Back to school

Tomorrow this sweet little baby goes to grade 3. When he was this small, I looked ahead to grade 3 and had high hopes for how things would be. It seemed like a lifetime away but now here we are and things are much different than I imagined. Oh how I wish I could hold that cute chubby baby. He cried a lot back then and we thought he was colicky but now I look back and realize he was just being Landon. I miss the days when calming him was as easy as rocking him back and forth near the loud hood fan in the kitchen. I thought he was difficult then but I had no idea how difficult things would actually become. 

A lot of the moms that I know feel a sense of sadness when summer comes to an end and it's time for their children to head back to school. I don't share those feelings. Summer break is hard on us. I count down the days to back to school and tonight it feels like Christmas Eve. I've even daydreamed of some sort of summer break advent calendar that has a glass of wine in it each night. I'm pretty sure they would sell like hot cakes. 

This summer has been great in a lot of ways, as we've had success with some camping and had a few small trips with  Landon that went well. However, I can safely say that things have never been as hard as they are now. It seems that he has regressed in some areas and his patience is very small. His temper is quick and explosive. I can be kissing his unbelievably soft cheeks one minute and then 10 minutes later be hit so hard across the face that I think he's broken my jaw. He's always had an aggressive streak in him but it's been so intense lately that we are pretty sure it's a side effect of his medication. We (us and a mental health Dr from children's hospital) are trying to figure that all out but it takes time. Thankfully he's not violent towards anyone else but me. It's exhausting but I know that Landon doesn't mean to hurt me, he just can't control himself. He's so sad when it's over and my heart breaks for him and the inner turmoil he must feel. I struggle with sharing how hard he is on me. I hate the idea of people thinking badly of him. I just love him so much.

I'm thankful that he still has the best sense of humor and can bring me so much joy in one minute to make up for all the other crap in the day. I am confident that it won't be like this forever and I'm still completely trusting that God has big plans for Landon's life. Right now though, I am over the moon that tomorrow he goes to school. So if someone could create that back to school wine calendar before next summer, that'd be great. 

Better late than never

A conversation between a friend and I in the beginning of the year:

J: What's with the lack of blog posts?

Me: I don't know. I just realized the other day that I didn't blog once in all of 2015.

J: That's pathetic.

Me: haha you're so right. 

I haven't forgotten that conversation but here we are half way through 2016 and I'm finally getting around to it. So much has happened/changed since I wrote last and I think as time passed I became overwhelmed at the thought of trying to sum it all up. I'm going to give it a go though. 

Side note: I just took an hour long break as Landon was not doing well during his autism therapy.  I'm currently laying beside him in his bed comforting him as he usually has a big cry after an epic meltdown. I'm reminded as to the real reason why I don't blog often. Ain't nobody got time for that. 

Back to it.

The biggest change since I wrote last was probably our move from a townhouse into a bigger home. Still in the same town and only a couple minutes away from our old place but so happy with our move. We live on the street that we've always wanted to live on and really love the neighborhood. Our house has a great layout for Landon and I'm so grateful there is no wall from the second floor that he can jump off of! The best part is we don't share a wall with our neighbors so I don't feel so bad when it's loud in here. Which is all the time.

Another big change is that I started to work, out of the house, again. As we were house hunting we decided it would be helpful if I had an income but with Landon's needs and unpredictability I wondered how I would find a job that would understand if I was late because I couldn't get him to put his shoes on or because he just had to listen to the air conditioner for 5 more minutes. I also knew I wanted to be the one to drop the kids off and pick them up from school so who on earth was going to hire someone who could only work during school hours and could quite possibly be late on a regular basis?? Well my church did. I work a few days a week at the church, while the kids are at school, doing cleaning and other odd jobs and it is a perfect fit for my life right now. So grateful for it. 

Another side note: Landon just fell asleep beside me. It's 5pm and the worst time for a nap. Do I wake an angry and tired boy or pay for it later when he's up until midnight? I'm going with paying for it later. It's so quiet right now and there's always melatonin. ;)

Landon really excelled in school this year. He blossomed socially and intellectually. He made friends and blew us all away with his spelling as well as starting to read Braille and type it out. He can type out full sentences on the brailler! I wasn't sure if he would ever learn Braille and here he is typing out a letter at school to mail home. So cool. 

On the flip side we've had some struggles with his behavior and are working with a dr from Children's hospital to see if we can find something that will help with that. I won't get into it now but I will say that I sure hope the saying "It gets worse before it gets better" is true. It's definitely worse right now.

The main reason I finally decided to write again is to let you all know that because I'm not very good at finding the time to blog I am going to start a BlindAutism Instagram feed. I'm always taking pictures of him and the interesting things that he is up to. I figure that is the easiest way for me to let people see into his world. I started this blog to help people understand autism a little bit more and I'd still like to do that. I'll try and blog once in a while but let's be realistic, I probably won't write again for a while. Feel free to follow along on Instagram as I capture all the fun, interesting, destructive, and amazing things that he does.