Nathan's New Personality

Along with the good parts of Nathan doing better with his Autism, I guess I will have to learn to take the bad.

After yesterdays little stunt, I figured that he would give my heart a little time to recover, but, this morning he was up early to turn off the alarm and quietly shut my door.

Mighty thoughtful of him one might say, but, I woke up at 8am which is the pick up time for the children and had to go out and explain myself again and then run around like a chicken without it's head on trying to get them all ready to go by 830.

Of course, the boys were not in a real co operative mood. John got dressed for me as I asked him but Nathan had to be chased around the house and cornered. Not a pleasant task.

John did a fair bit of yelling when he learned that he was getting ready for school but at least I didn't have to carry him to the car. God forbid that ever happens, Nathan is getting to be a chunky wee fellow like his mum.

When Nathan got home from school, he took himself a well deserved nap and even with giving him the Melatonin, he is still wandering around and it is currently after 1130pm.

Hopefully when he actually gets to sleep, it will mean that he will sleep all night and not wake up early to turn off the alarm.

I am thinking about putting a hook in the ceiling above my bed and suspending the alarm clock from it so that in the event he makes a play for it, I should be able to feel him place the chair or object that he intends to climb on to obtain the clock on the bed.

Well it's worth a crack.
Later

Escape Artists

One of the less pleasant caps that I wear is that of security officer.
Those of you that are reading this that actually have children with Autism know exactly what I am talking about.

Safety is a HUGE issue when you have Autistic children.

They have a tendency to wander off. God forbid that someone picks them up or they wander into the path of oncoming traffic.

I live near a railway line so I am particularly diligent when it comes to child supervision. I am scared that one day, one of them will wander onto the tracks and we have quite a number of trains coming through.

They don't know that the trains aren't going to stop for them.

Consequently, apart from the fact that I have a psychotic ex-husband who will be released soon, I have deadlocks on just about every door in the house. I have to carry keys on me all the time as they are the key variety so that is what is dragging my pocket down when you see me in the street.

I also have tall fences in the yard.

Well, this afternoon while I was mediating a dispute between Rachel and John about who was going to ride the only bike that doesn't require repair at the moment, Nathan took the opportunity to climb through the only open window in the front of the house and walk up the road.

Fortunately he decided to walk past the backyard where we were so we saw him.

I had to run through the house, unlock the front door, lock it behind me and hoof it up the road after him to bring him back. I walked after him so he didn't start running, and he turned every now and again to smile encouragingly at me.

I have no idea where he was going as there wasn't much up that way.

He only made it to the property line of the neighbours but that was enough to scare the living bejeebers out of me and by the time we reached our garage, I was crying.

I still can't believe that my extremely chunky, non athletic little boy would even attempt such a feat but he did.

I am so glad that he decided to walk in the direction that he did, I hate to think what could have happened if he hadn't.

I called his DD case manager to ask about the wrist bands that they place on wanderers and after discussion, we decided that he would probably remove it and so I elected to seal my windows leading to the front of the house and remove the handles so they can't be opened.

My house is even more like Fort Knox. All that is left is for me to place barbed wire on the tops of the fences.

It is really hard trying to keep them safe. It is more stressful than anything knowing that you are solely responsible.

Well, all I can say is, we were lucky this time. May we continue to always be lucky.
Later

Eric

My baby Eric turns 16 months on the 9th of this month.

Doesn't sound like a milestone?

Well, it is to a mother whose only other 2 sons developed moderately severe Autism between the ages of 14 to 16 months.



I maintain that if Eric has not developed Autism by the 9th of this month, he will not develop it.



So far apart from the one staring episode he had months back and the one incidence of rocking that could have been explained away by the fact that he had a slight ear infection, Eric had not exhibited any signs or symptoms of Autism.



His head size stayed within normal limits for a child of his age (see earlier post on head size), and his crawling remained symetrical although now he walks more than he crawls.

He also looks at the items that he desires, he doesn't just hold his hand out to try to retrieve them.

His balance remains good and he puts his hands out to catch himself when he trips.



Those were all early signs of Autism and they have appeared in my children who later became Autistic.

We are going to be having one heck of a party in 4 days, so I had better go and bake a cake.
Later