Intuitiveness

The insight my son has is sometimes comical but also deep.  As we left his grandparents house today and headed out to Tuesday Morning to do some shopping we somehow got on the topic of cats in our conversation. 

I think the conversation came up because of a long time friend that moved to Tennessee who is a sucker for stray cats.  She feels compelled to take them in and I was saying how cats are not like dogs, they don't seem to have the same need for mutual companionship as dogs or devotion to their owners.

I am sure some cat person is going to be mad I think cats are just selfish beings.  Anyways my son wanted to know how you can tell an indoor cat from an outdoor cat and I said that if you declaw a cat he has to stay inside because he can't defend himself from other cats etc.  An outdoor cat is not necessarily an outdoor cat per se because someone really owns that cat and it will want to come back in at some point.  I'd say only wild/feral cats are true outdoor cats.

He wanted to know about how to keep a cat from running away and I was stressing the point that most people would never put a cat on a leash but by letting them out and about was like taking a risk because the cat could get hit by a car, killed (tried to avoid saying eaten) by a larger predator, get lost, or simply runaway or decide not to come back.

He wanted to know why they would not come back and why they would.  I told him cats can take you or leave you.  As long as they have somewhere to eat and sleep they pretty much might return but there are no guarantees.  I told him cats are the pet that would probably say "whatever!" to you if it could talk.

And he replied, "So cats are like teenagers!" 

I laughed out loud.  That was the best thing I heard today.  I'll have to remind him one day that he's being like a cat when he hits the terrible teen years.

Bus Ride Language

My son rides the special needs bus or what some would call the short bus to school. His bus rides to and from school have gotten more and more uneventful since he was in kindergarten.  It used to be he would not get on the bus, if the bus was different, there was a new parapro, or a different bus driver. Now he seems not to be phased by that.  Odor, though, or the bus being too chilly is upsetting to him and I hear about it a lot.

The recent development in the bus was a situation with a very unruly little girl in the 2nd grade.  I can't quite figure out if she truly is special needs or there is something else going on.  My son says she's not in any of his classes for Aspergers kids and he mostly only sees her on the bus.

For whatever reason she becomes very hostile on the bus and kicks, screams and cusses a lot. Maybe she has Tourrette's Syndrome.  My son apparently was telling my ex-MIL about this and had gotten pretty detailed about the language and the funniest thing is he compared the situation to me.  My ex-MIL told me he said "that little girl cusses more than mommy does in one whole year."

He told my ex-MIL this - thanks kid.

I'm not sure how to feel about this.  I mean it sounds like she cusses a lot in the bus but if that is more than I do in a year that can't be much, I mean can it?  I'd need to know some pretty fancy math or statistics right now to wield out some mommy to 2nd grader ratios on how much is too much cussing for a year in terms of what a 4th grader thinks is too much.

http://www.nataliedee.com/

I mean clearly they (the ex-ILs) know I cuss, I was married to their intolerable son.  Just kidding.  He could be a total pain in my you know what though, so the F-bomb was dropped quite often around him or more so in his general direction.  It did not often have much improved effect though.

My son (cringe) has heard me cuss because I can be quite an explosive hot blooded Latina when pissed off but I don't often lose my cool to that extent (mostly when I'm driving).

At any rate, the little girl will no longer be riding the bus it seems. Her behavior became too severe.  She was kicking the windows with her bare feet, would not sit down and in general kept disobeying all bus rules and cussed a lot, more than me in a year.  Due to her unruliness, the bus was delayed until after 4pm some days because the bus driver was having to go back to the school to leave that little girl in the care of some school administrator until her parents could come get her.

That's happened to us as well.  When my son was too agitated to be allowed on the bus we had to go get him and the drive to his school is an hour from where I live with traffic.  Damn that fricken traffic and all it's slow &%^*@ !# drivers.  So there you have it... I have a potty mouth and my kid told on me.

Brain Balance Reading

I've gotten to page 44 in the Brain Balance book titled Disconnected Kids by Dr. Robert Melillo.  I can tell you like most other books on special needs it does have to cover the basics and explain it all and that can make me nuts because I want to get to the meat and potatoes.  I know what my son has and what he does so let's get on with it.

I am a typical IT person. I don't read the manuals for anything and I learn by doing so sometimes, even though I love to read, I get impatient for the action, the results, the hands on so I can try it myself.  I just need to learn to accept that that is not going to work with everything and I need to be patient and just read through what I think I already know.  Sometimes I surprise myself and find that there are lots of things I think I had learned about only to find my perspective changed by re-reading something or taking someone else take on the same information.

At any rate, so far the logic that the two hemispheres are not in sync makes sense. The stronger one continues to strengthen while the weaker one flounders because the stronger one continues to strengthen making those neuron connections misfire.

I think my son fits the mixed dominance profile because he can do somethings better with his left side of his body but others better with his right side.

He definitely, if anything has some sensory processing symptoms and many have dissipated over time on their own. He used to be horrified of flushing toilets. He'd cover his ears and run around in the stall/bathroom like he was trying to run away. At home he'd run out before I could flush.  It was funny sometimes because his reaction was so extreme but that's mean of me to think it was funny ... I just did not understand it at all.  Now I realize that for him it was the scariest sound imaginable.  Poor thing.

I know he's got super sensitive hearing. He hears things that are far away or very faint, to the point where it does not seem possible and certain lights especially headlights at night from other cars really bug him.

Overall, this method stresses bypassing medicating and that is very important to me.  That is my last resort and I won't budge so I think this is why my ex-MIL was happy to have found this and shared it with me.

The food sensitivities section worries me because if my son does indeed have these it's going to be extraordinarily hard to make him change how he eats.  This will be one that I will be the one to fold on because I can't see myself forcing him to eat something he does not want or forcing him to give up what he likes ... maybe it's because I would not want that to be done to me.

Life's Lessons

One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment ~ Merle Shain

Towards the end of my BIO page, I talk about things that were growing up experiences for me in my life.  Some were trivial in hindsight but others were life changing experiences.  Looking back I realize that the times that were smooth sailing provided very limited learning experiences and growing opportunities.  Ignorance is bliss. 

The times that created choppy waters and emotional upheavel have been enlightening and exhausting but I always drew from them something that made me feel like a different person on the other end.  I knew it was still me but it was like layers of gauze came away from my eyes. It revealed a self-knowledge that left me both feeling vulnerable as if I was standing naked in a crowd but also more in touch with things to a point that it made me feel like I could see through people. 

Although my son is autistic, he seems to sometimes have this uncanny way of sizing up people we meet. He immediately knows if he likes them or not.  That's what the feeling of being able to see through people is that I have come to gain the older I've gotten but it's so neat to see it fully developed and built into my son sometimes.

Even though he's not attuned to body language, tone of voice and other social cues, he has been equipped with a character radar that sizes up people quite accurately. I often take for granted that he can read me like a book.  He knows my behaviors and he knows my moods.

Last week I was particularly pre-occupied with too much and I had become a bit more introverted than usual towards the tail end of the week.  Normally, if my son is into a video game he forgets I'm in the room unless I leave said room and he goes looking for me because he hates to be alone.  Last week though I never left the room (not physically anyway) but I could occasionally see him turn to look at me.  He did it on the ride home from his school bus drop off as well. I could see him eyeballing me in the rear view mirror.  He is so attuned to me somehow regardless of his autism.

At any rate, he knew something was up. It was not something bad, I was just fighting a case of the blues and feeling sorry for myself but he picked up on it.  Several times while playing his video games he got up to hug me and give me kisses... it was very sweet but I knew it was his need for reassurance that everything was okay as well. 

It's those smaller intervals of time that make you see what matters most or reveal things about yourself that make you grow or cringe at who you really are.  My need to have time to myself sometimes makes me feel frustrated and angry when I can't have it but then I realized in those few moments when my son hugged me that "me" time is an easy sacrifice in comparison to a lifetime of not having him around to remind me I am needed and loved.

It's easy to take things for granted when things appear to be fine but in those two days where I was struggling with some temporary depression my son did not take me for granted and he could see things weren't right.  I am somtimes confused by his ability to have empathy at odd times or do I have that confused with his ability to notice when things aren't "as usual".  Either way, it was something I needed.

Self-Advocacy

My son and I were reading his Take Control of Asperger's Syndrome book before bed last night.  We read a handful of pages per night so I can cover a topic and how other Aspie kids handled or dealt with similar issues.

Self-Advocacy is early on in the book and we talked about this area to reiterate why his walking away from a class assignment or challenging task is not the choice to make.  He insists he cannot do the assignment because he hates how long it takes to look things up.  This is just the beginning of learning how to use references and do research or look up key points in a glossary.  He'll definitely hate graduate school if this is killing him already.

I sent a lengthy email to his teacher explaining that my son shuts down and can't speak or won't speak when he's had enough of something.  He will simply get up and walk out.  It's not funny but given that many things in life are hard, he'll be doing a lot of walking out on something or someone if he does not get this in some kind of control at a young age.  I've asked the teacher to possibly ask my son to write down his feelings rather hope to get him to verbalize them.  He often won't open up to no one but his dad or me.

So our challenge these days is to really find out how he can learn to speak at these moments when all he wants to do is throw things or run away.  He has speech therapy at school but he's been doing it since kindergarten and we are still dealing with the complete shutdown with no communication.

I have a few upcoming seminars with a center that specializes in the balanced brain method in the next few months.  Maybe after reading some of their books I will gain some insight into what I can do to help him more.  For one getting him active is a good thing so taking him on walks or runs is nothing but beneficial to him and helps develop areas on both sides of his brain.

In the meantime, we've cut back on karate to one day a week as that was a source of many meltdowns in the evening.  He gets little to no break from school drop off to karate and it was causing more over-stimulation than he could handle. Hated to do it but it was wearing me out too and if I am miserable nothing can be accomplished because he'll pick up on it and become quite the testy little guy.

Happy Driving

This morning I took a break from working out.  I was way too sleepy and my lower back still hurts.  It's been hurting but this morning I just did not have it in me to push through the pain.

Instead I got up and slowly got myself together, got my son to dress himself, we cuddled a bit like he likes but then it was time for shoes.  He fussed as he could not get the laces done just right; either too tight, too loose, pant legs hanging up on laces - new sensation unlike velcro, and we were off.

I hope he has a good day and eats his lunch/snacks.  He's not been eating again.  All he has in the morning or will tolerate is strawberry milk. I can't see how he can go all day on that.

Anyways, I was like a bobble head dozing off the whole way to his bus stop and all the way back to work.  When my son was young enough for PreK and day care, we kept him where I am employed.  They offer that here and it was great. Small setting and he was close by.  Well when he started kindergarten and his dad was tired of being the one to commute to his school so he wanted him to go to a school in his neighborhood.  I was not pleased at first but he lives in a county with better schools and only county with self-contained Aspergers programs.

Well, once my son was diagnosed with Aspergers, the home school could not keep him as they had no autism resources; evidenced by their lack of knowing how to restrain a child properly.  His kindergarten teacher even told me she was sick of dealing with my son.  At the time I was at a point where I could see how hard this was for her but then again it was hard for everyone not just her, so truly thinking back, I really see her as a total jerk for saying that.

I do a lot of driving because of the school arrangements. The school that has the self-contained Asperger program is still another 30 minutes south of his dad's house - which puts it about 50+ minutes from me.  Luckily I just go to his dad's area to meet the bus.  They shuttle him from his home school area to the school he was assigned to.

Long story short I live close to my job so commuting for a bus pickup when I have my son is costly at times.  I spend $70+ dollars on fuel per week when I have my son because I travel about 40 miles twice a day.  My ex and I share custody which means we have equal responsibility in all we do for him (sort of).  My ex-in-laws help my ex a lot - my parents are in California.  I don't really mind though. I am way too independent to tolerate doting grandparents in my way.  My mom calls me all the time and I answer the phone once a week.  She annoys me - LOL - I love her though ... she just annoys me.

So sleepy me driving to and fro, I do everything possible not to doze off.  I sometimes wake up while driving - not good.  On the way to work, I usually speed and turn up the radio to stay awake.  I might open the windows if it's not too cold or use the AC.

So this morning a woman in a Lexus kept tailgating me no matter how close I was going to 90 mph so I move over and let her pass (speed limit is 70 mph).  Then I move back in the faster lane. (Georgia rural areas have 2 lanes of traffic flowing one way and 2 going the other way - sucks - makes passing the seniors citizens really tough if you stay in the slow lane).  As soon as I let her pass and I move back in the faster lane she goes into the slower lane and lets me pass her and then gets back behind me and starts tailgating again.  I wanted to smack her.  My speeding is not an invitation or a  challenge to keep pushing me to go faster so other cars can draft me like it's NASCAR.  I think some people can't speed unless they are following someone who is though and that can be annoying too.  This happens all the time and it never fails as soon as I slow down they slow down.  To you weird drivers, I say this, Lead, Follow (not too closely) or Stay out of my way.  And happy driving.

Note*** I am in no way bragging that I speed and most times I am only going 10 miles over the speed limit and I am actually moving slow compared to the rest of the speed demons going 90+ mph.  I never see cops anywhere at 6AM though... oddly enough.

You like me, you really like me...

"I like mommy." That's what I heard from the back seat this morning as I was getting ready to back out of my space in front of our condo.  (I sometimes say apartment, home or our place and condo - all interchangeable, I don't have 4 homes, LOL - well my parents maybe is another home but only cuz they say so.)

I am one of the lucky ones I think.  My son tells me he loves me all the time.  He likes to say, "I love momma."  He oftens says, "I want the momma.", "I want mommy." or "I need mommy." For an autistic kid or an Aspie, he's very expressive, very affectionate and very sweet.  His smile lights up my world and like I read on a Luna Bar (I devoured this morning) inspiration note, he's "just what my soul needed." Needs :)

So when I heard him say "I like mommy." It meant so many more things than I love you.  I love hearing him say I love you but when he said I like mommy, I knew that meant he liked hanging with me, liked being around me, enjoyed our "us" time and was okay with me, discipline, homework enforcing, impatient me!

It totally made my day.  I mean how much more can a mom ask for other than being liked by her kid(s).  I only have one but I am sure if you have more than one you want all of them to like you, it's not right and complete if it's all unbalanced with some liking and others not.

I must be doing something right if my kid likes me not just loves me.  I mean I think that IS pretty fricken fantabulous! :)   At 6:00 o' crack of dawn, when your kid should be cranky and hating life because you are the "wake up it's time to go to school" enforcer and you hear a small voice from the back seat say, I like mommy.  That's like being told - you may be bossy but it's okay with me, in fact yesterday he did tell me I was bossy when I was rushing him out of the car but this morning it was all "I like you!"

This one is going on the Gratitude List :)

Challenges with Aspergers

Some of the major challenges I face with my son include various things. Some I know are things he can be lazy about and others I know are things he at times just can't pull himself together to do everyday.

One thing which is a private matter but that concerns his ability to be independent in the bathroom is bowel movements.  He knows to go but the cleaning part is still a challenge at age 10.

Tying his shoes. We've hit that hurdle and jumped it, although clumsily and with some resistance.  I took my son to the Nike Outlet and bought him some Nike shoes with laces.  He's been a velcro kid for a long time.  I told him as we left the Nike Outlet, velcro is for little kids and old  men.  You may be little in some ways but you are now wearing a size 7.5 in men's shoes. 

At the Nike Outlet he listened to my instructions on how to form the bunny ears and squoosh the bunny ears til they were long enought to loop over and under and tie.  He got it to my amazement with just some brief grumbling but he did it.

Some days he won't wear them because he says he needs a break from the laces. I don't know what it's like to find laces hard.  But I know some mornings I just don't want to deal with blow drying my hair so I won't wash it that day.  It's similar in some ways but mine is more laziness where with his it's a sensory overload that would kill his day.

There are things like odors, sounds, sensations and what not that take him to that level of obvious discomfort.  I can't imagine how that must be for him other than comparing it to having to constantly smell someone's bad cologne or perfume when I am hungry.  That would put me over the edge. 

The challenge I faced today was not complicated to me but it was for my son.  His dojo center did not have his attendance card in the bin so he would have to line up without it and he refused to get in line until I spoke to the instructor.  I asked him why he could not just say, "my card is not in the bin, I looked andI could not find it." He said he did not want to but that is not a verbalization of what makes him feel that way.  He can tell you what he's feeling, anger, frustration. sadness but sometimes getting him to explain that is not happening. 

My ex-mother-in-law has shown me some flyers for counselors and other neurological places to have him go and I absolutely agree they are great ideas in theory but if my son can't even tell someone he can't find his attendance card or ask for ketchup or place an order at McDonald's how is he going to have a discussion about his feelings with some counselor?  I guess since I am not the professional and don't know how some stranger can reach my son if I can't sometimes, I'll just wish for the best and try not to feel hopeless about it.

Gratitude List

“When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” -Lao Tzu

After reading this blog post, I decided to create a gratitude list.  It will be a page on my blog.  I don't often think about what I am grateful for on a daily basis.  A few things I can think of off the top of my head are:

I am grateful for ...

1. My mood lifting when the sun is out.
2. The feel of the wind on my face and through my hair.
3. My son cuddling and crowding me on the couch even when I want some space.
4. A place to live.
5. Having $70.00 to spend on groceries even though it seemed like a lot to spend.

This is just the beginning.  I think I will add 5 items per day to my list daily (if I don't forget or get too busy).

What are you grateful for? It can really improve your state of mind to think of the good things even when there seem to be all sorts of bad things your life. 

Speaking of which even though my son does not like many foods, I know he likes cinnamon toast so I am going to make him some without asking him and surprise him.

Bicep Work Out

I did my back and bicep work out this morning and it made me think of this post back when I was taking a boot camp class.  I had worked really hard on my arms to keep up with the class that day and by the next day and the following I could hardly unbend my arms; they were that sore.  So this morning when I got up at 5AM to work out, I told myself, don't push yourself too hard now!  My son is with his dad so I am not getting up at 5AM to get ready to take him to his bus stop while he's not home. Usually that's the routine, more on that some other time.  When I have him, I'll have to get up at 4AM if I want to work out in the morning, like when I was in the military.

Anyways as I was working out I started laughing at the mental image of me grocery shopping as I mentioned in the post I linked above.  I swear it was the most ridiculous soreness I have ever experienced.  I could not reach up to get items off the higher shelves without being in pain. It was the kind of pain that made you want to laugh and cry at the same time.  With that in mind I took it easy on my work out on my back and biceps this morning. I tend to be an over-achiever (so I'm told), I do not want a repeat of walking around like a T-Rex because I can't extend my arms.  It is pretty darn funny but was not quite that much at the time.

So I am working out because I have to lose weight.  My clothing is starting to pinch where it should not pinch, you know?  So my goal is to try and lose somewhere between 7 to 10 pounds or more by June.  10 more by October and 10 more by January.  I think it's doable if I don't fall wayward with my slacking ways, again.

What I hate is that as soon as I start working out I gain some weight first.  It's like I am swelling up or something. Really frustrates me.  Anyway, I have been charting my exercise here.

I want to get fit not just for my own well-being but to set a good example for my son to stay active.  He runs with me every so often and he does karate but he's been having so many meltdowns at the dojo center that I am about to just give up taking him if that's what he wants.  It's just stressful as hell. I guess I should not give up but I hate to take him if he's just having a miserable time! What do you think?

Sleep

I was reading a friend's facebook status about how little sleep she's been getting since the birth of her son.  When my son was born he never, ever, ever, ever slept through the night.  Initially, we thought he had his nights mixed up with his days since he was more active when I was asleep.  I remember my ex asking how I could sleep through the kicking and chaos going on in my belly.  I must have been exhausted from being a pregnant woman and working full-time and keeping the house clean ... oh and yes spending my nights and weekends tolerating sounds of sanders, hammers and what not as my ex decided in my last few months of pregnancy that it was the ideal time to redo our half bath.

For what seemed like an eternity he hammered out old 70's style tile.  Being pregnant and on edge was horrible.  He later decided to pull up all the carpet which revealed hardwood floors but there were staples embedded in them throught the perimeter of the floor in each room, so I had to help yank them out with pliers and as I was starting to really have a belly this was not a fun task.  It was like squatting with a medicine ball sort of tucked between my thighs.  But without my vigilant help it'd turn into another heap of junk and another unfinished project. One of many.

Who knows how much crap I came in contact with.  I often think about that and wonder if that was the source of my son's autism.  But there were so many other things, like the high resolution ultrasounds I had done to see a spot on his heart they thought might be a hole in his heart.  I had to have two done.  The first time he was in the wrong position so they could not see the heart so I had to go back for a 2nd ... that time the spot was gone and they figured it was just a calcification. Then there were the immunizations.  We've all heard it right?

At any rate, my son never slept through the night. He'd sleep a few hours then wake up. At first this seemed like the usual newborn sleep, eat, wet or soiled diaper pattern but months rolled on and he never slept through the night and he never wanted to be left alone. As time wore on, the only way I could get sleep was to let him sleep with me (us when I was still married) my ex often ended up on the couch. 

To this day he sleeps with me.  He's 10 and he is so tall and has the longest legs.  I wake up tangled in his limbs, an elbow in my back, an arm across my throat, knees pressing into my side and I wake up on the edge of the bed with him hogging about 80% of it.  You'd think I'd get a good night's sleep when he's with his dad but my sleep never recovered the first 4 years of my son's life when he slept in 2 hour intervals always waking up to wanting a drink of something.  I sleep too lightly now and I suffer from insomnia many nights. 

I feel like the walking dead sometimes and it's causing me to lose focus in so many ways. I forget things all the time.  I've been working out again to counteract the way I am often not really sleepy by bedtime.  Sometimes I am exhausted enough to fall asleep before 10:30pm but when I do I wake up promptly between 2am or 3am and then I toss and turn until 6am just before it's time to get up and get ready for work. Sigh.

New moms make me smile sometimes and then I cringe thinking how things are so hard sometimes trying to figure out why your child is the way he is and not understanding what to do to help or even at least spotting things you'd think you would have noticed. But then again I am no child expert. My son's pediatrician is considered one of the top pediatricians in the area and highly in demand and she never noticed any peculiarities herself.  But being a pediatrician does not make a you an expert on autism either. 

I hope my facebook friend gets more sleep.

Personal Lessons

Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind. ~Alice Meynell

I agree with that because no matter how happy I am one minute the next I may find there is a dip in my mood. Happiness is a constant flow of emotion that you can’t regulate … unless you are on Zoloft or some other brand of bottled bliss.

It’s a lot of work to stay content but no one can do it for you, that’s for sure.

I don’t want to be the sole reason someone is happy but it’d be flattering if I could provide that much to even just one person.

Okay so you might be thinking I must make my son happy regardless but I don’t. I very often annoy him, piss him off, exasperate him and down right confound him at times. He hates when I push him to do things and as he’s getting older he pushes my limits as I push his.

With his Asperger’s, pushing his limits does not take much. I can look at him the wrong way, hug him too long, make him stop playing his video games at the wrong time, you name it … I’ll do something at some point to make him unhappy. But it’s fleeting unhappiness until he realizes he’s afraid of the dark, needs a snack, wants his strawberry milk or does not want to be alone in any one room.

That’s when I have the power…. Muuuuuaaaahhhhaaaaahhhhaaa!

Sometimes the little dude will piss me off to no end and I don’t even want to look at him but when he finally wants something to eat or is afraid of something, I realize I can’t hold a grudge and I can’t stay unhappy with him.

I think getting mad and getting happy are natural emotions and the drain that comes with the let down of frustration or sadness, makes finding something to be happy about all the more worthwhile.

I wish that was something I could impart to my son when he’s having a foul day and he can’t verbalize what’s going on in that Aspie mind. I wish I could get in there and help but he’ll just have to figure out how to get happy again.

As my mom always says, “Getting mad is a two-fold job. The energy of getting mad is followed by the effort it will take to get happy again!” Sometimes it’s worth the effort.

Money ... & Special needs

Money money money ...

I have gotten the ball rolling. I opened up a kid savings account with ING Direct yesterday. It's one of Suze Orman's favorite banks so it comes highly recommended. 

As soon as bank validation happens with my current bank I am opening another savings account for me. Yay. Then I'll open a checking and move my money over, transfer my 403(b) to an ING Roth and move my IRA with my current bank into the new Roth. 


My biggest concern with making funds available to my son is with complexities of government benefits and how those can be null and void if you do it the wrong way. So I am reading up on Special Needs Trusts to find out how to do this the right way. 

There is so much to think about and learn. It's so overwhelming.  I don't know how I don't have an ulcer by now.

On another note, I learned how to make French Toast - yeah I suck in the kitchen. It turned out really good but I did not take a picture!  I was too hungry after my core synergistics work out to think straight.  I am trying to get myself back in better shape again. I had made a lot of progress a couple of years ago but I slacked off for many reasons that helped contribute to my slacking ways and now I have some holiday weight to lose and muscles to retone. Ugh.

Wish me luck.

Goals - Money 101

I have this page on my blog for GOALS.  I have itemized areas that are important to me so that I am on track to accomplish them by reviewing them often.  How do you manage your goals?

Tonight I moved money from checking to savings. I'd been slowly incrementing the amounts of funds I keep for utilities and rent
 so that I can amass at least 3 to 6 months emergency funds. It's not ea

 sy to do.  Something always happens that makes me dip into that money so I had been hesitant to move it to savings.  However, I have been reading Women and Money by Suze Orman and she strongly advises that funds not readily needed to pay current months expenses should always be kept in savings. 

It seems like a no brainer to put the money in savings but I was trying to make sure I was keeping it available and away from savings for long term. 

I've added a line item to my savings log/journal to set aside more funds towards my ROTH as well.  I have had that open for many years but have not deposited much to it since I have a 401K but it's best to have both not just one and I have been slow to get myself in check and disciplined about saving more.

If I can impart any knowledge to anyone is that it's so important to save towards retirement for yourself and not depend on a spouses income in case things change unexpectedly.  I am still reading and learning but I will pass on any knowledge I gain to my family, friends, and blog readers.  In the meantime check out DailyWorth.  Great site for learning more about money and investing.

More decluttering...

I just kept going last night. I was like the energizer bunny.  Well it was more of a symptom of just being lazy all day and not having any luck getting my Aspie to do anything.  So frustrating.

He loves to just play video games and sit on the computer so much.... it makes me a bit batty. It was at that point around 6pm when I knew I was next to near agitation and frustration that I made him go walking with me.  We walked 1.7 miles and then he got to come home and pursue his video/computer obsession. 

That burned off some anxious energy and later I attacked his bedroom. It was time to put away the things that were no longer age appropriate in his room.  He's 10 years old so I packed up the cast moldings of his sweet little baby hands and feet. The porcelain covered baby shoes and lots of the baby frames that were there more for mommy's pleasure. 

When is the right time to do this?  I did not want my son to feel like I was packing him up to move out so I explained that he needed his room to look like a 10 year old's room and not a nursery. If his friends ever come over, it would be a bit embarassing for him.  All the mini-photo albums with him being bathed by grandma and all the pics she tooks of him in the bath would not be fun things for friends to see.  I see this as a good way to show him that things keep changing and he can adapt.

We went through piles of books and he actually helped pick out what he wanted to keep. There were a few I did not leave up to him to keep... some were custom baby books with his name in them.  Those are very cute and keepsakes.

My car is loaded down with more stuff to give to his grandma for her yardsale and for my son's half-brother or Goodwill if they don't need it. My place keeps looking more and more like I want it to.  I need to work on some shelving or more storage for my son's room so it does not overflow out of the closet onto the floor where it either gets broken, lost or accidently vacuumed.

I also started of my day out right with a plyometric cardio workout. Kicked my butt. It was worth it though. Here's to healthier habits.

Purging ... Spring time action

I got another burst of energy today to purge out junk I had laying around.  (I've been on vacation this week for my son's Spring break).  Some movies I had for sale on my Half.com site I just boxed up to give to my ex-in-laws.  They might watch them or put them in a yard sale. Most of them were VHS and a handful were DVDs. I am not a big fan of clutter or building a huge collection of movies. I have lots of CDs and I still have some old music cassettes.  I really like the music cassettes but have no way of converting them to digital music so I can rid myself of more clutter.  I've uploaded lots of my music into iTunes though. 

While my son studied for CRCT testing I added some books to the book swap section of my GoodReads account. 

I even went through old plastic ware and cook ware to make room for the 5 pc cook ware set I got for redeeming my Coke rewards points.  It is a generic stainless steel set ... it's probably just some cheap stuff but at least it was free LOL.   Between the Coke rewards points I collect from my diet coke, my son's blue powerade and the points my ex-in-laws give me I was able to round up 1,000 + points.  They expire though so you have to redeem them before you lose them.

On another note, earlier in the day dyed my hair.  I bought the new John Frieda foam hair dye ( a bit pricey but...). The color is a bit darker than I like but it will probably fade.  I am really impressed by the foam ... at first I thought it would not be enough for my long hair.  As I continued to squeeze the bottle I realized I'd have more than I could use on my whole head.  It was great.  With other hair dyes I run out before I get my my hair length covered.  I don't like just doing a root touch up because eventually it looks stripey and uneven.  It has great gray coverage and it did not make my scalp burn and it did not stain the skin on my hairline.  We'll see how long it lasts.  It's always fun to freshen up your hair color.

Blog & Child Blues

I had to take a day off of thinking about blogging or disccussing how the dental appointment went.  It went, how can I put this, like trying to get a cat in water or force feeding my child some type of cough syrup. Yet it did not result in a major meltdown either so it was the best of both worlds.  He was almost behaving like a typical child ... almost. 

He was okay until tartar was being scraped of his teeth.  He imagined his teeth were being broken off and he started to cry and wanted it all to stop.  So we moved on to polishing which seemed to go well until the grape flavored polish disgusted him... it took me and the hygienist a few moments coaxing him to at least let her rinse his mouth out... the whole Mr. Thirsty or suction thingy was bit of a challenge - I had to tell him to pretend he was sucking on a straw. I am so immature. My own mental analogy was more naughty but you can't say these things out loud.  I almost started laughing.

We got through that drama and started to see if he would at least cooperate with the flouride brushing. To no avail.  We tried the scraping a bit more to rid him of the uneven feel of tarter behind his bottom two front teeth.  That done I convinced him to cooperate with X-rays. I thought surely this is going to be excruciating to do... but it was the easiest part of the appointment.

We then went back to the chair for the flouride brushing and to see the dentist.  As the oral hygienist got up to go, I noticed she was shorter than my 10 year old son. It was cute.  The dentist picked up similar tools as the hygienist to check his teeth and I figured this would go badly but he cooperated and he found no cavities.  However, he does have an infection so he needs a tooth pulled. This will happen in May. SO I have a month in which to try and prep him.  This time it will require some sedation so let's see how that goes. Sigh.

Dentist Visit

Today's is our first annual visit to the dentist for my son since like a really long time ago when he could not cope with a dental visit. I think I blogged about it here.

This dentist has a special needs skill set, so I'm told, but my son has a special way of rejecting most everything that everyone else does well with or likes.  He's got two Aspie buds that already see him for dental care but they are more outgoing.  They speak back when adults ask questions, my son turns away and does the Aspie posture thing he does where he drops his shoulders, bends forward slightly and trudges away as if that makes everything all better.

The funny thing is it draws more attention to him, the very thing he's trying to avoid. I tell him all the time to try not to draw more attention to himself by not responding that way but it does not help.

I tried to prep him last night, explaining that he needed to sit on the dentist chair and take a deep breath and just do what the dentist said.  I asked what he was afraid of and he said the dentist. I think a robot dentist stand in is not going to work.  Human contact is so hard for him. I think he'd be happiest around me and a pack of rocks. Well anyone that's close family like his dad and paternal grandparents.  I know it's the closeness of the dentist hovering over him that he does not like. It's very invasive especially when they dig all up in your mouth.

We'll see how it goes.  I will be prepping him again today.  It makes me very anxious but I have to hide it or else he'll respond to my agitation and we'll just have one big hot mess at the dentist office.

Adventures in Aspie Outings

So yesterday, I took my son to the World of Coca-Cola.  It was a crowded day out there but the sunshine made it worth the while.  We pull in and park and realize we need a restroom break but the restroom location appeared to be just port-a-potties outside.  I thought how lame for such a big venue to just have port-a-potties out here. (I was mistaken).  We go off and purchase our tickets and get in line to go into the World of Coca-Cola but soon realize we may be in line for a while so we jump out and go use the restrooms.

It was then that I realized the port-a-johns were just used for overflow. They did have brick and mortar restrooms around the way behind those.  Well we get in line and my son is not comfortable with the closeness as we are in the women's line and people are staring.  Now if you're a mom who thinks, he should be using the boys restrooms, consider this, #1 he's autistic & #2 pedophiles often hide in restrooms to molest children. I don't care if my 10 year old looks like he's 12 or 13, he's going to the restroom with me and yes we often share a stall. It may seem inappropriate but there have been women known to be pedophiles and some that have kidnapped children.  I don't trust this world at all.

A well-meaning woman coming out of the restroom says to me  "my 14 year old can take him to the boys restroom if he's ...."  she sort of stammered there as I interrupted her to tell her my son is autistic.  "Oh I see she replied I just thought he had his head down like that because he was embarrassed to be in the line for the women's restrooms." I was not trying to be mean at all so I hope she was not thinking I was being a jerk. It was an informative "oh no thank you he's autistic."  I've had to explain this so often I sometimes just don't anymore.

My thoughts later were that was nice of her and a kind gesture.  As we came out of the restroom I looked for her to see if I could thank her but she was already gone.  At any rate, I really felt she was genuinely trying to help.  Had we been in line and she'd appeared from outside the restroom asking to get her son rather than just being in the restroom I would have been a bit more concerned and more offended.

I do get offended when people act like I should not take him with me in the women's restroom.  When he was only 7 to 8 years old I'd have women tell me he needed to go to the men's restroom.  I felt like just kicking them in the teeth.  I am usually alone when we go shopping or doing anything so for me to send him in alone to the trenches of possible pedophile and bullying danger would be irresponsible and negligent. I'd rather share a stall with him than to have him hurt.  I would do that even if my son was not autistic.

The whole time was great though.  He even tried tasting different varieties of coke from around the world. The best one was Delaware punch from Latin America and the worst was Beverly from Europe.  It was awful . It tasted like dish washing liquid. And believe me I know what that tastes like.  Picture on the right was his idea... he wanted to pose next to Pemberton the creator of coke statue while drinking his Coke Zero.

Memberships ... rewards discount cards!!! Dept Store Debit cards?

That's right. Not only will your purse be overrun by store membership & reward's cards from different places but now you can throw in department store debit cards.  A couple of weeks ago I went to the Nordstrom Rack to look for some discounted shoes, jackets or whatnot and found my son a great little jacket for $7.49. I found myself a cute boiled wool black jacket. I love boiled wool.  It was 40% so I got it for $25.00  When I paid I was presented with an application to sign up for a Nordstom debit card.  Really?  This little card makes it faster for their grimy little hands to get all over your money but you don't accrue interest rates and you earn points.  Is it worth the trade off of the risk of having your banking information spread high and wide?

 

I am not being a cheerleader for Nordstrom nor any other store but I really think a department debit card seems a bit much no matter how much you like a store and I love Nordstrom.  It seems that not only are we pushing people to shop more but shop more towards discounts that probably don't add up to the amount you have to spend to earn enough points for either a miniscule discount or possible free item. 

I could be wrong but maybe I'll look at the fine print really closely to make sure there are no hidden costs? Does anyone have this card yet?

Asperger's - Autism - what's the difference?

I am not 100% sure what all the differences are. I am not a psychologist and I am not a neurologist or a behaviorist or any of those fancy things.  I have a degree in criminal justice and business so I am not one to be the knower of these things unless I delve deep into many books but even then I might still have it askew.  The one thing I do know is language development delay is not a common denominator.  Most Aspies don't have language delays.  The majority that do tend to be on the lower end of the autism spectrum or diagnosed with other types of spectrum disorders.

That is why I really don't appreciate when people tell me what I need to do for my son.  My son is not on meds and my son won't accept a gluten free diet.  He would starve himself first and we can't have that now can we?

My son has several friends who are also diagnosed with Aspergers as my son is but none of them are alike in any way.  My son stims when he's excited, upset, or rocks when sitting too close to others in a large group (he used to clear his throat a lot), my son hates being stared at and hisses or growls if you invade his space.  The other kids in his self-contained Aspergers class all each display characteristics unlike my son.  One will get right in my face and talk really loud, unlike my son who is shy and speaks softly and would never invade the space of a near total stranger. He does not like anyone touching him unless it's familiar family members.

Some of his friends have similar traits, like being bothered by certain sounds or smells.  But even there, each aversion to sound or smell has many degrees. One of my son's classmates will shriek when certain loud sounds occur. My son used to be afraid of flushing toilets. He literally wanted out before we flushed the toilet so he could get as far away from it as possible.  Now he seems to be okay with flushing toilets.

Autism and, or Asperger's is not one size fits all diagnosis, just like any other diagnosis of health or mental disorders isn't.  I've learned that with children or parents of children with autism/Asperger's, they may not say anything when you are suggesting all these cure-alls but they do not really like it.  I will not put my son on meds unless it's the last resort and I will not enforce a diet on him that makes him miserable.  I need to help him be happy and productive not impose my will or anyone else's on him.