My Family's Experience with Autism: So Much To Say.....

Monday, January 9, 2012

So Much To Say.....

......Let's just take this one topic at a time.

I have been needing to "blog" for ages and ages but I haven't had the time. I still don't have the time, but I'm doing it anyway this morning. Expect to see quite a few posts in the next week or so while I catch up....

What has been happening for the last couple of weeks? LOTS!!!!! But I'm going to focus this post on a topic that has been brought up many times before....SLEEP!!!!!

But what's different about this post about sleep as opposed to the many others that I've written over the last 2.5 years? Because this time, I'm going to talk about my kids ACTUALLY SLEEPING!!!!!! Yes, I"m not really sure what's been happening, but all 3 kids are falling asleep and staying asleep. They are even sleeping in (given THEIR definition of "sleeping in") periodically. It's strange. I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When we were visiting my parents, that's when it started. We traveled to NY and CT to spend the school holiday break with mine and my husband's families. The drive to my parent's house in NY was, well, we'll call it a nightmare in terms of traffic (but the kids did just fine - it was me and my husband that were struggling). What should have taken 5 hours took nearly 8. But since we were late in arriving, everything else got pushed back, including bedtime. They fell asleep VERY quickly (within 15 minutes). And this is in an unfamiliar place on their travel airbeds. We just figured it was because they were so tired (it was nearly an hour after their "normal" bedtime).

That was December 27th. Today is January 9th. They are still falling asleep quickly. And they are still sleeping through the night. They are even sleeping in until 6:45am on occasion!

I will admit, we are dealing with health not quite 100%. There is a mild stomach bug running through our house that has affected the two of them more than anyone else and they can't seem to quite shake it. But they are acting perfectly and 100% "normal" (for them) about 95% of the time, EXCEPT for this. Does this mean that we are about to enter a new chapter in our never-ending sleep sagas????

Or did I just jinx that away....forever?

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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)