Our Doodle Bug Turns 5!

The Doodle turned five yesterday and I would have blogged about it yesterday but I was too busy giving him a Time Out.  I'm not sure if he realized it was his Birthday and thought he could get away with more, but he was definitely on his worst behavior.  He was put into a record number of Time Outs--9 to be exact....for various Doodle Bug infractions; the usual: throwing himself on the floor, screaming, throwing things, dumping dinner and so on.  He was in a pretty crappy mood all the way until bedtime;then it got worse at bedtime trying to get him to go to sleep.  It was one of those days where alcohol seemed like a pretty good idea (for me, not him).  But I refrained from any libations since it was a Monday and the Real Housewives of New York Reunion was on.  I needed to have all of my faculties about me to understand the craziness there. 

We had enchiladas for dinner, which the Doodle spit out--so he ate his usual salsa and Doritos--I was a little bit offended, although he did love the guacamole and salad.  We skipped the birthday cake since I knew blowing out the candles over and over and over was going to be a problem on this particular type of day.  We will have the appropriate cake and ice cream at his little Birthday party this weekend.  It will be a real blow out--he has invited both of his friends from school.  Hopefully they like salsa and chips and don't mind singing that song over and over and over.

Reflecting back to five years ago--when I was expecting a standard and mundane experience with child number 2 since child number 1 was so easy....who would have thought we would have such a silly, cranky, cute, hard, challenging, rewarding, patience and character building little man to raise and worry about so much?  I could have never guessed things would be this remarkable.

Our Little Graduate

Friday the Doodle graduated his special ed day class preschool...it was bittersweet for me.  There was a little cereomy and diploma.  He threw an egg shaker at the head of the dad playing guitar and he danced a lot.  Jim, Jimmy and I couldn't have been prouder.

I'm happy that he is moving on to bigger and better things but sad because his classroom and his teachers were like home.  He was comfortable.  He knew what to expect.  He had a routine.  He knew what was expected of him and finally got familiar with the program and it's rules and structure.  We'll have a little break for summer and then he will start his special ed Kindergarten--where he will have to start all over again.  Besides not being ready developmentally, emotionally and physically, transition for autistic children isn't always the easiest and while he's probably going to be anxious starting a new school with a new teacher--and a new bus route, so will I.

I will close my eyes and pray.  Here's to hoping for a smooth transition into Kindergarten.

So True

July 4th - Our Own Kind of Fireworks

Every day is like the Fourth of July when you have a child with Autism.
Spectacular colorful explosions in the form of salsa flying and fantastic displays of emotion rather than blowing up fireworks in the sky.
Similar.  But different.
It was hot here--so we hung out in the back yard and played in the water.
We skipped the fireworks for obvious reasons.
Crowds.
Fear.
Noise.
The over-stimulation factor.
The irony of the predictable amount of unpredictable; our life in a nut shell.
On the bright side, the Doodle is really getting good at throwing a ball.