Month: June 2019

Spoke to an autism sibling and it got me good

Posted amyLeave a commentPosted in Struggles, The others

My hubby’s cousin has a daughter who is autistic as well and I got a chance to speak with the older sister about it. We rarely see them as they live far away and I haven’t seen her for at least 2-3 years. I made sure I spoke to her before they left. She is now in grade 9 and her sister is 2 years younger so almost the same age gap as Mase and Jay. It was quite obvious that they have battled an uphill battle for literally years and I can seen how worn down they all are. The parents didn’t seem like they wanted to talk about it so we didn’t push. Raising children is hard enough and raising children with special needs is just a whole new ball game. So back to my story, I mainly wanted to see how life is from the perspective of an autism sibling. I poured out my heart and told her how I felt about my oldest one and how I know it is unfair most of the time and asked her for tips she can think about to make it easier for Mase. I told her as a mom, it is a struggle to divide up the time especially when one of them requires my attention so often. She was so open and shared how she felt ignored at times and I was fighting back tears as she was telling me. As hard as I try, it is enviable […]

Autism sibling one on one time

Posted amyLeave a commentPosted in Happy, The others

Before Jay was born a friend told me about her routine with her girls and how she gives them each alone time. Her older one was having jealousy issues with her second child and giving her one to one mommy time helped. I loved the idea so much I implemented it when Jay was born. We do mostly small things like playing games, walking, going to park or malls etc. When my third was born, I tried to spend more time with the oldest one but it wasn’t the one on one alone time I hoped for. About a month after my third child was born, Jay went through one of his toughest period where he was waking up 4 times a week crying bloody murder and staying up for hours. As hard as it was we made efforts to spend time with our oldest but often with baby girl next to us. I don’t think he will remember us trying so I implemented an official Mase day. It acts as both Mase day and baby girl day as one of us will be dedicating time to either one of of then. We officially started this two weeks ago and it has been going very well. Mase day is at least an hour every week dedicated with just Mase. We do anything he wants with zero distractions. My intentions was to give him his hour every Saturday when Jay goes to therapy. That ways husband can take baby girl or […]

New high pitch scream

Posted amyLeave a commentPosted in Happy, Struggles, The others

Eventful dinner on Friday as we went out to eat. The husband ran late which got me anxious as Jay and his food is a MUST. He just simply don’t understand that we will feed him soon. I prepared for it slightly with a bigger snack during snack time and offering a smaller snack after I picked up the other two. Guess it didn’t cut it or maybe something else was bugging him. He recently started this scream that is nearly glass shattering when he is super happy or sad and dinner on Friday was the sad moment. The wait was 1.5 hours so we managed to squeeze into a tiny table at the bar instead. He wasn’t having it started screaming so loud I think the restaurant paused for a moment just to see what’s going on. The manager quickly came up to us and asked if there is anything he can do for us. It was very kind and I appreciated his gesture a lot. He didn’t come by to look for answers as to my my child was behaving the way he was but just offered his help. The simple, is there anything he can do for us and that was it. We quickly ordered the kids food and proceeded to settle down with crayons and iPads. The table was just so small for all out plates and it was tight seating 5 people with two high chairs. Jay wasn’t the happiest camper and kept getting angry […]

He poo in the toilet, he did it, he did it

Posted amyLeave a commentPosted in Happy

Today at behaviour therapy he had a bm in the toilet. This is his second, with the first being last week. It could be that we just caught him at the right moment but regardless it is a good win as I celebrated like it was my birthday and his therapist did the exact same. The new occupational therapist suggested that if he has a time he usually does a bowel movement we can bring him every 15 minutes during that timeframe. Hopefully we can catch more successes and reinforce it with high rewards so he can do it more often. I’m confident he will get this eventually because this child of mine is such a smart boy. Got a new therapist and I think I like her. I’m feeling pumped and will try new all the new tips anyone has to offer.

Off to a not so good week

Posted amyLeave a commentPosted in Struggles, Uncategorized

Baby girl had diarrhea on Monday so I kept her home. It wasn’t too bad taking her to drop off and pickup as Jay wasn’t fussy thankfully. However I kept baby girl out as I ran errands all day and she only had a short nap at 9:30 so by 3 she was ready for another nap. Only issue was this is also the time Jay normally poops. I took him washroom and decided to just take my chances and left him in the basement while I put girl for a nap. She struggled but finally went down and that’s when I heard water. What does water mean??? As I dashed down to see if he is ok I got a woof of poo smell. He attempted to use the toilet after the fact but instead of cleaning he made things 100 times worse. He took off his pants and underwear and attempted to throw the poo down toilet and flush the toilet. I kid you not, it is the biggest mess ever. The trail of poo is from the whole toilet (I literally mean every single square area of the toilet) to floors and walls and sink and stool to turn on tap to light switches. If there are poo horror movies, this will be a scene from it. I wasn’t mad at him as he is clearly trying and also showing signs he understands but let’s just say spending the next 45 minutes sanitizing and bathing him wasn’t […]