Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mothers Day #family #fam #mom #dad #TagsForLikes #brother #sister #brothers #sisters #bro #sis #siblings #love #instagood #father #mother #related #fun #photooftheday #children #kids #life #happy #familytime #cute #smile #fun via dickster1961

First off, I want to wish all of the Moms out there a very happy Mother's Day.  This morning, we got up early and I drove my wife out to my son's school on the Eastern Shore so that she could have lunch with our boy on Mother's Day.  We decided to just have a little visit with him on campus.  We had a pizza delivered and after lunch we walked around campus and spent some time on the playground.  He was more interested in going back into the dorm to watch some DVDs that I had burned and brought for him.

That was not our original plan for Mother's Day, nor is it our usual routine when visiting our son.  Our original plan for Mother's Day was to pick up our son for an unscheduled weekend home and to take him to a Bowie Baysox game today, then drive him back to school.  Normally, when we visit our son, we take him off campus for lunch at Golden Corral and then either to Target or Walmart to get a new CD or DVD.

To explain why we changed our original plans and normal routine, we had to go back one week to our last visit with our son.  It started like several successful visits of late.  We picked up our son shortly after 11:00 and headed out to the Golden Corral in Easton, MD.  He ate three plates of his favorite foods from Golden Corral; pot roast, bourbon chicken, mashed potatoes, and macaroni & cheese.  So far, it was the start of a very pleasant visit.

After lunch, we got back in the car and headed to Target.  Once there, my son headed straight to the back of the store to the music department to find a CD or DVD.  He walked up and down each aisle looking for something, but just couldn't find anything that he wanted.  With my son's autism, even though he is very verbal, he sometimes has a difficult time telling us what he wants when he can't find it.  That is when things took a decided turn for the worse.

One of my son's undesirable behaviors is one we refer to as dropping.  If he doesn't want to do something, or is upset for some reason, he will drop to the ground, make himself dead weight, and refuse to get up.  When he drops, it can last for a few moments, or in some cases quite a long time.  This particular incident was one of the longer ones.  We spent over two hours trying to calm our son down, figure out what he wanted, and get him back to school.

We tried singing to him, stroking his hands, bringing him CDs and DVDs of acts that he has enjoyed in the past.  Nothing worked.  We got a few smiles and responses but we just couldn't get him off the floor.  At one point, we called the school to see if they could send somebody out to try to help get him back.  At long last, my wife came back to where we were with something that got our son off of the ground.

One of the things that my son likes to watch is, of all things, infomercials.  He particularly likes the ones that feature vacuum cleaners.  My wife came back with an inexpensive, rechargeable portable Dirt Devil.  That did the trick.  He got up, grabbed the vacuum, and headed to the front of the store just as the back up from the school showed up to help.  Now, he has his own personal vacuum in his dorm.

After an incident like this, it usually takes us a little while before we try to venture back out.  We were very hesitant to bring him home for the weekend for fear of a repeat performance at the stadium.  We were also very hesitant to try our usual routine of lunch at Golden Corral.  As it turned out, we had a nice little lunch and visit on campus, and he was in a great mood when we left.

Happy Birthday!

19 years ago today, I found myself in the car at 2:00 AM driving my very pregnant wife to the hospital in a spring rain.  She woke me shortly after 1:00 to tell me that she thought that her water had broke.  Once we got to the emergency room, we discovered that, in fact, her water had broke, but she wasn't quite ready to deliver.  So they took her to a room, and we waited.

After a few hours, they made the decision to induce labor.  It took a while to get the dosage right.  At first, they gave her too much of the drug and her contractions started too strongly and too quickly.  So, they backed off on the IV and my wife was able to get a little rest before all the real fun would begin.  Around 6:00-7:00 PM my wife started pushing in earnest.  Shortly before 9:00 my son entered the world.

It was without a doubt the proudest moment in my life.  The entire time my wife was pregnant, I steadfastly declared that I did not care one way or the other what the sex of our child was going to be.  One he came out and I was told we had a boy, I have to confess that my chest stuck out a little bit further.

Over the years, it has been quite an adventure.  From birth to about 2 years of age, our son appeared to be completely normal.  He was hitting all of his milestone markers on time and in a lot of cases early.  Then all of a sudden around his second birthday things changed.  His progress became delayed. We got him involved in early special education classes where a specialist from the school system came to the house a couple days per week.  By his 3rd birthday he started taking a bus to a school for children with special needs.

In the intervening years, there have been a lot of emotions and struggles.  There was a lot of denials about the  final diagnosis of autism.  I struggled a lot at times.  You see, I have always been considered a smarter than average person.  I was a nearly straight A student, always made the honor roll, and participated in talented and gifted programs.  I thought, "How could my child be mentally delayed?  He has my genes."

A few years ago, we made the difficult decision to try to get him into a residential school program.  It was one of the hardest decisions we ever made.  Several of the struggles and challenges of adjusting to this decision have been chronicled here on this blog.  It has been one of the best things that we ever did for our son.  At one point, I always thought that my son would live with us as long as we could care for him.  Now we look to the day when he will graduate in 2015 and enter a group home.

Today, we drove out to see him to celebrate his 19th birthday.  We decided that we would throw a little pizza party for him, his dorm mates, and the dorm staff.  One year ago, we couldn't get him to touch pizza.  The only thing he would eat was chicken, bacon, potato chips and Cheez-it crackers.  In fact, my wife and I couldn't eat pizza in front of him because he would gag.  Today, he ate six big slices of pizza, more than my wife and I combined.  We even offered him boneless wings and he chose more pizza.

Even with all of the progress he has made, he still has a long way to go.  For example, he still has not gotten to the point where he will have a bowel movement on the toilet.  I never really liked changing his diapers when he was a baby, changing Depends now isn't any fun either. He still has several undesirable behavioral issues.  He will drop to the floor if he doesn't want to do something.  He still hits at people and throws his glasses.  It has been a struggle and will probably always will.  I wouldn't change a thing.

The Times that Try Men's Souls

Having a big lunch with my son at the Golden Corral in Easton MD via dickster1961

Yesterday was one of those days that I always dread.  It was the day that my wife was going to take our son back to school after his break home.  Those trips are always a bit of a challenge getting him into the car for the long drive back to school, but they are especially difficult when the break home has been a long like his nearly two week Christmas break.

Monday night, I naively thought that it might be a bit easier this time around.  I was washing dishes in the kitchen when I heard him in the living saying that Stephanie (his teacher) was a pretty girl.  He then proceeded to tell me how many earrings she has, 4 which for some reason he notices.  Later we were sitting on the couch when he started talking about "The Morning Rush" on a radio station that broadcasts near his school.

I woke up yesterday and got ready to head off to work.  My son was up before I left the house, so we talked and I told him I would see him later, without bringing up the subject of school.  He seemed fine.  My wife usually tries to head out to school between noon and 1 pm.  When she gets him in the car and they are on the way, she gives me call to let me know that they are on the way.

I started to get a little concern that I had not heard from my wife as the clock moved closer to 2pm.  I was talking with a friend of mine in the office and told him that I was almost afraid to call home to check in with my wife.  Sure enough, a few moments later my cell phone rang.  Unfortunately, it was not my wife calling to tell me they were on the way to school but that for the past two hours our son had been hitting, kicking, and yelling at her.

I decided that I would leave the office early to see if I could somehow manage to get him in the car and take him back to school.  The entire drive home, I was praying that God would give me the patience to deal with my son and my wife, who was naturally upset and frustrated.  I also prayed that somehow he would help my son to be willing to get in the car. I arrived home around 3pm, and spent two hours trying to keep him calm and endure some hitting and kicking sent in my direction.

I was able to maintain a calm demeanor until my son exhibited a behavior that he had displayed at school but never at home.  My son wears Depends because he is still not toilet trained in regards to bowel movements, but does manage to urinate in the toilet.  The behavior that he now displays is that if wants to avoid doing something, he will urinate in his pants.  While laying on the couch, he told me that he peed his pants and needed a bath.  Even with the Depends, there was leakage onto the couch.

Finally, after two hours, I was somehow able to get him to get up and go to the car.  He did end up dropping to the ground twice between the house and the car, but he got up relatively quickly and got into the car.  So, around 5pm we started the nearly 60 mile trip to his school.  Once he was in the car and realized we were headed to school, he was fine, not happy, but fine.  We arrived at school just in time for him to have dinner.

After we got him settled and took care of all the assorted business, we headed back home.   By the time the night ended, we didn't get back home until around 8 pm. We will probably head back out to see him in a couple of weeks and take him out to lunch at Golden Corral and then go to Target so he can get some new CDs.  He is already looking forward to that.

Time for June Break

Tomorrow is the end of the current school year for our son.  My wife will be heading out in the early morning to go pick him up and bring him home for one of his longer breaks, two weeks.  He is set to head back to school on July 5th, which will allow a nice visit home.

The program that my son is on with his school is essentially a 12-month program with the new year starting in July.  The July session usually runs about 5 or 6 weeks and then a second summer break in August.  During the August break we will take our annual trek out to Ocean City.

With the beginning of this June break, I will be taking a rare weekend off of my weekend pizza delivery gig as we have a lot of activities planned over the next two weeks.  Friday night is Autism Awareness night at the  Bowie Baysox stadium.  It is one of the nights we make sure to attend during the season.

Saturday night, my in-laws are having a party to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary.  My son is looking forward to attending the party.  I am just hoping that he will be well behaved.  Normally at events like this we have to worry about keeping him entertained.

Sunday, we have another Baysox game on the calendar.  As soon as the promotional calendar was released and I saw Sunday's promotion I knew that we would have to attend the game.  Sunday is country day and will feature the Cowboy Monkey Rodeo.


I googled Cowboy Monkey Rodeo and discovered that they have monkeys dress up like cowboys and ride dogs around like horses.  Let's face it, as a guy, you just can't beat a day of baseball and monkeys.  I will definitely be trying to get some good photos for the blog.


In addition to all the fun stuff we have planned, we also have a lot of other not so fun things we have to take care of before he returns to school.  Each year, he has to have a check up from his doctor and a form filled out from his dentist.  Both of those should  be an adventure.  We will see how the next two weeks impact the amount of time I spend blogging.

Happy Father's Day!

II would like to take this opportunity to wish all of the dads out there a happy Father's Day.  Today is my 18th Father's Day as a dad.  I have to confess that I am a little depressed this morning since my son is away at school, and I will not have the opportunity to see him.  We could go out for a visit, but since he is coming home in a couple of days, we decided to wait until Thursday.

One of the things that crossed my mind this morning as I was moping around missing my son was the night that he was born.  I remember it well.  The entire time my wife was pregnant, I was going with her to her appointments.  I couldn't wait to be a father.  On April 6th, 1994, my wife received a phone call around 10pm from her OB/GYN.  He was at the hospital delivering another baby and asked my wife if she was ready to have her baby.  She said she felt fine.

I went to sleep shortly after she hung up from that phone call.  A few hours later, around 1am or so, my wife woke me up.  She told me that she thought that her water broke.  We left the house and headed to the hospital.  On route, we encountered a heavy rain storm and I had to have the windshield wipers on high.  We arrived at the hospital around 2am and headed to the emergency room.  An initial examination confirmed that her water had broken but that our son had not dropped into position for delivery.

They took us up to a room on the maternity wing of the hospital and had my wife rest in bed.  We were told that they wanted to have us wait for a while to see if our son would drop into position on his own, otherwise they might have to induce labor.  After a few hours, they determined that they were going to have to induce labor as my son had decided he didn't want to leave the warmth and comfort of the womb to enter the cold cruel world on the outside.

As they set everything up for the pitocin IV, they asked my wife if she wanted to have an epidural.  She replied in the affirmative.  Shortly after the IV began, she started to have some contractions.  However, they must have set the initial drip too high as she started to have contractions that were much too quick and much too hard.  They slowed the drip down to a more manageable level.  My wife was even able to get a few hours sleep, but I was too keyed up to get any rest.

As evening rolled around, it was time to get serious about the delivery.  Finally, my wife was suitably dilated and was ready to enter the pushing stage.  I did my best to try to be a supportive helper during the delivery.  Like Bill Cosby, I was the cheerleader, "Push him out, shove him out, way out!"  In spite of our requests to not have anybody come up to the hospital since we did not know how long we would be, my entire family was in the waiting room.  Finally, around 9pm, our son came into the world.

The entire time that my wife was pregnant, we did not want to know the sex of our baby.  Every sonogram, they asked if we wanted to know, each time we said no.  I honestly did not care if we had a boy or a girl at the time.  We had names picked out for either event.  Our baby's bedroom was painted light green with teddy bears to be gender neutral.  However, I confess, that when the doctor told us we had a baby boy, my chest stuck out a little further than I anticipated.

After he was cleaned up and my wife was able to rest a bit, my family came in to see us.  My son was the first grandchild of my parents.  After they left, I visited a bit with my wife and son until she was ready to go to sleep.  I headed home and stopped by Grace's Fortune in Bowie to pick up an order of Kung Pao Chicken. Exhausted, I hit the bed and slept.  I have been exhausted ever since, but it has been worth it.

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Long Weekend Ends, Back to School

Yesterday marked the end of the Memorial Day weekend and back to work.  It also marked the end of my son's long weekend home from school.  Normally, his visits of a mixed bag.  It is always good to have him home, but he is a lot of work.  As much as I hate to admit it, I sometimes look forward to his returning to school so things can return to what is the "new normal" around here.  Don't get me wrong, I love having him home and I am sad that he has to go back, but I am also somewhat relieved.

Due to his disabilities, there is a lot more that has to be done compared to when he is away.  When he is home, we usually have to prepare special meals for him because he would only eat certain foods.  Then there is the issue of his still not being toilet trained.  It is not easy to clean up the dirty Depends of a young man that is 5'10" and 145 pounds.  He also has a tendency to take over the television and my laptop whenever he is home.  We have had computers that he could use, but they are older and slower, and don't work too well, so he often sits with me and we play games and watch videos on mine.

As this past weekend came to a close, there was the usual sadness that he was heading back to school.  However, the sense of relief was not as strong.  Some of the past issues that make having him home so difficult were not as intense.  First, after taking him back from his April break he began eating a much wider variety of foods at school.  We were determined to try to keep up the wide variety of food that he had begun to eat at school.  We made sure to prepare a plate of whatever we were eating and give that to him first.  He ate most of what we put in front of him and we only occasionally had to supplement with chicken tenders when he hadn't gotten enough to eat.

Another thing that made this past weekend better for him was that we bought a new desktop computer for him to use.  When he had his First Communion at school nearly two weeks ago, he received over $100 in gifts.  The next morning, I found a basic computer for less than $300 that would provide him with everything he needed to do the things he likes on the computer.  This consists primarily of watching videos on YouTube and listening to music.  Only occasionally did he want to sit with me and do something together on my laptop.

There still were the other issues that we have to deal with.  His toileting is still a problem.  He usually is OK with urinating in the toilet, but the bowel movements are a problem.  We go through a lot of Depends and wipes whenever he is home.  Often, and sorry to be graphic, we have to give him a bath after a bowel movement.  Bathing is another area that he is not able to do on his own.  And of course, for the most part, when he was home the television was on whatever he wanted to watch, which isn't really that big a deal because I usually only have it on for background.

Since he turned 18, his progress once back at school has been remarkable.  In the past 6 weeks he has made a number of improvements in some of his problem areas.  Previously, he only ate chicken wings or tenders and salty snacks.  Now, he is eating a wide variety of proteins and vegetables.  He even ate ice cream, which he had never eaten, right before he came home.  He is starting to take his medications without having to have the pills crushed and mixed with food or drink.  If he continues progressing as he has recently,  I am sure that some of his other issues will be conquered soon as well.

It is funny, as my son was growing up and it was becoming painfully obvious that he would not have a "normal" life, I was determined to keep him with me as long as I could.  I have a friend that I used to work with who also has a special needs child.  We both talked about how we would want to care for our children because we weren't sure how we could trust anybody else to do it.  I no longer have that fear.  My son is 18, and at the age when a lot of kids are starting to thing of going to college and eventually getting out on their own.  Now, I can see the possibility of him moving on to a group home when school is over and I do not fear it as much as I did.

First Communion and Memorial Day

I mentioned on Saturday that it was a big day for our family.  It was our son's First Communion at the school he is attending.  I don't think it could have possibly gone any better, though there were a few potential moments.

The First Communion was scheduled to begin at 4pm, but my wife and I were to get there around 3:30 to meet with the folks that helped my son prepare for Communion.  When we got there, the person we were to meet with was not at the chapel.  I headed up to the dorms to tell the dorm personnel that we were going to take our son out to dinner after his First Communion.  As it turns out, that is where I found the lady we were to meet with.

Unfortunately, nobody had told the dorm worker that my son was going to have First Communion, so she allowed him to take a little nap on the couch in the rec room.  They were trying to wake him up to get him ready but he wasn't cooperating.  Like a lot of us, he gets a little cranky when you wake him up.  I walked in and told him we needed to get ready for church, but he told me he didn't want to go.  I told him that if he went to church and had First Communion that we would take him to Golden Corral for dinner and had a surprise for him.  It worked.

I helped him get dressed and we headed down to the chapel.  We were still pretty early for the service, so we were pretty much the only ones around.  When the priest showed up, my son's eyes lit up and he smiled and said, "It's Father!"  He greeted all of our relatives that showed up and waited patiently.  When the head nun showed up he said "It's Sister Jeanette."  We went over and said hello to her and she told us he had been attending church regularly and was very well behaved.  That is a far cry from the first couple conversations we had with her when he first started to attend the school.

During the service he stayed pretty quiet.  He fidgeted a little now and then.  There were a couple times when he put his head on my shoulders and wanted me to stroke his head or his hands.  When it came time for him to take Communion from the priest, he hesitated at first, but took it with some encouragement.  He then said "just one more time" which got a laugh from everyone.  I know that is something he often says when you get him to do something that he doesn't want to do and are trying to get him to do it again.

After the service, we took several pictures.  He received a number of cards and money as a gift for his First Communion.  He got enough money to cover half the cost of a new basic computer for when he comes home from school for the Memorial Day weekend tomorrow.  As promised, we took him to Golden Corral for dinner after the service.  This was the first time that we had attempted to take him off campus for a visit. I was a little concerned that we would have a difficult time getting him back in the car, but there were no issues at all.

Another concern was whether or not he would eat the same variety of food with us that he has been eating at school for the past few weeks.  The concern was short lived.  He told me that he wanted chicken, ribs, potatoes, and corn.  They didn't have ribs, but I got him a plate of bourbon chicken, pot roast, corn, mashed potatoes, and fried rice.  He ate it all.  In fact, he ate a total of three big plates of food.  He also ate some sesame chicken and another style of roast beef with gravy.  The school nurse also emailed us today to tell us that he ate ice cream at school.  Another new food.

We are looking forward to our long weekend home for Memorial Day weekend.  We have plans to attend a couple of Bowie Baysox games on Sunday and Monday.  Who knows?  Maybe he will even go so far as to have a hot dog or two at the ball park.  All I know is that every day we are more and more certain that we made the right choice in having him go away to school, as difficult a choice as it was at the time.

Feeling the Fool

Katy Perry - MMVA Soundcheck (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Did you ever have one of those moments when you felt like you simply looked like a fool?  I had one of those moments this afternoon.

I scheduled a personal day off from work today so that we could take care of some issues with our son while he is home from school.  We had met previously with a lawyer to discuss filing for legal guardianship of our son once he turned 18, which was this past Saturday.  The lawyer had provided us with some alternatives to guardianship such as a Power of Attorney and Advanced Medical Directive that we needed to have our son sign now that he is of legal age.

My son did an excellent job of answering the questions that the lawyer provided for him.  He signed both documents allowing us to handle decisions regarding his assets and his health.  These should be enough in the state of Maryland, but if by chance they are not, we will then proceed to the next step and start the legal proceedings to have us declared legal guardians.  We also need to set up another appointment with the lawyer for estate planning to put any assets into a special needs trust should anything happen to my wife and I.

Adele (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We promised our son that once we ran the errand of visiting the lawyer's office that we would take him to Target where he could use some of the gift cards and money he received for his birthday to buy himself some things.  He needed a new portable CD player because he broke yet another one.  He also wanted to buy himself some new CDs.  His musical tastes have grown since he has gone away to school.  He picked out CDs from Katy Perry and Adele instead of his usual country music. True to form, he also picked out a Kidz Bop CD.

After I took my wife and him home, I had a few more errands to run.  This is where the feeling like a fool part comes in.  My son wants to go to another Bowie Baysox game tonight, so I headed up to the stadium to pick up tickets.  I had eaten a protein bar in the car and took the wrapper to the trash can in front of the stadium.  Just as I was placing the wrapper in the trash can, a gust of wind blew it back out and across the front of the stadium.  I am not quite as spry as I once was, and as I chased after the wrapper, each time I reached down to grab it, the wind would send it out of my grasp.  I finally caught up to it after several yards, but I felt like an idiot.  At least I can't be accused of littering.

A Sunday Visit

Today, my wife and I got up fairly early and made the 60 mile drive to our son's school on the Eastern Shore.  Our purpose of going out to the school was twofold; one to have a little visit, and more importantly to take some medication out to the school for him.

Back in December, in conjunction with his psychiatrist and the school, we decided to take him off of one of his medications.  The medication he was on was an extended release tablet.  Since he has to have his medication crushed, he was getting the whole dose at once.  He was falling asleep in class in the mornings, so we decided to try him being off of the medication.

The first couple months off of the medication, he did a great job.  He was more cooperative, attended class regularly, and was more focused on his tasks.  He even was doing a lot better in the dorm area, which had been his biggest area of opportunity.

On Monday of this past week, my wife had to go out to the school to take out a refill of one of his prescriptions.  Our son's teacher showed my wife a video of my son acting out and told her that he had been regressing in recent weeks.  He had also been demonstrating a lot more aggression towards others. The video was reminiscent of how he had behaved prior to going on medications.

On Tuesday, I called the dorm to check in to see how he was doing.  It is hit or miss when talking to the dorm about getting decent information.  I got lucky and spoke to somebody who could give me a more detailed report.  She informed me that he had not been doing very well, and had even stopped wanting to go to activities that he had enjoyed like the weekly social dances.  That was definitely reminiscent of how he acted before going on medication.

Thankfully, I had a follow up appointment with his psychiatrist on Thursday afternoon.  I was to show him the video of him acting out.  I shared with him how he had stopped participating in activities that he loved.  We all decided to put him back on the medication that he had been on, but this time we decided on the regular form of the drug rather than the extended release.

When we got out to the school this morning, we were told that he was in his room.  He had thrown two cups of water on the floor and refused to clean it up.  He was very upset and still crying when we walked into his room.  Thankfully, once we got in there he settled down and we had a real nice visit with him.  I took him back out into the dorm rec room and had his clean up the mess he made.  We walked around the campus and I let him watch YouTube videos on my phone.

After a couple hours, it was time for him to have lunch.  He had been asking for chicken the whole time we were there.  I was very impressed to see him trying to cut his chicken into smaller bites with his fork, and with a plastic knife.  That is something that he has never done at home, so that was some definite progress.  After lunch, we decided to head home.

While we had a nice visit with our son, there were a couple of things about it that concerned me.  While I agree that it is necessary to discipline my son when he acts out, sometimes I think that they exacerbate the situation.  When he gets upset, he sometimes continues to slide down that slope during the discipline.  Some times, it is better to just ignore him until he settles down.

The other thing that bothered me was in regards to some of his personal property.  I took a couple of DVDs out to him since he has had a portable DVD player at school for watching those videos.  We were informed that they did not know where his DVD player was and that they had not seen it in some time.  They also informed us that he had broken or lost his portable CD player.

It is not the fact that these things are broken or missing that bothers me.  It bothers me that they did not communicate these things to us prior to our visit.  I call the dorm several times a week, and my wife goes out there every couple of weeks to take things for him.  Both of those devices are things that he needs to make his life easier away from home.  Had we known, at the very least, we could have taken him a new CD player so he could listen to music.

I will be sending an email out to his teacher and to the person who heads up his dorm.  The highest priority is to get feedback on how he is doing with the new medication.  Second, I want to talk to them to see if any of them have any idea as to where his DVD player is and to ask for more complete information from them on how he is doing.  Hopefully, he will react well to the new medication and get back to his old self soon.

What a Way to Spend a Birthday

Image via Wikipedia

Today is my birthday.  I usually do not like to call out attention to that fact.  I definitely do not acknowledge them in the office.  I do not like being the center of attention with cake and singing and all that sort of stuff.  Normally, I do not take the day off from work for my birthday.  It is February, so the weather is usually cold.  Today, we had a lot to do so I took the day off.

First off, our homeowners association has implemented a new parking policy.  They are now requiring us to have parking permits displayed in our cars.  The new policy takes place on March 1st, so I had to go by the management office and picked up our permits.  They required that we pick them up in person, rather than have them sent in the mail. 

Next up on the agenda was the first of two meetings in regards to our son.  The first meeting was with a lawyer to talk about getting guardianship of our son so that we can keep making the decisions regarding his care and finances.  The meeting went well enough.  The lawyer told us that the guardianship process was long and expensive and that there were other possible options to explore like power of attorney.  He emailed us a document to review on the various options.

After that meeting, we had a couple hours to kill so we headed to a nearby mall for lunch at Red Robin.  Then it was off to the local Social Security office to apply for SSI benefits for our son.  We had an appointment, and had a relatively short wait time.  Once in the office, the person assisting us with our application said that if we were to apply now, they would consider our income in assigning benefits.  Instead, she recommended that we wait until he turns 18 in April.

So, our two meeting ended up not being all that we thought they would be.  Instead, we have even more work to do on both fronts.  While the day was not quite as productive as we hoped it would be, we still received some good information.  Then again, I did not have to head into the office today.  Like the old saying goes, a bad day off still beats a good day at work. Oh, and there is one more thing planned for the evening, and that is dinner out with the wife.

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Swamped

I have a lot of things going on right now.  Most of the time, I am able to keep a fairly good balance between the  real world and my blogging or online world.  By the "real world" I mean those things that I have to deal with on a daily basis like my job and my son.  The other stuff are just those things that I do to help me unwind and relax after dealing with the other stuff.

A few months ago, I took on a new position at work.  Shortly after I moved into the new position, the person who took my place left abruptly, and we have been shorthanded for a couple of months.  Plus, another coworker who had also taken on some of my old responsibilities took an extended vacation to get married.  So, I ended up pitching in on my old desk while also trying to move into my new responsibilities.

We finally got back up to full staff again a few weeks ago.  Needless to say, I am not far along as I would like to be in my new project.  So now I am trying to get caught up to where I would like to be.  Normally, I get to the office around 8:30 each day, and stay until a little after 5:00.  This week, I have been trying to get to the office by 7:00 to get more work in.  I am also taking work home with me on the weekend.  It is a bit harder to work from home, as the VPN can be a bit slow.

On top of that, we have several things going on with our son in the upcoming weeks.  With his 18th birthday coming up later this year, we have a number of things we need to do for him.  First we need to apply with the Social Security Administration to get Supplemental Security Income.  We also have a meeting scheduled with an attorney to retain guardianship for him for when he turns 18 so that we can still make decisions for him for his day to day care since he is incapable of making those decisions on his own.

I hope that with all of those things going on that I will still be able to blog here on a nearly daily basis.  The reality of it is that there is a pretty good chance that I will miss a few more days here and there updating the blog.  While this is fun for me and a nice outlet, there are a few things that take a higher priority.  Thanks for your patience.

Milestones

Image via Wikipedia

This week, I have hit a couple of milestones on this blog.  First off, this is my 1000th post since I started this blog in August of 2008.  Since starting this blog, I have used StatCounter to track my visitors here.  Two days ago, my stats topped the 100,000 mark.

While I am happy to have reached these goals this week, today an even more event took place today.  My son is home for a long weekend home from school.  We don't really have a lot of plans for the five days he will be home.  It looks like we will be playing it by ear.

One of the things that we did in preparation for him coming home was to set up a laptop for him.  The desktop unit that he had been using has been making some rather load noises.  I think it is on its last legs.  So, when we bought a new laptop for wife, I set her old laptop up so he could use it while he is home.  The old laptop isn't in the greatest shape, but it is better than the desktop.  When I got home tonight, he was watching game show videos on YouTube on it.

Whenever he is home, he does not like to leave the house.  He thinks that whenever we leave that we might be taking him back to school.  I am hoping that we will be able to get out to the house to go to Dave & Buster's to play a little skee ball.  It would also be nice if we can get him out for a visit to each of the grandparents' houses.

Right now, my son is scheduled to go back to the school on Tuesday.  My wife has a meeting at the school on Thursday.  She and I are regional co-chairs of the school foundation so she attends the meetings.  She may end up waiting until Thursday to take him back to school.  That will give us a full week visit until his next break during the Easter time frame.  It's nice to come home and have him in the house.

Preparing for Adulthood

Image via Wikipedia

We have a lot of things upcoming that we have to take care of for our son.  It is a big year for us because in a little less than two months, he becomes an adult.  Consequently, because of his disabilities, we have to get started with a couple of processes.  Today, my wife and I met with my in-laws since they have already been through these processes with our nephew.

One of the things that we need to get started with is applying with the Social Security Administration to receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) for our son.  SSI is a program that helps the aged, blind, and disabled people with little or no income to provide funds for basic needs like food, clothing, and shelter.  We have an appointment with SSA at the end of the month.

As my son has gotten older, it has become painfully obvious that he will not be able to provide and care for himself as he enters into adulthood.  We have known all along that this would probably be the case, but we have always held out hope that he would be able to do more things for himself and be able to work.  Currently, he does do a little work in a sheltered workshop at school, but his ability to consistently work and earn money is lacking.  He made less than $100 last year.

If my son is declared eligible for SSI benefits, it would be a tremendous benefit for our family.  I would be made the payee of the benefits, and would have to set up a custodial checking account for him.  All of the money that gets paid into the account would need to be used for his needs, such as food, clothing, medical expenses, and some entertainment.  We will need to do detailed record keeping of how we are using the funds for his benefit. I am hopeful that the this additional income for him would allow me to cut back or stop working at my pizza delivery job.

The other thing that we are going to have to do is meet with a lawyer to apply with the courts to have guardianship of our son after he turns 18.  This will allow us to be the ones to make decisions for his care and well being since he will not be able to do so.  The government assumes that when our son reaches the age of 18 that he will be responsible for making his own decisions for his care unless the courts say otherwise.  My father in law provided us with the name of an attorney to get the process rolling.

It will be important for us to retain the guardianship after he turns 18 for a number of reasons.  In the event that he ends up needing medical care for any reason, that we be able to make those decisions for him.  Without having guardianship, if our son says he does not want treatment, then the doctors would not be able to legally treat him.  It will also allow me to retain him on my health insurance plan at work.  Wish us well as we embark on this next phase of being the parents of a child with autism and other disabilities.

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Summer Break is Over

I always get a tad melancholy whenever my son has to go back to school.  It has been 10 months since my son was accepted and the county agreed to have him attend school away from home.  While intellectually we know it is the best place for him to get an education, emotionally it still takes it toll, especially on me.

When we first began this journey, I wanted to go with him every time we took him back to school, and I wanted to go with my wife to pick him up whenever he had a scheduled break to come home.  My office was very willing to work with us to allow that to happen, however, we eventually decided that I did not need to go to pick him up.  This way, I could build up my leave in order to be able to take a family vacation like we did in August.

We soon discovered that my son was very much in tune to my normal work schedule.  He knew that it was normal for me to be home on the weekends.  He also knew it was not normal for me to be home during the work week.  Consequently, if I stayed home on a Tuesday he knew it meant he was going back to school.  He would refuse to get off the ground.  We would try tricking him by having me leave and go somewhere until my wife gave me the sign that he was in the car.

After a couple of wasted days off where we could not get him back to school, we eventually came to the decision that I would go into work on the days he went back to school and my wife would try to get him back to school on her own.  So far, that has actually worked fairly well.  She has been able to get him back to school on time, though she has had to resort to a little trickery and/or deceit to do it.

As I said, I always get a little bit down when he goes back to school.  Yesterday, however, I was moping around the office a bit more than usual.  I don't know if I was more tired than usual, which certainly could have contributed to my malaise.  The big part of it is that I did not get to say goodbye to him before he went back.  Yesterday, he was still sleeping when I left for work.  A lot of times, he is awake and I can at least tell him I will see him later, even if it is a few weeks later. 

I suppose I should dwell on the positives.  In the past 10 months we have seen some improvements that we had not seen previously, though we still have a long way to go in a lot of areas.  I could also think about how much easier it is around the house when he is at school, and how I have the freedom to watch what I want on television or do what I want on the computer because he isn't around to take those things over.  Or perhaps I feel guilty because I do think about those things.

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June Break

Well, on Father's Day, we picked up our son for his two week June break from school.  Since he is on an extended school year program, he gets a couple weeks off in June and a couple weeks off in August unlike a lot of kids who get the full three months off during the summer.  With his special needs he really needs the year round schedule so that he retains what he learned during the year.

We already had a busy two weeks planned for him while he was going to be home from school.  I have mentioned before how much our family enjoys going to Bowie Baysox minor league baseball games.  Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for my wallet, the Baysox are only in town for four games during the entire 17 days he is home from school. 

I will be taking off this Friday and Saturday night from my pizza delivery gig in order to go to all three games this weekend.  Friday and Saturday nights games will all feature a post game fireworks show.  The Baysox always have a top notch fireworks show.  On Sunday, it will be a meet the team day, and the team has arranged for my son to throw out a ceremonial first pitch prior to the game.  He is pretty stoked about it.  Finally, we will also be attending the Baysox July 4th game for more fireworks before break ends.

The other day, we were going through a bunch of the papers that were sent home with our son.  One pile of papers was all the work he had done in class since his last break.  There were also a few awards.  He won Student of the Week honors just before the break.  He also won an award for "technical achievement" for his computer typing skills.  The Aquatics Department of the school gave him a certificate for being the most improved swimmer in his class.  Awesome work.

Then there were all of the other fun things in another packet that we have to get done before he goes back to school.  There is the list of supplies and clothes that need to be bought and brought to school after the break.  It has been a while since his last haircut, and he is getting rather shaggy.  He needs to get another physical from our family doctor.  While the haircut and physical are hard to get his cooperation on, we usually can get those accomplished.

However, the last thing that we need to get done will be the most difficult, a dental exam.  We had to try to get one before he started the school in November.  We got him into the office, where he promptly dropped to the ground and refused to get up.  He eventually got into the dentist chair and they were able to do a visual exam, however, we were not able to do a cleaning or x-rays.  So that one will be a real adventure.

Since he has been home, I have lost control of the television in the evening, I am using my computer to download and burn CDs and DVDs for him, and I am spending a lot of time with him sitting next to me playing Panda Pai Gow Poker on Pogo.com.  He loves it when we lose hand or guess wrong when trying to predict whether the hand is a win, lose, or push.  It is nice to have my time to myself when he is at school, but while he is home, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy Father's Day

I would like to take this time to wish a Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there.  Special Father's Day wishes go out to my dad, my two brothers, my brother in law (my sister's husband) and my other brother in law (my wife's brother) who is as much a father to our nephew as any biological father and also like a brother to me.

Sometimes I stop and think about the differences between Mother's Day and Father's Day, at least in terms of how they are celebrated in different organizations that I have been a part of.  My company does a lot of things for their employees.  There are a lot of activities throughout the year to try to make things fun for the employees.  They also have a lot of raffles and things.

Each year for both Mother's Day and Father's Day, they hold a raffle.  It doesn't cost anything to enter, and the value of the prizes are equal, usually a $100 gift card.  The difference lies in where those gift cards are from.  This year, for Mother's Day, they gave away a $100 gift card to a spa.  For Father's Day it was a gift card to Home Depot.  So, mom gets pampered, but dad gets to buy things to do chores around the house.

I am going off of my increasingly failing memory, but I believe that last year the prize for Mother's Day was a $100 American Express gift card and Father's Day was once again Home Depot.  I know there are a lot of dads out there that would enjoy the Home Depot card, and a lot of moms would to.  It just seems that a generic gift card like the AmEx card would be more appropriate.  Sometimes us dads like to be pampered to.

It also reminds me of how they used to celebrate these holidays in a church I used to belong to.  For Mother's Day, they would have a nice sit down mother/daughter banquet.  For Father's Day, a cookout.  I'm not saying that the dads got the short end of the stick, but you be the judge.  There is definitely a difference between the views of mothers versus fathers, but I don't think us dads would have it any other way.

Happy Mother's Day

Most Sundays I like to take it pretty easy.  Since I work Monday through Saturday, Sunday is the day that I try to get any errands that I have to do done as early in the day as possible.  Then I spend the rest of the day parked on the couch and relaxing.  After all, even the Good Lord took a day for rest at the end of a long week.

Today, however, is Mother's Day.  It is the first Mother's Day that has occurred since our son went away to his school.  As much as I would have liked to have spent the day vegging on the couch, I could not let the day pass without my wife seeing our son on Mother's Day.  After all he will always be her baby boy.  So, we left the house early this morning for the hour and a half drive to spend some time with him.

We walked into his dorm area and there was nobody around.  We headed out towards the main building to see if we could find them.  He was coming out from breakfast when we first saw him.  As soon as we saw him his eyes lit up and a big smile crossed his face.  He proceeded to tell us what he ate for breakfast and that 7pm tonight there was going to be a dance.

 

He did not want to go anywhere, so we spent a couple hours hanging out and walking around the facilities.  Personally, I can understand why he didn't want to hang out anywhere.  Personally, if I had a big screen television on the wall

 

and a pool table in the recreation area then I wouldn't want to go anywhere either.

It was a beautiful day today, sunny with temperatures in the 70's so we decided to take a walk around the grounds to get a little exercise.  While we were walking, we found the building where he does his jobs.

After we took our walk around the grounds, we headed back to the dorm area.  He once again demonstrated some of his new found independence by walking up to a cooler, grabbing a styrofoam cup, and poured himself a cup of water to drink.  At home, it would be drinking from the tap.  He has also started eating a few more foods, so long as it has BBQ sauce on it.

All in all, it was a very good Mother's Day, though we were out longer than I usually like on a Sunday, but it was well worth it.  So to my mother, my wife, her mother, and all of the mothers out there, I wish you all a very Happy Mother's Day.

Autism Awareness Month

Image via WikipediaSince April is almost over, I have to confess that I have been somewhat remiss in mentioning that April is Autism Awareness Month.  As I have mentioned before, my son is autistic, as is one of my nephews.  Since my son was recently home from school for spring break, I want to talk a little bit about autism, how it has affected our lives, and a little of his progress at his new school.

Autism is a complex neurological disorder that is characterized by a impaired social interaction and communication.  Those who suffer from autism display a lot of repetitive behaviors and rote communication.  According to AutismSpeaks.org, it is estimated that 1 in 110 children will be diagnosed with some form of autism.  It is more prevalent in boys.  As I said, my son ani

Those with autism display a lot of repetitive behaviors.  My son likes to listen to music or watch videos.  He will listen to the same song over and over again, and not the whole song.  When watching videos he will play a few seconds, then rewind to watch those same few seconds over and over again.  I remember taking a family vacation once where we drove from the DC area to the beach in North Carolina.  For about the whole 8 hour drive, my son wanted to listen to Kenny Chesney's "When the Sun Goes Down" for just about the whole trip.  Each time he started it over, he asked me to sing.

Change to routine is very hard on a person with autism.  With our son, there are certain activities that he associates with me, and others he associates with his mom.  He also tends to compartmentalize certain things.  For example, we have been trying to get him to drink milk out of a regular cup instead of a sippy cup. He is perfectly capable of drinking out of a regular cup; he will drink water from a cup.  However, in his mind, milk belongs in a sippy cup because he has always drank milk from a sippy cup.  He refuses to drink milk from a regular cup.

My son and his water drinking is a bit of a triumph.  He stops at just about any water fountain to take a drink of water.  At home, he will often go to a bathroom sink, turn on the water, and drink directly from the tap as if it were a fountain.  During spring break, I gave him a styrofoam cup with water in it to drink from.  After he drank the water, he apparently wanted more and headed upstairs to the bathroom sink.  Instead of drinking from the tap, he refilled his cup and drank from it.  I was so proud.  We take great pleasure in these small victories.

Like any disorder, the severity and symptoms can vary from person to person.  Some people with autism are completely non-verbal.  My son, on the other hand, never seems to stop talking.  For the most part, his language is not typical conversation.  For example, if he wants to tell you something, he will usually phrase it in the question.  If he knows we are going to go to a baseball game, he will ask us, "Where are we going on Saturday?"  I will usually say, "I don't know," and ask him the question again.  He will then respond, "We are going to the Baysox game."   

These are just a few of the challenges that we as a family and so many other families are facing in dealing with autism.  There are so many other symptoms and struggles that we deal with on a daily basis.  With so many children being diagnosed with autism it is becoming more difficult for people to not know somebody affected by autism.  Still, so many do not understand or comprehend that a child with autism does not view the world the same as they do, nor are they able to understand that the behavior of an child with autism is a response to the different way they process their surroundings.

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Spring Break

Image via WikipediaThings don't usually work out quite this way.  One of my son's favorite activities is going to Bowie Baysox baseball games.  He has the best time there.  So when he went away to school, we anxiously awaited for the Baysox schedule to come out to see how well they coincided with his breaks from school.  Unfortunately, the two schedules do not line up very well at all.

For us, due to my work schedule and commute, going to games on the weekends works much better for us than during the week.  My son came home Tuesday for Spring Break, and the Baysox are going to be on a road trip starting today.  So, the only two home games scheduled during his Spring Break were Tuesday night and last night.  Both nights the weather forecasts called for rain, possibly severe at times.  That is a forecast that makes my son, well, freak out.

We had watched the forecasts closely for several days leading up to games.  We wanted to get him to at least one game while he was here, preferably both.  As we got closer to game days, the forecasts were looking more ominous, especially for Wednesday night.  While we know forecasting the weather is not an exact science, there is a reason for the old saying that April showers bring May flowers.  For that reason we were hopeful that we would get at least one game in.

When I left for work on Tuesday morning, it was raining.  Thankfully, it ended by late afternoon.  I was able to get out of the office on time, and even though the commute was more hellish than usual, we were able to get to the game on time.  The skies were overcast, and it was somewhat windy, but the rain held off and we were able to see the game on Tuesday night.

We got up yesterday, and they were still calling for a chance of some severe thunderstorms.  My son does not handle thunderstorms very well at all.  I have come home during thunderstorms in the past and found in him hiding in the bathroom.  Thankfully, the rain and the storms never materialized.  In fact, the day was absolutely perfect for baseball, and we were able to get both games in.

When I started this by saying that things don't normally work out this way, I meant that normally it would have rained one or both nights.  My son has been disappointed more than once by rain delays or cancellations.  Plus there is some truth to the old saying that if you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans.  Still, I think the Good Lord looks kindly upon and holds a special place in heaven and his heart for kids with special needs.  He surely blessed my son these past two days.

Kinda Sad

Image via WikipediaI am sitting here tonight watching a Washington Nationals game on television.  It is the first game that I have had the opportunity to watch.  As I begin writing this, the Nationals have a 3-0 lead over the Florida Nationals.  The one thing about my son being away at school is that I actually can watch what I want on television, when I want to watch it.  When he is home, we might start watching the game, but after a few minutes, he may switch it to another channel or play a video game.

Still, with my new found freedom of being able to watch the game from start to finish if I so desire, I am feeling somewhat melancholy tonight.  It is not the fact that he is away at school that has me feeling a little bit in the dumps tonight.  While we definitely miss him around the house, his being away at school has become more the norm than the exception.  I guess I have gotten somewhat used to him being gone, if that is possible.

The reason for my feeling blue has more to do with tomorrow.  Tomorrow is my son's 17th birthday, and I will not be with him for it.  It will be the first time that I have not been with him on his birthday.  I was in the hospital room with him the night he was born, and I have been with him every year since then.  My wife will be going out to the school tomorrow to take cupcakes for his class and to take birthday presents for him to open, so at least the day will be acknowledged.

Since my son has gone away to school, I have taken more days off than I usually do.  I almost always take off to go pick him up from school for breaks and to take him back to work after the break is over.  For that reason, I did not think about taking off on his birthday.  I did not think it would bother me to miss his birthday.  I was wrong.  It is times like these that make me wish he would speak on the phone so that I could at least talk to him and wish him a happy birthday.