the ho-dee-hum blues of my autistic son

My little Bug has been very lethargic today.  he'd ripped a little paper, but it's been confined to one spot.  His cheeks are flushed, and he's just laying round.  all smiles when I come near, though, so that's a good thing.  But I hate when he gets this way, because he gets too comfortable and don't want to get up when he needs to go to the bathroom, so now his chaise is filled with pee and I needed to soak it down to clean it and stand it up to dry.

Speaking of the chaise.  These are his absolute favorite chairs!  So when the last one broke I was scouring the internet looking for a second hand one that I could buy, because the way Buggie goes through chairs and sofa's we would be living on the street if we had to buy a new one every time we needed one.  So I searched for months after having to throw the old one out and finally at Christmas we found one cheap ($150 or somewhere around that), as apposed to the nearly $1000 you'd have to pay for a new one.  He loves it despite the fact that it doesn't have all the appeal of the older one (not as comfy and has no arms).  yesterday the darn thing broke, here we are less than three months after Christmas and we need a new one.  My DH is going to try to fix this one so we can get at least another month out of it, but I feel like pulling my hair out.    It's like flushing money down the drain, but he does enjoy them for the small while we have them, so maybe it all balances out.  Even so he still loves the chair even though he's practically sitting on the floor in it now.

I wasn't feeling too good today so my DH came home early so I could relax a bit.  Feeling better now.  My daughter says her throat is feeling weird so maybe we are catching something...that would explain Buggie's lazy day and red cheeks.

 We have snow coming our way through the night, so maybe we will wake up to a white ground.

We shall see.

~R

And here we are

So here we are halfway through march break.  Yesterday DH took the day off work and we took a couple hour drive to see his sister who had a heart attack and is waiting for surgery.  It was a nice drive and I must say it is so much better being able to go places and know that Bug (my youngest son) will be able to hold himself until we are able to make a pit stop.  If he could he'd drive around all day, I do believe it is his favorite thing to do...and that is saying something, since he lives for ripped paper. 

I'm serious he has become so obsessed with ripping paper that he does it all day long if you don't stop him.  Another favorite thing of his he likes to rip is aluminum foil.  It's not so much the ripping he likes because he will sometimes ask me to cut the paper for him.  After it's ripped he has a favorite 'toy', the very top lid off a wrapping paper storage tower, and he will put his paper in this and put it close to his face and feel the paper raining down on his face to the lid or put it near his ear and listen to it fall. 

Whenhe's finished ripping enough paper to fill the lid he will play with it a few minutes, then spill half of the paper in the floor in front of him and then add some to the lid again, after he is finished playing for an hour or so the floor is so full of paper that my house would go up in flames if someone were to drop a match...I end up with quite a paper rug!  I will have to post pictures soon, so you will see what I mean.  and the dog loves it...she rushed through them and they go flying everywhere.  *sigh*   certainly no fun to clean though.

Anyone else out there have a child with autism that has this crazy obsession or something similar?  I would love to hear your stories.

~R

It's been a long time

It's been a long time since I've written on here.  There are lots of things that have happened in my life.  I am going to try to be more frequent on here.  I surf other blogs and find them helpful, so maybe my blogging will help someone too.