Thursday, June 3, 2021

517 + 413 Weeks

This week has been really uneventful except for Arley's meltdowns.  We pulled him off his Intuniv last week, and he had five or six brilliant days.  We were so relieved so see him happy and not tired again.  Full of energy and totally ADHD, but that's preferable to him sleeping his day away and being grumpy.  However, I kind of felt like he was vibrating on a different level, if that makes sense.  He said he was glad he wasn't sleepy any more, but he didn't like having so much energy he couldn't control.  I could feel something building, and I was right.  He had a monumental meltdown on Tuesday.  It was awful.  Heartbreaking and traumatic. He was violent and broke things.  Jeffrey and I were wiped out that evening, and so was Arley.  On Wednesday (yesterday) he had another smaller meltdown which was also pretty traumatic.  Then last night he was complaining of a sore throat, and we realised he was coming down with a cold.  He was sniffly and coughing, and he's been sick today.  I'm hoping the meltdowns were simply due to his body getting sick.  Yesterday I had him take a walk with me so we could have a chat about it and figure out some tactics to help.  He feels terrible now.  I got advice from people in the autistic community, and they told me that having a meltdown like that feels like so much rage burning you up on the inside and being completely unable to stop it.  Too much emotion for one little guy.

Carmie's week has been ok.  She has had a few nights of insomnia, including last night (she is running on four hours of sleep).  She has been quite stressed because of all of the drama of the last few days.  She has also decided to quit horse riding while we are here.  She didn't like being shuffled around between inexperienced teachers, so we are putting it off until we get to the Gold Coast.  Jeffrey took her to the mall yesterday for some daddy daughter time, and she liked that.  She needs to get out and away from Arley a bit more on her own.

This week we met up with a homeschool family at this indoor play house.  It was pretty loud, so I'm impressed the kids managed to stay for a while, but they had fun with the two girls we met up with.  Next week we are meeting up with them again at the ice skating rink.  I'm pretty nervous about that, but we have to try!

On Monday I also had our homeschooling review. It was a lot of work to get ready for, but we passed with flying colours and got a two year registration.  The last thing the AP said to me was that the sky is the limit for these two extraordinary kids.  That's so nice to hear!

A funny thing happened tonight.  I tried to give Arley some liquid cold medicine.  He doesn't like the taste of it, so I told him just throw it back.  I handed him the medicine cup and he looked at it, looked at me and then threw the medicine back, over his head and onto the wall behind him.  That is how literal he is!!  He was confused when I was completely stunned, because he did exactly what I asked.  That's black and white thinking for you!

I didn't get any photos from this week, so this afternoon I snapped some photos.  It took one shot to get a nice one of Carmie...I never quite got a nice one of Arley!







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