Christmas comes but once a year...thank freaking goodness

Autism Spectrum Disorder and Christmas can be complicated, whether it's figuring out the right toy for a child without speech or trying to get a verbal child to sit for dinner when there are presents in the next room it's always something! I've been on both sides of this and I'm so thankful that Alden has so much speech now and is picking up so much more at school. Last year he even talked a family member into doing presents BEFORE food, which no matter how my sister and I tried NEVER happened per our request.

Last night we took him to see Santa at the Zoo. He loved all the lights and the inflatables around the park and he told Santa what present he wanted four times to make sure he would get it right. He did have a mini-meltdown outside the carousel because it was closed but I convinced him to come on & see Santa and then get a toy before leaving. I still get upset when he has meltdowns but I am SO thankful for how much easier they are to deal with now that he's verbal and he isn't eating things he's intolerant to. Now instead of slamming himself in the head and screaming higher than a dog whistle he just says bad words instead. I can deal with bad words, at least he's talking, and he's using them in the correct manner. I'll take a "damnit" over throwing himself down protester style on the concrete and screaming until he is gasping for air any day of the week. He tells me what is wrong now even if he curses while doing so. Please don't think I'm terrible or that he doesn't get into trouble for using bad words, he absolutely does. He learned the curse words from a YouTube video and he KNOWS they get him into trouble. He just doesn't care.

Back to the holidays! One of the things I do that really seems to help is to prepare him days in advance for what we will be doing. I tell him where we're going and what is expected of him when we're there. This has helped him a lot with transitions in other areas as well but I find that during the holidays it is an absolute necessity. Holidays are exhausting for everyone and knowing what's coming is always helpful. We always do a Christmas Countdown starting on the first day of December which is also very helpful. He tears off a link and then counts them right before going to bed. The last night he'll remove the last link and all that's left is a picture that says "Santa Claus Comes Tonight!". That way there is no confusion and we avoid the "WHEN IS SANTA COMING?" question all month long.

Another thing that I do now that he's older is that he makes an Amazon and ThinkGeek wishlist with all of the things he wants on them. This would even work if your child is non-verbal but has skills such as pointing or using the computer independently. He also circles things in catalogs that he wants and of course now that he is very verbal if he sees something when we're out he will read what it say and tells us that he wants it.

When we have to travel during the holidays we pack things for the car to keep him entertained. The best purchases we've made are the portable DVD player and the TAG Reader from Leapfrog. He isn't much for coloring but I always pack crayons & coloring books just in case. He loves the TAG reader because it has games on it (he's reading above his grade level at this point so he doesn't really use it for that) and it has the characters doing funny things when you use the pen on them. If you do purchase a car DVD player I recommend getting headphones for it, mostly because we forgot his on our 9 hour drive to Disney World over the summer and by the end of the trip my husband & I knew every word to the "Young Dinos" story on the Mario DVD we'd just bought him.

The biggest thing to remember is to be patient, and ignore everyone when they offer useless advice because if you are around people ESPECIALLY older people it's going to happen. If I had a quarter for every time I heard "he needs more discipline", "have you tried x, y, or z", "maybe look into medication" I'd be one rich lady right now. Just smile and nod. Honestly, it's not worth the fight and they don't know what the hell they are talking about.

I hope some of these things might help someone else. I hope you all have an amazing holiday season and a wonderful new year!

(P.S. I know I've been slacking on this but you can find our latest Batman Elf updates over @ my Facebook).

The Adventures of Batman Elf: Day Seven

Batman Elf made Alden a Scavenger Hunt!
The Letter!


The prizes he'll find at the end: Lucy from Peanuts paint set & magnet, Goofy Burger we stashed from our trip to Disney this summer, Coraline by Neil Gaiman, and a Donkey Kong action figure.

The Adventures of Batman Elf: Day One

Day One: Batman Elf goes ZipLining!!!


Close up!

Note from Batman Elf! It's inside the envelope next to him & written with my opposite hand since he knows my writing.

I can't think of anything clever for the subject this time...

On a complete whim about 2 weeks ago Alden & I decided to give his room a total makeover. The walls are all officially painted and ready for the detailing. I am absolutely exhausted from painting at least 4 coats (two of Kilz, two of paint) every day for the past three days. I am really glad the big part is over and it's all just little stuff from here on out. There is an album on my Facebook full of photos of the project that I've been updating since the idea came to fruition.

Today was Alden's first field trip! Josh & I tagged along as chaperones and had a great time. We went through the corn maze, went on a hay ride, played games, and they played in the corn crib. I'm so thankful that he was moved into the big kid class this year. I realize that he is the baby, everyone else is at least a year older than him (and some of them are three years older than he is) but he is thriving and this is just the environment he needs. They are all rough and tumble and funny and verbal. All things he wasn't getting from the previous class he was in.

He isn't doing Halloween this year, we aren't sure why. He is afraid of it or something and refusing to participate so we're just going along with it. We'll be going out this weekend to celebrate with friends and he'll be hanging out with his grandparents. I'm pretty bummed that he isn't wanting to do anything because Halloween is my favorite holiday, but I don't want to upset him any more than he already is, so I'm not pushing it.

I guess that's about it, now to attempt to get him into bed after a long day that has totally thrown us off schedule.

Christmas Dread

Secret Santa is a pastime that I'd like to keep that way. I've never liked the idea of giving a gift to someone I don't know well or getting a gift from someone who doesn't know me well. Gifts should be personal and special and not something you are required to do.

This brings me to my point. Alden's class does Secret Santa every year. Every year I agonize over what I should get. There's a $5 maximum which even in the junky stores is hard to adhere to since the good stuff is all at least $5 most of the time.

Then there's the whole autism bit, lots of kids with autism are fixated on one thing, or have irrational fears of things, or just plain will not play with certain toys. For instance if you gave Alden a Matchbox car he'd probably set it down, and go get on the computer. He doesn't care about them at all.

I NEVER know what an appropriate toy is for his randomly selected classmate. I end up buying a Batman toy every single year because I'm at a loss for what to get. Some parents don't let their kids play with the "bad guy" action figures, which is stupid, Batman can kick Spiderman's ass just as easily as the Joker's in pretend play (and let's be real DC > Marvel & Batman > Spidey & could totally take him down.)

I have a hard time shopping for people I know and love, so shopping for a random 6 year old kid that I've met once for 5 minutes is impossible.

excuse me, WHAT did you say?

I have mentioned before that sometimes I have the luxury of briefly forgetting that Alden has autism. This is because he's somewhere in the moderately to high functioning demographic of the spectrum. What I have failed to mention is that sometimes I forget that he's about to be seven years old. His speech is still developing and while he's building a really good vocabulary, he still has a long way to go. Recently he has been surfing the net and getting on YouTube where he's learned some new words & phrases. Sometimes that's a great thing, sometimes it's a not-so-great thing. He's started using words like "stupid", "shut up", "I hate you", "PEWPEWPEW (gun noise) DIE!", and the most strange one "butt-cheese". I have of course been discouraging this language and even giving him some alternatives that get his point across in a nicer way. If you have a child whose autistic qualities are like his you will know that scripting is hardwired into them and once he learns something he WILL NOT forget it. I've been explaining that I'm glad he's learned new words but some words make people sad or angry when they hear them. The other day while sitting around thinking about ways to curb this behavior but not discourage him from picking up new language I started thinking about his age. I sometimes forget that neurotypical children around his age also use those words and usually get into trouble for them as well. It did make me feel slightly better to realize that I'm not the only parent of a child this age dealing with this. As usual I'm also pleased that he is learning language, using it appropriately, and to be frank I'm glad he's using words that kids his age use even if they are rude. Sometimes 7 year olds are rude. We recently acquired an Elf on the Shelf and that has been helping somewhat with the language.

On a much more lovely note we have acquired the ingredients to make gluten free casein free Cut Out Christmas Cookies. This is something I've missed terribly for the past 4 years. Christmas Cookies have always been a huge part of my family's Christmas and not being able to make them with Alden has been sad. I remember the last Christmas we did them he was 2 and he kept shoving his face in the flour, I took a picture & captured it "Tony Montana". If the cookies turn out well I'll link to the recipe in my next blog. Speaking of Christmas I'm almost done shopping. I have just a few more little things to pick up and two more big things to order and I'll be done & ready to start shopping for Alden's birthday.

update

Things have been all over the place lately. Halloween is always a challenge what with the diet & all. Having to ask people repeatedly if they have any "fruity candy" "oh not that kind" gets tiring. Worse is the fact that we don't really give Alden food with artificial coloring and fruity candy is pretty much artificial coloring, flavoring, and sugar. Last week he got into trouble a lot. I suspect it was probably a reaction to the dye and since he ate loads of candy when normally he will have an (all natural sneaky vitamin) sucker a day.

Funnily enough he was absolutely great with trick or treating. We went to the zoo and a local gathering and he had a blast running around looking at the other kid's costumes. Speaking of costumes he was Lucky the Leprechaun from the Lucky Charms cereal. He chose it all by himself. I was really proud of him for choosing something unique. He was the only leprechaun we saw. I thought it was really cool he wasn't something generic like all the other 500 Spidermen we saw while we were out and about. He's definitely my kid about costumes.

Then this week was the time change which is always hard for everyone but autistic children are particularly rigid in their routine. Since it was technically 7 he knew it wasn't bedtime because of the clock and he wasn't having any going to bed early. We've come to a compromise of 7:30 and he gets to watch Pink Panther on Netflix before I turn it off around 8:15 and tell him to go to bed because he has to be on the bus EARLY. He gets ON the bus @ 6 but that's a rant for another time.

Wednesday mornings have become hellacious at the bus stop. He screams, tries to run away from me, and keeps telling me "I WANNA GO HOME!!! BEDTIME! I SLEEPY!" I tell him he can sleep on the bus (hell he's on there for an hour and a half) but he still gets mad. Today he swatted his bus aide. She apologized like she had done something wrong and it made me sad.

I really think the Wednesday Morning Syndrome is because he knows I have school that day and he wants me to be home instead of going to school. He doesn't miss me because right now my school hours are during his & I'm home in time to shower and start my homework before he gets off the bus.

So today started off with a screaming swatting kid and it's ended with us spinning in circles and having a dance party to Florence and the Machine. Some days are funny like that.