Posts Tagged ‘Autism’
Giveaway Winner!!
Posted on: May 23, 2012
Honestly, sort of discouraged by the giveaway results.
I tweeted, I blogged, I social media’d it to death and got a lot of new followers on the blog and Twitter, but to be in the giveaway, you needed to post TO the blog entry. I tried to be realllly clear about it in the instructions so I’m not sure what happened.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m super-excited about new followers and I’m not going to take it personally 😉 — but comments would have been really cool! Now I can only award one prize to the one person who commented!
On a good note, I will hold another giveaway with the other copy of the book, once I’ve had a week or so to figure out how to do it more successfully. The books (The Autism Revolution, by Dr. Martha Herbert) were supplied to me by Harvard Health Books and I want to do them right. If you are dealing with autism, from Asperger’s to severe autism, this book is illuminating and worth the read.
Stay tuned, I’ll announce that next week, and in the meantime, back to blogging about autism. (And maybe a brief blog about how plantar fasciitis is negatively impacting my fitness, my patience AND my wallet! Begone, PF, you are cramping my style…literally!)
- In: Autism | Giveaway
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If you entered the book giveaway, remember you need to respond to my blog post to enter — if you followed my blog AND/OR followed me on Twitter (autismwatch2007) you need to respond to that post to let me know that too! (Options 2 & 3 in the giveaway directions)
Winners will be chosen from those who post to that entry. http://bit.ly/KSXgwV I got a whole bunch of new followers in the last couple of days (sweeeeet!) but if you’re following for the giveaway, respond to the giveaway post so you can be included, thanks!!
Sensory issues on our lunch date
Posted on: May 18, 2012
I was off work today — freebie day from upper management, yayyy! — and decided it was a good day for BB and I to have a lunch date. We’d considered one of a few local venues but with it being rainy, any tourists in town will be inside, crowding those venues. Not a good idea, so we opted for food. I wanted to expand BB’s food interests so I chose a local Asian restaurant, one that serves food from four different countries. Score!
BB chose two different kinds of sushi rolls (both spicy) and was looking forward to trying them with chopsticks. Just as we were served our soup/salad, a trio came in to sit in the booth behind us. Like many people locally, they were very loud. We have yet to figure out why so many people here are loud. It’s almost painful at times, and you find yourself stepping away, appearing rude, while they have no clue they’re talking much louder than they need to be. This trio was giggling at a glass-breaking pitch, and I watched BB begin to shrivel on his bench. Hands tightened up into little balls. Neck shrunk onto his shoulders, veins standing out.
I tried to distract. I joked about the silly names on the menu (as BB told me it was impolite to laugh at others’ food names) and grabbed any item on the table to try to redirect his attention.
No dice.
He wanted me to ask the management for help, so I tried to explain to him that it’s just not done that way, and that people don’t necessarily realize they’re loud. We had quite a conversation about social skills in public places, how management could handle it, how we’d handle it if we were management, and so forth.That worked for a few minutes. Finally, he’d had enough. When it got to the point where he was going to blow if we didn’t leave, we moved to a different booth. We picked up all our stuff and went to the next one over, the furthest available booth.
For about 30 seconds, blessed silence. Ahhhh. Problem was, it wasn’t that we’d moved far enough to not hear them or that they’d seen us and lowered their voices. Instead, they gestured and whispered about how we moved. Then bam-o, they began to talk normally again. Not a blip in their decibel level. The waitress came over and asked us what happened, and we explained. She was nice, acknowledged the sound, but that was it.
Thankfully, food came soon after, so I began to show him how to use chopsticks, what each of the items on his plate was and what to do with it. Yum!
In the end, it was disrupted somewhat but still a good lunch date. BB learned some new things and tried some new things. Success!
- In: Autism | Autism News | Biomedical | Giveaway | Health | Outside of the House | Parenting | Therapies
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Lately I shared with you how much I enjoyed the new book, The Autism Revolution, by Dr. Martha Herbert. This book is truly a whole-body approach on helping your child, in layman’s terms, with resources and realistic recommendations. If I had my way, every doctor, therapist or teacher would read this and use it to help their patients and parents. It is *that* good.
Courtesy of Harvard Health Publications and Dr. Martha Herbert, I have two copies of it to give away!
To win the book giveaway, you can do one (or more!) of the following three things — each thing counts as one entry, max of 3 per person.
1) Respond to this entry with a brief answer to the following question: what area are you working on with your child? (Such as: anger issues, verbal skills, potty-training, eating problems, stomach pain, behavioral, etc…)
2) Follow me on Twitter (@autismwatch2007) and come back and respond here to let me know your Twitter name and that you’re following me.
3) Follow my blog and post to let me know that you did!
Thanks for playing! 😉 (And this book is so worth the time it takes to enter!)
I’ll close out this giveaway on Sunday, May 20 at 9pm EST and randomly choose two winners. I’ll then email you for your mailing info, so keep an eye on your mail. (I’ll also announce the winners here!)
We’ve heard that news alert a few times the last few days.
<queue the Talking Heads> “Hold tight, we’re in for nasty weather.”
Scary on one hand, tiring on the other. I think I may have preferred my California earthquakes! I want to take it seriously…I do…but I must admit that I don’t run around shutting my windows and loading the tub with supplies. (I do however, keep the ‘panic room’ stocked in the event we should have to go in there during any disaster, so we’d just have to grab our cells and the dogs..and of course, at least one laptop in the event we can keep internet access. Yes, we’re geeks.)
On the other hand, BB is prepared. Very much so. I didn’t want to tell him about the alert on Monday of this week. He was happily playing and I didn’t <yet> see the need to worry him. The choice was taken away though by yet another EAS — emergency alert system — broadcast. I know they save lives, but they are so loud, they not only get your attention but they startle a sound-sensitive child and send him straight into packing mode.
I hear rumbling, moving, scraping..crashing..”Uhm, BB, what are you doing?”
“I’m packing, Mom!”
“Packing?”
“Yes, if the tornado really hits here, I need to be prepared. I want to be cautious. I have things that are very important to me so I want them accessible in case this tornado is real this time. Better to be prepared, Mom!”
Well, he told me! I let him go on with it, and by that time, I was shutting windows and putting the dogs out for a quick potty before those black clouds were entirely overhead. I peeked in on the panic room and saw what he had packed.
His plush Pokemon collection. (“Mom, it’s irreplaceable, you know!!”)
A change of clothes.
A waterproof jacket.
His favorite pillow and the blanket his oldest sister made him.
His DSi and case.
A pile of art supplies so he could draw pictures.
And my favorite of his piles? His entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid book set! It’s not like it’s fine literature, but it is funny and I credit it with getting BB to sit down and read a book FOR FUN and ask for more. For that, I will be forever grateful.
When we move, now I know I need to be sure those books are accessible and treated with the utmost respect they deserve. And if we ever do have to evacuate or hide in the panic room, you can bet they will go with us.
Gotta go…more rumbling. Might need to save the battery again 😉
Book giveaway!!
Posted on: May 14, 2012
- In: Autism | Autism News | Health
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Get ready for a book giveaway! Check back over the next couple of days for details on how you can win your own copy of “The Autism Revolution,” by Martha Herbert, courtesy of Harvard Health Publications! (I’m giving away two copies!!)
(I’m away at the moment but will be getting this up on my blog and my Twitter as soon as I’m back fully — and safely, major storms going on right now — on my laptop.)
Look for me on Twitter at Autismwatch2007 and come back to enter in the giveaway!
- In: Autism | Biomedical | Outside of the House | Parenting | Uncategorized
- 1 Comment
Yesterday was BB’s six month dental exam and cleaning. I’m not sure who dreads them more — him or me? Hmmm, me. Yes, definitely me. I have to drive him down there, almost 1.5 hours in one direction, then all the way home in awful tourist and end of the work day traffic.
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know dentist appointments and BB haven’t always gotten along. So what changed? Finding a new dentist. It may be work, it may take a long time, you may have to pay a little out-of-pocket by going out-of-network on your insurance plan, or you may have to drive a long time, but it’s worth it.
BB used to be afraid of the dentist. Hated it. Now? “When are we leaving, Mom?”
However, it’s still not always good. For some reason, he gets anxious about it and he’s kind of a boogar by the time we get there. You know, the kind of boogar where the other parents in the waiting room look up from their magazines and try to surreptitiously check out what the mouthy kid looks like or if the mom looks abashed. (If you looked, yes, I was abashed. Very much so.) The mouthy kid looked cute, comfy with his bandanna around his neck (should he need to become incognito, you know) and bored, playing with the stress ball in his hand.
It continues in the dentist’s chair. I answer questions about his dental history and habits while he’s being worked on, and he starts to squirm. More and more, in irritation at my responses. Finally, when he gets a clear chance to talk, “Mom, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not in my mouth. Let me tell her.”
Sigh.
My sweet boy disappeared halfway through the drive to the dentist and only started to re-appear about two hours ago. It only got worse from there, though he did cooperate for the rest of the exam, the cleaning (minus the fluoride, thank you very much) and the x-rays. By the time we were 30 minutes from home, he wanted a new family, he didn’t like me and I was NOT his mom anymore.
Who knew?
It was a long night, made worse by the fact that I’d postponed an appointment to the podiatrist for my plantar fasciitis and my foot was killing me. The husband made dinner, and I sat with ice on my foot. Exhausted. Totally drained from his behavior and the rush-rush-rush of the entire day.
Today, he didn’t get better until I finally sat him down and told him he could not yell at me anymore. I sat there, with him unhappy at my presence, explaining why I wasn’t going to allow him to yell at me, or anyone else, anymore. And as for the constant complaining? Three per day. Period. No more. You complain a fourth time and the computer gets taken away. Same consequence if I have to remind you more than once not to yell at me.
I realize it’s an issue of control. He wants his room to look a certain way so when I move the water bottles or turn the nightlight off, I’m changing the way he wants it. When I tell him it’s school at 10am today instead of 10:30am, he doesn’t have control and it’s a change. I get it, really, but that doesn’t make it okay. It’s not an excuse to yell and be mean. So we talked about it, and beginning next week, after we’ve had a couple of uninterrupted days to reinforce the new rules, we’re starting a behavior program that I hope will address his anger and control issues.
I have hope. I just know it won’t be easy. He’s smart and he recognizes that he’s being mean…it’s just after the fact. Tonight, he stuck a note on the door saying he was sorry. Cute, but not enough. It did, however, open the door for him acknowledging that he needs to find some better ways to cope. He actually googled it, he said. I believe it, google is a big tool for him, and he uses it as a springboard for further research and study. If he’s interested, get out of the way, he will do it thoroughly.
Tomorrow we have a homeschool event…same place that “The Issue” happened a few weeks ago. I told him we’d ignore her and it wouldn’t change anything. He won’t let me sit next to him in the class, so maybe he’ll sit in back with me. Not sure. I want him to learn from it, but not be afraid or let her intimidate him. He doesn’t need to stop asking questions, he just needs to be mindful of how he does it. If he does it wrong, I will address it, as always. We’ll see how it goes. If nothing else, I’m super-proud of him that he’s not letting her possible attendance influence him going again. Way to go, BB.
Autism and the pool
Posted on: May 4, 2012
- In: Autism | Outside of the House | Parenting
- 1 Comment
When BB was diagnosed, we were warned to be careful and keep an eye on him every single second. Ha, like we didn’t know that already. Kids with autism are frequently runners, escape artists, little people who can get away from you in the blink of an eye. They also often display an abnormally low level of – or no — fear. We parents could be running after them, yelling about the dangers they are closing in on, and they don’t bat an eye. We, however, have a permanent twitch in ours.
In keeping with that fear, water doesn’t scare them. A large, heartbreaking number of children with autism drown each year. I heard that and immediately signed BB up for swimming lessons. We didn’t have a pool, just a spa, but my best friend does. We wanted him to be able to swim with our friends and know what to do if he got too close to water anywhere else. Little did I know, this was an area where BB was anomaly. Read on…
We got to the pool early that first day. I don’t know if he had any clue what he was in for, other than me having told him that I’d signed him up for a Mommy & Me swim class. The reaction to that was pretty typical for the time — no real reaction other than to share his unhappiness with having to leave the house. Getting him in the pool, backpack in hand, was no easy feat. He was still having, ahem, potty issues so I had to be sure he was in the appropriate under-attire, and he was weird about shoes, seams and going anywhere without a shirt on. (That didn’t stop him from stripping if he was having a public meltdown, but that wasn’t the only thing during those years that didn’t make sense.) He made sure that I knew, along with the neighborhood, that he was not into this class. That should have been my warning.
He was curious by the time we arrived at the rec center five minutes later. He was cooperative, if hesitant, about going to check out this pool. Then he saw it. WHAM-O. Interest kicked in. “Don’t run by the pool!” So what do I do? Run by the pool to catch him. Yes, thank you, I know the rules, you can stop staring now, he’s not deliberately ignoring me..
We settle our stuff down on the lounge chairs and wait for the class to start. I was counting minutes to have it start soon, as he seemed interested. Finally, the teacher calls us over. Five other moms climb into the pool with their smiley children…all younger than BB. (Bear in mind, we were within the required age-range.) Darn, I even know one of them. I begin to climb in and what? Huh? What’s that awful sound?
BB, screaming that he didn’t want to get into the pool.
Several minutes later, he’s in the pool. Splashing. Kicking. Unhappy. The teacher’s fine, and the only mom who seems impatient is, of course, the one I know. My neighbor. My next-door-neighbor, a woman who liked to talk. (I’ve since moved.) About people. I am trying to show BB how good the water feels, how it’s like his bath, how he can splash Mama in the face. Slowly, I win him over. The teacher continued onwards with her lesson, thankfully, taking the attention off of us..which was good given that the momentary break was brief as the teacher began having us interact with our child and the water with specific steps that we needed to mimic.
It didn’t take her long to realize that we weren’t going to ace the class and that she might just have to talk a little louder. The 30 minutes went v e r y slow and I was mentally exhausted. BB was physically AND mentally exhausted. Yet I was not to be deterred. We went back every week, sometimes with Dad in the pool with me. The teacher didn’t care, and a couple of other dads did it, since there was no rule on which parent was in the pool. Reinforcements. I’d like to say it got better, but it didn’t really. However, we ‘graduated.’
I signed him up the next year for a level up. The first step was to practice jumping in the water. Uhm, no. He would not do it and the teacher had to have him handed in to her, much to BB’s unhappiness. Once he was in the water, we were not allowed to interact, and the assistant helped BB in our place. It was during this time that we learned that different children aren’t always welcome in public events. We already knew that a melting-down child wasn’t acceptable in Target (and a list of other places) and that people would literally step over a runner who lay on the floor humming, but this was the first class where I couldn’t be with him, aside from his special day class. I’ll never forget the mom who sat down in the parents’ area and said “Did you see that kid? He won’t even jump in! What were his parents thinking putting him in this class?”
She was the first person I ever took one of what we jokingly refer to as The Card. I carry cards in my purse to educate others on autism. I’ve had to use a few throughout the years, gentle ones that explain what autism is and that he’s not trying to be a pain. But this one? It was a little abrupt and stated, in short, that we are trying our best so please don’t interfere…and by the way, your comments are kinda rude.
You should see what she said a few weeks later when his licking phase kicked in.
Fast-forward to now, where he’s 11 and loves to swim. He loves when we go to the beach. You’ll find him in our pool daily when it’s warm enough, and when it’s not, he’s wishing it was. No fear whatsoever, and he’s quite the swimmer. The water calms him. The activity tires him out. For a kid that doesn’t sleep without Melatonin, this is a big deal.
Today he’s been waiting for his big sister to come home. Such patience! He’s had his trunks on for a while and his toys at the ready. The splash when he jumps in always makes me smile. I wish I could look forward to thinks with such excitement and anticipation. He’s come a long way, baby.
