I stepped way outside my comfort zone for this one

I didn't do anything incredibly productive last night and I'm okay with that. I hardly get any time to myself and when I do, a large part of me wants to do absolutely nothing. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed but these little breaks are pretty awesome. They're a necessity, even if I don't do anything. Last night, I did manage to record a podcast. I felt inspired to talk about something that is consuming my life at the moment and that topic is divorce. It's a shorter episode, less than 20 minutes but I wanted to talk about navigating divorce when Autistic kids are involved. It's a delicate issue to speak about, but an important one. The plan is to release it next Friday but I'm not entirely sure. I'm coordinating…

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OMFG, I’m so ready to get off this ride

I barely got the kids to school today because Elliott and Emmett are struggling so much. This is so much worse this time around. I'm so frustrated because every single day is a nightmare now and the struggle is unbelievable. When I had the boys to Akron Children's Behavioral Health this week, we talked about how to help them manage. He explained that the boys had been traumatized in 2014 when their mom left and retraumatized when she left again in August. Unfortunately, there isn't any medication that is going to fix this. The only thing that will eventually help is time and lots of therapy. The problem at this point is that this trauma is so new and they still refuse to talk about it. This is impacting every…

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Feeling grateful tonight

It's been an got very little accomplished kinda day. Emmett came home from school about 10 AM because he was in too much pain. He went and tried to stick it out but it was too much. The antivirals don't seem to be helping much right now and that sucks cause it means this could go on for a while. Elliott made it through the day. He wasn't feeling well and struggled emotionally but he made it. I'm really proud of him. We only have one school day left and I'm praying it goes well because I have to have the car to the shop in the morning. The software in the car is getting a free upgrade to Android Auto and I'm pretty excited about that. Assuming the kids…

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My friends at @Buick put big smiles on my kids faces today

It's no secret that life is tough for my family right now. Sometimes it's the little things that can change the course of our day. When we arrived home from the school this afternoon, we were greeted by a few surprises on our front porch. My new friends at Buick were thinking about us and decided to send us some sweet Buick swag. The kids are so excited and I'll be honest, I feel pretty good about it as well. ☺ Buick was kind enough to send each of us a custom Buick Yeti Rambler. The look sweet and will look really good next to the black leather interior of our new Buick Regal Premium II. Buick, you made our day and I really, truly appreciate it. My kids are…

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I feel like I’m failing but am I really?

It was another difficult night and a very challenging morning. Elliott didn't want to go to school again because when he's there, he can't stop thinking about him mom leaving and our ferret dying. He's worried about what the teachers might say when he becomes upset. He's an anxious kid to begin with and he's miserable because of all this. He ultimately went and I'm so proud of him for doing that. I know he's going to have a rough day but if he can stick it out, they will eventually get better. Emmett on the other hand, refused to go to school. This is coming from a kid who's favorite place in the world is often school. There are a number of reasons for him not wanting to go…

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I’m heartbroken because my kids are hurting

I'm going to try to go to bed as soon as the kids do. I'm absolutely exhausted. The boys had therapy tonight and we spent a large part of that time brain storming ideas on how to help them make it through the school day. The kids are struggling and they tend to struggle a great deal more when they're at school. I can't fix what's causing them pain and I can't answer the questions they want answers to. All I can do is help them to learn the skills needed to better cope with all of this and make sure they have a safe environment where they can speak freely with their therapist. I'm overwhelmed by their struggles, so I can't imagine how they feel. When we got home,…

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A turbulent and emotional roller-coaster

We had a pretty rough night here in The Autism Dad household. It was all things that were emotional in nature and outside of anyone's control. It sorta came to a head at therapy last night. It was a turbulent emotional roller-coaster in the sense that the boys talked about things they didn't want to talk about. When we came home, everyone was emotionally spent and in need of decompression. Elliott was so stressed out about things he was supposed to do today and I finally decided to pull the plug on some of it, simply to provide him some relief. These things are important but so is his sanity and emotional wellbeing. It was a judgment call and I made it. Poor Emmett was so stressed out that he…

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I found a great way to disconnect and spend time as a family

I want to end the day on a positive note, by sharing something cool that the boys and I did as a family. A large part of this was Emmett and myself. Frankly, Emmett was the muscle behind this puzzle. ☺ Emmett is huge into things like board games and puzzles. He really enjoys doing these things as a family but unfortunately, not everyone else does. Recently, Emmett has become fascinated with puzzles, especially those with hundreds of pieces and complicated pictures. I ordered him one off of Amazon and it was delivered on Sunday. 4.5 out of 5 stars  60ReviewsBuffalo Games - Cats Collection - Sweet Shop Kittens - 750 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle We worked on it for a little while Sunday night and it even attracted the attention of…

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