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Now Reading: November 2011– Autism Daddy Monthly Facebook Recap

November 2011– Autism Daddy Monthly Facebook Recap

Autism Daddy first launched as a Facebook Page in April 2011.  I added a blog in September 2011 and back-filled the blog with some of my favorite FB Notes.  But what got lost was a lot of the mundane day to day posts.
So in September 2011 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 and I captured August 2011.  You can read that one HERE.
And then I stopped.  And then this week, with the new Facebook timeline & activity log I went back in to November 2011 mainly because I was trying to find out when Kyle first starting going to see this new dr.  I knew I posted about it, so I wanted to find the date of that post.  While on the activity log I found myself reading everything I posted all over again.  I was like “oh wow, i forgot all about that!”  “wow, remember when kyle did that?”
So I’m gonna start posting monthly recaps for each month.  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 (c) it lets people who are new to Autism Daddy get to read some of the older stuff and (d) it’s kinda like an online diary of my life and having it on the blog makes it easy for me to search and find…
In one long post it’s kinda bizarrely poetic, dontcha think?
So without further ado…here’s 56 Facebook posts from November 2011.   I numbered them all for easy referencing. So if you’re commenting on a specific post please include the number. 🙂
Here goes!!!!

Autism Daddy Greatest Hits
November
1)Halloween was
pretty uneventful around the AD home which I guess you could say is a good
thing. The wife did report two nice little nuggets from yesterday. 
a) She took Kyle
to this BIG supermarket yesterday after school and for maybe the first time
(ever?) he didn’t need to sit in the cart the entire trip. He just hung out,
pushed the cart a little, and went with the flow. This is HUGE for him. Maybe
those class trips to the supermarket every two weeks are paying dividends…
🙂
b) At the school
Halloween parade, mom and his aide caught a glimpse of Kyle dancing to the
music. They both looked at each other like “did you just see that?”
He kinda shuffled along to the beat. We’ve caught a few glimmers of this at
home. Kinda swaying back & forth to the beat during Dora The Explorer…
🙂
That’s all… Over
& out….
November 1 at
8:50am
2) Sorry I’ve been
so quiet the past day or so. I haven’t had much to say which is sort of a good
thing. It feels like we are finally in a groove with school with no holidays or
days off between now & Thanksgiving.
Oh wait, what’s
this? Half day today & next Wednesday for parent/teacher conferences? And
next Friday off for Veterans Day?
Forget what I just
said about a groove. I swear the kid hasn’t had a full 5 day school week this
year.
November 2 at
11:22am ·  ·
3) Is it wrong
that I can’t wait for the king to fall asleep so I can sit down and watch the
tube? 🙂 On tonight’s agenda the oldie but goodie “Survivor”, a new
up and comer “Up All Night” and then a new spooky fav, “American
Horror Story.”
Is anybody else
completely hooked on “American Horror Story” on FX? The wife and I
are HOOKED….
November 2 at
8:47pm
4) Was I surprised to see a bag of freeze dried strawberries on
my bathroom sink as I took my contact lenses out at 1am? No, nothing surprises
me anymore. I just sorta smirked to myself… 🙂

Goodnight all!

November 3 at 1:16am

5) The King has SOME life! 🙂
This sounds like a fun day to me! 🙂

(although God bless those teachers for taking a class of severe ASD kids to a
restaurant with waiter/waitress service)”

November 3 at 8:07am

6) Kyle’s autism
service dog is legally allowed to accompany him EVERYWHERE. Everywhere that is
except my uncle’s house for dinner on Saturday according to my mom & uncle.
My mom’s saying “it’s gonna be too crowded. Where is she gonna fit.”
etc, etc, etc…
Now granted, we
haven’t been bringing her many places with us lately because Kyle has been
pretty good and hasn’t needed her. But it should be our choice. We probably
would’ve brought her because Kyle’s rarely at my uncle’s house, so it’s
unfamiliar surroundings and she could help there.
Now I don’t want
to go, but my grandmother lives with them and Kyle rarely sees her and she was
just asking to see him. My mom’s like “pick & choose your battles, do
it for grandma” etc, etc.
I’m debating
whether this is a battle worth taking on…
The ironic thing
is that my uncle and aunt have a 10 year old ASD son!
November 3 at
12:53pm ·
7)  ‎3:38am,
and the king is up. It’s his first early wakeup in a week, so no complaints
here. After 2 more melatonin, we are hoping that the old Sesame DVD
“Sleepytime Songs & Stories” works its magic again…
😉
November 4 at 3:40am
8)  4:31am
and the king is back to sleep after 90+ minutes thanks to melatonin &
Sesame Bedtime DVD. And daddy, aka “the snoring machine”, is heading
to the couch for the rest of the night. The wife spent the first part of the
night on the couch. Once the summer ends and the AC turns off and the weather
gets colder, I snore like a moose!
November 4 at 4:35am
9) Friday, 8am.
Wife & Kyle just left for school and now, like most weekdays, I have a
decision to make. I’ve got about an hour before I need to leave for work. Do I
go back to sleep? Or do I get out early and run an errand or two before work
(bank, dry cleaners, etc)? On paper sleeps sounds awesome but I usually wake up
from a 45 minute nap with a headache and feeling frustrated and more tired than
I did before… hmmm, decisions, decisions… 🙂
November 4 at 8:05am
10) Kyle went to the Christmas Tree
Shoppe on a class trip Thursday…and fell in love with a hat shaped like a
turkey. His teachers reported that he wore it around the store for 45 minutes.
For him to have anything on his head for that long is huge. When the wife
picked him up from school he had the turkey hat on and had this huge grin on
his face. When I came home from work, the wife put it on him and he had that
same grin. 
The most likely reason he loved the hat? Simple The king LOVES when
a people make a BIG fuss over him. The wife is always singing “OH HOW
CUTE!! LOOK AT MY KYLE, HE’S SO CUTE!” and he just beams. 🙂

November 5 at 7:50am

11) ‎”Kyle
you need to take the paper wrapper off the gum before you put it in your mouth.
And you’re supposed to chew it for a LONG time. And you’re not supposed to
swallow it…”.
🙂
All very hard
concepts for the king…
November 5 at
11:23am
12)  So if
you’ve been following this page for awhile you know that Kyle is quite low
functioning / severe / non verbal/ bad receptive language and has a hard time
retaining anything. He will learn a skill and then lose it and regress. This
has been going on for YEARS…
But as you’ve
recently read we’ve had some success with potty training recently by using an
intensive potty routine where for 2-3 days we didn’t leave the house and took
him first every 10 minutes, then stretched to 15, then 20, 30, 60.
So far, 6+ weeks
later and it has kinds stuck!
So it got me
thinking is there any other skills that we can teach Kyle by using such an
intense method?
Seriously… Any
suggestions??
November 5 at
11:38am
.
13)  I’m at the nursing home for my weekly visit
with my dad. I get to see him for maybe 90 minutes a week. And all he wants to
do while I’m here is sleep. I get here and he’s sleeping in a chair in the day
room with all the other residents. And then I bring him in his room and he
wants to go on the bed. Does this even count as a visit? 🙂
November 5 at 4:18pm
14) So my wife asked me to pick up eggs on the way home from
seeing my dad. So now I’m sitting at the grocery store having the debate I have
every time.
Do I buy the
organic eggs she wants me to buy that cost $4.50 a dozen or do I say that I
can’t find those and come home with regular eggs that cost $1.50.
I mean yes, we
used to try to eat organic and be healthy but now that the only thing the kid
eats is Wendy’s nuggets, popcorn, and hot dogs, can’t we abandon the organic
charade?
I know, I know, a
little healthy/ organic is better than nothing. But that’s not the debate in my
mind.
In my mind the
debate is…
a $3 savings…
VS… the wrath of Autism Mommy!! 🙂
November 5 at
4:52pm
15) Today I will be participating in my 7th NYC Marathon.
However, today I won’t be running it. I’ll be acting as a guide for a disabled
athlete through the Achilles Track Club.
 My guy is named Todd ____   and
he’s partially blind and partially deaf. This will be his 12th CONSECUTIVE NYC
Marathon and he hopes to finish in about 8 hours or so. We’ve never met before
but I’ve spoken to him on the phone SEVERAL times this week. 🙂 And he is
quite a character! It should be an interesting day.
November 6 at
6:46am ·
16)  After 14 marathons I don’t think I’ve ever
deserved a marathon medal more than this one.
8 1/2 hours of
acting as a guide to a partially blind, partially deaf curmudgeon who stopped
every 2 miles to smoke a cigarette. Yes you read that right, a cigarette!!
If I wasn’t going
to heaven already I think today I punched my ticket. 🙂
November 6 at
6:37pm
17) Monday,
6:21pm.
I just drove home
from work in the dark for the first time (I HATE turning the clocks back!!)
And I’m sitting in
my car in front of my house wondering what I’m about to walk into tonight…
In the immortal
words of Han Solo, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…”
🙂
November 7 at
6:24pm
·
18) Monday 7:40pm,
I know I should try to stall Kyle’s bedtime by 45-60 minutes so he adjusts his
sleep schedule now and doesn’t get up at 5:30am now that we turned the clocks
back… but for my sanity I really need him asleep now.
Anyway that’s
Morning Daddy’s problem not Nighttime Daddy’s. And the two of them are rarely
on the same page on anything. 🙂
November 7 at
7:44pm
·
19) Did I mention
yesterday that the honeymoon period at his new school appears to be over? Oh yeah,
big time! Yesterday he had a meltdown to end all meltdowns that left a
teacher’s aide with a fat lip. And in another unrelated incident on the same
day, he did the holding breath stuff enough that his eyes rolled back for a
second or two and he was on the verge of passing out a few times yesterday.
Good time, good
times! 🙁
November 8 at
6:20am ·
20) Tuesday 8am,
I’m buckling Kyle into his seat in the car and I’m having trouble with the
buckle…and without even looking I instantly knew what the problem
was….there was cheerios stuck in the hole where the seat belt goes… 🙂
November 8 at
9:25am ·
21)   Wednesday, 7:50am, the wife is
struggling to get Kyle’s sneakers on when she turns to me and says… “if
you’re gonna have an accident and pee in your sneakers, Converse is the way to
go… 
Much easier to clean than regular sneakers…”
🙂
November 9 at
8:11am
22) Every time the King comes in my
car it’s the same thing…

“Hands down Kyle… Quiet hands…”

He’s pulling the roof down. Why? Who knows…because it’s there…because he
can?

All I know is when he’s in the car, between his big noggin and the fabric roof
that’s hanging down, I can barely see out of my rear view mirror! 🙂

November 9 at 9:27am

23) Thursday, 6:43am… I hear Kyle’s door open for the first time
this morning…then I hear the bathroom door open….then I hear good ol’
fashioned pee-pee on the potty!
He went on his
own, first thing in the morning!… instead of holding it and waiting for
somebody to bring him.
Nice way to start
the day…. 🙂
November 10 at 6:46am
24) I got 3 words
for you…
Full. Moon. Tonight.
🙂
November 10 at
6:39pm
.
25) I am addicted
to Pandora Radio… this week specifically “Morris Day & The Time
Radio” which plays all the funkiest sh-t… bet you didn’t know ol’ Autism
Daddy was a fan of the funk… 🙂
November 10 at
8:34pm ·
26) Kyle had no
school today cuz of Veterans Day but he wouldn’t have gone anyway. We found 2
small puke stains on his sheet this morning and he took a 90 minute nap this
afternoon.
And if that wasn’t
enough to show that he’s got a bug or something he’s also being all cute and
sweet and cuddling on the couch and quietly reading books. So that means he’s
gotta be sick.
This sounds mean
but we sometimes like a slightly under the weather Kyle. He’s so much calmer.
🙂
 November 11 at 5:34pm
27) Kyle’s
interaction with the tv lately is getting kinda crazy. Licking it, touching it,
head butting it, smacking it….
It appears that
the tv will be another “disposable” device in our household… We’ve
had this one for 2+ years. If it makes it to 4 I’ll be SHOCKED!
Next time I’ll
invest in a super extended warranty and make sure it includes water damage
& head butt damage… 🙂
November 12 at
8:06am ·
.
28) In the past
hour my non-verbal son sounded like he approximated the following 3 words
somewhat appropriately….pee-pee… cocky (meaning poop)…and daddy.
We haven’t taken
his temperature but this means that he must have a fever. 🙂
I know it’s morbid,
but whenever I think of Kyle speaking I think of that movie
“Awakenings” when Robert Deniro’s character is awaken from a
catatonic state and becomes totally typical thanks to a new drug…only to have
the drug lose its effectiveness after a few months and it all slipped away…
November 12 at
8:55am
·
29) Kyle just had
one of his best haircuts ever! No crying, no biting, no kicking… He was
stressed and tried to wiggle out of it as usual… but he got thru it…
Is this another
byproduct of him being slightly under the weather? Who knows? All I know is I’m
thinking “what else should we try today that he normally has issues
with?”
🙂
· November 12 at
2:44pm
·
30) I’m in the
middle of a self imposed “Breaking Bad” marathon on Netflix…. It’s
the latest show that’s affecting my dreams…
November 12 at
7:31pm ·
31) Kyle is 8
years old, but every morning walking down the stairs appears to mom & dad
to be a death defying experience. “Kyle hold on to the railing”.
“Kyle, pay attention”. “Stop leaning forward.” “Stop
looking back at me, eyes front.”
It’s like he’s
walking the high wire act in the circus…
November 13 at 6:01am
32) Today is
November 13th and everyone knows that…
“…on
November 13, Felix Unger was asked to remove himself from his place of
residence; that request came from his wife. Deep down, he knew she was right,
but he also knew that some day he would return to her. With nowhere else to go,
he appeared at the home of his friend, Oscar Madison. Several years earlier,
Madison’s wife had thrown HIM out, requesting that HE never return. Can two
divorced men share an apartment without driving each other crazy?”
November 13 at
12:49pm
33) One of our biggest “what do we do’s” may be happening
tomorrow. Kyle has been under the weather for the past couple of days and
stayed home from school today with some kinda bug with a small amount of
diarrhea and vomiting. It never really got that bad and it appears that he’s on
the upswing. However, now tonight both the wife and I are feeling kinda
nauseous. So how do two sick people take care of a crazy ASD kid who is on the
mend and has more energy each day?
November 14 at
9:53pm
34) The wife and I
are taking Kyle to the doctor this morning. He’s had a bug/virus since Friday.
He seems to be past the worst of it, but he hasn’t gotten his appetite back and
for a kid that normally doesn’t eat and has a history of losing weight, we just
want to make sure it’s not strep or something. If the dr finds nothing, I say
send his ass back to school, but we’ll see if the boss (wife) agrees…
I hate going to
the dr with Kyle cuz my copay is up to $25 and 75% of the time I feel like that
$$ is just going out the window…but in the past Kyle has often had mild
symptoms of something for a few days before the big thing broke out (flu,
strep, ear inf, etc) so we are just gonna spend $25 to rule everything out I
guess….
· November 15 at
7:13am ·
.
35) I dropped the
king off to school this morning about 90 minutes late after a dr appointment.
As I’m chatting with his teacher, the aides are getting him set up. As I’m
about to leave and I see my little angel sitting so nicely at the table muching
on some fruit appropriately… and I’m thinking, will we ever get that Kyle at
home? lol…. to get him to sit for 5 minutes straight at home is a miracle…
these people really are miracle workers!
November 15 at
12:54pm ·
36) Wednesday, 8:55am. I just dropped the king off at school and
I’m driving home and I didn’t realize until I was almost home that the Sesame
DVD that I had on for Kyle in the minivan for the drive to school was still
on… and I was singing along… quite loudly…
I quickly switched
to a classic rock station and closed my windows… 🙂
November 16 at
9:05am
·
37) Lots of
craziness going on with us on Planet Kyle. Not good stuff unfortunately… Way
too much to update you on…
Let’s just say
that his new school, the school we’ve come to really love over the past two
months, BLINDSIDED us yesterday and has discharged him because of his holding
breath issues.
It has gotten
worse. He does it over 300x a half hour, now while pushing against his neck /
jugular and the school is very concerned about him passing out or worse.
So they are
kicking him out and recommending a clinic / behavior analyst to help eliminate
the behavior. When the behavior is gone, if his spot is still open in the
classroom, they will welcome him back.
What they don’t
care about is that our home school district is the home of red tape and may
take weeks before they get approval to send us to this behavioralist.
So we are heading
in to Thanksgiving week and then Christmas without a school or a plan for Mr
Kyle…
Lawyers have been
called…again… 🙁
If I’m quiet on
here for a few days, now you know why…
November 17 at
7:07am
·
38) Even through
very stressful times somehow the wife and I have no problem enjoying a good
night of tv and getting a good nights sleep….the drugs help a little too. 🙂
November 17 at
7:46pm
39)  I just found Kyke standing in the upstairs
bathtub with my Mach 3 razor in his mouth about to attempt to shave his
tongue… I stopped him of course, but I got this weird feeling that he knew
what he was doing, like he’s done that before…
November 18 at 6:50pm
·
40) I LOVE my wife
+ I LOVE my kid + I LOVE my job + I LOVE my house = my life is a f-cking mess
right now…
🙂
How is that
possible? Oh, cuz of that other thing that I don’t love so much…that we could
all do without…
November 19 at
8:36am
·
41) Kyle just
handed me the jar of grape jelly. Does that mean he wants a PB&J sandwich
you ask? No, it means he wants teaspoons of jelly to shove down his mouth….
November 19 at 4:34pm ·
42) Sign that it’s gonna be a good night? I pull up in front of my
house after my drive home from work and from the street I can see Kyle sitting
at the dinner table and my wife dancing around him… 🙂
· November 21 at
6:40pm
·
43) Today was DAY3
of no school due to the breath holding issues….
And amazingly Kyle
is having a great week so far…mom & dad, not so much…
We went to a
behavior therapist this morning who feels he can help Kyle if we see him for an
hour a day until __? But he also agrees that Kyle being removed from the
classroom was the wrong course of action…

Kyle was great at his office, then wife took him out to lunch at
the diner and reported that he did great…

And then he had his aquatic/swim OT session and was very happy throughout….

This whole stressful school situation is being made a bit easier with the King
being Mr Mello Yello so far…

· November 22 at 8:17pm
44) First
sign that it’s Thanksgiving week in the Autism Daddy household…. 🙂

November 23 at 6:16am

45) 1/2 day of work + no school for the king = The Muppets movie +
The Cheesecake Factory for me, wife, king, and autism device dog Paula…
A pretty good time
was had by all, although the King fell asleep about 20 minutes in (which is
rare for him) and missed half the movie…
But you know what
we learned today? If we put cheeios in Kyles hand while he is sleeping, he will
eat them IN HIS SLEEP!! Now we know how to get an extra few hundred calories
in… 🙂
November 23 at
4:28pm
·
46) To run or to
sleep?… that is the question…
Run in a 10k
Turkey Trot race at 9am?… or go back to bed for a nap?
· November 24 at
6:49am

47) Paula’s one vice. 

She’s up
to a 5 sock a day habit. :-)”

November 24 at 12:08pm

48) Thursday/Thanksgiving 9:36pm. The king is asleep for the
night. It’s days like these that I’m so glad that the wife and I live within a
5 mile radius of all our parents.
We were at my
in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner since about 3:30pm. Kyle was pretty well
behaved for the most part…but was pretty much in his own world / not there
today. Some days he can easily be actively engaged by people…today he was
kinda out of it…just wandering from room to room 🙁
Anyway by about
8:45pm I could tell that we were heading towards a bad place so I gave him his
melatonin there, and said to the wife, “I’ll take him home and get him to
sleep. You stay, hang out with your sibs and help your mom clean”.
They live 1.5
miles away. We were home in 3 minutes, went straight into his bedroom and he
was asleep in less than 15 minutes as I write this in the dark sitting on the
floor of his bedroom…. 🙂
November 24 at
9:40pm ·
.
49)  We’ve got family plans with the king for
Saturday evening & Sunday afternoon, but nothing on the agenda for today…
It’s only 9:24am and I can sense the king is already getting
restless…
Any suggestions on
what to do, out of the house, that will keep us away from Black Friday shopping
crowds and madness??
November 25 at
9:25am ·
50) I just found a
styrofoam coffee cup on my dining room floor with a big bite taken out of it.
I picked it up
showed it to the wife and said “Kyle or the dog?”
She said “it
could’ve been either.”
I said “well
let’s hope neither one swallowed it…but I’m sure we will know if they
did…”
🙂
51) We went to my in law’s last night for my dad-in-laws birthday.
Big crowd of fam was there. Party didn’t start til 8pm. And so we had those
decisions… Does wife go solo and I stay home and put Kyle to sleep? Or do we
bring him and take turns running after him? Or do we bring him doped up on
melatonin 🙂 so he’ll (hopefully) fall asleep while we are there so we can
relax and have a good time?
We chose the
mealtonin route and it worked out ok I guess. He got to “yum yum yum”
down a bag of popcorn and then fell asleep leaning on my dad-in-law at the
table. I then put him on their bed and the party continued.
But oh the guilt!
He loves blowing out the candles and was asleep for most of the “Happy
Birthday” festivities… 🙁
November 27 at
8:11am
52) The days of
Kyle falling asleep in the car and us being able to transfer him to his bed
without waking up are over.
🙁
He fell asleep for
the 90 minute car ride home from my sis’s house from 6:30pm-8pm. It is now
9:17pm and he is up as a pup…
· November 27 at
9:17pm ·
53) Today is DAY5 of Kyle not in school due to holding breath
episodes.
Kyle has three 60
minute appointments with a behavior specialist this week to help us come with a
plan of attack that the school will find satisfactory enough to let him back
in….
The school is
still waiting on a behavior plan even though we’ve got 3 doctors and this
behavior specialist medically clearing him to be back in school ASAP.
This is so f–king
FRUSTRATING!! The wife and I made a pact not to discuss it over the 4 day
holiday weekend since nothing could be done anyway…but now it’s Monday
morning and it’s top of mind again!
And we are not
sure how much of all this Kyle is grasping but every time I say to him “No
school today buddy” I’m crying a little on the side because of how well he
was doing in school and because of his history of regression.
If you don’t know
anything about this breathing thing you can read about the history here http://autism-daddy.blogspot.com/2011/11/frantic-email-to-kyles-school-re-breath.html?m=0
And before you say
it, we checked and they are not breaking the law. I’ll explain in the comments
below.
After all the dust
settles it may be time to move to a city with a a better / smaller / more
competent school district. 🙁
November 28 at
8:13am ·
54) A hidden perk of severe/ low functioning/ non-verbal autism?
Kyle has very
little understanding of Christmas… which means no Santa, no lists, no hearing
a kid whining about how he’s gotta have this game or that app, no fighting
crowds for the last ___ in stock.
(leave me alone,
I’m trying to find a silver lining in all of this 🙂
We’ll probably get
him clothes, some new IPad apps, and re-buy some of his favorite books and toys
that he’s destroyed over the past year….
November 28 at
8:10pm ·
55) Nothing like a disgusting episode of “Hoarders” to
make you feel better about your life…. 🙂
November 28 at
11:05pm
56) I’ve got 4
words for you all…
BIGGEST LOSER
MAKEOVER EPISODE…
C’mon Kyle time
for bed soon…mommy & daddy have a date on the couch with frozen pizza
& biggest loser… 🙂
November 29 at
8:32pm
·

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Written by

Frank Campagna

I’m a 48 year old neurotypical dad with a 14 year old son with severe, non-verbal autism & epilepsy. I created this blog to rant about autism & epilepsy while celebrating my son who I affectionately call “the king” :-).


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