One of the Monster’s talents we’ve noticed, a long time ago, is his ability to remember and reproduce music.
At one point, we’d investigated music therapy for him, but discontinued it when his schedule got more pressing and it didn’t seem to be having an effect. But throughout, we’ve continued to notice that he has little… tunes caught in his head. Continue reading
I suppose that certain things are inevitable when you’ve a child with communication issues. Frustration often boils over, and we’ve been accustomed to the fact that there are times that a meltdown’s going to happen… and to date, we’ve been fortunate that the Monster’s easily diverted. Certain kinds of meltdowns at certain times could be easily enough interpreted, and…
Well, we’ve reached a new behavior that’s not so easily diverted. Continue reading
I will be the first person to admit that I don’t always know how to get the Monster to do things.
I mean, sure, we do plenty of things with behavior modification, like any parent. He gets jellybeans for toileting appropriately. He used to get M&Ms for eating food at dinner (and still does sometimes for letting us clip his nails). But those are easy, concrete things.
What about the more subtle behaviors? Continue reading
I wonder sometimes how much my kids really miss me when I’m not around.
R has gotten to that annoying age where he’s definitely Mommy’s boy, and… well, let’s say he’s fairly verbal about it. He’s made it clear that he’s Mommy’s and the Monster’s friend, and not my friend. Hurtful, but he’s four.
The Monster, on the other hand… Continue reading
The weird space where this winter storm, working and my outside interests collide…
So, in the middle of everything with Snowzilla, a pipe at my curling club sprang a leak, which ate a hole all the way through the ice. Members of the Ice Crew have been spending the week fixing the damage… but today was a controlled melt, which requires someone to be sitting at the club to monitor things.
And because of the weather, Monster’s school was closed again. So this seemed perfect – I could sit there, get my work done, monitor the ice, and watch the Monster.
You’d think. Continue reading
God, I hope schools reopen soon.
The biggest problem, I’ve found, with any serious disruption to our routine is that no matter how plastic the Monster is in terms of schedule disruption, large-scale disruptions don’t go over well, especially when coupled with copious free time. The perfect-storm of being stuck in the house for five days – the Monster’s school was closed on Friday as well – and having little enough to do is getting to the children. Continue reading
The Monster doesn’t quite grasp the idea of “winter”, I’m learning quickly.
I mean, okay, yes, he can recite the seasons and he can tell you what the weather is (usually). But getting that snow means we can’t get out? Not so much. Continue reading
A while back, we changed up the Monster’s night time routine to try to ensure ourselves a good night’s sleep. Despite the fact that we’ve no way to know how much he’s actually using the iPad each night, it’s been a godsend in the sense that we’ve been able, ourselves, to get some rest.
But nothing lasts forever.
Things were quiet at our house last night, mercifully.
Okay, so we kinda took things into our own hands. The doctor had okayed, once upon a time, the occasional use of Benedryl to knock the Monster out, and let’s be honest – he needs the sleep as much as we do. It’s not good for us to be getting up every few hours because of his screaming, and at a certain point, giving him seriously large doses of melatonin’s going to not be doing us any favors. (Plus, I imagine he’ll build up a tolerance to it.) So last night, we medicated him – i.e., I ground up some and snuck it into some applesauce, and gave it to him as a treat after dinner – and he went to bed.
And then I spent most of the night worrying because of how quiet he was. *sigh* Continue reading
So anyone who follows my Twitter feed will know that we’ve been having a problem of late with the Monster having more meltdowns than usual, if that wasn’t obvious from yesterday’s post. He’s been up several of the preceding nights… and it’s honestly been worse during the day.
Of late, he’s been obsessing about riding in the car. I don’t know what’s brought it about, but he’s been insisting more and more on getting in the car for a bit, and being taken for a ride before bed. And then lately, it’s turned into a constant thing – we get out of the car, come inside, and he wants another car ride. Continue reading