Pre-Halloween Fun

I love this reminder that I borrowed from a fellow Autism mom: With Halloween upon us, please keep in mind, a lot of little people will be visiting your home. Be accepting. The child who is grabbing more than one piece of candy may have poor fine motor skills. The child who takes forever to pick out one piece of candy may have motor planning issues. The child who does not say trick or treat or thank you may be non-verbal. The child who looks dissapointed when they see your bowl might have allergies. The child who isn't wearing a costume at all might have a sensory issue (SPD) or autism.

Be nice. Be patient. It's everyone's Halloween!

Tonight we went to the school's Black and Orange Bash.  They hold this each year at the school for ages birth through age 5 where they have games, activities, trick or treating and snacks.  This will be our last year attending.  But tonight was a great reminder of the  paragraph above.  Charlie has been so excited about his costume.  And this is the first year he has really wanted to and really been excited to dress up.  He came up with his costume idea on his own as well. 

Charlie has bee pretty excited about being a Traffic Cop for Halloween, and in fact, wants to be one when he grows up.  Shoot for the stars, baby boy!

We hadn't been in the doors for more than 5 minutes before he began peeling his costume off.  Oh well, he at least put it on!  After his costume came off, he looked like he does any other day while doing the fun activities.  But you want to know what? He did the fun activities!  He participated and there were no meltdowns.  None!  His trusty police dog I mean sidekick, Sunny, was by his side the entire time.  

Costumes have been hard in the past, and not just for Charlie.  His twin brother Christian has never been a fan of dressing up either.  In fact, last year as we were getting ready to go trick or treating he suddenly refused to wear the costume he had picked out.  Flat our refused, but was so bummed that he wouldn't be able to go out with his brothers if he didn't have a costume on.  So, as a last minute act of desperation, we made him Jake from State Farm.  He was "dressed up" in regular clothes and happy as can be.  This year he has been set on being a puppy.  I finished his costume today and when he got home from school......yep, he refused to wear it! Ha!  But as you can see, we were able to work through it and he was really happy to be a puppy once he finally put it all on.

Easton went as a hockey player, which is awesome because we already have everything on hand.  And I must say, he makes a really cute hockey player!

One of the activities they had was "pumpkin smashing."  It was actually quite genius and so simple! They had the kids pound golf tees into pumpkins with a small mallet.  So easy and they all LOVED it!  Talk about a great motor and sensory activity!

So this week when all the littles come knocking on your door, be gracious.  Some of them may be facing some big obstacles while trying to have some fun.

Cabin Times

This past weekend we spent several days at a cabin with my side of the family.  We've been doing this for 5 years now and it's always a great time.  This year there were 6 boys ages 6 and under.  There was no shortage of noise going on in that house!

In years past it's always been a struggle for Charlie.  Being away from home for several nights in a row, being away from his comfort/safe place is hard for him.  There are usually numerous meltdowns, disregulation, and stress.  While Charlie still had some difficulty, he did very well.  This year he had Sunny.

Sunny did a great job as well.  If Charlie was busy playing, she would sit by and keep watch.

She always knew where Charlie was and kept an eye on him.  If he was playing on the swingset with the other kids, Sunny waited patiently for him to return.  

Throughout the week Charlie did well asking for Sunny when he needed her.  He would ask for her to come sit with him, sleep with him, play with him when he needed her most.  And Sunny willingly obliged.  Every.  Time.  

Any time Sunny had downtime or waited for Charlie she had the opportunity to explore around the cabin, outdoors, went for walks, played fetch or simply took a nap.  She loved sitting outside on the back porch where she had a great view of everything.  

Each day we were at the cabin we had special visitors, friends and family that would stop by and catch up.  One special visitor held Charlie's attention.  Our good friends came by one afternoon with their Diabetes detection service dog, Gilbert.  Gilbert and Charlie have always held a special connection with one another over the years.  Whenever we would be at family gatherings that Gilbert would be at, the two of them would always spend time with one another.  Years ago it was our friends who told us about Autism service dogs and encouraged us to look into it through the agency they got Gilbert.  They knew Charlie had a special bond with our own family dog and could clearly see how connected Charlie was with Gilbert.  We are so grateful for their insight and support over the years.  Unfortunately, Charlie would still be on the wait list with that agency for another couple years if we hadn't found Mike and Sunny.  

We are beyond blessed to have Sunny for Charlie.  Each day their bond grows.  And each day Sunny proves to be more and more valuable to Charlie.  We look forward to seeing their future together. 

Alarm Clock

It's no secret that bed time is tough at our house.  It's not uncommon for bed time to last 2-3 hours before Charlie is down.  It's been this way since birth.  We can count on one hand how many times bed time has been easy.  But mornings aren't much better.  Charlie is so not a morning person.  He is really hard to get out of bed in the morning.  And now that he's in school it's difficult to make sure he's up and ready on time.  BUT....enter Sunny. 

Sunny was trained to Charlie's alarm clock so when it goes off in the morning, Sunny knows to go in and help wake Charlie up.  We've had some great success with this.  Charlie is excited to be woken up by Sunny and helps him start his day off right.  

The video below is a little dark, but gives you a quick idea of a portion of our morning during the week.

Pass the Keys Please

One of the most common characteristics people with Autism share is having intense or focused interests.  Not everyone will have the same focus of interest but whatever that interest is, be aware that it can be very intense for the person, maybe even a little obsessive.  For Charlie he has 2 very intense interests; trains and keys.  Sometimes he'll focus on one at a time and sometimes the interests will be a focus at the same time.  Lately it's been a bit of both.

Now when I say it's a slight obsession, I mean he spends most of his time talking about these items, playing with them, planning how he will get more (even though he has literally hundreds of keys and trains), where he will keep them, how he will line them up, which ones he'll play with next, I could go on and on.  The last couple days it's been an intense focus on his keys.  He has several key rings that he spends time putting them on and taking them off.  He recently got his hands on a small box that he's been keeping the majority of them in.

It took us awhile to realize these focuses of his are something he has control of.  These objects bring him peace and comfort.  They're predictable.  He thrives on predictable.  He can decide where they go, what he does with them and how to organize them.  He can spend hours lining them up how he wants them, rearranging them and then starting over.   In Charlie's world, when he doesn't feel he has control of things he becomes anxious, agitated and isn't quite sure what to do.  And when that happens, it can look something like this....

Yep, when he's looking to feel under control he may just open all the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen.  Imagine my surprise when I came around the corner to this and didn't know he had done it.  Other times I have found him going around the house and turning every single light on that we own, in every room of the house....including flashlights.

But there's only so many of one item you can have.  We're running out of extra keys laying around our house.  Over the last couple of years Charlie has gotten keys from a special teacher of his.  We haven't gotten him any new keys lately and it's starting to become difficult to hold him off.  And tonight he was all out of sorts about it.  So yep, totally did this tonight...

I just bought 68 keys on Etsy.  Now, we won't give them all to him at once.  When we run into having keys in bulk like this we dole them out sparingly and make them last.  Many times they're used as incentives.  I know what you're thinking.  Yes, we're the ones that can decide if he gets any more keys or not.  Yes, it may seem like we're playing into his obsession.  But you know what?  He's going to be obsessed about them whether we help him or not.  So we might as well have a happy boy who is intently focused on keys rather than a dysregulated one!  

So if anyone else has any brilliant ideas on where to continue getting keys, we're open for suggestions.  

CHARLIE & SUNNY

Sunny continues to provide much support to Charlie every day.  Some days are busier than others depending on our schedule.  Today's biggest support was keeping him calm and regulated at church and then at bedtime.  Charlie was having a hard time holding it together around bedtime and really relied on Sunny.  

It's difficult to get a good picture when it's completely dark in the house.  But Sunny did a wonderful "full on" command and laid on Charlie for several minutes to provide some deep tactile pressure which really comforts him.  Worked like a charm because Charlie fell right to sleep after this.  This coming week should be interesting.  We'll be heading to a cabin with some of my family for the week.  When we're not at home for a good length of time Charlie tends to get stressed since he's not at home in his comfort zone.  This will be the first year at the cabin that he'll have Sunny so I'm hoping we'll see less stress and anxiety from Charlie.  Until next time...

Sunny standing by while Charlie plays. She never strays far from his side.

Work hard, sleep hard.

Just Another Saturday

What a rollercoaster of a day.  It's been raining quite a bit here this last week and has kept the boys cooped up in the house a little more than they'd like.  To shake things up a bit we decided to take the boys to a movie.  Sudden changes in plans can throw Charlie off so we had plenty of time to prep him.  Everyone was excited.  It was exciting!

We got there on time to fill our popcorn bucket and found our seats just as the previews were starting.   The boys happily munched on popcorn as the movie was rolling.  Everything was going fine.  About a half hour or so into the movie and Charlie was getting restless.  Totally normal for him.  This kid rarely sits still.  But then he leaned over and told me that it was too loud and that he wanted to go somewhere quiet.  HUGE kudos to Charlie for telling us what he was feeling and what he needed to help him.  HUGE!! I first offered to go to the truck to get his noise quieting headphones out of the truck.  He declined.  So out of the theater we marched.

Charlie at first said he wanted to to watch the lights change on the indoor pillars.  Totally fine.  I kept checking in with him to see if he wanted to go back in to the movie, offered to get his headphones again, but he wanted none of it and slowly started into a sensory meltdown.  Nothing to do but to wait it out.  Tyler and the other boys still had about half the movie to finish yet.  

While trying to help Charlie calm down I couldn't help but wonder if he'd do better at a sensory friendly movie.  These are movies that are played with the lights dimmed, not completely off and with the sound lowered a bit.  Usually at sensory friendly movies the social norm of be quiet and sit still is set aside and kiddos who benefit from sensory friendly movies are able to move around and be themselves.  In one of Charlie's quieter moments I asked to speak with the manager (Cinemagic Theater) and inquired about sensory friendly movies.  He said they never have done them, but that he could certainly look into it.  I asked him to please do that because there are many families in the Rochester area that would benefit from it.  I will definitely be following up with him later this week.  Upon some research online, it appears that AMC movie theaters offer sensory friendly movies.  The closest AMC is in the Twin Cities which is an hour and a half away from us.  

Charlie was able to calm down once we were home again.  He was in his own, familiar space and was able to regulate with Sunny in a quiet space.  Plus he got his own bucket of homemade popcorn since he missed out on movie theater popcorn.  We don't like to isolate at home, but man it's instances like these that make staying home look really appealing.  But that's not us.  If we don't try we won't know what we can handle and the boys would miss out on life and Charlie won't learn how to handle different situations.  So try we will.  We'll give it some time and try again some day.