Our life with autism..... The great pants debate....

     Well...... It has been 6 months again LOL. I swear... It really should not be this hard but here we are again!
     On to another installment of our life with Autism. This is going to be about the great pants debate.... As my son gets older he gets even more particular about what he wears. When he was younger till about the age of 6 he did not care what he wore, now I have to go through an act of congress to get him to ok a shirt or worse PANTS.
     When he was first diagnosed he would wear jeans he did not care, I will even go as far to say he liked them..... What??? Soon it became no jeans only "comfy" pants (jersey, cotton, sweat, you know lay around the house stuff) of course I did not want him to be uncomfortable so I took the jeans out of his wardrobe. Then it became he only like "comfy" pants that were not hot (so no sweat pants) so of course again I took those out. Now it has gotten to I only like silky pants (basketball jersey material) not cotton pants at all, ugggggggghhhhhh.
     Of course I want him to be comfortable especially at school because he has enough behaviors going on to add anything to it. So I took the cotton pants out too, which was pretty excruciating for me. Because he only wore one particular kind of cotton pants, they are sold at walmart in the 365 brand. Last year I only bought one pair of each color and half way through the school year he had ruined two pairs and walmart had no more left in his size. So being the prepared mom I try to be I bought two pairs in his size now and one pair of each color in a size up in case he grew over the year. So Yes that is twelve pairs of pants he will not wear. Guess what..... The price tags on the pants were stickers so of course since they were going to be stored I TOOK THE TAGS OFF. I mean these are the only pants he wears..... Right? Wrong! Because now he only wears SILKY "comfy" pants. Oh the joys of being an autism mom ;)

My Son's Confessions......

Was reading my son a story where they were talking about a girl rolling her eyes, sooooo my son precedes to tell me..... Momma that is what Daddy does, I say oh really, he says yeah whenever you say dinner is ready....... Hmmmmmm good to know kid........

Our life with autism....... IEP hell.....

     Let me start off by saying I know we have it way easier than other families that have to deal with school systems but I feel that in all cases at one time or another something goes wrong or is left out. So with that being said let me get started. When I have to go to an IEP meeting even though everyone is very nice and accommodating I always get very bad anxiety. It is not fun going into a room with at least 5 other people that want to tell you what your child does wrong or how he spit at them, took his clothes off, cussed like a sailor or just flat out refused to do his work. It is hard because to you they only want to focus on the negative none of the positive which in the end I think out weighs the negative.
     In my first post about our life with autism (if you have not read it here) this is the post I was talking about to come read. When we first started our IEP meetings I was naive I thought they would do what was best for your child but I came to find that was not true. We had about 3 different IEP meetings last year and not one time was I told my son's diagnosis of autism would not be in his IEP of course I did not ask for a copy to take home to read either but did not think I had to. Now wish I would have because I certainly would not have said ok to that. So of course that cause problems when school started this year because he could not get the services he needed cause he was not considered a child with autism. They finally amended it to be in there but by then he was in his new school and had they put it in last year this year may have gone differently.
     My advice for handling an IEP meeting is to not take any chances if you want to take an autism advocate then do it (it is my son's case worker for his dd waiver but there are advocates around where ever you live you just have to research and find one) wish I would have done that so I would have understood more. Do not go in blind make sure you read and research so you know what they are talking about. If you need support take someone with you (I never had to because he case worker and DTT are awesome they were very supportive and helped me a lot this year). Also before you sign anything ask them for a copy to take home and read to make sure everything is in it that you feel needs to be had I done that his autism would have been in it last year. A lot of people will tell you to go in there guns blazing ready for a fight but I say if the school is trying to work with you and you have had no issues try to listen first then if they want a fight bring it. Most importantly do not let it get you down and upset you they will tell you things you do not want to hear but deep down you know your child is awesome and just has a few different quirks to deal with, they will be fine in the long run it is just a bump in the road of many.  

I Am Still On Adult Time......

     Just checked in on the old blog here and realized I have not posted anything since October of 2015......... I only Posted 4 times last year all together I have not idea why it is so hard to set down and write a blog but for some reason it is. I have about 5 unfinished blogs that never got posted, maybe one day I will get them up we shall see. My life is crazy as ever even though I stay at home my oldest is in school and has his appointments he has to go to, and my youngest who is a little over 2 is not talking so that means speech therapy and Occupational therapy oh yay but I will get into that in another blog post..... Maybe...... We adopted a little dog from our local shelter in November we named her Miss Rosie she may make an apperance or two, that was a hard experince for me because I did not want to go through what I went through with my Annabelle girl but my oldest wanted another pet so here we are. She is the sweetest little thing ever we love her so much. My oldest is going in to the second grade and just turned 7 two weeks ago which I can not believe this adult time in a bitch. Well guess that is the only update I have for now lets see if I upload anything in the next year or if I will be reading this in a year and thinking, hmmmm guess I better post an update.