Change

My wife got hired as a CNA at a local nursing home.  The interview went really good and they will call her on Monday.  She needs to get out of the factory 3rd shift.  She feels unappreciated and does not like at all what she's doing.  The women are mean and crabby and all talk shit about one another.  It does feel like a prison.  The office doesn't care about us.  We are just a number.  I will not ever try to voice my opinion again.  They don't care.  They don't do my job and yet they think by doing it this way will be easier.  Whatever.  I need to find myself as well.  Factory life is hard work unless you supervise and just watch everyone else break their backs.

I am back to getting the kids up in the morning.  I have to drive my brother in law across town and then take his 3 year old daughter and my 2 to work with me.  My wife get's off work, gives me her keys and then we go our own way.  I go to work and she goes home to watch the kids. 

The past several years have been hard.  I soon had to realize about my depression and anxiety and I needed help.  Antidepressants have help me a lot the past few months.

Dane hasn't had too many meltdowns in the past month.  I think his uncle and cousin has been on his level to play around to his liking.  He has been doing amazing in school.  A mother wrote the teacher a note to have me call her and set up a play date with her son. 

Over the past couple weeks my niece who is residing with us was sick.  So it goes, Dane and Ally got sick and had to have breathing treatments every 4 hours.  A nebulizer inhaler on all 3 kids.  My wife missed a week of work with FML to get them back to health.  All three have lost that bad cough.

Today the theater burnt down.  It sounds like 1 firemen died in the blaze.  I took my kids down to the corner to see the fire.  Lots of firetrucks and a helicopter.  This theater was a historical sight.  I remember I first saw E.T. and Ghostbusters here.  I took Dane and Ally to see Cars 2 and Alvin and the Chipmunks, Chipwrecked here.  Now it's gone. 

Anxiety

What a stressful new year it has been so far.  My brother in law is staying with us and his 3 year old daughter for a while.  He has no job, car, license and a girl pregnat which possibly may not be his child.  Poor guy.  I really wish the best for him.  The good news is that I don't have to load up the kids at 5 in the morning and haul them to work with me to exchange them with their mother.

Dawn is sick and tired of 3rd shift at the factory.  People are grumpy and disrespectful and lazy.  Not to mention the management is terrible. She deserves better and wants to go back into nursing..soon.  But right now she just wants to get off the graveyard shift.

Thank the heavens for Prozac.  I have been on it for the last couple months and has really took the edge off the stress of raising kids like a single father.  Things between my wife and I were awful.  I guess we really had to hit bottom to realize we need help.  We are now very happy again.  We realize how much we need each other and do love each other.  We felt like we grew apart for the past several years.

At Danes last therapy treatment I talked to this single mother who has been taking her 5 year old to therapy 3 days a week for 3 years for behavior.  She had an IPad with her and let Dane play Angry Birds on it.  I have never seen an IPad that close before.  I was amused how much attachment Dane took to it.  He tells me that school lets him play with one and he wants one.  I don't blame him but he just wants to play angry birds on it.

Happily though my brother-in-law got a job interview and orientation at a local meat packaging plant.  He will start at 7 which means the kids can sleep in until my wife gets home, take him to work and then take Dane to school and come home and hopefully get some sleep in.

I have been waiting to get a picture of Danes "squeeze machine" his case worker gave us.  He really likes it.  I will have to get a picture on soon.  His therapist also had him made a body sock.  He knows when to get in it for his own sensory break but the first night in it he hit his head on the table.   Ally, my daughter likes to get into it and say she's a ghost.  "Ooohhhh"  she moans...so funny.

Goals of an IEP

These are a couple links with IEP goals with and without objectives for students with autism.  Some pretty good information to glance at.

Goals with Objectives: http://www.specialed.us/autism/05/g_o.htm

Goals without Objectives: http://www.specialed.us/autism/05/gwo.htm

Liquid Timer - Calming Attachment

Dane found an old liquid timer in my old bedroom at my parents house.  It's one of those, well, it's like an hour glass that you flip over and blobs of liquid colors spin gears inside the thing.  It is so old that the colors faded and it just looks like water.  Now, he has an obsession taking this with him everywhere.

The first night home with it he was getting tired.  I was thinking that it wouldn't surprise me if he watched it until he fell asleep.  My assumption was correct.  It must have taken 45 minutes of him flipping it and watching the little wheels spin and eventually he fell asleep on the couch.  He has always has a visual attachment with spinning objects.  Maybe some day he will be a disk jocky spinning records or maybe he will design roller coasters.  He says he wants to be a scientist and a fire fighter or a teacher.  Its fun to hear him say these things.  Up until he turned 5 I didn't think I'd have actual conversations with him.  His replies are short yes or no answers but he has been asking "Why?  I have to keep my answers short because I see the confusion in his eyes when I talk too much.

His meltdowns have been short to none lately.  He still has no control of hitting his sister when he's mad.  Allyson does bring on the situation when she interrupts him or takes something from him.  Other then that they play really good.

Next Tuesday Dane doesn't have therapy.  I made him his first eye doctor appointment.  Before I go in with him I will show him a video of someone getting their eyes checked or pictures of what will happen.  This will be so he is aware of what will happen.  I will show him an eye chart and possibly the eye drops to dialate the pupils.  Then I will show him that thing that goes in front of your face where you look into and the doctor tells you which one is blurry.  1 or 2?

I think Dane needs glasses.  He squints just like I do without my glasses.  If he does get glasses I want them to have a special tint to them so he won't have to wear sunglasses in certain stores that freak him out.  He goes crazy over the ceiling fans when we walk into Menards.  That's the first department walking into that store.  For some reason it makes him happy so I always make a quick stroll through.

Before I go into a store like that, I have to tell him that we are Not going to look at the fans if we are in a hurry to avoid a stressful situation.  Telling him before hand what I expect from our shopping experience really helps a lot.  Like, "were just here to look."  "We are not getting any toys or candy for you."  "If you are really good you get a treat when we get home."  He replies with an "Awwww man"  Which is better than an embarrassing tantrum from a 6 year old.  Therapy has been helping him a lot.  He has come a long way.

I have always had Dane around kids his own peers to learn from.  Picture schedules were a godsend and Baby Einstein videos were a life saver when he was a baby.  His little sister has helped him learn how to be more social as well.  All the kids in his class really seem to like him and his teachers love him.