Ahhhhh the holidays...

Ahhhhh the holidays....

The holidays are coming upon us rather quickly.
Those of us in Canada had our Thanksgiving back in October. Then Halloween and now of course the focus is all on Christmas in our house.

I made a decision many years ago not to put up our tree until the day the kids get out of school for the holidays. I have had comments in the past about how I don't have my tree up....
However in our case with 3 kids on the spectrum it was just too much sensory, too much stimulation and too much Christmas for them.
C can handle Christmas for a few days before and until New Years and that is it! I don't even have the tree lights on too too much, when they are on they over stimulate him to the point where he either ends up crashing out asleep under the tree  or just what I call over done.
We keep the same routines every year as much as possible and keep it simple. No guests, Christmas morning is kept routine and as calm as possible with 6 kids :).
We do go to my parents Christmas Eve but the kids can escape to the basement and if C is in overload we can leave and get home quickly (we live around the corner).
Since my hubby started working away we did start going to my parents for dinner but that too is dinner and home usually for at least C and I. (My parents are great and really understand  the boys needs)
I have had the comments in the past about visitors and people taking it personally, but its just too much for C and things go so much better for him and he enjoys his holidays so much more without the extra people and stimulation.
He loves New Years and loves when I make a bit of a help yourself buffet for him and the kids, he always gives me a shopping list of things to buy. Always the same things but it's awesome that he makes a list!
Love the holidays with the kids and keeping it calm and as stress free as possible for the boys especially makes a great holiday for all of us.

The Kitchen

This has been a very neglected blog and I hopefully will do better... ha doubt it. It's too nuts around here!

This post is about well my delusions of grandeur and well my husband.

My husband as most of you know works far up in the north and is only home for short periods of time on "vacation". I say vacation in quotations because I think he does more work when he is home than when he is at work! Usually his plans turn out great but he makes me crazy in the process.

This time he started to rip apart the house, oh and when I say rip apart I mean he went NUTS! Overboard would probably be a more appropriate description. I think I freaked him out when I said we need a bigger house. Well now we have a bin in the driveway and we are purging, which would be awesome if we had done one room at a time instead of things pulled out of everywhere and now there is stuff everywhere! Ahhhh....HELP!
Well then we got to talking about the kitchen. Now there is a partial kitchen renovation taking place. It's making me crazy, and I know it's making the boys crazy. I was talking about doing the kitchen in the new year. NOPE...it's being torn up, moved around and he went nuts. (all while in the middle of purge that is left partially completed!) Ummmm HELP!!
OH sure it will be awesome when it's done but I didn't want to do it now or spend the money now. Well its being done now!
C is insisting that we are building a restaurant in there... I said no C it's not a restaurant we are just redoing a few things. Nope it's a restaurant and that is that... oh and he let me know that if it's not good we have to call Gordon Ramsay...oh my!!!! 

So as per usual it's crazy around here!  Now hubby is going nuts because Charlie the beagle has his nose in his building and trying to eat saw dust ... tee hee.

Lets just hope and keep our fingers crossed that all these big plans get finished before he heads back up to work or I will be left in chaos and be left to fix it all by my lonesome!

I need a morning do over...

Then again maybe not. I really doubt that I want to do all that again today.

Last night I was at the grocery store picking up a few things and did NOT buy bread. Why did I not buy bread...well I had bought two loafs the day before so no need. Well I should have bought bread.
Not because of the usual reason, the locusts have eaten it all....but because it was growing mold.
Of course I did not know this until 15 minutes before the first child's bus showed up. If I had been on the ball and made lunches last night I would have known this but nooooo I didn't so well....PANIC!!!
Well inward panic because of course if I had totally freaked out then C would have freaked out and B would have freaked out and then I would have had more interesting problems to deal with than just mouldy bread.
Soooo think what the hell was I going to do...well of course throw out two brand new loafs of bread (of course I should have returned them but remember I was in an inward panic!) Buses were going to show up!!
I threw leftovers together for B who's bus was arriving in 10 min.
Since hubby is home for the moment I thought AH HA! He can get C dressed and give him his med's (even though C insists that daddy can't give him his medication because he doesn't know how....daddy is an RN btw!)
I fly out of the house giving instructions as I go, scrape the ice off the car and race off to the store. I dash in grab two new loaves of bread (heaven forbid that C doesn't have the right sandwich!) and run to the check out like a crazy woman! Well then I cursed under my breath for a couple of minutes, one checkout lady WTF! Don't people know I am in a rush! I pay and run back to the car and race home.
I have 10 min to bus time by the time I get back to the house and C is still not dressed, no meds nothing! AHHHHHHHHH.... (to be fair to hubby he isn't here most of the time and C was being complicated but he did have breakfast so that was something) OK so don't panic....Throw the lunch together, find C's bag, get his cloths on and then meds.
Didn't that damn bus arrive 4 min ahead of schedule! Today of all days that bus was early!!
We got C on the bus and I gave him a high 5 for being awesome! How this is going to play out once he gets to school with his screwed up morning I guess I will find out! Phone calls to come I am sure of it.
Do over...ummmm no thanks once was enough.
I need a nap!

Medication decisions...

My son (my 10yo) has an attention span of  ZERO. A BIG goose egg. He has ADHD along with his autism diagnosis.
He is very bright, loves to read and wants to learn but he just cant focus on anything at all or sit still, and it's really creating problems for him at school. He gets very frustrated with himself when he can't focus and pay attention. He will state I just can't, I just can't focus.
We have tried a few medications so far and they have either made him really spaced out, or lost his appetite,can't sleep or made him just totally frustrated.
So we are trying one last medication and tonight after his first dose he was really darn cranky. It will take a little while longer to know if it's the med or he was just having an off day.
He is very stressed about going back to school, he has told me several times that "I just can't focus and it really stresses me out!" We did some social stories and talked about it and I let him know that he had some new medicine that he was going to start this week.
He just looked at me and said "Well what are we going to do if this doesn't work". I feel for the little guy he knows darn well that the other meds he was on were for focusing and they didn't work for him.
 I am listening and I can feel his frustration with his focusing issues. I just hope that this time we have found the right thing to give him a helping hand along with the other things that we have done with him and have put in place.
Poor little guy is already stressing about school. We are doing lots of prep work to prepare him but I so wish that the start of school was as exciting for him as it is for other kids.

Going with the flow...

Boy this month has been a whirlwind!
Going with the flow so I don't go nuts!
I was up with my hubby and kids in a whole different world of the north then home again. Since I got back it's been a bit more than insane!
Ali started school last week and is trying to get settled in.
I have been shopping up a storm getting everything my daughter needs for college and paying deposits and helping her figure out all the paper work.
We also had little man's 10th birthday last weekend!!
Today we were down in the city all day so she could have her psych tests redone for her learning disabilities to see what if any accommodations she will need for college.
We are taking her up the end of this week for a 5 day special program for orientation for those students with special needs and learning disabilities. We have to have all her stuff ready to go. The woman who runs the dorm is going to allow her to move into her room and set everything up before the pressure of school starts.
This is great news! She can hopefully get all her books and everything she needs.
Of course her 19th birthday is the first week of school during frosh week. ummm *cringe* *LOL*. She is a good kid, very mature and very responsible so I am just going with the flow.
Next weekend I pick her up and get her back home and then drive up again a day later (This is an 8+ hr drive one way) to pick my hubby up from the airport for his vacation! WOOT!
Of course with all this going on I didn't need to discover that I couldn't postpone doing the roof, it needs to be done now!! I really was hoping to postpone it until after I got all the kids back to school.
So now it's full steam ahead on the roof and the breaks are put on the mini getaway I had planned with my hubby. Oh well a roof over our heads that doesn't leak is far more important. But I have to admit I am more than a bit whiny about it *L*
Just going with the flow

A taco incident...

Oh boy my daughter and her poor boyfriend.
All I could do was sit there and laugh hysterically, I couldn't even breath. (yes I am mean in that way)
I took the kids (well they aren't kids, but kids to me :)) to the mall and I offered them lunch, I was only there as Mom taxi to drop them off.
Tacos was the lunch decision.
My daughter ordered a taco meal and couldn't finish it all so she offered the 2nd soft shelled taco to her boyfriend.
That was Innocent enough. She had already unwrapped it when she decided she couldn't eat it.
She slid the taco across the table and didn't notice that there was a cut out in the table between where she was sitting and where her boyfriend was seated.
The taco fell off the table and was dumped right in her boyfriends lap. It was everywhere.
I probably shouldn't have laughed but it was so in character for my daughter. *L*
She was pretty upset but he joked around with her and tried to make her feel better all the time while cleaning up taco guts.
Now we need to get the grease from the taco meat out of his pants!

Keeping it simple...

This past weekend my youngest son had his 10th birthday.  This year I kept it simple.
We didn't go anywhere,and we didn't have a ton of people and noise.
  It was our immediate family only. My parents were great about this and just sent over his card for him (we split on a new computer for him since his was worn out)
What a difference, he had an amazing day. We spread out his presents throughout the day and didn't go nuts with wrapping paper and ribbons. We kept things fun but not over stimulating.
He asked for cupcakes instead of a cake and picked KFC for his birthday dinner and talked to his Daddy on the phone. (Daddy is home the end of the month for vacation!)
His oldest sister bought him some Chaotic cards that he asked for. He asked his brother to play but Braed said that he needed to go buy cards first. Colton then gave Braeden one of his new packs of cards and said "lets go upstairs and play together now". It was amazing. If he had been in meltdown and over stimulated he wouldn't have been able to do this. It was really cute :) (this was something new inviting someone to play and then making it happen. It was rather exciting!)
That night he crawled into my lap and said "This was the best birthday ever."
There were no meltdowns, he wasn't over stimulated and was happy all day.
The next morning at sunrise, bright and early he crawled into my bed and said "Mommy thank you for all my presents, I had the best birthday."
I was so glad that he had a "best birthday ever".
 Bigger, louder and brighter and busy, isn't always better. :)