My Family's Experience with Autism: Change Of Settings

Monday, August 2, 2010

Change Of Settings

Camps are done. Our routine is changing, again. Our world is being shaken. Just as is the case for any family. How will we react?

Well, in explanation, we left a couple of days ago for our annual trip to visit the grandparents. But this year, we did things a little differently. We started by visiting my parents for a night, and leaving Daniel in their care. Other than when I was in the hospital, I had never been away from Daniel at night. But my parents really wanted to spend quality time with him, he wanted to spend the time with them, and it's good for them to get to know each other a bit better. We left him there on Sunday and he'll be meeting up with me and the twins tomorrow (Tuesday). I talked to him on the phone the last 2 nights, and he's having a BLAST, so I'm really glad things worked out so well and that he's enjoying himself (and not driving my parents too crazy). I'm also grateful that the weather forecast hasn't held true and they've had nice weather. Daniel stuck inside in an unfamiliar place with semi-unfamiliar people can be a VERY dangerous thing, for everyone.

Other than that, things have gone in similar fashion to the last couple of years. We headed to Kevin's parents' house for the rest of the week. After being here for about 24 hours, Kevin got on a train to head back home (he'll be back on Saturday). Kinda strange -- me being here, with the kids, but not with Kevin. But we've done this twice before, and it does work. And each trip, we've learned more. We've now been here for 2 days (well, are experiencing the 2nd night) and bedtime was actually easy. Not quite like at home since we can't just leave them in the room like we do there, but within about 20 minutes, they were both asleep. It's nice to spend some time with the family, and it's really nice for the kids to spend this time with their extended family. They deserve to get to know them all.

It's also interesting to see things from someone else's perspective. My in-laws haven't spent any time with Rachel or Simon since the start of the year and there have been so many changes in both of them. Seeing them every day, I always get so frustrated at Simon's apparent lack of progress, but when someone else can see so much progress it makes me feel better about some things. I still worry, but now I'm able to see more of his advancements.

But we'll be here for another week or so and then we'll head home. Then we'll have yet another routine (that we have to discover) until August 30, when school begins again (for all 3 kids). We'll be working on finding activities for those 3 weeks or so, I'm sure....

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A Little Bit About Me and My Family

Every once in a while, something happens to a family that seems to change everything, whether that change is positive, negative, or in an uncertain direction. One such thing happened to us in March 2009, when we were informed our 26 month old twins (girl/boy) were BOTH on the autism spectrum. Their older brother (nearly 4 at the time) had always been ahead of the curve for most developmental milestones, so we had never really considered that some of the delays the twins were having had anything to do with autism. Well, we were wrong. Since then we have been learning about learning techniques and doing everything we can to make sure they get any and all help they need so that they can live normal lives. This blog chronicles that journey.

The Autism Pizza

I don't know where this came from originally, but I found it on a post on Circle of Moms. It's a good explanation of how things line up on the spectrum.

1. The Crust: Lack of Social Interaction (poor eye contact, not sharing interests with you, no pointing/gesturing)

2. The Sauce: Impaired Communication (possibly no speech, poor conversation skills, repetitive language, echolalia, no make-believe play)

3. The Cheese: Stereotypical Activities & Interests (extreme routine, strong interest in certain things, stimming [flapping, atypical play, etc.] -- like spinning wheels, lining toys up, stacking, etc.)

If you have all of those things: crust, sauce, cheese, you made an Autism pizza. It might have different toppings, but you can look at it and know it's still a pizza. If your pizza doesn't have sauce, that's Aspergers's. If your pizza is missing more than that but still kind of looks like a pizza, that's PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified)