R doesn’t get a lot of entries here, if only because most of the time, I’m dealing with the Monster’s own behaviors, challenges and successes. But… there are times where R needs to be talked about, as the younger brother of a child with Autism.
Because sometimes, you just can’t tell if he is just the sibling of a child with Autism, or if there’s a reason we should be worried. Continue reading
R had a parent-teacher conference on Monday, when the schools were out.
For the most part, he’s doing fine according to his teachers – he’s a bright, sweet, thoughtful child, at least around them. They did express some concerns about things they’re seeing, but buffered it with the fact that he does have an older brother who is on the Spectrum, and that most of those behaviors that concern them seem to be ones that are in imitation of his brother.
And that, of course, is where it gets weird with having siblings sometimes. Continue reading
My wife was out of town from Friday afternoon till about midnight last night, attending a memorial service for a friend’s parent. I stayed behind in Baltimore because we can’t really count on the kids to behave at these kinds of things – R is a rambunctious three year old, and the Monster has his good days and bad. (Plus, hotel.)
The original plan had been that we were going to go up to visit my family, who live about 90 minutes from where the memorial service was, and that I’d have stayed there with the kids while my wife ran to-and-from, but due to timing changes in the service, it was just easier to stay behind in our house. So what’s easier for the kids… Continue reading
I’ve probably been fairly spoiled, as it goes, when it comes to sleep cycles and Autism.
I see and hear a lot from other parents of children with Autism about how they have struggles with their child and sleep cycles. Admittedly, you’ve all heard about the struggles we have when we’re on the road. At home, however, we mostly don’t have that much of a problem with the Monster sleeping all night – he occasionally does get up at like 6 or so, but more often than not, he sleeps through the night or has proven capable of getting himself to go back to sleep. Continue reading
So as I mentioned earlier this week, R went in for his two-year evaluations as part of the studies that he’s in.
We’ve had him evaluated by Infants and Toddlers before, due to concerns about where he’s felt “laggy” to us on his skills… and we were generally assuaged that he’s fine, though that we could certainly work harder with him on some things. In the time since then, he’s developed into quite the regular chatterbox and relatively normal child. Continue reading
We ran into an interesting problem with R, yesterday. (Aside from the fact that he’s clearly sick and dribbling snot down his face.)
Yesterday morning, he started banging as usual when he was ready to be let out of his crib. After we spent a few more minutes lingering in bed, the banging stopped as usual. Down the hall, we could hear knocking on a door, which is the Monster’s usual way of saying he’s ready to get up too. So I got up, put on my slippers, and slogged out into the hall.
The knocking wasn’t from the Monster – it was from R. He had managed to get out of his crib and just couldn’t get the door to his room open. Continue reading
There are days where the boys actually act the way that we really want them to behave towards each other.
So over the last two days, both boys have been home all day – you can thank Mother Nature for that. Both times, the wife’s had the opportunity to take them outside to play, and they’ve done their own thing as is their want while playing – R wants to do what the Monster does, and the Monster does what he wants to do. Continue reading
Much of the time, I laugh at the troubles that my friends who are parents of only NT children, at least insofar as their children are concerned.
As I constantly remind folks, R is nearly four years younger than the Monster. We spent a long time debating the probabilities before having a second child… and thus far, we seem to have beaten the odds. Continue reading
As I’ve mentioned a lot of times around here, R seems to be skewing towards the NT end of things based on the milestones we’re seeing. We’ve recently made the decision that he’ll go to pre-school starting in January so that he gets more interaction with other NT children, rather than simply holding him out till next September.
One of the weirdest parts of it is watching how R’s progress is rubbing off on the Monster. Continue reading
R desperately wants to be involved with everything that the Monster does.
I don’t think, of course, that R causing strife is really the intention – I think he just wants whatever the Monster has at the moment. As a result, though, he’s always doing things that cause problems from Monster’s point of view. Continue reading