In So Many Words

What a weekend! Did you ever notice that doing something different on Friday night makes the weekend seem longer?

We had a special service at church on Friday night to hear from our pastor’s son, who has just finished his first year at the American Film Institute in Hollywood. He shared some wonderful stories and a great message, but the best part of all was that Michael sat through an entire church service for the first time in his life!

Now, granted, this was with the help of the itouch (at zero volume) and a pen and paper to draw on, but it was an absolutely surreal experience for both me & Bob.

On Saturday, I went into work to do the reports that I usually do on Monday morning, since my boss will be at a funeral and asked if I could do them over the weekend. Bob took Michael to an outreach ministry event, another first, which went very well.

Later on, they went to Hersheypark for a few hours. Michael is now tall enough to ride all the coasters, so he went on the Great Bear for the first time (lots of firsts this weekend!). He called me right afterwards and said it was terrifying but he loved it! They ended up not riding any other coasters because it started raining, but they did get a couple of other rides in before they had to leave.

I got on a bit of a organizing and decluttering kick today and straightened up my bedroom closet. I also brought up the Christmas wrapping paper that had ended up in the basement last year and put it in the closet with the rest of the gift wrapping supplies. I also cleaned out one small drawer and got the big bag of Campbell’s labels prepped to send in – and good thing since the bonus offer ends June 15th!

What did you do this weekend?

Yes, I realize that I haven’t written about our lives much lately, except for telling you about all the wonderful books I’ve been reading! I will try to do better, but you may have to nudge me if I wait too long again.

I will say that April is a horrible month filled with mood swings and temper tantrums and IEP meetings. And contrary to what you might be thinking after reading that sentence, not all of the mood swings and temper tantrums are mine!!

At this point, we have had many conversations about how everyone is responsible for their own behavior no matter how they feel or what other people do or say to them (how dare the teacher read a sentence ending with an exclamation point without using the proper amount of emphasis!), and that there is no excuse for hitting, kicking or throwing anything (pencils, shoes, chairs, etc) at another person.

We have also started a new behavior plan at school, with more tangible rewards that can be earned within a day or less and a stronger visual component to show how he is doing. It is likely that we will be starting a medication trial soon, although I want to give the behavior plan time to be solidly in place first and I would like to get objective feedback from school without them knowing exactly when we start the meds.

Considering medication is a big step for me. It is scary to consider possible side effects, both short term and longer term that may yet be unkown, plus I keep wondering if there’s something else we could do that would help. I have even considered moving him to a more restrictive environment at school for part of the day. Although that may be helpful or necessary at some point, we do see the mood swings no matter what environment he is in, even when he is completely in control of what he is doing.

I’m not trying to defend my decision, simply sharing some of the thought processes that have gone into it. Right now we are looking at a two-week trial to be followed up by a discussion with the psychiatric NP to decide where to go from there.

With only five more weeks of school, I am starting to really look forward to summer. Michael will be going to the same babysitter he had last year for several weeks, who is a wonderful woman who also teaches high school life skills during the school year. He will also go to a Summer Therapeutic Activities Program (STAP) for five weeks, the same one he has attended for the last few years.

I am going to try yet again to get him into the Children’s Institute at the National Autism Conference in State College. They generally give preference to children who have not been there before, but since it has been five years since he went, I am hoping he might get in. I asked about it last year when I was there, and they encouraged me to apply again this year. Unfortunately, the registration info isn’t up yet, although the save the date flyer said April 30th.

Michael also really wants to get Hersheypark passes this summer. We didn’t get them last year, but he has grown enough to be a Twizzler, which means he can ride all 11 of the roller coasters now. (I will only get on 7 of them, but that’s beside the point!) We are trying to decide whether to get three passes so the whole family can go or just get two and take turns accompanying him to the park.

Hmm, I just had a thought – maybe I’ll get two for now and add the third later if we decide we need it. (See, that’s another reason I should blog more often, it helps me think through stuff and come up with great ideas!)

Well, enough rambling for now. How about you, are you looking forward to summer or dreading it?

Have you seen the awesome Mother’s Day Giveaway over at 5 Minutes for Mom?

It actually started last week, but it goes through May 9th, so there’s plenty of time to enter for the items you would like to win. So go enter and spread the word!

I would seriously love the HP Mini or the BluRay player, but I would be happy to win a great slow cooker or beautiful Mother’s Day flower arrangement as well – all the prizes are fantastic.

For those of you in the Central Pennsylvania area, I also just got an email about a Mother’s Day present from Hersheypark and Friendly’s:

Mom receives a FREE Mother’s Day admission to Hersheypark with a special coupon from participating Friendly’s Restaurants in Pennsylvania (while supplies last) now through May 10.

(And I’ve got a season pass, so who wants to go to Hersheypark for Mother’s Day with me??)

We went out to Hersheypark earlier this week to get our season passes before the rates went up, and Michael wanted to get measured to see if he hit the next height marker, which is a Hershey Bar. He just barely hit the blue line, so I’m sure by next summer he will be ready to hit some new roller coasters!

Here are some previous candy milestones (for some reason, I didn’t take a picture this year – maybe we’ll have to go back out and do that):

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Our appointment with the pediatrician today went surprisingly well. I had spent the last couple of days prepping the Little Guy that we were going and what to expect while we were there. Well, we arrived at the office only to find that our doctor had switched his schedule and our appointment had been moved to Wednesday! This apparently had been done back in February but no one had ever called us!! I almost had a meltdown myself but managed to hold it together (for the most part) while trying to express how upsetting this would be to him and how shocked I was that this had occurred. Thankfully, one of the doctors who was there but not on the schedule was willing to see him, and we did not have to leave and come back another day. Phew!!

The doctor we saw today had a different style than our regular one, and we had a surprisingly good discussion about the vaccine issue. He was very understanding of the difficulty many parents have with this decision and promised that they would work with us whatever we decide. He also encouraged me not to worry about school but simply file the exemption if that is how we feel. Although he does not believe that vaccines have any correlation to autism, he acknowledged that there are risks to getting the shots as well as risks to not getting the shots. So we are going to have to think on this one some more in the next few months.

With that stressful event over and since we were in Hershey anyway, we decided to go over to Chocolate World (a great free thing to do around here). Before going on the “Great American Chocolate Tour,” we stopped at the Hersheypark season pass office to renew our passes for 2008. Because of Michael’s disability and the fact that I was getting a companion pass, we got the “accessible” rate on both passes and saved a total of $30. We paid $115 each, which is a bargain when you consider that an adult one-day admission for the upcoming season is a whopping $47.95. The companion pass has a big C instead of my picture and can be used by anyone, thus allowing another caregiver to take him to the park instead of me.

Bonus tip for those in the area or who may travel here: If you go up to any food stand at Hersheypark that has fountain drinks, you can request a large ice water at no charge. This is not bottled water but a cup of ice and water from the soda fountain, and you do not have to purchase anything in order to get it. Pretty nice for those hot days, especially when you are walking the whole park!