Confirmation Day Update

Last week, we went to our son's school for his Confirmation in the Catholic Church.  As I mentioned in my post last Sunday, I was extremely proud of how well he has done in church and how much he has grown.  We were very grateful for the work that the lady who conducted the classes did for my son and the other kids that had their Confirmations that day.

This week, we received a card with a handwritten note from the woman that conducted the classes.  This is what she wrote:

I want to take this opportunity to say thank you for giving me the privilege of preparing your son for First Communion and Confirmation.  He did an excellent job and you can be very proud of him.

I was blown away.  Here, we should have been expressing our gratitude (which we did) for her hard work and she was writing to us to thank us for letting her prepare our son for the sacraments.  This type of attitude goes to further enforce in our hearts and mind that our son is in the right place.  The people there really do care about the kids and make an impact in improving their lives.

Confirmation Day

There are some days when you just can't help but be proud of your kids and want to brag on them a little.  Today happens to be one of those days.  We went out to my son's school to celebrate the sacrament of his Confirmation in the Catholic Church.  Aside from the obvious significance of the event, it also served to show us just how much our son has grown since we made the decision to send him away for school.

When our son was younger, we tried taking him to churches whenever we had a wedding to attend or a cousin was having First Communion or Confirmation.  His behavior during those attempts was, in a word, atrocious.  More often than not, my wife or I would have to take him out of the sanctuary into the vestibule so that his outbursts would not disturb the others in the service.

When the school first approached us about our son going through the classes that they gave for First Communion and Confirmation.  We were concerned about his past behavior and whether or not he would understand what was going on.  I still don't know if he fully understands the significance of the sacraments, but his behavior during church has been exemplary.  He really enjoy going to church.

The thing I like about attending the mass at the chapel in his school is that they tailor the homily to the special needs kids in attendance.  The priest reads the gospel to them like he is reading a bedtime story to the kids.  He then gives a very short homily, again as if he is telling the kids a story.  It allows the kids to not get bored while listening to the sermon.

My son, really likes the priest that they have at the school.  Whenever he sees Father Paul, his face lights up in a big smile and he says, "It's Father!"  Father Paul always comes over to my son and greets him with a fist bump.  I think it is pretty cool.

Today, while watching my son during the service, I was struck by how well he did.  Whenever the priest did the sign of the cross, I saw my son crossing himself.  During prayer, he placed his hands together in the typical prayer position.  During the songs, he often started to dance a little.  I think of King David dancing before the LORD.  More importantly, throughout the whole service, he did not break into any of his ritual word games that he likes to do with us.

For the Confirmation sacrament service, the local Bishop officiates the mass.  Father Paul still read the gospel reading to the kids.  The Bishop also has a background in dealing with special needs kids and did an excellent job of giving a nice homily for the kids.

Prior to the start of the service, the Bishop spoke to my son.  My son was particularly taken with the crucifix around the Bishop's neck.

Here, my son gets anointed by the Bishop.

All in all, it was a wonderful day.  I am so proud of what he has accomplished so far at the school and how much he enjoys attending their church services.  Of course, afterward we had to take a drive to the Golden Corral for lunch and then to Target to get a new CD player and CD.

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.

Chrome City Ride 2012

Today was the 11th Annual Chrome City Ride to benefit The Benedictine School for Exceptional Children in rural Ridgely, Maryland. The Benedictine School is special to me for a couple of reason.  First, my nephew attended and graduated from the school.  Second, and more importantly, my son is currently a student there.
This is my second year of attending the Chrome City Ride.

The Chrome City Ride is one of the many fund raising activities that the Benedictine Foundation performs during the year to raise money for the Benedictine School and related communities.  Owners of classic cars, hot rods, and several motorcycles cruise onto the school grounds to show off of their rides.  It is part car show and part cookout along with entertainment.

As I said, today was the 11th time that the event has been held at the school.  Each year, the number of attendees has grown.  This year's event hit a milestone in terms of fundraising for the school, they exceeded the $1 million mark in funds raised for the school.  Simply awesome!  Here are a couple of pictures from today.

I thought this engine was pretty cool.  Hopefully you can see it.  It is signed by the greatest driver in NASCAR racing history, Richard Petty.

And of course, Elvis was there to sing a few songs.

Sunday Trip to Golden Corral

English: Golden Corral restaurant at 3800 North Roxboro Street in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today, we decided that we were going to go out to visit my son at his school.  Now that he is eating a much wider variety of foods, he is doing so much better and putting some weight back on.  With his improved diet, one of his favorite places to go eat is the Golden Corral for their buffet.  We can count on him eating a couple of big plates of foods.  Today was no exception.

I have long suspected that there are certain people who work in my son's dorm that have a lot more difficulty in dealing with some of his behavioral issues than others.  I have felt that rather than alleviate some of his difficulties, they tend to exacerbate the situation.  I do believe that it is important that he learn to behave properly with all of those he comes in contact with, however, I also think that they should learn the best ways of helping him get through difficult times.

My suspicions were somewhat confirmed when I called to check up on him a few days ago.  The lady I happened to speak with was one of those that my son really responds well to.  She was telling me that she almost never has any difficulty getting my son to behave and have a good day.  We did have a discussion about one of the other ladies that I have suspected has a little more of a difficult time with my son.  Turns out, she thinks the other lady has a bit of a personality conflict with my son.  Often when I have spoken with this second person, she has reported that my son has had a difficult time.

The day when my son usually has his most difficult days is on Sundays.  Frequently, the person who he gets along with (lady #1) is off that day.  The one he doesn't get along with (lady #2) is usually one of the ones that work on Sunday.  Often, we have shown up on a Sunday and my son has been having a difficult time.  He has been non-compliant and often is crying. Today, however, he was in a pretty good mood and participating in activities when we walked in.  I think primarily because lady #1 was working, and he knew we were coming.

In my conversation with lady #1 earlier in the week, she probably revealed a little more than she should have regarding lady #2.  She had me that she has tried to tell #2 ways that she could get my son to respond better.  For example, my son loves to listen to his music.  Lady #1 lets him have it as long as he behaves.  Lady #2, on the other hand, takes his music away and tries to force compliance first before allowing him to have music.  Method #1 is far more effective.  Lady #1 did tell me that she had heard that lady #2 will be dealing less regularly with my son.  

Today, lady #2 was around the building but not in the area that my son was in.  I do not know if that will be a permanent change, but if it helps him to do better then I am all for the change.  We will be going back out for another visit in two weeks when it is time for the annual Chrome City Ride at the school.  Hopefully, between now and then my son will have some better days.  The past week has been a difficult one for him at school and in the dorm.  We have told lady #1 that she needs to work with him 24/7 with no days off.  After all, we only want what is best for our son.

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.

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.

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.

Related articles

• Labor Day, a Melancholy End to Summer (dorothyadele.wordpress.com)
• Back to school (mostlyyummymummy.com)
• How was your back-to-school send-off? (timesunion.com)

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

I generally don't like change.  I think most of us probably would prefer to stay in our comfort zones.  While I don't like change, I like to think that I am fairly flexible and can adapt to change fairly quickly.  Change to the routine is not something that is readily welcome in the world of the child with autism.

My son's two week break from school is just about over.  In the past, the summer session always started on July 1st.  One of our family traditions is to go to the Bowie Baysox baseball games on July 4th for the game and fireworks.  Thankfully, this year the summer session at my son's school doesn't begin until July 5th, so we will be able to take him to one more game before the session begins.

Yesterday, we received a letter from the school regarding his upcoming classroom assignments.  When he first began attending the school, he was assigned to the Pre-Vocational Class #2.  He has absolutely loved his teacher and his one-on-one aide in that classroom, and they have loved him. His new classroom assignment is the Vocational Class #1, without a one-on-one aide. 

My mother in law, who has experience with the school, says that the fact that they are moving him to Vocational Class is an indicator at how well he performed in the other classroom.  His yearbook had all of the classes grouped by their level.  They actually passed him over the Life Skills class level to put him in the Vocational Class.

On the one hand, we are pleased that he is advancing to another level in the school.  We will miss his current teacher but we are sure his new teacher will be just as caring, though we are concerned with how long it will take for him to adjust.  Our biggest concern is the lack of a one-on-one aide, as it is something we feel he really needs.

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.

Proud Medal Winner

Image via WikipediaIt does my heart good to get good news from school.  Over the past few weeks, the good news from school has been a lot less frequent.  It is not that he has been doing poorly, but he has been exhibiting more of his undesirable behaviors of late.  For the last couple weeks he has been doing a lot more dropping to the ground, throwing things, and hitting those that get near him.

Because he had been adjusting so well, I have cut back on my phone calls to the school to every other day rather than every day like when he first started at the school. With him exhibiting his undesirable and unacceptable behaviors more frequently of late, I have been a bit more hesitant when I call to check on him.

Last night, I called to check on him and got a very favorable report.  Over the past two days, he had not been dropping as often as he had been over the past two weeks.  In fact, the aide that I spoke with in the dorm informed me that the night before he had won a medal by finishing third in swimming.  He has proudly worn the medal ever since.

The mere fact that my son is swimming is a marked improvement in and of itself.  The school has a very nice indoor swimming pool.  When he first started going to the school, he refused to get into the water, instead preferring to watch the other kids.  Just to get in the water is improvement, to finish third in an event is just awesome.

During the Beijing Olympics when Michael Phelps won his 8 gold medals, my son watched intently.  He really enjoyed watching the swimming events.  In the school he attended at that time, they gave out some play medals during the Olympics.  He loved wearing those, so I know he is thrilled to be wearing a medal he earned at school.  I know I am. 

Happy Birthday, Son

Cover of The Aristocats (Special Edition)I am in a little bit better frame of mind tonight than I was last night.  To be perfectly honest, I was kind of moping around my office a little this morning.  I was still regretting it a little bit that I had not decided to take a vacation day to go visit my son at school to celebrate his 17th birthday.

My wife went out to the school today with some cupcakes, presents, and balloons for him so that he would have some special fun today.  She told me he was very excited to get the presents.  We had gotten him two Word Girl DVDs, a Spongebob Squarepants DVD, and Disney's The Aristocats.  He was particularly excited to get The Aristocats.  He had mentioned that he wanted it just before we took him back to school after his last break.

I was able to reach my wife on her cell phone shortly before she got to the school.  Usually, my son does not want to talk on the phone at all, but I told her that I wished I had taken off work to go out with her for his birthday and I wanted her to try to get him to talk on the phone so that I could wish him a happy birthday.  To my surprise and my delight, she was able to get him to talk on the phone for a little bit.

When he got on the phone, he didn't want to talk long, but he sounded very excited.  Usually, when he wants to tell you something, he phrases it as a question so that you will ask the question back to him.  The first words out of his mouth were, "Who is coming on the 19th?"  The 19th happens to be the day his spring break starts. I told him I did not know and asked who was coming on the 19th. He said, "Daddy is coming on the 19th."  So he is very excited and anticipating his next trip home.  Me too.

Home for a Long Weekend

Yesterday we picked our son up from school for a scheduled long weekend home.  It had been a little more than three weeks since we had dropped him off.  Originally, he was supposed to be at school for a little more than five weeks, but after week one we had to bring him home due to an ear infection.  After he recovered and went back to school, the three weeks he was there have been the longest he had been away from home.

For the most part, he has done better during the week when he has class.  He has struggled most on the weekends when he has spent most of his time in the dorms.  His weekend struggles have been particularly tough on my wife and I.  So much so that we have almost dreaded calling to check up on him on the weekends.  This past weekend, we got one of the better weekend reports that he had been eating better, interacting with peers, and cooperating in general.

When we picked him up yesterday and spoke to his teacher, she said that as of last Wednesday, my son seemed like a different child.  He had been performing his tasks without resistance and had been eating three meals a day.  Prior to that he would only eat lunch in school and occasionally a little breakfast.  This was a major relief to us because we had been particularly concerned about how little he had been eating, especially on the weekend and evenings.

He was pretty excited to be coming home.  The whole way home he was yapping away a mile a minute.  It was kind of funny because he would go into some of his rote conversations.  We would start to do our role in the conversation, but he had so much to say that he would quickly move from one topic to another.  He has been keeping me pretty busy doing things when I am home from work at night.  I will be burning him at least one or two DVDs over the weekend.

I have had a couple major concerns with him adjusting to living away from home.  A couple of them I have chronicled here previously.  His eating and drinking have been a major concern.  Another was that he would not comprehend or understand us taking him to school.  My fear was that he would think that we were abandoning him.

Yesterday, my wife asked him a question.  I can only hope that he didn't fully understand what she was asking him.  She asked him if he thought that mommy and daddy had forgotten about him.  His answer was "yes."  If he understood her correctly, then another of my biggest fears has been realized.  We have told him without equivocation that we would never forget about him.  My prayer is that he will know we will always love him and be there for us.  

 

Some Good, Some Bad

We are closing in on the second full week of my son being back at school.  On Friday, I had posted about how he had been having a good week in school.  In fact, we found out that our son had been named "Student of the Week" and had his photo placed in the hallway of the school.

When my son first started at the new school, they gave him his own room in the dorm, partly because they thought it would help him to adjust to living in the dorms.  We discovered when we took him back to school  on Monday of last week, that he now had a roommate, which would be another new experience for him.

Anyway, he had been having a pretty good week last week, but I was worried about how his weekend would go because he seemed to have a more difficult time on the weekends.  I had been dreading calling on the weekend because I didn't want to hear bad news.

We didn't get a chance to check in with the school on Saturday, but was able to call the school Sunday evening.  When I spoke to the people in the dorm, they told me that our son had a rough day.  He had spent a lot of the day dropping to the floor and basically not cooperating a whole lot.  There had been a phone call from somebody in the school administration about our son, but that person was gone when we called back.

My wife returned the call to the school administrator on Monday evening to discover that our son's new roommate had bit our son on Saturday morning.  Our son was fine, but they decided to move our son to a different room with a new roommate.  When I called the dorm Monday night, they said he had a rough night since coming back to the dorm from school. 

Fortunately, last night and tonight he has had a better time of it.  He has been a bit more cooperative in the dorm, but he still is not eating in the dorms.  I am hoping that part of his tough time this week was the stress of being bitten.  His new roommate is a kid that was a classmate at another school a few years ago.  I am not sure if my son remembers him, but hopefully they will get along.  Just two weeks from today until his next long weekend home.

A Good Week

It is always hard on me when we take our son back to school.  I always worry about how he is doing and how he is adjusting to this change in his life.  Like a lot of autistic kids, whenever his routine is upset he has a hard time. 

Consequently, when he is away at school, I like to call to check up on his progress.  The people at the school and at the dorm are very patient about my calling on a near daily basis.  I get down whenever I hear that he has been having a difficult time.  Weekends seem to be hardest for him.

On the other hand, it gives us a great deal of comfort when we hear that he is doing well.  We took him back to school on Monday, and this has been a week of good news.  On Tuesday night when I called, he was at a social, which is one of his favorite activities in the evenings at the school.

My father in law, is on the Board of Directors of the school, and he was at a meeting at the school yesterday.  He called my wife to let her know that our son was named "Student of the Week" and would have his picture posted on the wall of the school.  Last night, my wife called the school and he had been well behaved.  He was also at another social dancing the night away.

As I said, the weekends have been the hardest for him.  He still isn't eating a whole lot of the food being offered to him.  In the past, he has also stopped drinking fluids.  The good news is that the dorm worker I spoke with on Wednesday said that he has been drinking more.  Hopefully he will continue to make progress and adjust to school.  At least the week thus far has been encouraging.

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Nothing Ever Goes as Planned

Image via WikipediaAs is usually the case, things don't always go as planned.  I woke up this morning feeling a little under the weather, so I decided to take the day off to get a little extra rest.  I woke up around 10am to start burning some DVDs to take out to my son at school when we took his medications and DVD player to him.

Unfortunately, shortly before 2pm, we received a call from the school saying that our son was in the infirmary with a fever, and they thought he might have an ear infection.  We called our doctor to see if we could get an antibiotic prescribed, but they would not call in a prescription without seeing our son. So we scheduled an appointment with our doctor for Saturday morning, and we headed out to the school to pick up our son after only five days of being back at school. 

We walked into the infirmary and saw him lying in bed underneath a blanket.  As soon as he saw us, he perked right up and asked us how many points he earned for being in the infirmary.  My son loves earning points for any time he does anything like go to school.  Then he proceeded to tell me which bridges we would cross on our way back to our house from the Eastern Short back to Bowie.

Monday, we had a terrible time taking him back to school.  He is now home again after only four days back at school when he was scheduled to be there for five weeks.  Granted, he is sick this time, and he needs to see his doctor, but it doesn't make it any easier.  Depending on how he feels, I hope we will be able to take him back to the dorm on Sunday.  If not Sunday, then it will probably be Monday.  Either way, I expect another difficult day.  Wish us luck.

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A Tough Day

Monday was an unbelievably draining day.  As I mentioned on Sunday, we were set to take our son back to live at his school on the Eastern Shore.  All day Sunday, he kept telling me, "no school tomorrow, Daddy."  At one point, he said to me, "Daddy has to go to work tomorrow."

His, "Daddy has to go to work tomorrow" comment gave my wife a pretty good idea on how to approach taking him back to school.  She thought it would tip him off if I stayed home from work on a Monday, and that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get him in the car to head out to school.

So, Monday morning, I headed out to run some errands.  My first stop was to take my car to Jiffy Lube for an oil change.  The next stop was to head to the local shopping center to hang out until my wife was ready to venture out.  She took him for a haircut and then to the mall.  They would go to Barnes & Noble and I would follow them when they went to the car.

It worked like clockwork.  They left Barnes & Noble and headed back to get him in the car, while I walked several feet behind him.  Surprisingly, she was able to get him in the back seat of the car.  He usually sits in front.  With his seat belt on and the child safety locks in place, we headed out to school.

The drive out was fairly uneventful.  There were a few exclamations from him about not wanting to go to school, but for the most part, he sat quietly in the back listening to music.  After we got across the Bay Bridge, he started to protest more loudly that he wanted to go home.  That was intermixed with comments about one of his classmates that he dances with at the school socials.

We got to the school just before 1pm, and that is when the fireworks started.  As soon as we parked the car and opened the door on his side of the car, he wedged himself between the front and back seat on the floor.  This was not one of his run of the mill tantrums.   

As I attempted to coax our son from the car, my wife took his things to his dorm room.  Usually when my son is dropping to the ground, or in this case the floor of the car, that is all he does.  Today there were tears and a look that seemed to be a mix of fear and betrayal.  Needless to say, it tore me up, and tears started to form in my own eyes.

Some of the residential staff came out to try to assist in getting him from the car.  One went back to try to get one of the teachers from his classroom.  One of the teaching assistants came out to try to help.  All told, it took over an hour to get him out of the car, and it took a couple of the male staff to physically remove him from the car.

Once out of the car, he continued to lie on the ground, crying.  It was at this point that his primary teacher showed up.  She was the only person that he responded well to, and he proceeded to stand up and walk into the dorm area with her.  As we pulled away, we saw him walking with his teacher and the aide towards the school building.

We have to go back out to the school next weekend to take him some medications after we get them refilled.  I do not think we are able to go out there for a visit yet.  I think my wife and I have made up our minds to take his portable DVD player out to him so he will have another thing from home to make his transition a little more comfortable.

I am really hoping that he can make it through the next five weeks before his next break.  Having him home for three weeks over Christmas instead of the scheduled 10 days, made today a lot more difficult, at least in my opinion.  So far, he has only been away for two weeks.  These folks are supposed to be the experts in helping these kids to adjust.  As much as I miss him, I really hope they can help him make it through the full five weeks he is to be there.

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Back at School

My son has been back at school since last Monday after coming home for a long weekend over Thanksgiving.  On my last update, which I wrote the night before we were to take him home.  I was concerned at the time that it would be a challenge to get him to return back to school.  Let me tell you, it was more than difficult. 

Whenever my son thinks we are taking him someplace he doesn't want to go, he will drop to the ground and refuse to move.  We found out that they were able weigh him at school and that he weighs in at 186lbs.  Needless to say, if he drops to the ground, my wife and I can not move him.

We decide that on the day we were to return him to school, that we would take him someplace he liked to go.  He had been asking to go to IHOP over the Thanksgiving break, so we decided to head out to IHOP that morning.  As soon as he got out the door, he dropped to the ground.  After about half an hour, we finally got him to the car and headed to breakfast.

We finished breakfast, and we headed out the door, he dropped to the floor in the restaurant.  Once we got him out of the restaurant, we had at least three more incident of his dropping to the ground.  Two of them were in the parking lot between two cars.  After several minutes, I walked to a nearby fire station and enlisted the help of some firemen to help get him in the car.

Once we got out to school and went in for the Christmas party.  We had a pretty good time while we were there.  I got to meet a few of the other people at the school who work with our son.  At the party, Santa Claus was there.  My son usually doesn't want to see Santa, but he sat on his lap and told Santa something he wanted for Christmas.  Still, our son wanted to go home, and at one point asked me to stay with him.

I call daily to check on his status.  The good news his first week back was that he was attending school daily, and was eating lunch.  Unfortunately, at the dorms he was not eating dinner.  The weekends for him at school have been the most trying.  Those are the days that he usually doesn't eat anything.  I had almost gotten to the point where I dreaded calling to check on him because I was concerned he wasn't eating.

On Sunday night, I called and he was down at a social.  He loves going to those so he can dance.  The best thing was that they reported that he ate well that day and had an overall excellent day, watching football and decorating the Christmas tree.  Then yesterday, he refused to go to class and spent the day in the dorm.

There have been several good reports, but for every good report there has been some negative.  It is a major adjustment period for him and for us.  On the positive, he is starting to interact more with the other kids in the dorms.  One day I could hear him in the background laughing and playing with the others.  Then the next, he spends it in his room.  Only two more weeks until Christmas break.

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