#parenting

Brotherly Love Trumps Autism Struggles

by Theresa Yeager

Living with Autism presents such a boatload of challenges. It challenges the family and it challenges the person. Day in and day out it is exhausting for everyone. My Boy has to take extreme effort to attempt to get his most basic communication heard. No words, no sign language, no electronic communication…. He relies on pulling people around and throwing their hand at things. The frustration he feels has got to be tremendous – especially when people get the wrong message. Or worse, they won’t let him ‘talk’ to them at all because they are afraid that he is grabbing them to pinch or bite.

But The Boy’s baby brother opened my eyes. He is almost 4 now. Such an innocent and precious 4 year old with the biggest heart. Now I could rationalize it and tell myself that this innocence is because he doesn’t remember watching me beaten to tears by his big brother like his other siblings have.

I choose not to.

I am choosing to love and support that this little 4 year old looks up to his big brother and wants to be just like him. I am choosing to support his want to follow his big brother around the yard and do the same things his brother enjoys. I am choosing to stay close to make sure I pick up any non-verbal cues from The Boy saying he is done having company. I am choosing to squelch the fear that the little one isn’t going to be safe if aggression shows it’s ugly face. I sat watching them throw rocks and sticks off into the woods. I smiled as they wandered from place to place. The Boy decked out in a full blown snowsuit next to his baby brother in shorts. The pair of them melted my heart and reminded me that what you see is your choice.

I saw 2 brothers wandering around enjoying each other.

And for once, Autism didn’t matter one bit.

School Break Blues

by Theresa Yeager

When the Boy has a long break from school it gets pretty rough round here. I get it, I do. I mean the schedule is all willy nilly and the specialized toys that he loves to use to help himself deal with the world are gone. So I can understand why he gets cranky. And now, today… well today it is raining. That means that he is either going to be stuck inside going nuts or he is going to go outside in the rain and come in every 20 minutes to get changed into dry clothes.

I hope he goes outside.

When Hubby gets home we can fall into our typical coping routine for school breaks. Go for a drive, look at some horses. Cold rain puts a damper on our other ways to get through the day. He loves to play in the water, throw rocks (or whatever else he can get his hands on) into the woods. But when the weather outside is crap – well we are stuck with the driving.

So today the wind and the rain are setting the stage. I’m going to relish in the last few moments before the house wakes.

I’m not even going to let the fact that I broke my French Press this morning get me down. I’ve got a spare contraption to use…..

I’m going to put something that smells yummy in the diffuser, enjoy my coffee and then get through this day. And that will put me one day closer to this short season in life being over. I’m going to just focus on one day at a time.

Easter Fun

by Theresa Yeager

Yup, Easter came and went once again this year. And again I felt like a bad mom, horrible Christian and a subpar wife. At least this year I had a semi-understandable excuse. Family is coming to visit in a couple weeks and bringing Easter ‘fun’ with them. No need to do the whole thing twice…. right?

I just kept telling myself that over and over again. At least it took the edge off.

So we went to church. Did some grocery shopping and acted like it was just another Sunday. No basket of goodies. No egg hunt. No gifts or candy to be had. We didn’t even watch The Passion movie. But my oldest did come home from college to visit. So he could take part in the nothing that we were doing….

We did have mini meltdowns all day.

Pinching and kicking aplenty.

And of course crazy amounts of sensory seeking. Being a holiday this was day 3 of no school. No school sensory room. No trampoline or huge gym to run around in. None of those specialty ‘things’ they have at school that help him to not feel so…… oh who am I kidding. I have no idea how he feels inside when he doesn’t get those things. I just know it isn’t a good feeling. I know because he lashes out and is not a happy kid. It makes his struggle with Autism ‘worse’ if you will.

I’m totally stoked for the next 7 days of spring break.

NOT

But at least the flowers are blooming. That’s a good start for the week <3

Family Visit and Blueberries!

by Theresa Yeager

The kids always love getting together with their cousins. This year was no different. They all had a blast running and playing outside. The highlight of the 3 days was, of course, blueberry picking!!

We go to a blueberry farm called Serendipity Farm and we absolutely LOVE it there! We can take The Boy and just let him run and roam. It is set back from the road, like a secluded little treasure.

The blueberry farm is organic, so we don’t have to worry about the kids being exposed to any chemicals. The people who own the farm are wonderful – super nice! It’s a WIN in every way.

This is a yearly family tradition that we look forward to time and time again <3

A Bath for the Dogs

by Theresa Yeager

What beautiful day to give the dogs a bath! With the crazy weather that we had this year, I have put off giving our farm dogs their summer bath. But today was the day! They love getting brushed. The biggest problem we encounter is that they don’t want to wait their turn. So you will have 2 sisters pushing each other out of the way!

The children loved to take part too. Even the baby wanted a turn brushing. Everyone was having a grand time until it was time for the bathing. The Boy loves water play, but when he saw us washing the dogs he began to get very nervous. He suddenly no longer enjoyed the running water and decided it was time to go inside to get away. And that was just fine. You have to let an Autistic child decide what they can and cannot handle. Sometimes you need to push them and sometimes you need to let them escape what is uncomfortable for them. This was uncomfortable for my son, I didn’t see the need to force him to help, so he found something else to do. And that’s okay…

The rest of the children had a blast!

RUN!! She's shaking!! — RUN!! She’s shaking!!

We all got a really great laugh when each dog decided to have her final shake right next to my daughter. And I didn’t need to worry about who was helping because we found an awesome, non-toxic dog shampoo. All the shampoos that I had tried in the past caused my arms to break out in a rash. This stuff smelled awesome, didn’t make me break out, and was completely safe for both my sweet 4-legged babies as well as my 2-legged babies. Best of all, when the specific “Pet Shampoo” is out of stock, I can get the unscented Bath and Shower Gel Base and add some Lemongrass and Purification to it to make my own pet safe shampoo!

Love it!

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