in the bath tap to see what happened. 'Mummy, my finger is stuck and it hurts.' Again, speechless. After our bath, he decided to show me his ridiculous by putting my white bra on his head with the cups over his eyes 'Mummy, look I'm Wall-E!' Head shake and eyes roll. Til tomorrow x
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