Just when I was preparing to get things back on track, the first week of Jan. was shot. All three kids got sick, they had runny noses, coughs, and were all achy. I am thankful that they didn’t get fevers. When it comes to the kids getting sick I dread it, I know most parents do but for our household it is quite an issue. I am not claiming to have it worse than anyone else, I am mostly talking about my issues, what I am capable of handling. All of our children have sensory issues and there are some things that cause each of them to scream, cry, throw things, and other behaviors that I will not disclose because my kids are really great and I want to focus on that.

However, when all three of them are set off, my sensory issues are not a pretty sight.

The interesting thing here is that David has issues with anything that has the consistency of snot. He is not capable of being too helpful when it comes to snot running down the face or if we are lucky enough to witness the all so wonderful snot bubble turn snot strings flowing ever so gracefully in the wind to hit a child’s hand and be spread everywhere. Not to stop there but cause the child to scream in a panic because the gooey, sticky, nasty mess is touching them and they are shouting “AAAA, get it off! Get it off!” I can totally relate but someone has to clean up the mess and that someone is me because David has run for the hills before he gets sick all over the place.

David handles the other issues that I cannot take such as poop messes that smell up the whole house!

I have major issues with smell and if that smell gets on me I am the one running for the hills. Although I have to say that despite their sensory issues during the sick time they are quite pleasant when they are sick. Daniel seems to improve in certain areas when he is sick, I have read some studies on autistic children when they are running fevers and they seem to improve, in the past this has been the case for Daniel. I must say I do not think it is a good idea to let your child keep a fever so they will talk more or not be hindered by environment though. The kids are all so responsible and make sure they wash their hands and wipe their nose.

They will stop and rest if they feel they have overexerted themselves.

Ariel takes on the mother role and helps me with making sure the boys are doing alright. However, the sick thing is not fun and our children are just not themselves just like any other child. Joshua seems to get a lot louder, he is very sensitive already so when he is sick many things set him off that do not normally. Ariel seems to lose the ability to listen and forgets the “house” rules. I thought she was doing this on purpose before but now I am realizing there really are times when she is completely clueless to what she has done wrong and needs me to explain it. Daniel gets in a manic state and will bounce off the walls. When things get too loud for him he starts banging. Some of his favorite toys are metal shower heads, his gyroscope, and gears all of which are very loud on the tile floor. He will spin them, clang them, drop them, and bang them or  bang the doors all over the house. This gets pretty intense when he is not feeling well.

The big problem is the noises all feel like daggers in my ears and cause me to be unable to focus, be sympathetic at times, I become unable to hear and I shut down.

I feel sometimes that it is just too much and I feel like it will not end. I know it’s not true and those thoughts usually last just moments. I get my stem on, regroup and go back in to my awesome little kids who are in as much pain as I am and just trying to let me know. I am so grateful that our children are not complainers, they don’t let being sick stop them, and they are very good with following the “sick rules” so they can get better quicker. Being sick isn’t all that bad I was just hoping after the holidays we could get back into the swing of things.

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

As a child I can remember walking into people’s home and spotting their photo albums. I would scan the home and sometimes even ask where they were, once I found them I would ask to look at them. At my relative’s house I would pull them out and start asking all kinds of questions. I would ask who the people were that I didn’t know, what they were doing that day, how long ago was it, on and on I would ask until finally they would tire of my constant badgering and would say why don’t you put them away.

I learned to keep my mouth shut as I looked at their photos.

I would look at our photo albums at home for hours. I still do this, only now I have all of our photos on my computer and I can go through all the million and one photos I have taken. There have been times when I have sat down to do something and the next thing I know I have pulled up our photos or gone on my Face Book and gone through all of my photo albums online. I then look at the time and realize I have managed to waste a huge amount of time looking at our photos and my friends albums. If I find people I haven’t seen in years and they have their photos open to public I look at them, I can’t help myself.

I am not really looking at them for any purpose other than looking at what they are doing and their facial expressions.

I am pretty positive that I have done this my whole life to try to figure out what faces mean and how to mimic the correct behavior in the correct social situation. I never thought of it before until now, I just thought I was weird. I enjoy seeing people happy and usually people are happy in photos. I enjoy looking at the places they go, the people they know, the houses they used to live in, their homes now and the homes of others.  Now thinking about it I am pretty sure that I was preparing myself if ever the chance came that I would visit the houses of family members or friends of the family.

I say that because I am not looking at the photos to see what people are wearing or if they look good.

I am looking at them out of interest of their surroundings, how they respond to their surroundings, what is in their surroundings, and their faces. What are they smiling about? Why are they making a goofy face? Why are they laughing? Those are some of the questions that pop in my head. I like looking at animal photos too. However, when it comes to animals I look at them not so much their surroundings or what they are doing. Well I guess I am weird and that’s alright. I am ok with it.

I have always taken tons of photos as well.

I am out of control with the camera. When I was little I always wanted to take pictures and I wanted people to take pictures of me. I thought it was so much fun. As I child I loved the Polaroid because we could get it in an instant. I would get very anxious waiting for the other photos to develope and would drive my mom crazy asking when we would get them. She was and is not the best with the camera, she doesn’t like having her picture taken and she forgets to take pictures all the time. I had to take the responsibility for them so we would have some during the holidays or else all the memories would be lost.

Digital cameras have been the greatest thing in the world for me.

I take pictures of everything, the kids, the places we go, things that intrigue me anything and so many other things. I did the same thing all through out my life. Ariel has taken up this taking picture obsession also and I will find some pretty interesting photos on our camera that I had no idea were taken. She also loves to look at photos. Joshua and Daniel are not too into the photos but they love to watch all the home movies I have made. (I make a lot of home movies as well) (My dad was a home movie freak, I have a Super 8 that he made of me and some family members through out some of my childhood.) Daniel and Joshua  will ask me to watch to them, and they will begin to mimic what they are doing on the video. It has actually been quite good for Daniel. He has watched them and has mimicked Ariel and Joshua in real life but in the video he may not be responding to them at all.

I really don’t know the answers to my photo fixation it is just a theory but I do think it helped me and still does and I know that watching home videos has helped Daniel gain confidence in speaking and trying new things.

1 person likes this post.

Like

Unlike

I am so obsessive about grammar and no matter how hard I try I cannot remember all of the rules. I get sick to my stomach when I go back read over my posts and see spelling errors and other grammatical errors. It drives me crazy. My issue with this almost stopped me from writing a blog in the first place. I was so terrified that if I messed up then no one would take me seriously.

If I spell a word wrong, I get this lump in my throat and feel nauseous.

I use spell check, sometimes I have David go over my stuff and edit for those things but he misses them too. When I have posted after trusting David to have found all of my mistakes and then find one I get very upset. It really affects me to the point of me thinking I need to just take my blog down because I cannot possibly find all of the mistakes and everyone is going to think I am a moron.

I know my reaction is a bit dramatic but it is truly how I feel.

So to let myself off the hook and be able to continue to write with a limited amount of anxiety in this area, I ask you to forgive all of my errors that you may find. I have come to the point of using my blog to just write what is on my mind and letting it go. I need that freedom but if I continue to beat myself up over  this issue I know I will either spend hours upon hours combing over my every word or I will stop completely because I will feel that it is hopeless.

I do feel a bit of the anxiety lifting from writing this.

Thank you for your understanding and compassion on my inability to be completely grammatically perfect. Now I just need to find a way to forgive myself when I find the errors. :>/

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

I have been telling David for some time now that I wanted a cat. I love cats, I am obsessed with cats. I have always loved cats and have managed to have one in my adult life most of the time. My mother dislikes cats very much but she did let me have one as a teenager for a while but that did not turn out very well so we had to get rid of her. My mother was not really an animal person as I was growing up but when my sisters were young and I was out of the house she did get a dog and has had one-off and on for about 17 yrs. (She was only without one for a year.)

I love almost any animal.

I am not the biggest fan of birds but whenever I get around them my heart does melt. I don’t know why but I seem to relate more to animals than people. I find myself mimicking them when I am around them. I start to do their mannerisms and facial expressions. I do it at the zoo, at a pet store,or even when I am at a person’s house who has an animal. At social events I gravitate to kids and animals and seem to keep my distance from the adults. They just make me feel better and I feel like I have more in common them.

I do talk to animals, all the time, well I talk to plants too but that is another post.

Although my mother didn’t care for animals she let me have a few growing up. I had a couple dogs, not at the same time, but that always ended badly. I had two hamsters and I also had a gerbil, which was a BIG deal because my mom cannot stand any kind of rodent looking creature. They all had to stay in my room, hidden from her sight and I had to keep their cages very clean.

So it should be no surprise to me that both Daniel and Ariel are obsessed with our new cat.

However, I do find it strange because now I am observing my own behavior through them and to see it now I understand why others find it so strange. Thank goodness David thinks it is a funny quirk that I have. The kids however, are finding the balance between mirroring an animal and being a human. Ariel stopped talking for half the day when Natey arrived and embodied the cat persona. We had to address that because it is a little annoying trying to figure out what she wants when she is capable of telling us or when we almost fall because she is crawling under our feet. Daniel likes to make the cat run and then he runs just like the cat. He mimics the cats meow and it can be a bit loud.

Joshua talks to the cat.

He has spent all of his time teaching the cat how to play Lego’s and just having full conversations about whatever comes to his mind. He then comes to me and tells me everything he just told the cat. One of the reasons we got Natey was for pet therapy for Daniel, but I need to be a bit honest here, I was needing him. There is something about watching cats that makes me so happy. I love to watch them walk, hearing them talk, I enjoy so much when they bounce and play and we have an amazing little guy who lets us rub his belly and isn’t skittish at all. I had two black cats that I loved dearly and were my companions for over 8 yrs., Felix and Alexa. We had to give them up after the children were born because they just could not adjust to the kids and were getting very aggressive. I am still heartbroken over that situation. I am very happy that we found a kitty that works in our family now.

Nathaniel seems to really love us as much as we love him.

He sits in the midst of Daniel banging, spinning, being loud and obsessing about touching his tail. He doesn’t mind at all that Ariel is following him around every room on all fours and trying to eat her food like him. He seems very content to listen to all that Joshua has to say while throwing his Batman’s all around him yelling “AAAHHH, Batman”. And he has adjusted quite well to David and I picking him up and cuddling him, telling  him that all of those things are ok, “we are here to save you”.

Nathaniel is a sophisticated tuxedo cat who has just made our family very happy.

1 person likes this post.

Like

Unlike