A Day In My Life

A day in my life is not glamorous by any means. It is boring for the most part and a lot of people probably do not want to be in my shoes. We have everyday struggles with living pay check to pay check. I am a worry wart so I worry about everything even if it is two months ahead of time. I think I put a bunch of unnecessary stress on myself. (To much time to think about it, perhaps?)
2 boys who attend school (public) and one that attends a preschool. I guess you can say that. I am not sure what they call them. Developmental preschool. He has autism which I have mentioned several times. 

My morning starts off at 6:30 a.m. by waking up little man (Logan) and getting him ready for his day. Some mornings are good and others are not so good. Depends on how he slept that night. 

I get him off on the bus, then the two boys off on theirs and I usually try to back to sleep. I am an insomniac so sleeping in the night is something that I do not usually do. 

I wake up from my nap and take my dogs out and start on my "chores" you know those awful things grown ups have to do? Laundry which is a never ending battle, picking up all the crap left from the night before. Our coffee table ends up being completely covered by the end of the night. Did I mention I live with 4 boys? I dust everyday. Once a week I move everything and dust under it. I vacuum everyday. I have a Siberian Husky, this must not be skipped or I will have a new dog in the house. After my chores are done I sit down in front of my computer, in "my spot" and start working on my blog or scrolling through facebook. Have I ever mentioned that I do not have a social life? My social life is behind a computer screen. 

By the time I have had maybe an hour or two for all my blogging and things Mr. Sexy gets home from work with my little man. He has a total of maybe 20 or 30 minutes to calm down from school, get something to drink and a snack before our wonderful ABA therapist arrives to start another 4 hours of therapy with little man. 

So while therapy is going on I try to participate as much as I can, Mr. Sexy will most of the times take care of dinner. I am running back and forth with therapy and taking care of the older two boys, which they have to be reminded to do their chores, take a shower and do homework. I try to call my mom everyday and do this almost towards the end of therapy during the time Logan is having books read to him. The therapist leaves around 7 p.m. then its time to get Logan settled down, eat his dinner(since he does not eat with us because he is super picky) get cleaned up, lotioned down because he has eczema so he needs his daily steroid cream rubbed on the rough spots then the lotion on after that on his entire body. He hates this so its whining the entire time and my hair getting yanked on and even sometimes being kicked. The joys of autism right? He just does not like the feel of that slimmy stuff on him. Then he gets his nightly dose of melatonin and benadryl. If no benadryl he will scratch himself until he bleeds. Then if he is allowed he will get to play his game for a bit before bedtime and of course all we do is sit and watch t.v.

So the little one goes to bed and we are soon to follow. Eric goes right to sleep of course. Men seem to be able to do that well. I sit there on my phone on instagram, pinterest, farm heroes saga, and fb for several hours before I drift off. Then wake up and start over. Not so glamorous right? Every now and then I can go to wal-mart after begging my Mr. Sexy if we can go after therapy. Who thought being in the house so much can make you go insane?

What about you? Is a day in your life glamorous or boring or just peachy?

School Events and Meltdowns

School events have started for this school year. Last night was the kick off pep rally! Mr. Sexy and I are going to do our best to be "good parents" and go to each event we can. Even though neither of the boys are in sports, the oldest boy (Sean) plays in the high school band. In my opinion he should be in football. He definitely has the build but oh well. I can not mold him the way I want him. The even started out well. 

After about 20 minutes of us sitting in the bleachers waiting, Logan started getting loud. He had his ipad and was playing a game that is very stimulating to him. He gets excited, starts jumping up and down, flapping and yelling as loud as he can. People began to gawk. Granted we were outside and everyone was talking but Logan seemed to get several octaves above everyone else. So we took his game away in hopes of quieting him down a bit. WRONG!! This led to meltdown mode. A gruesome 20 minutes of flailing, screaming, hyperventilating and a down pour in sweat. Mr. Sexy had him the first 15 minutes or so and then I took over for the rest of the event. Every time we go closer to the crowd he would scream. Logan and I just hung out on the side until the pep rally was over. We have made the decision to not take his game with us anywhere we go and try to find something less stimulating.

Mr. Sexy was able to get a few pictures while i was comforting Logan. I was also able to capture the football team before I took over. 

Sean on the trombone

While sitting out of the crowd and somewhat by myself other than Logan I noticed a beautiful sunset. You can kind of see the pink behind Sean here but I got the following shots with my phone. Mr. Sexy had my fancy camera. 

#WordlessWednesday

A Calming sight to mark an ending to a horrific meltdown!

Here is to a school year full of events and meltdowns! 

Our 4th of July

Our 4th of July was simple. Which of course is the way I like it. We were not sure if Eric would have to work or not so we were not set in plans. He did have to work on the holiday but was off the following day so we could go up to my parents house. 

Those were always my favorite memories. We never did anything huge and fancy but simple and fun. I want my kids to learn to enjoy these things as well. No sense in going all out and spending tons of money to enjoy the holiday. 

We bought a handful of things such as bottle rockets, smoke bombs, sprinklers and things like that. No big deal and my mom picked up a few things and supplied the food. Eric cooked some chicken and steaks, baked potatoes and corn. Mom picked up sides. She doesn't like to cook much. I do not have a big family or tons of friends to where we have huge gatherings so it does not take much to feed us. 

We were concerned how Logan would react. He does have autism and can be sensitive to certain things. Last year he covered his eyes the entire time. We passed on a family gathering and just attended a local fireworks shown instead. So this year we thought he may react the same. To our surprise he did not! He loved loved the booms! He may not have had issues with the sight because we were not at a huge display. Not sure though but he did very well and we were all so proud of him. 

I ran off and forgot to charge my batteries to my camera so we did not get many great pictures. It died at night. 

After the night was over I asked the kids if they had fun, I got a really loud "oh yeah!" They said it was the best 4th they have had. These are my step kids answering this. I asked them if they had to choose between a huge show or going to my parents every year and shooting off small ones what they would choose. They chose my parents! 

How did you spend your 4th?

ABA Success after 4 Months

What is ABA you ask? It is Applied Behavioral Analysis. I will go into more detail on a later post. If you can not wait that long then go ahead and check out THIS SITE.
Logan had been accept into the Autism Waiver Program back in October of last year and it took them until February to hire people to come out to our house. In this field of therapy there is your line therapist, lead therapist and a consultant as well as a program coordinator. To make a long story short, things were not being done correctly at all. I finally made enough complaints that the program coordinator came out to our home and seen what a mess things were and how everyone was not following the proper guidelines. They were training my son wrongly. He would get bored and frustrated. Especially since he had to repeat a task 40 times in one day and he had 6 different tasks to work on. He can only "sort" so many times without losing his temper. Now Logan only has to do the "sort" task 10 times in four hours as well as the others tasks. They are pretty simple right now. It consists of imitation, pulling up his pants and working on sign language. 
Logans consultant had not ordered much of anything as learning tools. Logans ABA supplies were very very lacking and ineffective. Within the last week Logan has gotten a new lead therapist and a new consultant. The line therapist showed up today with an armful of things. Logans face lit up with all the new goodies to play with. Only problem, he found it hard to concentrate at the tasks because he wanted to play with the new toys! His reinforcement for completing his tasks was to be able to check out these new pretties. His favorite toy today to work for was the Handy Manny tool box.

Order Here

Next on the list of supplies that were brought today was Melissa & Dougs Rainbow Caterpillar. This particular toy will help develop gross motor skills. Logan has this bagged and passed. Even though it is easy for him he loves to play with it either way. It spins and anyone who has an autistic child knows that they love to spin things. That is a classic sign of autism. 

Order Here

My son is not the violent or destructive autistic child. In fact he loves to cuddle. Of course that would be on his terms but he has never "hit" a thing unless told do so. Even then it is iffy if he would even do it then. His line therapist brought in the whacky ball toy. Once he figured out how to hit the ball he enjoyed it. This toy was used in his functional play time. Functional play time is where we all play and show Logan how to play with a toy properly. He even played with it after the therapist left. 

Order Here

I felt very confident in todays therapy session. Instead of Logan getting bored or frustrated, he had fun. The way it should be. He even learned two new signs which are cookie and milk. He even learned how to pull up his pants. He still can not get the shorts over his bottom but he mostly gets it. Tomorrow will be even more fun. More supplies coming, meeting the new lead therapist and seeing what other tasks we can work on as well as learning what the parents goals will be. 

Logan did have a hard time focusing on the tasks but I play that off to the fact he has not had a therapy session since his surgery which was May 20th. He has to get in the swing of things again and get used to the new way of doing things. He was also distracted by all the new toys. 

Parents if your children are in therapies or anything else and you just have this gut feeling its not going the way it should, go with it! Research it and get things on the right track. I am excited about seeing Logans progress now. I think it is time for him to soar!!

Baby Book Milestones

You all know that special baby book you get for your newborn or the one not born yet? You excitedly can not wait to get your hands on it and start filling it out. I have done this with each one of my 3 children. My oldest had a winnie the pooh baby book. My middle child I did a scrapbook. Did everything on my own and had a very enjoyable time doing to. I loved recording all their firsts. 

I got my sons before he was born. I found it at a truck load sale. Not a very special one but special enough for me. I was excited about getting started. To begin with you have a section all about mom and dad. You should see my side compared to his dads side. Then you have a section to write about our parents .                Mine

His

Oh well I can get over that just fine. It's filling in the milestones that start to get me a little down. I am sure I am not the only autistic parent that may feel this way. We still have blanks in there and Logan is 3. He has yet to hold his own spoon, go to potty, stop wearing diapers, sang a song, first animal sound, first word and favorite playmates. What can I do though? I will not sit here and feel sorry for myself or him. My son and I are working very hard on trying to get all these milestones met. It may be later than most but he is more special than most. Maybe I am just bias. He may not be able to speak a single word but there are many other things he can do that children who can speak can not do.  Those are the things we shall focus on. 

As I was typing up this blog I realized something. The front cover of this baby book is of noah's ark My grandmother passed away back in March. It was not an easy passing for me to handle. My Grandmother loved Logan. She would be so proud of how intelligent he is. I was going through her belongings after she passed and found a noah's ark she had constructed by hand. I feel a connection. I told you at the beginning, that this baby book was nothing really special and I could have bought a much more nice one at the store or something but I seen it at a truckload sale and just had to get it. I feel there is something there but maybe I am crazy. But I can believe and it makes my heart feel better. 

Us autism parents, those milestones feel like a huge thing to us. It does hurt our hearts when we see that our children are behind but we also see our children excel in other ways. We are happy for every single progression they make. Love to you all and stay strong! 

Not a Wordless Wednesday

Usually this is a non-worded picture post. Not today. This morning was a true autistic morning with a full meltdown to boot. I love my son being home with me all the time but he has to go to his Day Developmental school throughout the week and it is year round so therefore no summer vacation for him. 
My S.O. stayed home these past two days on Monday and Tuesday and he got Logan ready for school. (He returned to school this week following two weeks off due to tonsillectomy) Wouldn't you know it, he had no issues with Logan. He got up just fine and was happy go lucky. Today was my day.
I knew it would be trouble getting him up due to the fact he did not get to bed until around 10 and no telling how long he laid there before going to sleep. 
Yup full meltdown mode this morning, full of tears, yelling, hyperventilating and stomping feet. While my S.O. (significant other) got smiles, giggles and a great mood I get the devil child. 

You can find my link ups to the Wordless Wednesdays HERE

Hospital stay

As I type this on my small phone my son, his daddy and I are spending the night at the hospital. Logan did not take to the surgery so well with some minor complications. We got here about 8 he had his goofy juice around 9:00 was in surgery at 9:36 and back with me at 11:06. Yes I watched the clock closely. Here it is, 10:00 at night. He still will not drink willingly. Forcing him is not the way to go about this either. The more upset he gets the worse it hurts his throat. Good news his oxygen levels are finally good. He just got his dose of hydrocodone and hopefully he will drift off to sleep soon. But he's happily playing angry birds at the moment. We shall see what the wee hours of the night will bring.

Wordless Wednesday 5/14

I know this is usually meant for pictures but this week I decided to post a couple of videos. My son Logan has ASD as many of you already know. He has been in ABA therapy for 3 months now. Here is something they practice and he is right on with it. 

Not only that but he can spell! At barely 3!!

Linking up to Wordless Wednesdays

One thing I believe that helps my son learn so well is his Nabi Jr. Check it out HERE

Sometimes It Hits Me Hard

Logans in home therapy started yesterday. I know my son has autism and have known ever since he was small. It does not matter how much I am at terms with this it still hurts at times. 

I had a perfect pregnancy and tons of dreams for my son. He was born perfect with no complications and I was a glowing mom. I longed for him for so long. I never really thought of him having autism. I just thought he was delayed because he was home with me and not around other kids. 

He was given the preliminary diagnosis at 18 months of age and officially diagnosed June 19th 2013 with moderate to severe autism. I knew this so it was not any sort of blow really. There are days when I do have a hard time with the diagnosis. For example, yesterday, the therapists were working with Logan with objects. She would hold one toy in each hand and have him choose which one he wanted. I seen Logan do this for the first time. My boyfriend has said he does it often but I have never noticed or it did not stick out in my head but it did yesterday. If he did not want either one of the choices he would rock back and forth and hum staring into space. Yes it hit me! My son is not normal. 

In my self pity party I was having late last night I ran across some videos on youtube that are worth sharing and passing along to others. I hope you watch them and they help you understand what autism spectrum disorder is. 

My Autism and Me! 

Make me Normal. This one kind of jerked at my tear producers

10 things every autistic child wish you knew

Some People Are Not Cut Out For This and Some Are

I hear people say all the time how hard it is to be an austim parent. I guess it is to a point but I thoroughly enjoy my ASD son and some days are harder than others but most of my days have been fairly simple. Then I get to thinking, maybe I was cut out for this, maybe my son was meant for me for a reason, maybe some parents can not handle having a child with special needs. 

My ex husband (Logans Dad) I think has a hard time with it more than I do. Even though he only sees him one weekend out of every two or three months. He tells me how he can not even take him to a restaurant or certain stores because he has fits. I myself don't see this. We have no trouble out of Logan going out to most public places. When we do attend a restaurant we request sitting in the back and try to be away from the crowd because Logan has a tendency to throw things. When he is happy he screams and flaps his arms. This to me is acceptable. More than an unhappy child. His father can not even handle this. He says its rude and will disturb other people. I have caught myself apologizing to other people when he does this just because of how Logans father would be. I have never gotten someone being upset about it. Usually people tell me its just fine. Its music to their ears to hear a happy baby. And Logan is happy most of the time. Or at least with me. When I was with his father he would get embarrassed about Logans loud noises. It really hurt me and caused problems in our marriage with the way he was with Logan or about Logans behavior. 

Now my Eric (my fiance) is so caring when it comes to Logan. He knows how to handle it. He loves hearing Logans screams of happiness and could care less if he does this in public. He is happy that he is happy! 

Logan and I are both so lucky to have him in our life!

Arkansas Riders For Autism Online Store

I have been so caught up in doing other things that I have neglected my blogging duties. I have several reviews coming up that I need to post and possibly another giveaway? My last one did not do so well :( only ended up with 26 entries. I get discouraged sometimes with blogging that I do tend to neglect it. By that I am meaning by not seeing my followers go up in numbers or my comments being empty. I get sad and move on to other things. 

In the light of things I have now opened up an online store. This store is for bracelets that the S.O. and I make. 80% of the proceeds go to helping our local special needs school. My son attends one that does so much for the kids that I think it would be nice if some regular people such as myself could help them out financially. Getting started is the hard part. I'm trying to get stock built up so that way we can attend flea markets and craft fairs. 

This started out as my honey and I wanting to start some sort of riding group. We are motorcycle enthusiasts and love to ride, problem is that all the clubs around here are not what we are looking to join except maybe with the exception of BACA which is Bikers Against Child Abuse. We decided to set up our own group. Not a club but a group of riders who are wanting to give to the local schools, charities, therapies etc.. We came up with Arkansas Riders for Autism. 

This is our own design and hopefully in the near future we will be wearing these patches proudly. It is slow going when you have limited funds. We are slowly getting started, hoping others will want to join us and help the special needs children and schools. Funds are limited so it is very very slow going. 

If you would like to check out our work and online store please do so!!! And make a purchase. We make everything we sell. 

80% of the proceeds will go to our local community schools that help children with special needs such as the one my little Logan attends. They do so much for the kids its time someone gives back. So go check it out and support this cause!! It will make you feel good. I promise

Arkansas Riders For Autism Online Store

You can also find our FB page 

HERE

Autism Bracelet??

Here lately I have been having an un-accomplished feeling, like I have done absolutely nothing. Yeah, that feeling sucks. 

My SO and I have thought about starting a riding group where we raise money for the local special schools around in our area that are dedicated to autism. My son attends one of these schools. It is slow going. Finding other people who want to be involved is not an easy task, so we are just going to tackle things on our own. 

First things first. We have thought about selling something that is geared towards awareness. 

Since I have had this feeling of un-accomplishedness (yes a Melissaism) I decided to make a bracelet. You remember the ones we would make in school for our friends? Im not very talented so I thought I would try this again after many years of not doing it and just adding puzzle piece charms to it. Here is the finished product. It only took me about two hours to do it. Not long at all.

Hmm I wonder if anyone would want to buy something like this for the proceeds to go to a great cause? Helping our local schools and organizations for autism. 
I actually ended up wearing this as an anklet. To big for me as a bracelet. I have small wrists.

If you would be interested in checking out the facebook page for Arkansas Riders for Autism you can check it out HERE

DONT FORGET ABOUT MY GIVEAWAY, ENTER HERE PLEASE PLEASE

To check out who I am linking up with this beautiful Friday click HERE

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND

Understand The Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS)

Yesterday I finally got my sons evaluation scores back. In reality you know what they will say and expect to see the low scores but seeing it on paper just kind of makes it more surreal. That is if you can understand the things. 

They used the CARS-The Childhood Autism Rating Scale

Here they evaluate the child on 15 areas

• Relating to people
• Imitation
• Emotional response
• Body use
• Object use
• Adaptation to change
• Visual response
• Listening response
• Taste, smell, and touch response and use
• Fear or nervousness
• Verbal communication
• Nonverbal communication
• Activity level
• Level and consistency of intellectual response
• General impressions

The child is then scored on a scale of 1-4 on each of these tasks, half points are also rewarded. 

1 is normal for the childs age

2 is mildly abnormal

3 is moderately abnormal

4 is severely abnormal

After this they total it all up. The scores range from 15 to 60 30 being the cutoff range. Scores 30 to 37 indicates Mild to Moderate Autism, 38 to 60 is indication of Severe Autism.

 My son scored a 43.5 which placed him in the moderately to severe. General impression scored 3 which is Moderate Autism

Then here it is, in black and white--Logan exhibits the symptoms consistent with the diagnosis of 299.00 Autistic disorder (per DSM-5 299.00 Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 2). 

This is not the only test they administered but I guess it is the one that plays the main factor in a diagnosis.  Logan needs a lot of speech therapy because he is non-verbal and this made a difference in his scores. 

Our next step is to fill out an application for the Autism Waiver Program for more therapies in the home. He will receive those and the ones at school as well, that is if he is approved. (keep fingers crossed) 

It seems like a lot of therapies but early intervention is important. Maybe someday Logan will find his voice. 

Bloglovin' Issue? No Meltdowns At the Display

One of the hardest things I have discovered about blogging is not the writing one or coming up with a subject (there are plenty of hops out there that help with this) but its the coming up with a title. So I do apologize if my titles are somewhat cheesy but I just try to give it a small summary on the subject.

Anyway I have started using bloglovin' a lot more lately but have realized that my blogs are not being updated there? I have searched the FAQ page and can not find a solution. My RSS feed is valid so I have no idea. I emailed customer support days ago and still have heard nothing. Anyone else experiencing any of these issues or know what to do about it?

Our Fourth of July was a pretty good day. Started out normal and slow but that is the way a mother likes it. Most of the time. My SO (significant other) and I got into the pool for awhile and it was nice to play around and relax in there just him and I. It was to cold to bring out Logan. 

We all ate dinner then went off to a fireworks display. Logan enjoyed his time at the park but he was not a fan of the fireworks. 

I had to keep his eyes covered the entire time or he got upset. On the brightside, no meltdowns. I don't know why he could not watch them or why they appeared scary to him. He may be to sensitive to those sort of lights?? I have no idea.  Any answers to the parents with autistic children??

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Accident Waiting To Happen Perhaps?

My son is a dare-devil. That is the only word I can come up with. He absolutely has no fear of anything, except Max the tax guy. Those are seriously creepy commercials. 

I had been reading stories already this summer about children drowning in pools and it was an accident. I of course being a mother did not understand how such a thing could happen. How could a parent not know when their child disappears and gets in the pool. I said this until today. My son got away from me and was up on that ladder quicker than I could get there. He did not fall in. I got there in time but now I see how it can be so easy. I had to remove the ladder from the pool completely. This did not stop him. He was trying his hardest to find a way into it. My mom sent me in the house to get something for her and she was right by my son and she looked the opposite direction and he was back on that ladder again. 

I am sorry to all those parents that their children have had those unfortunate accident. My hear does break for you because it can happen in a second and nothing you can do can stop it. 

I am not so sure if this is part of my sons autism that makes him so presistant, stubborn and fearless or just being a normal two year old. My girls never were this brave. 

If my son could do this I would not worry so much

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding this. Some people going as far as considering it child abuse. I, myself think this is amazing and wants me to try to get Logan into swimming classes. This is coming from a mother who does not know how to swim. These are skills everyone should know. I applaud the parents of this child or any parent that teaches their kids so young. Just amazing.  

Something New?

As every autistic parent knows, well most, getting your texture sensitive child to eat something new is something to celebrate! Here  are I am, bragging on my son. He tried an orange slush pop and loved it! 

Something new! Maybe he will continue to enjoy it.