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A couple of months back I took some of my fav Autism Daddy Facebook Page updates from April thru July and strung them all together in one LONG post that you can read HERE.
Another 4 months went by so I thought I’d capture August – November, but boy I’m posting alot more than I used to.
So below is 51 status updates from August, easily numbered for your reference. So if you’re commenting on a specific post please include the number. 🙂
I do this because (a) I’m a dork, (b) there’s some hidden gems in there that would get lost if just left on Facebook and (c) it lets people who are new to Autism Daddy get to read some of the older stuff…
In one long post it’s kinda bizarrely poetic, dontcha think?
So without further ado…
AUGUST 2011
1) As you’ve read by now Kyle’s going thru a phase where he takes off his seatbelt & also flings stuff at the driver.So wife’s new strategy? She puts him in the 3rd row, middle seat, by himself &puts both 3rd row seats belts across him. So he’s double belted &way back, so anything he throws will need to be flung with force to reach the driver. 2nd day &all reports are that he’s happy/ fascinated being back there 🙂
August 2 at 4:09pm
2) Sometimes weeks go by and then we realize that we haven’t even attempted to brush Kyle’s teeth. Toothbrushing has always been extremely difficult and he has to be literally held down. And we’ve been dealing with other meltdowns so often lately that I think we forget…or when he’s in a good place we don’t want to poke the bear. Are we the worst parents ever?
August 3 at 9:19am
3) Never a good sign when the wife texts me at work at 430pm saying “ETA?”
(which stands for estimated time of arrival as in “when the f&?$ are you getting home)
August 3 at 6:41pm
4) TGFW!! (Thank God for Wendy’s…. nuggets & fries)
August 4 at 6:33pm
5) Microwave popcorn for breakfast = a happy Kyle…
August 5 at 7:27am
6) Wife and I are rolling the dice this weekend. Kyle’s going thru a very rough patch with meltdowns and biting, etc. So we are gonna shake things up and drive out to my bro-in-laws beach house to bring the Kyle show on the road! 2+ hour drive each way. Gonna leave late tonite after he’s asleep and come home late tomorrow…
August 5 at 5:19pm
7) At my bro-in-laws beach house. So far, so good… We drove out here 1030pm-1230am. Kyle slept the whole way and I was able to transfer him to the sofa bed without him waking up. This morning he slept til 715 and woke up in a good mood. I looked at the wife and said, “let’s head home now… quit while we’re ahead.”. 🙂
August 6 at 8:44am
8)You ever have one of those days where everything is going ok and you look at your watch and think “yay we made it to 2:50pm! only 6 hours to go!”
August 6 at 2:53pm
9) My mechanic back home turned a 24 hour overnight trip to my bro-in-laws beach house into a 3 day affair. We got a flat tire last night as we were about to head home and because the mechanic put the damn wheel locks on so tight when they rotated the tires a few weeks back NOBODY can get the damn flat off! And most everything is closed on Sundays out here so we are trapped til Monday! 🙂 Thankfully Kyle is having a good time so that helps my frustration level!
August 7 at 7:02pm
10) An example about how me and the wife are never satisfied and guilt rules all Daddy We are at my bro-in-laws beach house on Sunday. Kyle and wife spent a large chunk of the day in their pool while I ran around trying to get our car fixed. (see my previous post about the car trouble 🙂
I asked wife “how was Kyle?” “He was good, no meltdowns or tantrums, but he’s stuck in a pattern. And he wasn’t very related with anybody.”
And there was Kyle, happily in his own world in a pattern of dip one foot in the deep end, play with dirt, dip his head in the shallow end, drink some pool water, repeat, repeat, repeat. It bugged the wife and after 10 minutes or so it bugged me.
We were so worried about meltdowns and tantrums and for the most part he was happy and content but we had to see the negative.
If he was having a day of meltdowns we would’ve been thrilled to have a 30 minute happy pattern like that, but because he was meltdown free all we could see was how unrelated / in his own world he was…
Why cant we just go with the flow?
August 8 at 8:46am
11) Sometimes common sense needs to kick in sooner. We’re STILL at my bro-in-laws house. I put Kyle’s Laurie Berkner DVD on so he can chill a little. He’s enjoying the video but keeps playing with the 3 delicate nick nacks on their entertainment center. After 15 minutes of “hands down” “no hands” I just cleared the deck and removed / hid the breakables. DUH!
August 8 at 2:05pm
12) Sometimes just hearing a word will get you thinking about the past. Telly on Sesame Street was just talking about hexagons and it reminded me that Kyle used to know ALL his shapes (including hexagon & octagon) before he was 3…. “point to octagon” It’s amazing how far he’s gone…in the wrong direction 🙁
August 9 at 7:46am
13) Kyle got up at 345am cuz he fell asleep early last night. I put on an Elmo’s World DVD in his room, closed his light and I went back to sleep. And guess what? I only had to get up about a dozen times in 45 minutes to pull him off the bathroom sink. Around here that’s progress. 🙂
August 10 at 5:03am
14) Back to school sales?? Kyle’s summer just started today. No school for almost 4 weeks!! Excited? Scared? Happy? Nervous? All of the above can be said of mom, dad, and probably Kyle… 🙂
August 11 at 9:57am
15) Just had a random thought. How would you know if your non-verbal, poor receptive language ASD kid needs glasses?
August 11 at 7:50pm
16) Oh great… Kyle had 3 “snot rocket” sneezes this morning…less than a day before we leave for a week long trip…(I’m calling it a trip, not a vacation if you know what I mean 🙂
August 12 at 7:27am ·
17) You know how YouTube has like/dislike buttons. Well this morning Kyle was watching an Elmo segment with Ellen Pompeo (the lead in Grey’s Anatomy) and after it ended it looked like he very purposefully pushed the dislike button. 🙂
I dont care for her much either… 🙂
August 12 at 8:51am
18) Do you all know that you can get a special disability bracket / pass for your asd kid at most amusement parks that let you cut the lines? I know some will say our kids have to learn to wait on line. I say it’s one of the few perks of having an ASD kid so I will take full advantage. I have no problem playing “the A card” once in awhile to make our lives easier.
August 12 at 9:23pm
19)I look around my house sometimes and i see all the plastic utensils, paper plates, cases and cases of tiny 8 ounce plastic water bottles and i think, “I swear we’d be more environmentally conscious / green if we didn’t have a severe ASD kid.”
August 13 at 7:24am
20)Kyle just discovered… Cool Whip! Fine by us, but please use a spoon!!! 🙂
August 13 at 9:52am
ONE WEEK VACATION!! TO A LAKE TOWN IN UPSATE NY
21) We made it! 3 1/2 hour car ride and I only got hit with one cheerio while driving! lol Kyle did great! Now the ultimate tag team effort, one of us unpacks while the other throws Kyle in the lake. 🙂
August 13 at 4:13pm
22)Day 1 of our vacatio–uh i mean our trip 🙂 is in the books. I’d give the day a B. It lost a few points because Kyle’s breath holding and pushing out his belly were really driving me batty today down by the lake. He was doing it CONSTANTLY and it cant be good to hold your breath THAT much. He looks like one of those starving kids in Africa with the protruding belly.
It’s funny cuz for awhile he was being very loud & vocal down by the beach / lake “eeeeeeeeeeee-ing” up a storm and I said to the wife “I’d rather him be loud like this cuz he’s gotta breathe normally while doing it, right?”. LOL.
Other than that a good first day…
August 13 at 11:06pm
23) I’m finding it hard to relax so far on this vaca- Wife seems more relaxed. But Kyle eating sand & stimming over sand is getting to me. He gets stuck in a pattern and I’ll say “is he even having fun doing that?”. Then everyone once in awhile he’ll give you that sh-t eating grin and I realize yes he’s having fun.
Maybe I need to take one of Kyles Klonopin so I can relax and chill out :-). Oh we had a meltdown this morning at breakfast. At this little restaurant. Food throwing, coffee spilling. But me and the wife LOVE the breakfast places up here so we REFUSE to be deterred. We are hitting up restaurants every morning whether Mr Kyle likes it or not. 🙂
August 14 at 11:02am
24) Let me just take a step back to let you all know that where we are on vaca, we’ve been with Kyle many times before. It’s a lake town in upstate NY. The wife’s family came here for 40+ years and we’ve been coming here every summer for a week or so for all of Kyle’s 8 years. So he’s been on vacation before and he’s been here before. So there should be a familiarity for Kyle with the hotel/ resort, restaurants, etc. The 2 big differences this year are (1) leading up to the trip Kyle’s been more difficult behaviorally than in the past and (2) I’m taking all of you along for the ride. 🙂
August 14 at 3:18pm
25) It took 24 hours but, as usual, we’ve spotted a “friend” at our resort/ hotel. By friend I mean another ASD kid. After 6+ years living the autism lifestyle the wife and i can spot them a mile away. I heard a mom say to her son “swallow please” and later “look at me” and I knew we had a friend among us. 🙂 By the end of the week I bet we’ll find 3-4 more friends. It’s the end of Aug when all the northeast extended school years are out…and i guess without trying it’s a really ASD friendly resort and town.
August 14 at 5:53pm
26) So here’s a funny Kyle vacation story. We fed him an earlyish dinner in our room. (We have a full kitchen). Then wife and I both showered and were trying to decide what to do. Eat dinner in, out, walk around the village, etc.
At around 7pm Kyle starts the pre-meltdown. I was thinking it’s possible that he might be tired already and getting tired cranky like an infant does.
But the wife and I are both hungry and decide to roll the dice and go out to eat. In the car on the way to the restaurant he’s in full meltdown mode. Not the worst, not the throwing things kind. But again in that cranky “why am I heading out at 7pm when I’ve been on the go all day kind”. But the wife and I say F it, we’ll deal with it and eat fast.
Well we get to the restaurant and we get the perfect table. Outside, in a corner, with plenty of room for Kyle and his dog Paula at his feet. We order our food, dont order Kyle anything cuz he ate already and he’s likely to throw it. Kyles hanging in there thanks to books and iPhone…until the food arrives.
When the food arrives Kyle proceed to eat EVERYTHING off of our plates. He ate bread, he ate salad tomatoes, he ate green beans, he ate ham steak, he ate MY chocolate cake. He was willing to try any new food you put in front of him! And he made it thru the whole meal with no incidents. As he was trying all these new foods the wife just kept saying “Who are you??”
Now what will happen is we’ll end up back at this restaraunt 2-3 more times this week and it will never be the same and/or we will buy all these foods when we get home and he will never try them at home.
But for one magical night the stars aligned and he was the perfect combo of hungry and sleepy that made this possible. The wife even said kidding around, “maybe you’re sleep walking Kyle and eating in your sleep”. 🙂
That’s all. End of story. Over & out.
August 14 at 9:14pm
27) Yesterday, day 2 of vaca was a B+…Today, looks like rain all day!! 🙁 Mall and a movie? Two activities that can go either way when Mr Kyle is involved… 🙂
August 15 at 9:10am
28) 215pm, rainy day, vacation day 3, breakfast out = successful (now 2 for 3 in restaurant outings! :-), visit to mall/ Target = successful, (Kyle, mom and dog spent 30+ minutes on the floor playing with toys APPROPRIATELY), movies/ “Smurfs” = sold out, bowling = really bad idea, (midnight bowling at 1pm, lights off, loud disco, strobe lights, FOG MACHINE!) WTF were we thinking? LOL
August 15 at 2:22pm
29) Day 4 vacation, down by the lake. The wife & I are calling Kyle Godzilla cuz he likes to destroy other kids sand castles.He really seems like he wants to be near other kids which is AWESOME & kinda new.And there’s two typical boys here (Shane & Phillip) that are so cool about some weird flapping kid destroying their moats & castles.They’re kinda incorporating his destruction into their game. All was cool until the little girls got involved. lol. “Stop it.” “You’re messing everything up”. 🙂
August 16 at 4:06pm
30) Yesterday was a VERY successful day on vaca. I’d give it an A-. The only reason it got downgraded wasn’t Kyles fault, but mom & dads. Every year we come up here we go to the drive in movie theater for a double feature. We usually time Kyles melatonin so he sleeps thru both movies. Not yesterday, he was up as a pup thru two adult comedies (Friends With Benefits & The Change-Up). He was fascinated with the whole drive in concept, got to see LOTS of boobies :-), and was very loud throughout which was fine… but he kept wanted to be unstrapped from his seat belt. You know why? He had to pee. He peed thru his clothes…TWICE… Worse parents ever! lol. 🙂
August 17 at 9:12am
31) I swear they put all the special needs families in the same section of the hotel/ resort! lol. Between our 8 year old Kyle, 4 year old John Paul next door and 16 year old Chelsea right above us it’s like our own little support group. As usual Kyle is the most severe… but whatever.
August 17 at 11:57am
32) After that rainy day on day 3, weather has been perfect on vaca and Kyle has been REALLY good. Very few meltdowns and when he has them we’re able to catch them on time. Kyle is actually better behaviorally up here than at home probably because there’s so few demands put on him. You wanna play with sand for an hour go for it! The real test will be on Saturday & the next 2 weeks when we are home without school. We gotta figure out how to bring the vacation lifestyle to our home lives… 🙂
August 18 at 11:49am
33) Friday 1139am, just stopped back in the room to get dressed for swimming, but if Kyle knew how to take a nap I think he would. He’s rolling up in a ball on the couch for 10 seconds & then jumping up. Mom & dad would welcome a nap 🙂 but I don’t think he’s capable of falling asleep in the daytime anymore especially without the help of melatonin.
August 19 at 11:45am
34) Home Sweet Home?? 😉
August 20 at 2:58pm
35) Calling in paid help tonight so the wife and I can have dinner and go see the new chick flick “The Help” 🙂
August 20 at 6:05pm
36) Welcome home = a 330am wakeup call from Mr Kyle. 🙁
August 21 at 3:36am
37) 2 hours later and he’s back to sleep. 🙂
August 21 at 5:37am
38) It’s a bizarre feeling when your asd kid comes toward you looking like he wants to give you a hug/ kiss but you have to protect yourself from a potential bite. Anybody else share this strange phenomenon? 🙂
August 21 at 9:49am
39) Today is like a shock to the system for Mr Kyle. After a week long vacation where we got out early and stayed out all day doing fun stuff, today it’s 2pm and we’re still in the house and it seems like he’s hanging on by a thread…
August 21 at 2:03pm
40) Mon 750am, Kyle chugs down a gulp of my contact lens solution…and I just shrug my shoulders and say “no Kyle”
We probably make a call to poison control like once every two months or so.
August 22 at 7:54am
41) I went to work today with a Pull-Up in my back pocket…I am Autism Daddy!! 🙂
(unused Pull-Up thankfully 🙂
August 22 at 3:21pm
42) Tuesday 10:38pm — Finally he yawns!!
August 23 at 10:39pm
43) Tuesday, 11:35pm — He’s finally f–ing asleep! Absolute torture tonight. I really wanted to bash my head against the wall a couple of times (uh oh, self injurious behavior / SIB? 🙂
August 23 at 11:38pm
44)We have Hurricane Irene heading our way this weekend. And I’m not stressing out over the potential damage…I’m stressing out over the idea that we might be stuck in the house together all weekend!!! Cabin fever!!!
August 26 at 6:39am
45) Saturday 9:15am, Kyle and I have been up since 6am (no complaints here!) but I think it’s time for me and the wife to trade places. Wake her up so I can take a nap. It feels like one of those mornings. 🙂
August 27 at 9:18am
46) Saturday 11:53am, awoke from my nap to find wife and Kyle outside jumping on the trampoline in the rain. Kyle was soaking wet and smiling from ear to ear….
Hurricane Irene or as I’m calling it Ireneageddon has begun….
August 27 at 11:55am
47) My microwave is broken so I’m currently at my moms house making 6 bags of microwave popcorn to get “King Shit” (Kyle) thru the hurricane.
King Shit only likes America’s Choice (A&P) Natural and only likes microwave popcorn.
BTW, my microwave is 8 years old and hers is over 20(?). They don’t make them like they used to.
August 27 at 12:51pm
48) Sunday 12:51pm, Hurricane Irene was much ado about nothing where I live (as far as I can tell by looking out my windows) but Hurricane Kyle left his usual path of destruction behind. The massive cleanup of popcorn and chocolate cake will be intense. It may be days before we get our lives back to normal.
Wait, “normal”? Hahaha. 🙂
August 28 at 12:54pm
49) Another example of why I call Kyle “King Shit”
Daddy puts on the Yankee game and sits on the couch to catch a few innings. Kyle proceeds to have a meltdown (kicking, somersaults on couch, throwing things, etc). “What is wrong?! Are you hungry?” Nope. “In pain?” doesn’t seem to be. Daddy puts on Dora the Explorer and the meltdown subsides. Sitting next to me peacefully on the couch and I say “Oh so King Shit didn’t watch the game… well excuse me…”
August 28 at 2:49pm
50) Monday 6:40pm — I get home from work…
Wife: “Kyle’s dinner is in the oven. I’m going to a 7pm movie.”
Me: “Ok. By yourself?”
Wife: “Yeah, unless you’ve got a better offer for me.”
Me: “What does that mean?”
Wife: “Well, what kind of mood are you in tonight?”
(cuz I’ve been in a crabby mood the past few days)
Me: “Eh…ok I guess.”
Wife: “I’m going to the movies…”
August 29 at 7:26pm
51) I heard Kyle messing with my keys when I first got home from work last night…and now I can’t find them anywhere!!
August 30 at 7:00am
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It's nice to find another ASD parent who is ok with calling their kid weird sometimes. Mine is. And LOVE the King Shit reference. May have to come up with ones of our own for our 2 ASD kids!
I love #41!!! made me laugh 🙂 not at you, with you!
My 5 1/2 yrs old son speaks/interacts at a 3 yrs old level. Well for the past 2 years we've bribed our son to not have meltdowns. While in the restaurant we'll say, "Want to go to Toys R Us?" Yes he responses. "Well then behave, sit down, and eat or play with your toys." He loves toys! Most of the time our bribes work, but we have to keep reminding him about the reward. We usually buy him a toy every weekend. We allow him to cry it out at home. We'll hold him and encourage him to express what is upsetting him, since most meltdowns are him processing the daily environmental stressors. He used to hurt me when he had meltdowns, but I think the hugs and letting him cry it all out at home has helped him. I learned that hug/cry method from Aletha Solter, Ph.D. http://www.awareparenting.com/articles.htm
thanks for posting these 🙂 I haven't been able to read through all of them but I will most likely be back to finish later 🙂 I really enjoy your posts and I can relate a lot with much of what you talk about and say.
It's refreshing to find someone that's real and dealing with Autism and also is not too negative or too positive. Know what I mean? Not everything is gloom and doom here but also not everything is made out to be a bed of sunshine and roses when we all know it can't be. At least not all the time.
Thanks 🙂