My Family's Experience with Autism: Time To Get Serious

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Time To Get Serious

I have tried several times to lose weight and get into shape. Most of the times, I give up before I even start. Sometimes I stick with it for a while, but get frustrated with the lack of progress. Other times I see success but then see excuses to stop and I end up back where I started.

Something happened at the beginning of the month that made me realize that this has got to stop. We went to Split Rock Resort in the Poconos for the weekend. We took advantage of some of the on-site activities including an indoor water park. The kids had a BLAST! And they loved to go down the tall tunneled slides.

Unfortunately, those slides were 4 stories high. They would all just run up the stairs without a second thought. Me, well, I'd get up the first one fine and then the struggle would begin. Especially when I was tired from doing this over and over and over again. I found excuses so I could catch my breath after every trip, but that didn't always work -- Music Man figured out he can run up there again and again. Thankfully, Big Brother recognized I needed a moment between trips and he helped to run interference, stopping Music Man from going up a third straight time.

That shouldn't be his job though. At least not at this point. Big Brother is 7 years old and he should be able to play as much as he can find the time. It's MY job to keep Music Man from hurting himself and having fun. So the time has come for me to do something.

I made a recent purchase from Amazon. I bought Big Brother Lego Harry Potty (years 1-4) for the Wii and I bought myself The Biggest Loser for the Wii. This is an exercise program that is designed to work for all fitness levels, all ages, all weights.....unlike some of the other games I've seen, I should be able to do this, at least at my own pace.

I am going to get into shape. Who knows how far I will take this -- perhaps I will manage to run a 5K or something at some point (yeah, right!). But no matter what, the time has come to get serious, and hopefully by writing this here, I will realize that I can't back out!

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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)