Video: Temple Grandin, The World Needs All Kinds of Minds | Autism Support Network

 

Video: Temple Grandin, the world needs all kinds of minds | Autism Support Network.

For the love of God! When will this child sleep?! **A Repost From Way Back! Because His Butt Still Don’t Sleep!**

The first night he was born, the nurses kept bringing Ronan into my room.

“He won’t stop crying.  Sorry, hon.  Maybe you should try to nurse him again.”

This went on only every ten minutes or so, until I just said, “Oh, alright already!  Just sleep in my bed with me!”

Thus began a new circle of life for Mami, parent of “The Baby Who Never Sleeps.”

Ditties (the nickname for my boobies), sleep.  Remove ditties, wake up.  Ditties, sleep.  Remove ditties, wake up…and on and on and on.  This lovely cycle was broken up by intermittent hours of filming infant Ronan with one of those old clunky cassette video recorders propped up on the couch at various times in the a.m., when only bats, owls, and other nocturnal animals roam the earth.

I began to look like one of them.  My eyes were black-rimmed.  I was in a zombie-like daze, walking into walls and forgetting proper hygiene (like actually washing myself), and I was obsessed with finding ways to get him to actually sleep without being attached to the ditty.

The Ferber Method = cry until vomit, then cry more.  Never stop crying.  Vomit.  Cry.

Daddy walking and rocking, then slipping Ronan quietly into his crib = bolting upright in 0.001 second flat.  Screaming. Vomiting.

The No Cry Sleep Solution = Ha Ha Ha Ha, yeah right.

For two years, I just caved and gave the ditty.  I learned how to sleep like a fugitive in an escape tunnel, one arm had to curl around the top of his head.  Ditty had to be fully accessible.  Pillows were aplenty, and positioned just so, to support my frozen frame.  As long as I didn’t move – at all – Ronan would sleep, nurse, sleep, nurse, and maybe some nights, he wouldn’t wake up for his 4-hour a.m. stretch.

When I finally decided to wean him (at over 2 years old – that’s another post in itself), a new cycle began in the life of Mami.

It was called, “The Child Who Never Sleeps”

Snuggle with Ronan in his bed until he falls asleep.  Wrench your body out from under his digging feet at 1 cm per hour.  Finally get out of the bed.  Lay in your own bed.  Roll over to finally sleep and immediately see a small figure hovering over you.

Walk back into child’s room.  Repeat.  4 nights out of the week, shoot footage of owl child awake with brand new fancy digital camcorder.

Flash 5 years forward, and I am still walking Nosferatu back and forth to his bed.  Still a zombie.

Everything from melatonin, vigorous exercise, magnesium, joint compression, and a trillion other things have been tried.

I have pretty much resigned myself to the idea of being an old, crabby, gray zombie.  Then we’ll call him …

“The Man Who Never Sleeps”

Feel free to send me your suggestions, please, for the love of GOD!

P.S. Don’t let this picture fool you!  I tried to trick him up by putting his little brother beside him to snuggle…maybe they’ll find comfort cuddling each other, and he won’t come looking for me!

Yeah, right.  5 minutes after I took this picture, he was hovering over me…THE CHILD WHO NEVER SLEEPS!!!!!

Scientists Identify Potential Biomarker to Help Diagnose Autism

Hmm, is this the same test we did years ago through the “quack” lab?  I have to go look that up…

http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/scientists-identify-potential-biomarker-to-help-diagnose-autism

Ronan Art of the Day

My boo is doing some really cool digital art lately…

He entitled this “Squeaky Ball”

He’s cool.

THE SHAWL…THE DAMN SHAWL AGAIN

Every time I think I am going through a ridiculously rough period in life, I have to break out the big guns.  Tonight, my friends, I will be reading this for the umpteenth time…

Read it and weep only when you are having a REALLY bad night.  You’ll be reminded of what crappy life circumstances truly are.

And then, maybe you will slap yo’self in the face, like Mama do, for all your poor-me whining.

The Ronan of the Day

Ronan James nursed forever. In fact, so long that Mama was able to give speech lessons using this incredible motivator!

“I want boobies, what?”

“I want boobies, pweese!”

He has never lost the love for the boob.

When The Loudon was born, Ronan looked on longingly as he nursed, but since Ro was done, he settled for a “reach in and grab a handful” approach.

Ever since, we have had an almost daily discussion on “privates” and what is appropriate touching or not.

He is very sneaky about it now, and it’s turned into a seemingly harmless hand or finger graze across the chest area!! lol

Mama doesn’t want to make too big a deal of it, because I don’t want him to get some sort of “boob aversion.”  I can just imagine that this would turn him into that pervy groping kid from Jr. High School that you avoided with all of your might, because he just couldn’t control himself around the melons that have been suddenly popping up everywhere!!

So, when he grabbed a handful the other day, Mama did the “privates talk” walk through.

Ro really pondered it for a bit, then he said wistfully…

“Mom.  When I grow up, I’m going to touch my wife’s boobs EVERY day.”

 

 

Watch out chesty ladies!  Here he comes!

Puberty is approaching.  And he’s a boob man.

AUTISM – ARE YOU VERBAL?

For years, we tossed around the word Autism.

 It didn’t fit, it fit, it labeled him, it didn’t, we cared, we didn’t.

We used to look at the faces that stared while he screamed.

We don’t even notice now.

AUTISM.

It was a word that held such power.

Now…it’s just a word…

And Ronan James is just fabulous.

How do you talk about autism?