ohbladioblahblog

They say it takes 16 days to make a habit. Not so with kids with autism. Show them something once that they like, forget about every changing their minds.

For something that is good. But it seems to work more with the “habits” that probably aren’t so good. Like taking drinks to bed. I never let them do it as babies or toddlers. And I’m not sure on how it started but I think one of them was sick and wasn’t drinking much. I let him have some watered juice when they went to bed. When he was better, I tried to tell him no more juice to bed but that was met with cries, lots of cries and I gave in. Then the other son saw was the first son was getting and demanded it for himself. Now years later…

Ryan recently switched to drinking from a thermos. He only has one so I have to wash it every night. So Ryan no longer takes his drink to bed. Yay! So I am working on getting Andy to relinquish his. The ironic thing is that Andy doesn’t even drink the juice. Every morning he brings a full cup into the kitchen.

Sometimes Andy misplaces his cup and can’t find it. I won’t look for it especially close to bed time. Last night, he said he couldn’t play his DS (because he didn’t have his cup.) I told him he could but he was adamant. Tonight was the same thing and of course he gets upset. I am not sure why he feels the need to punish himself like that. But at the last minute, he found his cup and happily grabbed his DS.

I think I will try watering down his nighttime juice. Then I can work on him keeping his clothes on while at home.

I am noticing some changes of behavior from the boys and frankly, I don’t like it.

Ryan has gotten very sassy. He has a retort for every comment and his tone his just, ugh, I wanna smack him. I guess this is normal behavior for his age but I wasn’t expecting it and I don’t know how to curb it. If I raise my voice, Andy gets upset. And speaking of Andy, if I reprimand him, even without me getting upset, he does. He acts like I have just done the worst thing possible to him and then I have to spend 15-20 minutes consoling him.

Damn prepubescence.

I love thunderstorms. I was so exciting after we moved here and we got our first summer storm. I followed it via radar on the weather channel. It rolled up from the southeast and hit with a vengeance. It was so cool!

I later found out that this kind of storm is not the norm in Florida. Florida summer storms do follow a pattern but one where the cells will pop up quickly and disintegrate just as fast. If you watch the radar maps, you may think you are going to get some rain and still be bone dry 2 hours later. My sister was done one time and we watched the storm for over an hour but we got no rain. Lots of lightning and thunder, cool, wicked lightning.

After Gail died, Duffy started getting scared during storms. When his hearing was going, he would freak out with the camera flash because he thought it was lightning. Duffy died in 2006.

In 2007, Ryan started being scared of thunderstorms. Up until then, he and Andy never even acknowledged the storms. Last year, he would hide under a blanket usually on my lap. He started going to bed early so he could sleep though them, and he does sleep through them.

This year isn’t quite so bad but he still doesn’t like them. He is so worried that the power will go out and will now only use my laptop since it has a battery. (I have told him that if the power goes out, so does the internet.)

Andy seems to get a little excited during storms. But I think it is anticipation for a flooded backyard in which he can play in the water.

I wish I could just enjoy the power of the storms but I stay quiet and do my best to ignore them so Ryan doesn’t pick up on any vibes.