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 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.