2nd Day of Christmas

On the 2nd day of Christmas...

We put lights up outside.  Still need to finish after we purchase some clips for the gutters!

I put up my Christmas Villages downstairs and blew the fuse for the strand of lights.

The Elf did NOT make his second appearance.  

We ended our day watching How to Train your Dragon... ok not very Christmas related. =)

1st Day of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas a little Elf showed up on our kitchen table.

I was super excited about Elfie the elf keeping an eye on the kids.

Alex was not.

He was scared and unsure of the elf.  He takes things very literally with his ASD.  We thought he would either enjoy it, or be terrified.  I guess that was a risk we had to take....Daddy and Alex went and dumped our old carpet at the landfill and I told Elfie he needed to go back to the North Pole.

He will not be coming back. (Alex even came out of his room tonight crying because he was scared of the Elf coming back.  Billy told him we would make sure we called Santa and tell him that we do not want him to come and check on the kids.)

On a bright note, we went to Toys R Us which was a total zoo.  The kids each picked out a game that we are donating to Toys for Tots at Alex's school.

We also finally put the star on top of our Christmas tree!

Photos will be posted later.  (I have been informed that I have used all of my photo space)

25 days of Christmas

Get ready!

We are doing 25 days of Christmas and that means I will be writing a blog each day about something we did Christmas related!

Tomorrow is going to be great!  Stay tuned!

Shopping Disaster

OK, so it really wasn't a disaster..

I should have known not to take Rhoslyn out shopping today when she woke up and was being sassy after breakfast.  But no... I took the kids anyways!  I guess you could say I like a challenge.

First store was Target.  She did alright in there, except not listening when I told her we needed to keep moving on and looking at other things.  She likes to take her time looking at one thing.  (I don't know where she gets that from)

She also pretty much refuses to sit in a cart, and if you make her... get ready for an all out scream fest!  So when we go shopping we go at Rhoslyn's pace.  It's not uncommon to hear me threatening her with, "Rhoslyn, if you don't want to sit in the cart you better come on!"

After our trip to Target we headed over to Big Lots in hopes of finding a fairly cheap Christmas Tree and a new curtain rod.  Curtain Rod... check.  Tree...not checked.

Let's just say she was pretty much terrible in Big Lots.  She took her jacket off even though I told her to leave it on.  Every time I told her to keep up she screamed, "NO!" at me.  We are getting ready to check out and she is screaming because she doesn't want to get her jacket on.  She also didn't want to stay by me.  I had 10 pairs of eyes all on me and my sassy daughter.  

Then.... we are getting ready to go and I told her she HAD to get her jacket on.  She proceeded to fall on the floor and throw a fit.  I pulled her up, put her jacket on (didn't zip it, which then made her even more mad at me), picked up her and literally carried her out in a football hold.  Why do people have to sit and stare at you when your kids are misbehaving?  I mean come on, every child does it at least once in their life time.  

She continues to scream and cry while I get her in the car and this little old lady is walking by just STARING at me.  I was about ready to yell over at her and see if she would like to handle the situation, but I decided that probably wasn't the best idea.

So anyways... I think Rhoslyn is banned to go shopping for a little while.  She has officially hit the terrible twos!  It's been fun....

Going to work

Rhoslyn loves shoes!  She loves anyone shoes.

Here she is pretending to be daddy...

Dr. Alex

Alex can be the most sweet and kind little boy.

The kids and I have been sick around here and I was coughing yesterday morning.  Alex decided that he needed to take care of mom.

He said, "Mom, what can I do to take care of you?"

He brought me his taggies and puppy to snuggle with.  He brought me some crackers.  He read me a book and made up his own stories.  He kept asking if I needed more food.  (I think he enjoyed knowing that he could get the food himself)  I told him I was pretty good on food, but he insisted that he should make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  So I agreed.

He got everything out himself.  All I had to do was help him open up the jelly.  He was so proud of himself for making me a sandwich.  Now he tells me that he can make his own sandwiches!

A few hours later he asked me if I wanted another sandwich or if I was good on sandwich's.  Haha, too cute!  I told him I was good.

Then he says, "Mom, you can call me Dr. Alex when I take care of you."

He has such a kind heart.



Look at all of that yummy peanut butter...



Time for the jelly!

This is Rhoslyn's latest trick when you take a picture of her.  Nice huh?  She was watching Alex make the sandwich.



The final masterpiece!



Some days are hard

I don't normally get this personal with myself on here.

Some days are just hard around here.  It seems a bit easier now that we know Alex has PDD-NOS because we know some of his behaviors stem from that.  There are days where I feel like I just want to explode.

Since we have moved into the new house he is definitely off his routine and is struggling a bit with that.  Not that anything has really changed, but it's a new house and he is going to a new school.

I am sure many of your children out there bug you about how long it's going to take to get somewhere or how long will it be until you are doing that "something special."  I hear this everyday ALL day.  As I mentioned, Alex's obsession is angry birds.  Everything is angry birds.  He barely plays with other toys because they aren't angry birds.  It means that his day revolves around playing the kindle (angry birds), playing with his stuffed angry birds, or wanting to watch the movie Rio.  As soon as he wakes up in the morning his questions begin... "Can I play angry birds?  When will I get to play?  How many more minutes?  Is it time for me to play angry birds?  When can I play the kindle?"  I am not kidding when I say that he will ask this constantly until he gets to play or until I give him a specific time.  If I give him a time (ex. you can play after lunch), then the questions are, "Is it time for lunch yet?  How much longer until lunch?  How many more minutes until we eat lunch?"  Over and over again.  I love him dearly, but after awhile it just gets to you.  He needs to know what is happening and when.  If he doesn't, he will continue to ask. 

At school his teacher has put together a schedule for him.  He keeps it at his spot at the table he sits at.  There are laminated cards on a folder with velcro.  Everything is in a row so he knows what is happening next.  When a task is completed his teacher removes the card so he can see what is next.

So I have decided that I think I am going to do something similar at home.  So everyday he will pretty much do the same thing at the same time.  This way he will feel more comfortable knowing what is coming up next.

The two weeks that Billy was gone was definitely rough.  It's hard not having an adult to talk to face to face everyday.  It's been hard around here too because I have been working so hard on getting stuff done around our new house that I feel completely exhausted which has not left much energy for Alex and Rhoslyn.

Back to school... Alex had his first music class on Friday.  It's great, the kids actually get to go to the music room for class.  He had a hard time with it.  He didn't want to participate.  Instead he sat on the floor in the middle.  I talked with him about it and he said he was shy to dance and it was too loud.  The teacher said the kids were trying to get him to stand up and dance and sing.  He didn't want to.  She is moving him to the side of the class so he isn't in the way of the other children.  I hope that he can get adjusted to it and have fun.  It was sensory overload for him and it was too much for him to handle.  His class is having a fall concert next Friday and I am so nervous for him.  I have a feeling he is either going to stand stiff and hold his emotion in with his hands fisted or he is going to start crying because it's too much for him.

I also contacted a therapy program which specializes in Autism that is located in Appleton and I was disappointed with the doctors response.  I felt like he was very short and almost rude in a way and offered no other advice.  So my search for a child psychologist will continue.  I am hoping the psychologist that diagnosed him can offer some advice on switching doctors to someone in our area.

Thanks for listening (or rather reading)!  The kids both have ear infections right now so it's been a long day!