Super Autism Mum

I bought Elf on the Shelf a few years ago when I was in New York but I never used him the year I got him. The more I thought about it, I didn’t think our son would understand what was happening, so I put him away and we got him out this year.

The concept of Elf on the Shelf, is that Santa sends the elf to our house on the 1st December to watch the kids and he reports back to Santa on Christmas Eve, but each night when the kids sleep, the elf gets up to mischief! This involves parents trying to think of 24 things for the elf to get up to – thankfully there are a million ideas on Pinterest!! The kids are not allowed to touch the elf as this removes the magic.

I know that our son would struggle a bit with this concept, so we altered it slightly and made it our own. He arrived the morning after the Christmas tree went up – 9th December. I found a message board to use:

Elf on the Shelf Writable Board

The morning he arrived, he sat beside the tree and I just wrote, “Hello, Santa sent me to visit you”. Our son just looked at him, not really bothering with him. The next morning we hid him in the cupboard with the DVD’s. When our son got up, we said “Where is the elf?” He then started to look for him!

He found him, then put him back under the tree where he was. We continued to do this until Christmas day. The elf was hiding in the Christmas tree, on top of a photo frame, in the fridge sleeping in his yogurts……… He is supposed to go back to Santa on Christmas Eve, but we kept him and put him on our son’s presents on Christmas morning as if the Elf had brought them. It worked out well and hopefully next year will be even better.

I was shown this a while ago, but didn’t appreciate it until recently. Written by American author and social activist Emily Perl Kingsley in 1987 about having a child with a disability:

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”

“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away…because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss. But…if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.

It’s the most wonderful time of year again! Christmas trees are popping up all over now, I’m sure this weekend will be a popular weekend for trees going up 🎄

When I was a little girl, I remember being out with my dad and playing ‘spot the Christmas tree’ where we had to find all the trees in houses and see who could find them first. I tried to play this with my son driving home last night but I couldn’t get him to play. It made me sad. I remember the excitement of Christmas when I was young and was so excited to experience this with my own child but his awareness is just not there. He loves to look at all the lights, so I was slowing the car down to let him enjoy them, but I couldn’t get him to engage with me to play. It could just be that he was enjoying looking out the windows and seeing lights. Maybe next year he will play with me. In the meantime, I will enjoy spending time with him looking at lights.

I’m trying to stop focusing on what he isn’t doing or can’t do, and focus on what he is doing. It’s hard when there is a whole world of fun out there I want to share with him, but we will take it a step at a time ♥️

I have now successfully put our son to bed twice on my own with no daddy – go me!!!

I think (hope!) that the phase of only letting daddy put him to bed has passed.

Another challenge defeated, bring on the next!!!

I received a phone call from school on Monday afternoon to say they were running a Makaton Course in school for the teachers and they have a couple of spaces free if I want one. Of course!!

I attended school all day Tuesday and Wednesday for the course and loved every second.

We learned the background to Makaton and around 200 signs. Now I just need to keep practicing!

Join their Facebook page: Makaton Central

https://www.makaton.org

School are teaching the mainstream children Makaton and all their teachers are learning it which is AMAZING! It raises more awareness and understanding throughout the whole school.

Daddy is going out with his friend today. Normally they meet up later on, 6pm ish, but today they are meeting at 12pm and getting lunch. He hasn’t seen him for a while so I’m glad he is getting out to relax and let loose.

This would normally fill me with dread. I used to be so anxious when left with our son on my own. But now, I can’t wait for a day just the two of us, I’m so excited!

I have joined a few private Facebook groups for support and guidance. I read the posts regularly but don’t often comment as normally by the time I read the post, someone has already commented on what I was thinking too!

I have asked a couple of questions on the pages too and had some good feedback so it’s worth joining some pages to realise you are not alone and others are going through what you are.

The pages I have joined are:

• Autism Support UK: Parent & Carer
• UK Sensory Processing Disorder Support
• Autism Spectrum Disorder, through my eyes discussion group
• Bricks for Autism

I recently read a post by a woman that had been out with her son at a fireworks display and started talking to the lady beside her. She mentioned that her son had autism, to which the lady replied, oh he doesn’t look autistic. The woman commented that she was really upset at this comment and asked the group, what does autism look like?

When I initially read the woman’s post I agreed with how upset she was as I would have been upset too. To me, the lady was pointing out that he looked ‘normal’. Then I started reading some of the comments and my thinking turned around. I commented on the post and said be proud of your son tonight as he was coping so well.

Since buying the Playmobil police station, every Playmobil advert that comes on TV, he says ‘I want that’

Its great that he recognises it, and I love that he is showing an interest in something. I checked eBay and put a few bids on some sets, not wanting to pay too much. I didn’t win them but saw a playground set listed on Gumtree and it was still available so we collected it. He played with it a bit longer than the police station!

Then I remembered that last Christmas I bought him the Playmobil water park. This was the first toy that he spent a bit of time playing with, putting the people down the slides and splashing in the water, so I brought it back out again and he played with it some more. Not for a great length of time, but it’s a start.

My dad just phoned ‘what happened on your Smyth’s trip? Every advert that comes on TV he says “I want that”‘

Ha ha, I have a feeling I’m going to be skint!

But do you know what, I love it!

Our son got a Smyth’s toy store voucher for his birthday, so we decided to go at the weekend, just me and him as daddy was painting.

For anyone who hasn’t been to Smyth’s before, it is literally piled floor to ceiling with toys! I really like the way the shop is laid out, each aisle is a theme and there is every toy you can think of!

I parked outside and said, let’s go spend your birthday money. We walked in and the escalator is in front of the front door. He loves escalators so wanted to go up. To the left of the escalator on the ground floor is the Lego, piled floor to ceiling, a million boxes! He looked over and said ‘oh wow’ we were only upstairs a minute and he was down and straight over to the Lego boxes.

He has never been interested in Lego even though we have tried. He has a few Duplo and Lego Junior sets, but doesn’t look at them. He really isn’t in to toys at all, but we are trying.

He pointed to a Lego fire engine and said ‘I want that one’. It was age 6-12 and I knew it was far too old for him but again he said he wanted it when I said it may be to old for him. I picked it up, knowing I wouldn’t be buying it, but he was happy I picked it up.

Then comes the Playmobil section and his eyes lit up! I loved seeing him so excited about the Playmobil sets. He pointed to a police station with a police car, helicopter and some people and said ‘I want that one’. I asked if he wanted the police station or the Lego fire engine, and he said police. It was a big box, so I said let’s go a walk incase there is anything else, then we can come back. Each time I pointed at something, he just said ‘I want the police’ – so we got the police!

It wasn’t cheap, and honestly I was thinking, he is never going to play with this! But, he picked up the box and carried it to the checkout.

I made it up when we got home, and he looked at it for 2 minutes!

Maybe one day he will play with it – if not, there is always eBay!!