What a weekend

I hope you all had a great thanksgiving weekend.  Ours was busy, but good.  Friday JJ had a friend of his from his old school over for a few hours.  Saturday he had visitation with his Mom and Dad and yesterday he had a birthday party to go to for one of his new classmates.  They held it at the base gym on the rock climbing wall.  The kids had a ball, JJ got up about 4 maybe 5 feet, which was good for him.  We went shopping for an hour and then went back to the party and there was JJ sitting off all by himself..just watching everyone.  I pushed him to go interact and he did reluctantly, but he really does need to push his boundaries and try to get involved with what is going on around him.  All in all he had a good time and he got invited over to a friends house some time so that was good too.

He had a good weekend, only one meltdown and that was tonight over his homework.  I forgot to get him to do it this morning and he got all stressed out this evening because it wasn't done and he was going to "flunk school" because it wasn't done.  I finally got him calmed down and into bed with the plan to do it first thing in the morning.  I simply had so much to do today that I didn't think about his reading log he had to do and so it put unnecessary stress on him.  The good thing was he calmed down within an hour and just got his jammies on and went to bed.  It was such a busy weekend with so much activity that it was stressful but he handled it well until the home work came up and then it all came out.  Another learning experience for us both...

Today we had our turkey dinner.  We were a few people short this year.. B,F,little D and E of course are out in Manitoba and moved into their new house this weekend, missed them bunches.  V was busy with work and nursing assignments so the four from her family were missing, and brother D and T didn't come because of me being sick and not wanting to catch the bug. So there was N,JJ,me, S,C,Ja, Jo and cousin A sitting around the tables this year.  Food turned out good, we all pigged out and no one had room for any of the pies S made. I know her pumpkin looked really good, Mom would of loved it, pumpkin was her favorite.

After dinner and dishes we went outside and I took some pictures of the boys.. nice fall day for it for sure and they had a ball climbing the trees and jumping in the leaves.

One down and one to go

I live in time frames.  Its like a moment is gone, on to the next one.. or an hour has gone by, a week. My life is sections, noticeable sections of time.  


Some days I feel like I am holding my breath waiting for JJ to have a meltdown and when it doesn't happen its like I'm doing a happy dance inside my head.  If you have a special needs child then you know exactly what I mean.  


Sections of time that seem to float through the air and all of a sudden will get caught up in some sort of JJ crisis, some sort of "end of the world", my life sucks, OMG the computer froze up crisis.  It doesn't take much to set him off.  When I clean his room while he is at school I have to make sure everything is put back correctly or I am the worse Nannie in the world because I moved something out of place when I was dusting.  If I make him the wrong kind of sandwich he won't eat it no matter how hungry he is and the crisis shows its ugly head once again.


I so try to advert these crisis's.  I know that Aspie kids hate change, only like certain foods, get stuck on certain toys to the point that they won't even consider playing with anything else.  JJ is like that to the max.  


When he was 2 it was weeble wobbles and only them. He had to have them all with every building and accessory that went with them. Between the age of 2 & 3 we did manage to collect them all.  


When he turned 4 it was dinosaurs.  He knows every fact there is to know about dinosaurs, and would talk about nothing else.  You had to show you were really interested in what he was telling you about them excessively or he would get mad at you. Between the ages 4& 5 with birthdays and Christmas and good behaviour times he had a huge collection of dinosaurs. Every shape and size, electronic and bendable, books and movies too.  He sounded like a little professor when he talked about his dinosaurs.


At 6 he got the pokemon bug. Pokemon cards, toys, movies, game cube games, books, anything and everything pokemon. Again he would talk of nothing else, and knows all facts about each one. That lasted until he was 7 then he found lego. Not just any old cheap lego, Nooooo... its star wars lego. Last year we gathered up all his weebles, dinosaurs and pokemon toys and sold them on kijiji and he bought a Wii with the money. The first game he bought for it,,was star wars lego,  Go figure..


For the past 2yrs we have been on an endless quest to find the newest box of star wars lego.  We set a price point for him early on and have never wavered on it or we would be in the poor house.  The worse part about the lego is if a piece falls off a day later he doesn't put it back on, so he has a now has a tote bin full of star wars lego pieces.  He does use them to make his own "space ships" or what ever, so its not a total loss.


He has never played with a dinky toy, dump truck, or played in a sand box like most little boys would do. I've tried over the years to show him how to play like that, but its of no interest to him at all.


I guess in a way we have gotten use to his obsessive toy compulsions. And when he was diagnosed at 6 of having aspergers an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) I did lots of reading up on the syndrome and found that it was perfectly normal for him to exclude certain foods, toys etc.  


Trying to change this behaviour stresses them out to the point that they will have complete meltdowns.  There really is nothing worse than a child having a meltdown that lasts sometimes for hours.  As he gets older and with consistent parenting and some counselling, he has learned what is acceptable behaviour when he starts to stress out.  We try to advert a crisis before it escalates by diverting his attention thus taking the focus off what is stressing him and making his brain switch gears and think about something else. The older he gets the better this method is working.


Its all a learning curve, for him and us.  He needs more help but there is a 2 yr waiting list he is on to see the specialist. In the mean time I do lots of reading about different strategies to use and keep him in a routine and consistent. It keeps those sections of time flowing smoother.