In So Many Words

This may be a bit of a ramble, but I have read a couple of posts referencing Halloween and ways to prepare your kids with sensory needs or autism for trick or treating or other festive events, and it brought to mind some of the funny things that have happened with Michael.

Our First Attempt

The first year we took him out, he was only 2 and we had an adorable giraffe costume that had been handed down from an older cousin. He would not keep the hood up for love or money. He did allow us to lead him up to people, but while they were trying to give him candy, he was attempting to go past them into their house.

It occurred to me after a while that it must seem strange for a child to be taken to someone’s house but then not go inside even though the people are home, and then to keep going up to more people’s houses but never going inside for a visit!

At Daycare

The following year, the daycare he was attending went into the office building they were part of and trick or treated at the various offices. Michael was completely confused by this and had no idea what to do. This was following his diagnosis of autism, but before we really knew what to do about any of this stuff.

Fast forward to December, and the daycare went into the same office building to sing Christmas Carols. Well, this time Michael knew just what to do – he walked right up to people and said “Trick or treat”! Of course, he was quite upset that they didn’t give him candy like the first time.

Since Then

In the years since that time, he has enjoyed Trick or Treat overall. He enjoys picking out a costume and has walked around for longer each year than the year before, ending the evening by helping me hand out candy at home, which he seems to enjoy even more!

Here’s a few of his more recent costumes – not sure what he’s going to be this year:

Superman - Age 4

Diego - Age 5

Speed Racer - Age 6

Mustard - Age 7

What are your kids going to be for Halloween?

I finally downloaded the pictures from last week, and I didn’t really get any good ones from Trick or Treat. But I took a bunch of shots at the Halloween party at school and thought these turned out pretty well.

For Halloween at my son’s school, the students and teachers dress up in their costumes and go on a parade through the neighborhood. After walking about six blocks, they make their way back to the school playground and dance to some fun songs before going inside to their class parties. These were taken during The Hokey Pokey.

Check out more great pics at Special Exposure Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday.

SCARY BINGO

The first scary thing is a fun thing. Tonight I finished the bingo cards for the school party this Friday. They are a mix of handmade and computer-generated, and each kid will get a bag of candy corn to use for markers. The homeroom parent had done a similar game last year at the Valentine’s party and the kids loved it, so I just adapted it to Halloween. She said they played until every kid had his or her entire card filled up!

Each card has the squares in a slightly different order, and they will get the SCARY space and their own names as freebies before we start drawing cards.

A BIG SCARE FOR BOB

The second scary thing actually happened yesterday when Bob and Michael were out running errands, and luckily I didn’t know anything about it until they were both home safe and sound.

They had gone into the mall near our house and needed to go up to the second floor. Bob didn’t realize that Michael, who had been right behind him, didn’t get on the escalator, so as soon as he got to the top, he came back down to get him. But Michael took off before Bob got down there and then Bob couldn’t find him. It was several minutes before he was paged by security to come get Michael upstairs.

After talking to both of them, it turns out that Bob didn’t know Michael is afraid to step onto an escalator without holding someone’s hand and thought Michael would get on by himself when prompted. Of course, he also thought Michael would wait at the bottom for him to come back down.

Michael, on the other hand, had the idea that if Bob would wait at the top of the escalator, Michael could go up on the elevator and meet him there. So that’s what he did, but then of course Bob wasn’t there because he had come back down and was searching the first floor of the mall for Michael. When Michael couldn’t find Bob, he went into one of the stores nearby to look for him and then approached a “policeman” (mall security guard) for help.

I talked to Michael for what seems like the 100th time about how he has to stay with Mommy or Daddy at all times when we are out somewhere, and also that he can’t just go do an idea he thinks about, but has to talk to us about it first. I did tell him he did the right thing in going to the security officer for help.

This was definitely a big reminder to me that, no matter how well things are going, we need to keep ourselves within an arm’s reach of him at all times when we are out in public. I am just so incredibly thankful that this ended as it did.

Other than going to church last night, we totally crashed yesterday. So I was happy that I had a pretty productive day today – I am on track to finishing 4 loads of laundry, and I have the bingo cards for Friday’s school party over halfway done. I think they are going to be cute; I’ll post a picture of one once they are done.

I am actually looking forward to the party now that the homeroom parent helped me with what we should do. Plus, we are going in early to help the kids get their costumes on for the school parade. I love that I was scheduled for the first party of the year, so I didn’t have to worry about any duplicating anything that had been done before! (Okay, I know I am overanalyzing again, but at least I put myself out there knowing that it would be stressful but would make Michael happy.)

Bob took Michael out while he ran errands this afternoon, and they not only returned my books to the library for me, but they also picked up Michael’s Halloween costume! He had wanted to be Spiderman, but came home with a completely different costume instead that’s not even a superhero. I’m leave you in suspense on that one for a couple of days as well.

All this productivity is not to say that I didn’t goof off today. A couple of days ago, I heard about the Fancast website on 5 Minutes for Mom. They have full length episodes of various TV shows available online, so I just had to check it out.)

To my surprise, I was able to find The Next Iron Chef and catch up on the episodes I have missed due to The Amazing Race going late because of football. It figures, the only two shows I make a point to watch are scheduled back to back. So now I am all caught up on that , and it looks like both shows are on schedule for tonight. (I know, this is just so NOT important in the grand scheme of life.)

Well, I’m off to put the last load in the dryer. Hope everyone has a great night!

Sorry for yet another week of absence from this blog – outside of a fun trip on Saturday, my time has been focused almost entirely on the behavior plan we are getting ready to start at school with Michael. I think we finally have something good and am very hopeful that it will work as expected. The teacher has been so frustrated and I really wish the team last year had started the process in February when I originally asked them to instead of waiting until mid-May when I demanded it, but at least we have one now.

I was also pretty stressed out because I agreed to go to Michael’s Halloween party at school before I realized that meant I had to actually PLAN it! I thought I was just supposed to show up and do as I was told. Thankfully, the homeroom parent did a lot of the kindergarten parties last year and helped me out with some great ideas. Now I just need to prep for one of the games and I will be all set.

Once that weight was off my mind, it was much easier to plow through the backlog of phone calls and paperwork that has been piling up on my desk. So now I have a list I can actually fit on one page again!

Stuff That Has to Get Done:

Things I’ve Been Procrastinating About:

For more To-Do Tuesday, visit Crazy Adventures in Parenting.

I know I have been AWOL from all memes lately, and I am not sure if I will do them regularly at all, but I wanted to share this picture of Michael taken just before we went trick or treating.

About a week prior to this, he decreed that I had to wear a costume in order to take him out. So I told him I was going as Speed Racer’s Mom.

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