October 8th, 2005-excerpt from my personal blog

WINTER STORM WATCH...for us...tomorrow night into Monday. Possible over 8

I made 2 loaves of pumpkin bread this morning. One with nuts for me and one without for Keith. YUMMY!

I made homemade chicken and noodles with mashed potatoes and green beans for supper tonight. ALL was great. I finally can make noodles like my grandma does but I still can't seem to cut them into really thin strips like she can. I don't mind larger strips but I want my noodles to be just like hers which means I need to learn to cut them even thinner!They were good though. Still hungry for more. I may go eat some more!!

Ran some errands. Ended up at Hallmark. Picked up our ornaments there we had ordered. Noah had a meltdown there. Stopped at our new rented storage locker to check things out. Noah had another meltdown when it came time to leave. Stopped at Home Depot to check some things out and pick up a few things. He did pretty well while there but still was hard to control. Constant movement today. Constant not wanting to listen and then crying spells.

Someone from my husband's work the other day asked about autism and how it can make a child act. I don't think Keith knew what to really say other than they can go overboard and have extreme reactions to things most people would never react to. For example....I was reading a blog of another husband and wife who have an autistic son. They got a phone call one day from his preschool saying someone would have to come pick him up and NOW!. Course the parents could barely make out the call as on the other end all they could hear was this intense screaming and crying. So when they picked him up they found out that while their son was trying to have a snack a fly came around him and his food and he freaked out and had a MAJOR meltdown. Now most so-called "normal" kids would never have a reaction like that especially over just a fly. But autistic kids and people can be extremely bothered by things like that. I know Noah has a very difficult time if a fly is around him especially when he is eating. AND heaven forbid one ever lands on his food as he will have a crying spell like there is no tomorrow and will NOT then eat his food! He will become consumed watching the fly in a restaurant to make sure it won't come near him or his food. That is all he talks about. Sometimes he will break out crying if a fly is just too close to our table in a restaurant. AND I MEAN CRY!!!!!!

Going to every stop today I noticed his first announcement to us all as we got out of the car and headed into the store was what kind of toilets that particular store had. Yep. He knows what kind of toilets are in all the stores or restaurants or HOME DEPOT even ....ANYWHERE we have been to even only once. He knows if they have an automatic flushing toilet, regular flushing toilets, loud flushing toilets, quiet, both kinds of toilets, toilets low to the ground or high up...he knows them all and that is always the FIRST thing he will announce on our way into a store. "Mommy.....this Home Depot has 1 automatic flushing toilet and one regular toilet".....on and on. SO THOSE are some of the differences in autistic kids compared to other kids. Besides all the usual speech language issues and delays and usual sensory integration issues. It can be quite overwhelming and exhausting. Getting Noah to EAT these days is challenging. Getting him to not over-react so much is an ongoing major project that never ends!

Anyway....all is well now or appears to be for this moment in time. We are all exhausted and actually did very little today. I DID make time to call my grandma this morning instead of waiting till Sunday as I have not been able to get her on Sundays lately as everyone else seems to choose that day to call. Good thing I did. She seemed lonely and we had a great talk for a couple hours I think! I think she would have talked even longer if I finally did not have to go in order for us to get some lunch and get some things done. Anyway....I love my grandma so much! I wish I could go visit her every week in person!Now to prepare for fall let alone winter!!!!!!!!