“When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” – Sherlock Holmes
Meltdowns – or perhaps we should call them ’strongly, vocally, and dramatically expressed opinions’ – have become an all-too-frequent occurrence around here lately. I’ve read many posts and heard many stories from parents of autistic children talking about their kids just falling apart in some situations and the frustration and anguish those parents feel in trying to figure out why and what they can do about it. Previously, I’ve listened more as an interested conversation partner, parent of an autistic child, and friend, and I’ve also been thankful that this issue hasn’t much been a part of our lives.
OK, you can welcome us to the club now.
I started writing a post days ago on the stories from this past week, but every day things kept changing. Writing about all this became like throwing a Lego and trying to hit a speeding bullet. So let me take one particular episode and describe it, particularly because it illustrates how we figured it out. And in this case, the remarkable thing to me is that the J-Man and I primarily are the ‘we’ here. We discovered the solution together, and I’m quite proud of that.
Everybody here has been sick at some point or another this week with terrible colds. My head feels like a basketball someone is pumping up with an industrial air compressor. The J-Man has had similar-sounding congestion and an ugly-sounding cough these past couple of days. Dale Jr. has a nose that runs like a fire hose, and he refuses to nap. Mary is the least symptomatic, but also probably more exhausted than everyone else combined. All that is to say that everyone already had plenty of reasons to feel like dirt and have whatever meltdown they wanted to.
The specific meltdown I wanted to write about came later this week during the bedtime routine. We’ve kept the same routine for a long time with nary a problem for months. All of the sudden, he started to completely freak out during teeth brushing. I’d try to brush some more but he just became more and more apoplectic. You could see the desperation dialing up in him.
As a rule, if we keep the same routines in certain situations, that gives us a fairly finite set of things we can check for potential meltdown-causing issues. Bedtime is pretty simple and unchanging in our house. He comes upstairs, goes into the big bathroom, I take his shirt off, give him his pill, and then give him his two liquid meds. He went through these just fine as he has for ages. Then I brush his teeth, first with his toddler toothbrush with non-flouride toothpaste and then I ‘rinse’ out his mouth using a wet washcloth that I run around in there with my finger. I barely got the brush in and one or two passes on some teeth before he became frantic.
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Dr. Seuss’s Birthday! B, B, B!
We’d be seriously remiss if we didn’t mention that today is the birthday of the great Dr. Seuss. We feel forever in his debt because books like the ABC book, There’s a Wocket in My Pocket, Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? were some of the most essential pieces of the J-Man’s early learning. We found them indispensable in motivating him in his speech and reading work. Many of his early sounds and very likely much of his early reading skills and knowledge of the alphabet came from these Seuss books.
I have the ABC book memorized still. I spent many a day calming him down by reciting it and little by little letting him try to fill in a sound or word whenever I paused. After a long while, we could do the whole thing together. He’d say the next syllable, and then I’d say it, all the way through. We could do this without the book, both of us repeating it from memory like a liturgy. Really, that’s pretty much what it was for us.
So, Theodor Geisel, we thank you and honor you for everything you mean to our family and millions of others around the world.
by Mary on January 15, 2010
When I was pregnant with Dale Jr, I started forcing the J-man to walk up and down the stairs by himself. I just couldn’t carry him. It took us a LONG (echo long, long, long) time to get him to go up the stairs, and coming down the stairs was even worse. Finally though, he did it. He held our hand, and walked up or down the stairs.
After Dale Jr was born, there was a point where everyone was sick. Everyone. And so we carried the J-man up and down stairs because he was that sick. He was pitiful – when we were downstairs, he would just lie on the floor and look sad. He had no sense of balance at all. And so, of course, he started to depend on us to carry him again. And, like idiots (or, you know, people who just wanted to get through the day!) we did.
I decided this week that the J-man was going to start going up and down stairs by himself again. The reason? Our incredible babysitter (Ms. Cindy) was over, and the J-man wanted to show me something while I was upstairs working. So while Ms. Cindy was occupied feeding the always hungry Dale Jr, the J-man just walked up the stairs. By himself. We were all shocked. But I figured, hey, if he could do it when he wanted, then we were dealing with a behavioral issue, and not a sensory one.
So we started. And it was AWFUL. He shrieked and cried and twisted and refused. I tried using Veggie Sticks as a reward. He didn’t care. I tried putting Legos on the steps. He would come up a step, pick up the Lego, and then go back down the step. He did that all the way to the top… and then went back down the steps because, Silly Mama, Legos don’t belong on the steps! But he refused to come off the steps into the second floor hallway.
I ended up picking him up, putting him on the steps, then closing the baby gate, so the only way he could go was UP. Oh, he tried to slither under that gate. He tried going through the spindles at the bottom of the stairs. But the only way to move was UP. The first time, it took us over an hour to go up the stairs. I went to the top and folded a load of laundry. I read some blogs. I purposely DIDN’T listen to the screaming. And it was hard. For everyone in the house.
Going downstairs was even harder, because I worried that he would fall. So I sat him down and showed him how to bump down on his bottom. He didn’t like that. I was so frustrated that I grabbed his feet and pulled him down each stair on his bottom, one at a time. He was SO upset by this that he tried to scramble back up the stairs! Tim had to do a lot of rocking in the mancliner to soothe.
We went two days like that. Diapers went a little longer than they should, because it was just so much work to go up and down the stairs. And then Wednesday morning, I put him on the stairs, and he walked down them. He freaked out at the bottom, but he calmed down pretty quickly. Same with going up.
Thursday, he walked down the stairs calmly when I walked with him. He walked up the stairs calmly when I walked with him.
Today, I guess he decided that it was time for a diaper change. He walked to the steps, walked up them by himself, and shook the gate until I opened it. I opened it, and he walked to his room for me to change his diaper. Then he walked back down the stairs. And we celebrated.
I know, a lot of people think, STAIRS? Really, you’re celebrating stairs?
Yes. Yes, we are.
by Mary on January 13, 2010
When we first heard about Signing Time [affiliate link], it was because I had read about teaching a baby to sign – that it reduced frustration for them to be able to communicate before they could speak. I ended up thinking that all of those children had to be BRILLIANT to be able to learn to sign, because even though the J-man loved watching Signing Time, he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) sign. He didn’t have the fine motor skills to pull off doing any sign that had finger movement or shaping.
The only sign the J-man ever used was “more” and I’m still not sure that he understood what he was asking for. The only time he ever used it was when we were playing a game where we carried him around and stopped suddenly, and he had to ask for “more” before we would move again. So he understood that we would start running again, but I think he just thought the sign meant something like “go.” Once the J-man was able to actually say the “g” sound (for GO!) he stopped with signing “more.”
In the span of something like 5 minutes, I just taught Dale Jr to sign “more.” He was sitting in his high chair eating (also something new this time around), and I asked if he wanted “more” or “all done” – signing each thing. (Our “all done” is like an umpire making the SAFE signal at home plate, because the other way to do “all done” looks too much like stimming for the J-man to ever differentiate.) Dale Jr would open his mouth like a baby bird in a nest, and I would pop in another Gerber Puff, each time signing “more!” before.
Suddenly, when I asked if he wanted “more” or “all done” he clapped his fists together. “MORE” I shouted, and gave him another puff. “More or all done?” Again, he clapped his fists together. “MORE!”
Then, before I could ask the question, Dale Jr looked at me pointedly, and clapped his fists together. “MORE!”
I called Tim downstairs to make sure I wasn’t reading more (heh) into the situation than it warranted, and Dale Jr showed Daddy that he could sign “more” with a bit of resignation – all, “I just want the dang Puff, people, so could you give it to me?”
And, we celebrated.
by Tim on January 8, 2010
I think I’ve finally settled on my three words for 2010. Luckily, ‘timeliness’ isn’t one of them.
Proclaim – This is about committing to writing in many forms, whether that involves my writing projects, blogging, other social media, articles, writing letters to Congress, or anything else where I can speak what’s true to me and advocate about what’s important to me, particularly autism and children. And this is not just putting words on paper or screen; proclaiming is writing emphatically and ramming the exclamation point down into the table.
Connect – To personally connect with more parents, educators, therapists, specialists, technologists, and others who have similar experiences to mine and foster the relationships I’ve already made; to help people connect with each other so they can learn and get the information and support they need; and to connect people with quality online resources that help them become better parents, carers, educators, or therapists. This includes actually responding to my e-mail and our blog comments in anything resembling a timely fashion – which I’ve clearly and epically failed at for a long while now – as well as participating on others’ blogs.
Bamboo – This one requires a bit more explanation. Bamboo is – among other things – an important symbol in Zen Buddhism. It is very strong, flexible, supple, and resilient. It will bend under tremendous weight but not break and still be able to snap back to upright when the weight is gone. It responds exactly as it needs to under pressure, bending neither too much nor too little. It is the opposite of tension and rigidity. It has a profound ability to flex and adapt even to vast changes.
I wanted to find a simple word that for me captured the foundations for physical health, emotional health, and attitude. I think in order to be like bamboo you have to find ways to bring yourself more into balance, take care of yourself so your body can respond to things in the right way, practice a lifestyle that fosters calm, flexibility, and ease in the midst of great challenge and adversity, be open to opportunities and gifts that come from being a parent, and nurture a positive attitude about life.
Of course, if I manage even a fraction of any of that, I may try to cure cancer while I’m at it. 
But by trying to be more like bamboo, I think I’ll be a better father, husband, and friend.
One of the activities that pondering bamboo has led me toward is something I discovered called a ‘gratitude journal’. I at first thought of it as incredibly cheesy, but after doing it for just a couple of days I felt a noticeable change in my perspective. Being the geek that I am, I do this on my iPod Touch using an app – not surprisingly – called Gratitude Journal. (Link opens the App Store in iTunes – it’s 99 cents) Just open an entry, type some things that happened that day that you’re grateful for (shows up basically as bullet points), and you’re done. If you feel like it, you can rate your day 1-5 stars and drop a photo into it, though neither are required. It takes maybe two minutes, but I’ve found it a great addition to my day.
Have you decided on your three words for 2010 yet? Would love to hear them if you want to share!
by Tim on December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas! We hope your holiday – in whatever way you observe this time of year – has brought peace and joy, plus a little rest and sanity, to your family.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the holiday season trying to take a thoughtful look at my life, particularly at all the good and positive things in it. I wanted to list some of them here, both for my own benefit and also to encourage others to perhaps do the same. And 25 felt like a good number given the season. So here goes. (Complete with illustrations!)
1. This year we became the Flashlight Four. Having Dale Jr. as part of our lives these past almost-eight months has opened up a whole new world of wonder for us. He and the J-Man hardly seem like they could be more different, and because of that we have two unique-in-all-the-world gifts in our lives. What could be better than that!
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