Happy Halloween!

Brian really really impresses me. Every year when I compare one big event to the previous one I really can see growth. It may be hard to see it day-to-day but it's so noticeable comparing year-to-year.


The first few houses he did try to go into- hello? Why knock on a door and NOT go in? What's the point of that? But only after about three homes he had the routine down. He was saying "Trick or Treat" this year and "Thank you" (with prompts). He yelled, "Car coming! Watch out! Aaahh!" (repeatedly), when he saw headlights. He laughed (appropriately) when we watched Josh run across a busy road after Woody's cowboy hat (windy night here in Maine). He didn't cry when we switched directions. And (drum roll, please) he wore his costume for the entire night.

Corbin was so cute as Dumbledore and we even had TWO people guess who he was without us telling them! The wind made his costume a bit problematic but we dealt with it. At one point he tripped over something and decided it must have been a monster (what else could it possibly be?) and he ran full speed towards our car. I know I'm going to sound like a mean Mommy but seeing his robe and the white hair flowing as he ran with this funny gait just had me doubled over in laughter.

Overall they made out like candy bandits- though the pile did diminish quite a bit after removing the gluten, dairy, and soy. Surprisingly they fell asleep fast even after their sugar high. Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Halloween!

Will it be tricks or treats?

Halloween is really such a weird thing when you look at it from a very literal view, as my child, and others like him must do. It's still a few hours before we leave to go trick-or-treating but he came home this morning zombified. Just really tired and not giving much back to me- it makes me worry about how being "off" like this will affect a night that's already so confusing.

On another note, he has shown good progress with wearing his costume. We had a Cub Scouts Halloween party to go to and he refused to wear it. Yet when I showed up at his school on Friday to go on a Halloween field trip with his class, he was already in his costume and I was told he proudly went to share it with all the other teachers in the school. He kept it on for the entire field trip and then that afternoon for the school's Halloween parade.

So let's hope that means tonight will be a night full of fun!

Responsibilities

We were dancing around, being silly, pretending to be the characters from our music video.

Corbin announced, "I'm the best creators of monsters! No monster will ever hurt me because I'm the creator!"

I answered back in my spookiest voice, "I'm coming to get you!"

He responded, "You are just a child monster- you won't want to hurt me because I haven't created your parent monster yet!"

I replied, "Maybe I don't want a parent monster!"

His answer, without a second of thought, "You have to have a parent monster! You don't know all about responsibilities yet!"

The Autism Community

Today the boys and I were waiting in line to check-out at the grocery store. In front of us stood a Mom with her little boy. The boy turned to me and said, "Hi, What's your name? Look at what we're getting!" while physically turning his Mom so I could see the haunted house cookie kit she had in her hands. I told him my name and shared his enthusiasm for his baking project. He continued to have a (kinda one-sided) conversation with me and his Mom just looked at me with this grateful expression on her face.

I, of course, knew immediately he was on the spectrum. I mean, rubbing his cheek against my bare arm was a pretty big hint. But, what do you say at that moment to the mom? I felt like just blurting out, "Brian's autistic too!" And even though I was 99.9% sure this little boy, Johnny, was autistic, I couldn't bare the shame I would feel if I was wrong.

So we continued on in this way for a good seven minutes (someone ahead of us was having a struggle I think) and we were finally able to start loading our groceries on the conveyor belt. She saw our Udi's pizza crusts and said, "Oh! You do the gluten-free diet?? We were going to try that but I don't feel his autism is that bad." There she said it. And I have a feeling she was struggling the whole time with asking me about Brian as well. So then we started sharing all kinds of stories.

Normally, I'm a pretty shy person. I have a hard time opening up to people, especially strangers. But that's what belonging to the Autism Community does to you. You can instantly open up and have long conversations with complete strangers- because they don't feel like strangers to you. They may actually understand you more than people who have known you for some time.

I suppose, this is one gift that has come with Brian's diagnosis- meeting all these wonderful people and knowing I have so many supports when needed. It sucks to have to join this community, obviously, but it's a safe, kind place to be.

Simply For Your Amusement

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

We only have four people in our family so yes, there is some stranger being Dracula. These little Jib Jab songs are so hilarious!

What happens when.....

I'm thinking I should start a series of what happens when you leave your child alone for too long. Like the bed turned into a train table blog. Here's one from this week when I left him in the bath while Corbin & I carved pumpkins.




Corbin went to use the bathroom and yelled down to me, "Mom, Brian's turned his bath water blue!"

It turned out he had found an old bottle of Selsun Blue shampoo and had dumped the entire thing into the bath, on the side of the tub, and on the floor. I guess he needed some bubbles.

Jack-O-Lantern Time

Following the excursion of finding the perfect pumpkins, is of course the experience of carving them!

I was surprised Brian was into it this year. And by into I mean instantly picking up a carving knife and poking holes all over his pumpkin. I cut open the top of the pumpkin and asked him to clean it out with me. No way in hell was he going to put his hand in there and touch the slime.

After I labored over the cleaning of the pumpkin, I asked him to draw a face on the pumpkin. He did. I went over them to make them a bit larger and he set to cutting out the eye. He actually cut out one eye really well but then decided to cut a long line from the top of the pumpkin, through the eye, and down past the nose. Not sure what he was going for with that- it looks like a scar of some sort, but I'm guessing he was probably goign to try to make railroad tracks. I was able to redirect him and we di the rest of the face with some hand-over-hand techniques.

This was the first year Corbin was completely independent on the carving of his pumpkin. Oh, no, wait. No he wasn't. He too won't touch the "guts" of the pumpkin. In fact just looking at them can have him start in on a gag-fest. But he did cut out the top and design and cut out his face.



After he wanted me to draw him a Jack Skellington face (from The Nightmare Before Christmas) on his second pumpkin and he carved that out as well on his own.


As for me, I put in more time than I have in years on my pumpkin and really have been like a big kid ever since. Everyone that comes to my house gets asked, "Did you see my cannibal pumpkin? Huh? Huh? Did you like it? Praise me please!"

Overall, it was definitely our most successful pumpkin-carving session ever. I love that each year gets a bit better than the previous one. Makes me look forward to the future.