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Theresa Yeager

5 Kids and Autism

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Chemical Free Cleaning

Loving the new skills!

by Theresa Yeager

Loving the new skills!

Oh my WORD!! My boy is just doing all kids of great stuff this week!! I have been so excited and bursting that I totally spaced on so many things that I was supposed to do. Sorry friends!

We had multiple meetings this week and learned a lot about how we can help the Boy to reach the goals we have for him. The ARC was out to finalize some paperwork which will put a specialist in his class and in the home to help us all help him with his sensory overload and meltdowns in the most effective manner. I urge you to reach out to your local ARC and see what services they have that may be beneficial for you and your family. Really – you never know how they can help until you do!

So what has been happening in my house? Oh let me tell you!!

goodnights
The Boy is a wedwetter

But see he stopped wearing GoodNites, or night underwear as we called them, about a year ago. It wasn’t a big deal at the time because he wasn’t wetting every night. Well, about 6 months ago he started wetting every night. I mean EVERY night. And he would wake up in the middle of the night giggling. Laying there wet, awake and babbling to himself and giggling. So we would get up and change the bedding and his clothes and thankfully he would usually go back to sleep. I tried getting these ‘real underwear’ type GoodNites – yeah, he didn’t go for it. No surprise there. I was washing 2 comforters, 2 sets of sheets and 2 bed pads everyday. Thankfully 3 drops Purification essential oil blend in with my Thieves laundry soap was all I needed so I didn’t have to rinse those mattress pads out anymore.

Then it happened.

And I am hoping that this is the turning point.

The other night, he woke up wet and instead of just laying in it he got out of bed. He went over to his closet and got out a new pair of underwear and started to put them on. Now he doesn’t usually dress himself. We have to dress him everyday. So trying to get dressed was HUGE. Getting up and trying to get dressed because he wet the bed – MONUMENTAL!!

Happy Dance just doesn’t cover it <3

creek

That big Autism river that we are trying to navigate just got a little smaller 🙂

Filed Under: Achievements, Chemical Free Cleaning Tagged With: #autism, #autismbedwetting, #chemicalfreecleaning, #proudautismmomma, #sleep

Let them redecorate!

by Theresa Yeager

Let them redecorate!

Autism frequently comes with a slew of sensory issues that many people struggle to identify with. It is hard to understand just what the world looks like through someone else’s eyes to begin with, let alone someone who sees the world in a drastically different light. There was an amazing movie about a woman named Temple Grandin that really shows how the world can be viewed in pictures. She is an amazing woman with Autism who has been able to shed a lot of light on how people with Autism think differently. I highly recommend it – although the beginning is very difficult to watch as it shows her having meltdowns. I couldn’t watch it all in one sitting as it hit home a little too hard <3 But it shows that Autistic minds think differently and it can be amazing!

if you could see

So as I was saying – there is a sensory piece to Autism that can be challenging. It can be that lights are bothersome, but only sometimes. It could be that sounds are troublesome, but only some sounds on certain occasions. Certain smells may cause physical pain or discomfort – but not consistently. This seemingly randomness can stress parents out because it makes it harder for us to figure out what is going on. My suggestion is – pick your battles.

  • If your child wants the light off today – is it really necessary to keep it on?
  • If you child wants you to stop using the mixer – can you use a quiet hand tool instead?
  • If your child is reacting negatively to chemical cleaners – can’t you switch to a natural product or essential oil?

Which would you rather do, change the environment to help your child feel better, or force the environment and deal with pain and a meltdown? In my home, that means that I had to change the position of our rocking chairs.

chairs

I don’t know ‘why’ he doesn’t want a chair on either side of the table anymore. I can’t even begin to try and fathom a guess and this all came on suddenly after years of it being ‘okay’. Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter why. He kept pulling the rocker away from it’s place and didn’t want it on the other side of the table. He would bring it to the front of the other one and promptly come to move it again if we tried to put it back. So I began to think of ways to compromise because it was not worth a fight. I put it next to the other one and he left it there. That placement is okay and he is happy now.

Think outside the box

Because having a calm home is important

For ALL who live there.

Filed Under: Behavior, Chemical Free Cleaning Tagged With: #autism, #chemicalfreecleaning, #sensory

My Mop is Evil

by Theresa Yeager

My Mop is Evil

If you have a child, know a child or were a child; you know all about irrational fears. You remember, there was that demented clown hiding under your bed or in your closet. There was something in the thunderstorm that was waiting to pounce on you and do… well… you didn’t know what but you knew it would be bad and terrifying. As we get older we talk ourselves out of irrational fears because we have learned that things don’t change just because it is dark. We ‘know’ that there isn’t anything hiding under the bed and our closets are just full of the junk we frantically threw in there during that harried cleaning frenzy last week before the in-laws showed up. We forget after we watch that movie that gets us jumpy, but we fight for the control of our mind and body as we desperately try to talk ourselves down from that fear. We can do that because we really do understand what will and will not hurt us.

But what if we changed those rules?

Enter Autism. I talk about Autism as a thing, don’t get mad at me for it. Autism is a thing to me and it is not who my son is. Autism grips hold of him with two hands, and there are times when I can see it squeezing him so tight it won’t let my amazing boy out. I have seen him in bad times when all I could see was a shell of a boy and Autism’s dominant head rearing. I have seen him in good times when I could look at the boy and see joy in his eyes, in his mannerism, radiating through him – Autism was there, but it wasn’t stomping out his beautiful light. I understand many aspects of my son’s Autism because I share many sensory problems with my son. I do not feel I am ‘Autistic’ but I certainly have a lot of ‘Autistic Tendencies’ – and I would never, ever claim that it is a bad thing. Autism becomes a ‘thing’ and is a crushing force needing to be dealt with when it is debilitating. So don’t judge me and my choice of words because I certainly I won’t judge you.

So how does Autism change the game when it comes to that creepy clown in your rocking chair? (Yeah, it’s a movie reference and I am probably dating myself!) All bets are off. That’s how it changes things. Anything goes and I mean anything. Imagine that you can’t explain that you won’t be sucked down the toilet or the bathtub drain. An Autistic child may not comprehend what you are trying to tell them. Your words don’t register as making sense based on their own observations and fears. They put their hand over that drain and they can feel their skin being sucked downward – you must be wrong. How can you convince a child who has problems with language while using language? You better get creative, let me tell you!! But this isn’t how Autism rolls in my house. Sure, my son is 10 and has not a single word that he speaks. He can’t even use his iPad to tell me much more than the basics – and that doesn’t include when he has to go to the bathroom by the way, but that’s another story! My guy understands quite a bit. Yeah we get the blank, corner of the eye ceiling stare when you have lost him; but overall he really does comprehend. So how does Autism change the fear game in our home? It changes the game of pain and annoyance. What are those noises that you just can’t stand? Fingernails on the chalkboard? The sound of the dentist drill on a tooth? My hubby can’t stand the sound of a nail file. Multiply it, amplify it, and compound it with the inability to escape or tell anyone to stop.

You have just entered my son’s world.

It took me YEARS to figure out what was going on with the poor child. All this time I thought he was just terrified of the vacuum cleaner. Then it was the stand mixer. He started getting worse and worse with the hair clippers. Now he gets very anxious with all power tools or anything with a small engine. My sewing machine and ice cream maker teeter back and forth with being okay and not. Some days are better and some days are worse – that is when I had my ‘ah-ha’ moment. He isn’t afraid of the things, or what they are going to do to him. The noise they make does something to him. The chaos of moving things around to where they don’t belong does something to him. Oh how I can identify with that! We all have our breaking points. I can stand only so much clutter before I snap and it all needs to be put away – NOW. But what if that breaking point was very low. What if you had such little control over life around you because of your inability to communicate that you found comfort in the fact that you could always count on the kitchen chairs being in the kitchen. But what if mom was mopping the floor and suddenly the chairs were in the living room? And now the floor is wet and I can’t go in there, when I want a drink. I’ll never be able to drink again! And she moved around the toys to clean and they aren’t where they should be. And my world just collapsed because the things that I find comfort in, the things I can understand (people are too complicated and have too many odd rules) are not the way they should be. You changed the rules and now I don’t understand or have control over anything. PUT IT BACK!! But I can’t yell put it back – so my words come out in behavior. I might throw, I might scream, I might run around obviously upset because I don’t know how to tell you that I want you to

PUT IT BACK!

I haven’t run the vacuum around my son for over 5 years. I bought an amazing carpet sweeper that does an awesome job cleaning the throw rug without using electricity. He is fine with it. I use it at home every night. I sweep the carpet at my dad’s house with a broom, no problem. We don’t have wall to wall carpet, how on earth could we? But how do you mop without moving things?? Yeah, I have a squirt bottle of my Thieves Cleaner that I can spot clean the floor with. I use it because I know it is plant-based, non-toxic, smells great and I don’t have to freak out when he decides it’s a good day to lick the floor (yeah, that’s another post!!) Sometimes you just need to bust out the bucket and mop and get EVERYTHING clean. Well, you must have 4 people working like clockwork. Someone take the boy outside so he doesn’t see us mess up his order in the house. Person number 2 moves everything out of the room that needs moving while person number 3 mops. Person number 4 is charged with drying the floor with a towel so that we can get the stuff put right back into its place. Genius! NOT happening every week, but we got it done this week! The boy comes back inside, hops on the couch and is none the wiser. Mom for the win!

Why won’t he go into the bathroom without acting funny though? The poor child is acting like the boogie man is hiding in the shower. For three days I watched this child’s anxiety over going in and out of the bathroom and could not figure out what was going on. All the usual things that trigger problems were in their proper place, but still he acted funny about being in there. Finally I mention something to my teenager to get a second opinion.

“The mop never got put away.” He tells me. I never even noticed.

And the mop is evil – because it causes chaos.

The Evil Mop and Bucket
The Evil Mop and Bucket

That poor boy was waiting for three days for me to rock his world – oh the irony.

Filed Under: Chemical Free Cleaning, Struggles Tagged With: #chemicalfreecleaning, #family, #parenting, autism

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