Tuesday 25 June 2013

Up and Away....

I've been encouraged to do it for a long time by a lot of my family but I never have......until now.

I've done it! I've booked to go Spain for a few days to re-charge the batteries and come back energised.

My Mum has been telling me to do this for a long time and now things are tougher with DS, I'm drained quicker and I feel now is the time to take her advice, as Mum knows best doesn't she??

So in a few days I will be jetting off to the sun to do.......nothing!
As I'm exhausted and run down the thought of doing nothing is bliss!
This is what I have planned...
Noticed how all requires little or no effort at all!! Aaahhhh

I'm going for the weekend and as DS and I have never been parted for this long before I am a little worried about it but Im assured that if he is distressed for any unusal length of time then I will be informed and will make my way home.

I know he is in good hands with Nanny and Daddy (Ive made Daddy move in with Nanny for the weekend to take care of him together!) but I'm still a little anxious.

I will tell him when I'm going and when I'm coming back so hopefully he will understand it all a little better.

I'm looking forward to it and my aim is to completely relax and come back a new woman with bags of energy, I will do another post next week telling you how it went.

Have a good weekend

Saturday 22 June 2013

Investigations....

These last few weeks have been particulary hard.

DS behaviour is still a issue, he is still weeing in anything he can wether associated with water or not, we are also doing poos in some new places!

Also when I have been getting him dressed for school he has becomes so distressed and upset that Ive been telling the school taxi to go without out him whilst I calm him down.
Sometimes he hasn't calmed down until I've said that there is no school today which I've seen him instantly relaxed.
This is the only way DS can communicate to me.


Now to be clear, I not all for my child having odd days off school without a very good reason. My parents sent me to school every single day unless I was poorly and I mean really poorly, I went in on birthdays the lot! My average year attendance was never under 98%.

It is clear that there is something about school or the taxi that DS is finding very difficult to tolerate - I've never seen him like this so without a moment to lose and after taking DS to the park and pushing him on the swings at 8.15am! I began to investigate.

I thought I would start with school first so went in class to speak to DS's teacher. He said everything was fine and DS was not showing any signs of being distressed in school and when I drove DS into school the next day to observe this myself I could see that he was right, DS was happy to come and ran into class all happy and excited.

So next is to look at transport.

DS shares transport with several other children all going to his school. His regular driver and escort are lovely and have a good understanding of DS.
I spoke to the transport co-ordinator who had already identified that there is a little bit of a spat going on with two other children in the vehicle and suspects that DS is picking up on this and not liking it. I myself suspect that there may be a few raised voices in the vehicle about this that DS finds difficult to tolerate.

I think we may of found the issue here, we can now work on it to make it bearable for DS to travel to school happy and relaxed.

Monday 10 June 2013

Great News....

I work with some lovely people who seem to crave a sugar hit during the mid afternoon slump.

This is great news and I will tell you why.

We have a tuck shop in the office, well, I say a tuck shop, its really a large drawer in a filing cabinet loaded with goodies! Chocolate bars, crisps, sweets etc
There is also little money box tucked in there that staff pop their money in the box for anything they take.

A while ago, it was announced that all the proceeds from the tuck shop was to be donated to charity and that staff was invited to nominate any charity for this which was to be pulled from a hat.

As usual, I wasted no time in nominating the fabulous National Autistic Society as well as writing a little piece on the wonderful things the NAS do.


So this morning, I was sitting in work with the usual Monday morning feeling when it was announced that the charity had been selected and it was my very own National Autistic Society! Yaaaay! (I think I may of even done a little squeal with excitement in the office!)

This truly made my day and I know that my local NAS branch will put this to good use.

What a great start to the week!


Friday 7 June 2013

Clothes are soo overrated....

When I come across this..
I know that I'm going to shortly come across this..

DS has never been a big fan of clothing but just lately its been harder than usual to get him to keep something on -even if its just a pair of shorts!

He will play in the garden with not a stitch on loving feeling just the sunshine and air on his skin.

I've mentioned before that DS has sensory issues which is pretty much a given thing for someone with autism. He finds clothes restrictive and the fibres and stitching of clothes rubs on his skin and drives his mad.

Have you ever worn a itchy jumper that you just want to take off as the itchiness of it is annoying? Well clothes for DS feels like that but x10!

Lables feel like little stabbings at the back of his neck and stitching feels like sandpaper rubbing against his arms and chest - it is so uncomfortable and even painful for some children.

DS will do his best to tolerate wearing clothes in school and as soon as he is home he will strip which you can see is a big relief to him. I suppose its similiar to being in work wearing a stuff suit and heels and when you get in the heels get kicked off in the hallway and the suit is replaced with something comfy even py-jamas!

We tolerate the suit and heels in work as we know thats what we have to wear but when we get home we want to relax so they come off - just like DS does with his clothes.

Today our fab Camhs worker visited us and we were talking about DS's sensory issues with clothing.
Camhs has advised me not to worry or try and put clothes on him when he is at home and playing in the garden if he doesn't want to wear them as DS knows and accepts that he has to wear clothes to go out somewhere then we really don't have any major problems here - my view exactly I thought! :)



Have a good weekend and enjoy the sunshine wether you're a clothes wearing person or not, it doesn't matter ;) xx

Saturday 1 June 2013

Sweet 16....

I know that I've mentioned this before but DS has the best cousins in the world!

He has 2 cousins and will only ever have 2 cousins as both Daddy and I are not from a big family - we both only have one sibling each but if we're talking about quality rather than quantity then DS is very lucky as he does have 'quality' cousins!
 


Yesterday was Gorgeous Cousin (GC) 16th birthday.
I remember the day she was born, it was a Saturday morning when we got the call from my brother to say him and my sister-in-law had a baby girl, I was still half asleep in bed when I heard Mum answer the phone. I then heard her squeal and talking all excited!
The day was gorgeous as I remember driving to the hospital to meet her that morning with the car window down, sunnies on and Radiohead playing on the stereo.
Both Gorgeous Cousin & Handsome Cousin (HC) popped in so DS could sing happy birthday to her and help her blow out her candles, well blow them out for her!, she didn't even get to have a go!

DS loves HC & GC coming to visit and he loved them having a bounce with him on his trampoline - they have a very calming influence on him and if he is starting to get agitated or anxiety is kicking in then just seeing them has a calming effect on him.
 
Now that HC is a big strong and hunky 17 year old, he can lift, swing and throw DS around with ease. As you can imagine DS loves it!
So you can start to see why he loves his HC & GC - they're are just so fab with him!!
So DS let our sweet 16 open her own cards and presents as this bit is very uninteresting to him, unless one of the presents happen to be washing machine related, otherwise his attitude is that he has got better things to do!
Wishing our beautiful, witty, intelligent, kind and a great person to be around GC a very happy 16th birthday! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

P.S. Hope you're all enjoying the sun. DS certainly is and its been 3 days since our last meltdown! xx