Gavin / My thoughts

The potty dance has returned 

My day has gotten back on track. Unfortunately, I needed a nap for that to happen.   Gavin and I are currently waiting for Lizze to be done with an appointment before we run a few errands. I'm noticing that Gavin is obviously having bladder issues because he's dancing around the backseat, in what's known as potty dance.  He hasn't said anything to me about it yet and I'll wait for him to say something because he's seems to be trying to work through it.  Anyway, that's about it for now.. ☺ 

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February 3, 2017
Gavin / My thoughts

Compulsive Questions

Gavin is driving me absolutely crazy. He keeps asking me questions and I haven't been awake long enough to be able to cope with that just yet.  I swear to God he's thinking of random questions, just so he can follow me around and ask them.  Unfortunately for me, it seems like Gavin is in one of those places where he's compulsively asking questions. There's no rhyme or reason for what he's asking and that makes it exceptionally annoying.. 

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February 3, 2017
Read more about the article How literal interpretation leads to meltdowns 
Emmett John / Homework / My thoughts / School Related Issues

How literal interpretation leads to meltdowns 

I promised that I would write about why Emmett's school report led to so many meltdowns over the last week or so. The reason can be summed up in two words, literal interpretation.   The instructions provided simply said to write about three things you like to do in the snow. Seems pretty simple and straight forward, right? Wrong.. Emmett was so fucking stressed out over this because he takes the instructions quite literally, and is unwilling to deviate from them in any way for fear of breaking the rules or lying. When we sat down to work on this last week, we began by coming up with three things he liked to do in the snow. That proved to be so much more difficult than it sounds. The way…

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February 3, 2017
My Personal Victory / My thoughts

I’m super proud of myself because of the dumbest thing

For the last couple of weeks, all the unwanted attention I receive from chronic sleep deprivation has rendered be useless during the day while the boys are at school. After getting the boys to school, I would come home and basically crash for at least a few hours because I was so exhausted. It's really frustrating for me because I want to sleep and night and not during the day. As an Autism Dad, I have a take what I can when I can, beggars can't be choosers kind of approach to sleep. The reason I'm proud of myself today is because so far,  I've made it without a nap. That hasn't happened in a long time and the crazy thing is I'm feeling pretty damn good right now. Gavin…

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February 2, 2017
Elliott / My thoughts

We faced several challenges this morning 

I was able to nab a whopping four hours of sleep last night. Surprisingly though, I don't feel too bad today.  We started off the morning convincing Elliott that he had to go to school, even in he didn't like his hair. He actually took more work this morning than Emmett did in regards to putting his shoes and socks on.  When we arrived at the school, I walked the boys in because I promised Elliott I would let the school know he was upset about his hair.  We ended up speaking with the principal about it and he said that he really liked Elliott's haircut but that he would let the teachers know that he's stressed out over it.  When I left the boys and headed home, Elliott was…

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February 2, 2017
My thoughts

The Good, Bad and Ugly: The Bad

Now that we've discussed the good and the ugly, it's time for the bad.  The bad began very early in the morning with Emmett and his shoes/socks. It took forever to work him into them, so we could head out the door.  The meltdown was significant and had a lasting impact on all of us, especially poor Emmett.  Perhaps the worst part of the bad from yesterday is in regards to Elliott. One of the errands we had to run was getting the boys haircuts. We were finally able to convince Elliott to get his hair cut shorter. While his hair looks really good now, it ended up being shorter than he'd wanted.  Rather than take it in stride, it controlled him for the rest of the day.  He said…

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February 2, 2017
My thoughts

The Good, Bad and Ugly: The Good

Now that we've talked about the ugly and gotten that over with, let's balance things out with the good.. ☺  I'll begin by sharing that the boys both had amazing days at school. Elliott lost a point and ended up having a green day instead of a teal day, whatever the fuck that means. Green seems like it would be a good color.  Either way, it was a good day.  After the boys got home and I was feeling better, we ran some errands and went to CiCi's Pizza for dinner as a family.  That doesn't happen very often at all and it was really nice.  The absolute highlight of my day took place after we got home from dinner and the errands we had to run.  Emmett has a report…

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February 2, 2017
My thoughts

The Good, Bad and Ugly: The Ugly

As days go, yesterday was a mixed bag of good, bad and ugly. This post and the following two will each explore things that happened yesterday.  Let's start with the ugly and just rip the bandage off right away.  It was about mid-morning (9:00 am-ish), when out of nowhere, I got really sick. I don't know what it was but it was horrible. I had to go back to bed. I had reflux really bad and when I would fall asleep, acid would creep up causing me to wake up, unable to breathe.  This happened a few times, even sleeping propped up and it was fucking scary because I was gasping for air. I had to aggressively clear my throat in order to be able to breathe again.  Emmett used…

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February 2, 2017