Managing Autism - A Personal View

With Steve’s grandfather in hospital recently, and therefore unable to travel for Christmas, we made the journey on Friday to visit Granny and Pop at their home.

Due to the fact that we had planned the visit around the kids’ normal ‘down time’, it was a lovely visit - and with Jack sitting to watch one of his treasured movies and Annie sitting herself in front of a plate of biscuits we were able to have a very relaxing time.  And we were pleased to see Pop doing really well!!

With us still working with Jack on the personal space issues, he had to be closely monitored when it came time to leave so that he didn’t literally ‘knock’ Granny or Pop down with one of his hugs.  (We are also trying to work on the concept of gentle…)  But he managed to sit for a photo before dashing to the car - he was finished with ‘down time’ and ready for action again.

Our next stop was at Steve parents home - Gran and Pa, where the kids were able to have a play in the swimming pool.  Here we saw an amazing breakthrough for Jack where he actually put his head under the water whilst he kicked along with a kickboard.  For a child who has never liked putting his head under the water, this was incredible!  Annie just enjoyed splashing around in the little boat seat.

Jack kicking underwater - we still can’t believe he did it!!!

Annie and Steve enjoying the pool!

With our previous trip to the grandparents being marred with car trouble, it seemed like we were doomed to have car troubles again (extremely frustrating considering the car is only 2 years old and very well maintained by Steve’s company), with the car deciding to stop running for us.

With the roadside mechanical serviceman delivering the bad news that the car would have to be towed the following morning to the nearest dealership to be repaired, we had no choice but to make the day trip an overnight trip.

The kids hit the crazies for a while with the change in plans, but we borrowed Steve’s mums car at this point and drove to Nan and Op’s (Elissa’s parents home, which was to be our final stop for the day).  In typical sibling style, with Annie sensing Jack’s tiredness and aggitation at the change in plans she managed to push a few buttons to get him going, but with separate activites they soon settled.

We returned to Steve’s parents home to sleep (where the car was) and finally got the kids down to bed before midnight with only a few little tantrums.

The next morning the car was fixed and after some more time in the pool for the kids, we were on our way home by lunchtime.

With all the uncertainty since the car breakdown, and sleep deprivation, a meltdown was brewing from Jack (the scorching 40c heat outside didn’t help much either).  But he did very well to survive the 3 hour trip home -where on arrival we all fell in an exhausted heap.

Thankfully after some Playstation time for Jack and some quiet play for Annie things were finally settled.  We were really glad to be home…

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 12:44 am and is filed under Personal Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.