yes things can get worse

this will be brief as my right hand is in a partial cast....

david had a bad meltdown tonight because i shut the tv of and told him that he had to get a shower so he smashed the metal folding stepstool into my right hand tonight as i tried to grab it from him so he wouldn't hit the tv with it, spent 3 hrs in the er. i have a bruised bone where the thumb joins the hand and he might have cracked one of the small bones between the thumb and index finger. i have to go for more xrays on tuesday and may have to see ortho, but he said that there might not be anything they can do. it hurts pretty bad. david cried when he realized that he hurt me and insisted that he come to the er to make sure that i was ok.

we are still headed camping for the weekend for his birthday, just won't be able to swim. good thing i fish lefty!

Meltdowns....

Well, the meltdowns have gotten worse since Dave had to deploy. He is back to hitting really hard and digging his nails into me. Thank goodness therapy is tomorrow....for both of us. I can't even go to the bathroom without him waiting right outside the door tapping on it to make sure I'm in there. I feel so bad that he is this upset and doesn't know how to verbalize his emotions.  Well, I have to go for now because he keeps calling me from the living room because he doesn't like to be alone right now.

Keeping my head above water

God I want to be able to swim right now, but I can barely keep my head above water and I am sinking fast! David is quickly digressing since Dave is deploying this weekend. He is showing so much anger and has such a mad looking face. He is putting his fingers in his mouth a lot again, spinning in circles and shaking his head from side to side. I know he is feeding off of my anxiety but I don't know how to make mine stop. I wish I could put and emotional bubble around him so that he can't see my pain.  David did well at therapy this morning. He will be using the sand tray more with his therapist to help express his emotions and we got into a group therapy for this summer to help him with social situations.

Today the truck handle broke on the inside so you can't get out without opening the window first. The inspection is due by the end of the month and it won't pass unless it is fix and I only have Dave for a few more days.

A Good Morning

I got up at 7:30 this morning and got the pup out, watered our topsy turvy tomato plant and filled the bird feeders that have been empty for about a week. David slept until 8:30 when I knew I had to wake him up so he wasn't up so late tonight for school tomorrow. He did really well getting up, took his morning medicine and has been having a good morning. He ate breakfast, played his transformers game on the xbox, had a snack and is watching a little tv. We do not have a very structured Sunday. He was very excited when he saw the cardinals at the feeders and a purple finch at the finch feeder. He loves to watch the birds eat and likes to identify them with the poster we hung by the window. Hopefully the rest of the day will be just as well as this morning.

Fishing Derby

The Cub Scout Fishing Derby was Awesome! David caught 5 fish and actually held a couple of them. This is amazing because he never held a fish before and he was really brave about it! I was so proud of him. He got a bit bored since it was a 2 1/2 hour event. He did have fun running around on the dock with the other scouts. Someone caught a turtle and David thought is was really neat. He was in a really good mood despite how early we had to wake him to go.

Not really sure how the afternoon really was because I wasn't feeling well and took a nap on the couch. Dave took him to the skate park to ride his scooter. He had a meltdown after he fell and hit is chin and wanted to break his scooter, Dave said. When they got home he had David help him paint the coffee table. I was still sleeping at 4 when David was due for his medicine and apparently he didn't get it since David told me at about 10:30pm when he was still awake and spun up. That explains why he was all over the place this evening! Hopefully he will sleep well.

Don't give me that line of crap....

So David came last night with a note from his guidance counselor saying that he was not following the rules in class on Wednesday. The note said that he was not sitting still, tapping on the desk during a song and talking. David has been doing a lot of self-stim since it is getting close to Dave deploying. So I am wondering if this lady is serious so I decide to go to the school and have a chat with her.

She was available during her planning period which was at 10am. So I show up and ask her what the problems is about David's behavior and why he is getting in trouble for something that is normal in his world when he has anxiety. She starts out by saying that what he is doing is "not autistic behavior" (excuse me!), then says "would you suggest that I let him run the class!" Well, that made me hot under the collar and I just wanted to rip her a new one, but we are standing in the middle of the school entrance. I ask her if she tried redirecting David or giving him something alternative to do like just tapping his finger on the desk. Of course she said no....Holy crap! You are a guidance counselor and don't work on redirection with your kids?!?! I knew I was getting no where fast with this loony so I went home and typed a nice email to the teachers and included the principle and vice-principle on the email.....here it is:

Good Afternoon,
I wanted to let you know that David's Dad is Deploying for 7-9 months in the next week. David understands that his Daddy is going to help people like he did in Haiti. He does not like to talk much about it so we wait for cues from him if he wants to talk about it. We have noticed at home that David has been showing some excessive self-stimulation (shaking his head side to side), talking/singing/humming to himself and moving/fidgitting around alot and he constantly want to talk to me. This is how he is expressing his anxiety about his Dad leaving. Just telling him to "stop" will not rectify the situation. He will need to be redirected to do something else. Please be patient with him because what he is doing is not wrong in his world and this is how he knows how to cope.
David will continue with his psychiatry appointments on Wednesday mornings and will be late to school. I will continue to pick him up on Wednesdays afternoons for his OT appointments.
If David is having a severe meltdown prior to school I will keep him home that day. If you feel that he is being excessively distruptive and can not get him redirected please call me. Again I ask for you patients during this trying time for David.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please let me know. I am always available on my cell.
Thank you for your help with this matter,
Erica
 
******
I get a response email from the guidance counselor backpeddling to save her rear! She was all apologies and kissing my rear for bring this to her attention and that if there is anything she can do for us to let her know. Well, whatever lady....I saw your true side this morning and I don't play games!

The countdown....

Well, it has come to this....10 days until hubby goes on deployment for 7 months or so. I hate the "or so" part with the Navy. David knows Daddy has to leave to go help people and he is okay with that. David did really well when Dave had to leave to help in Haiti. But then again David was also glued to The Nightly News to see all of the people getting help. Sorry, no TV coverage on this....

David is still sleeping peacefully and hopefully having wonderful dreams of the upcoming scout fishing derby this weekend. We try to focus on the positive things we are doing with David but I know he is feeding off of our anxiety of Dave deploying. I can only hope that these next days don't drag on so we can get on with a routine that doesn't include Dave. Sorry hun!

In the mean time there are only 5 weeks of school left until summer break. Yippee!

Chaos...I hate chaos.....

Holy crap! So go to pick up David from school for his OT appt. and he is already upset. He got a papercut and then he wasn't allowed to play on the playground because he said that he got in trouble in resource class for something that he didn't do. He was very upset in the car on the way to OT and finally calmed down when we got there (thank goodness). So we get home from OT and he is wound up like a top. Finally got through his homework. Hubby brought home Arby's and then David wanted to play his Spongebob video game on his TV. Of course the batteries are dead  so I am trying to change the batteries and then hubby needed help finding some paperwork. Told hubby to wait because I had to get the SBSP game upstairs ASAP! Then I think David only played for about 10 minutes so he came back downstairs....Well, David is so curious about all of the files we are going through and asking tons of questions. The problem is that he ALWAYS says your name before he asks a question and you MUST at least say "what" or he will just continue saying your name.....yoi! I finally get him to sit down on the couch and watch Mythbusters in hopes to have a little quiet.

So older daughter is not feeling well and talking back about why she has to do the dishes if she doesn't feel well and starts shoving things while putting away the dishes and ends up breaking a plate. Of course David has to come running in to see what all the noise is about...luckily I was standing in the entrance way and was able to stop him before he stepped on anything. The trash is over-flowing because apparently nobody else has the ability to take it out other than me! Then David wants to move his play table from one room to another and I told him no which causes a minor meltdown that lasts about 10 minutes which has him running around screaming "mommy's not listening!" Well, I guess the time I just spent cleaning off his play table was for nothing because he decided that he was not going to play with the empty waterbottles on the table if it wasn't in the other room.

Glass cleaned up by hubby (thankfully), got David back to Mythbusters and got the trash taken out, when I get back inside the pup had just peed on the carpet! WTF! So I cleaned up the pee and put Natures Miracle on it and now David is running around again yelling through a waterbottle that he cut the end off of to make it into a megaphone. GREAT! Wonderful! Daughter doesn't have her reseach paper fixed because she says that MS Word won't indent....yikes...you are 17 and have written several papers by now and you can't remember how to indent citations....are you serious?!?!?!?! So rather than showing her I just fixed it and printed it.

David has just decided to take 2 of the empty waterbottles and cut the bottoms off, then took the jar of mixed nuts and put some in the one bottle and mash the other bottle on top and started shaking it making a ton of noise. Why is he not calming down by now. His adderall should have worn off and his abilify should have kicked in....what the heck is wrong!!!!!!

I think it is time for bed!

Catching up....

I want to get better about blogging all of this. I know there are plenty of other families out there with children with ASD and are new to this change in their world. I would like them to know that even though their child(ren) may act in different ways, we are all in this together.

So over the past few months we have really become involved in Cub Scouts. The other scouts are very accepting of David! This is also great because there is no competition like in sports. David has earned his Bobcat and Tiger Badges with the rest of his Den. I think the greatest thing is that his Den Leaders treat him like a NT (Neuro-Typical) child and they don't tiptoe around him like he is broken or an outcast. I love the environment for him because it is helping him grow socially.

As for me I have had my ups and downs over the past few months. I stopped blogging in October because I got broncitis really bad and was off and on sick until February. Now it is allergy season and my snoring has gotten worse so I am sleeping on the couch for now. The Citilopram and Klonipin are lifesavers since I don't deal well with chaos myself. I still cry after David has his meltdowns and usually go through a hopeless feeling. I hate when my son hurts inside and can't verbalize how he is feeling and it all comes out in a meltdown.

David's Therapy is going well! His Doctor is AMAZING! She helps with tactics I wouldn't have thought of like having a bin of squishy balls and toys that he can squeeze rather than digging his nails into my arm when he is having a meltdown. He has also gotten away from the biting for the most part. He bit me 2 days ago and that was the first since December. Having the concrete rule "We Do NOT Bite" has really seemed to sink in and we can move forward on other appropriate behaviors.

I think the hardest behavior to change right now is him saying the word "damn". When he gets mad it is "that damn this, and that damn everything". We have a damn table and apparently when he is really mad I am a damn mom. Doc is working with him on replacing with darn as are we. Luckily I haven't gotten a call from school about it, but we are worried about how friendships are going to last if he says it infront of other parents.

OT is going well also. He has learned to tie his shoes and he is able to focus better on his handwriting. Now that it is getting close to summer we really need to work on balance. He got a scooter for his birthday and can ride it a bit but has real balance issues and I haven't mentioned that he still has training wheels on his bicycle. It is hard to have him practice at the house since we only have a long gravel drive and a giant yard. We need to start making more trips to the neighborhood next to us for more practice.

Well, that's about all for now. Will try and start posting more often because I feel this is important for me.

~E