9/8/09

I was happy to see that my last post was a very happy post. I don't wanna be one of those people that is always writing depressing stories! I swear we do have some very happy moments in our family and also some very hopeful moments. It's just, well, this weekend was hard. I was very thankful that Ben was camping with Grandma, having a wonderful time. As for why this weekend was difficult, it's kind of a whole bunch of things happening at one time and a lot of planning, research and financial stuff to work through in the background causing some tension between Steve and I and when you add on to that Tyler having a hard weekend and really struggling with transitions, it just made for an emotional and physically draining week. We had wanted to take advantage of being a one kid family and do something with Tyler that may take more than one person to manage. We were thinking a fair but couldn't find any local for this weekend and eventually we decided on the zoo. To this point, Ty has not shown much interest in the zoo. I remember from working at Cedar Point that you never know when parks are gonna be busy...a lot of people would think the holiday weekend would attract many visitors so people would stay home and it would be a ghost town. So anyway, we went to the Toledo zoo..as soon as we pulled into the parking lot and saw that we'd have to park in the back part of the overfill lot, I knew it wasn't a good idea. Steve and I often have trouble with the way I communicate what's best for Tyler, etc. we in fact had some issues earlier in the week so I wasn't necessarily as insistent as I would normally be, I was trying to keep the peace and keep everyone happy. So I commented on how it may not be such a good idea. Steve thought we should at least try so we did. We luckily were able to catch a bus to the zoo entrance (that's how far away we were!!) and didn't have to wait, Ty really isn't good at waiting yet and transitions are really tough for him. So in essence that was the majority of the issue, transitions. He struggles to not understand when he's going from one activity to another or has to wait a long time to get to the other activity, especially when he doesn't understand what that activity is. So add that to the still really long walk we had to get into the zoo and the mass amount of people and well even I was a bit overwhelmed. I had remembered he liked the sloth bears and I had really wanted to get him to the new children's area cause I had read good things about it and it seemed like something he'd really like. The problem was just getting him to the bears, and once we did there were a mass amount of people trying to see them. Tyler wanted to climb through the fence to see and obviously he can't so that started the melt down. His melt downs consist of him falling to the ground, crying and hitting himself in the face and refusing to walk. I tried to console and calm him and get him (quickly) to the other side where there was a window right next to the bears, but there were sooo many people, he was just beside himself. He didnt' want up, he didn't want down, he was just hitting himself and crying and gritting his teeth. I gave him squeezes and talked to him very gently and softly. He wanted up so I picked him up but he's stiff and still kind of writhing.. we were trying to find the new childrens area entrance and he just got really mad at me and clenched his jaw and dove in to take a bite of my chest/shoulder. I pulled him away from me and sat him down and gave him lots of compressions, we pushed our heads hard together as I was kneeling down with him and we just pushed against eachother and both cried. I felt so incredibly bad for him. I think this was the first time that Tyler melted down that I also did. The thing was, I wasn't upset or mad at him at all, I just felt really really guilty that I knew it wasn't a good idea and went against my better judgement and then Tyler had to pay the price. We were both hot and sweaty and overwhelmed and it was just hard. It's so hard. I really had tried every way I knew to help support him through the transition to keep calm to find ways to happily get him to the next place but nothing was working so there we both were..crying at the zoo. WHO CRIES AT THE ZOO! So I got him interested in a toy and sort of manhandled him to his stroller and Steve high tailed it to the playground area which was enough to let him run around a bit (he was still melting down about every 1 - 2 mins) and enough time for me to gather myself as I was still melting down. We had it all pulled together and decided to look at the gorillas..again way too many people to get close without being in a mass so we decided that wasn't' a good idea.. on our way out we found the new c children's area so that's where we spent our time and where our pictures are from. There were three things he liked in the children's center... the animal masks hanging n the front (see video and pics - i'm singing snake in the one pic, he loves to touch the objects and have you sign it for him) the stream and the bees in the tree in the play area. We spent lots of time at the stream, really just recouping mentally while he enjoyed the water, although at one point he did try to drown another little girl who came a little to close to the rocks he and I were playing with, luckily I was close enough to grab her before she bit it and the mom thanked me as well, she's like, good catch! So anyway, things like this..the stream that he loved are very difficult to transition him away from, especially when he was already overstimulated and he struggles to understand what's coming next. So I somehow managed to get him out of that stream without too much of a melt down, shew... we changed his clothes and his diaper right there on a bench and I could care less who saw or how inappropriate it was cause there was no way he was gonna last until a bathroom. So the play area he loved as well at least the bees in the tree but as you'll see in a pic I did get him in the honeycomb for a minute. We left after the children's area.

Coming up with ideas/ways to soothe Tyler is hard, especially when the old stand bys are not working. Coming up with ways to transition Tyler from one activity to the next is also hard, especially when he's already been struggling. So this was a day I was feeling a bit under the weather and Tyler looks to me for comfort (he actually sort of growled at Steve when he tried to take over) and I'm the one most trained to help him but it's hard, it's exhausting physically and a back breaker sometimes, he can be very strong! It's upsetting to see him so upset and it's just hard to always have your brain working at full speed to come up with new ideas, etc. Tyler at home or in a familiar environment is not the same as Tyler in a new environment. It takes a considerable amount of effort to just get him to physically move from one place to another, let alone to keep him engaged and happy while in that new place. There are times we turn down an activity or get together because I just don't have the energy to make it all happen sometimes. The weeks can be draining, now that school is in session the schedule is draining. Worth it absolutely but sometimes the things that aren't vital to his well being or our families happiness, sometimes those things aren't possible. not if we are all able to maintain our sanity. Gosh sorry to be so depressing today, life in the world of autism is tough and most days I keep everyone happy but this weekend, well I had just lost steam. Luckily I've got it back and I'm really happy that Ty is back in school, we resume speech on a normal schedule next week and we are actively trying to figure out a way to get Ben in some sort of group activity and get him more involved with peers as well as find a way to figure out some more ways to free up some finances to help easy the burden. So hopefully more good things to come. Please remember that this journal is a way for me to capture all that autism means and does to our family. So one day when Tyler is 9 and we all have a wonderful family day at the zoo.. I can go back and read about this trip to the zoo and know how far we've come and how all the hard work was more than worth it. If anything, this trip to the zoo, just empowered me even more to know that I have to keep my strength and will power to keep Tyler moving forward in life so that he doesn't have to feel the way he did that day anymore.