But it all went downhill after that. We left the party by 4:30pm, because Ryan just couldn’t handle it. It wasn’t loud, there weren’t a lot of people (besides him and Alyssa, my two brothers, my mom, and myself, it was my mother’s ex-husband’s wife and her six year old son, and my mother’s friends B and M and their three teenage children), but he kept flipping out left and right. Meltdowns galore. Nothing could really soothe him, other than me quietly playing some reading and word games with him on his iPad – and then the battery died. I carry a spare iPod cable in the car, but no wall charger. Gah.

Tomorrow I’m going to purposely make it a quiet, at-home day, so Ryan can have a chance to settle down in time for school on Monday.

At two and a half years of age, Ryan was head banging regularly (daily, several times a day), and here’s what it looked like:

The head banging died down quite a bit by last year, but it still continued at times when he was stressed, bored or overtired. Even now there are times – mostly in the car – when he’ll head bang a bit. But we thought that for the most part it was gone for good.

Then, last May, I took Ryan to the dentist, and we found out that he has been grinding his teeth instead. While it’s “just” his baby molars, we want this behavior to hopefully be nipped in the bud now, before his permanent teeth come in and he risks damaging them, so we insisted on a mouth guard.

So, now Ryan has a mouth guard. According to Dan (he took him to the dentist this morning to pick up the mouth guard and get it fitted), we’re supposed to break him in with four hours at a time, and then he wears it overnight, since the majority of his teeth grinding seems to be done at night.

Ryan isn’t too thrilled with it (I wasn’t too thrilled with paying $300 for it, but I digress), but we’re using the Go Rewards app on his iPad, and I’ve promised him that after he earns seven starts (seven nights of wearing the guard), I’ll take him to Five Below where he can pick out a toy as a reward.

Ryan’s birthday party is on the 31st, but we’re going to celebrate his actual birthday on the 26th with a dinner of his choosing, a small birthday cake (our local grocery store makes small ones that serve 3-4 people, so it’ll be perfect for just the four of us), and the gift of the iPad. That’ll give Dan and I about a week to play around with it — load it with apps, play with the apps, figure out how the iPad works, etc. This way we’ll be prepared to help Ryan learn the ropes once we give it to him.

Sidenote: can you believe this:

Has turned into THIS?!

I? Disagree. Ryan may be a bit of a Mama’s boy when compared to Alyssa, but he is not clingy. He has been attending preschool for two years now, and does just fine. Furthermore, he and other special needs children may need additional help in transitioning from being at home and/or in preschool part-time, but that’s because they need help settling into a new situation and adjusting to a new routine, not necessarily because they’re still clinging to Mommy’s apron strings.

(And yes, I voiced that exact opinion to her.)

I don’t know Ryan has sleep issues. He’s had them since he was about a year old. Many researchers and experts theorize that individuals with autism are also deficient in Melatonin, which is a sleep-regulating hormone. All I know is that without dosing Ryan with liquid Melatonin every night, he will be awake for HOURS, and after he finally falls asleep, will turn around and wake up 6-7 hours later. My poor boy.

You have NO idea how much that got to me. I’m tearing up now just thinking about it. I tried so hard to play it cool, to minimize my discomfort and pain when they were around, to break down from the pain of the attacks when they were at school or in bed, etc. Before my surgery I talked to both Alyssa and Ryan about me going into the hospital, and I explained it — moreso to Alyssa than to Ryan, which may be part of the issue — like I did my gastric bypass. I’d be in the hospital, I would be asleep while special doctors called surgeons made tiny cuts on my stomach in order to “fix” my insides, that I would be fine, that I would have medicine to keep me from being in pain, I’d continue to take my surgical weight loss vitamins and my protein shakes, etc. Alyssa has handled it all very well, and has been super-helpful. Ryan has seemed oblivious to it all, but his acting out and admission of why he has acted out clearly indicates otherwise.

It just goes to show you: they’re autistic, not space cadets. Even if it doesn’t look like they are listening, they are. Ryan is a little sponge, I swear!

Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays:
7:45am: wake up
8:00am: breakfast
8:15am: wash hands, brush teeth (my kids prefer to do this after eating?), put on shoes, coats, grab backpacks
8:20am: walk (or drive, if it’s raining) Alyssa up to the bus stop
8:30am: return home
9:00am: drive Ryan to preschool
11:45am: pick up Ryan from preschool
12:30pm: walk up to the bus stop to wait for Alyssa
12:45pm: lunch
2:00pm: quiet time (what used to be “nap time”!) (this is my work time, when I can devote my attention to Newport Beach jewelers or whatever else may come up on the list)
3:30pm: snack
6:00pm: dinner
6:30pm: bath time (sometimes before dinner)
7:00pm: story time, quiet time
7:30pm: bed

Tuesdays and Thursdays:
7:45am: wake up
8:00am: breakfast
8:15am: wash hands, brush teeth (my kids prefer to do this after eating?), put on shoes, coats, grab backpacks
8:20am: walk (or drive, if it’s raining) Alyssa up to the bus stop
8:30am: return home
11:00am: lunch
11:25am: wait outside for Ryan’s school bus
11:30am: Ryan’s school bus arrives
12:30pm: walk up to the bus stop to wait for Alyssa
12:45pm: lunch
3:10pm: Ryan returns home
3:30pm: snack
6:00pm: dinner
6:30pm: bath time (sometimes before dinner)
7:00pm: story time, quiet time
7:30pm: bed

As you can see, the routine is consistent, and it definitely keeps me hopping. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are the worst, what with all of the dashing back and forth for the kidlets. It’ll be nice next year, when both Alyssa and Ryan will be attending the same school! Ryan will most likely be in the extended kindergarten, so he’ll come home when Alyssa does. I can’t imagine how heavenly it will be to be kid-free and all by myself from 8:30am – 3:30pm!

Then there’s Ryan. My mom doesn’t feel comfortable taking him for a sleepover or even for the day, and she is always reluctant to babysit him. It’s not that she doesn’t like or love Ryan, she does. It’s just that he makes her nervous — her words. She doesn’t know how to handle him, because of his autism and related issues. It’s kind of funny that she is like that regarding Ryan, seeing as how my brothers are both autistic. But their issues as young children didn’t seem to be as significant as Ryan’s, and my brothers are 12 and 14 now, so yeah… it’s been a long time/long way for my mom.

Anyway, after my mom and Alyssa left this morning, Ryan started crying and asking to go with Guh-mom and Wissa. He started rocking, roaming around aimlessly, and finally settled down in his bed. I laid next to him for a while, and then snuck out when he fell asleep. I just felt so horrible for him, you know? And my mom isn’t the only one who is so nervous about caring for Ryan for any length of time. Dan’s brothers, sisters and aunt are the same way. It really seems like no one other than myself, Dan, Jason, and nurses in women’s lab coats are comfortable with watching him for any length of time. And as far as the nurses go, they’ll only entertain him a short time while I’m filling out paperwork or talking to the doctor, then they hand him right back over!

On a good note, I called my mom after Ryan woke up and explained how upset he was; she got on the phone with him and asked if he would like to go out to lunch tomorrow. He immediately perked up and asked for Applebee’s (his favorite restaurant, especially since Jason has taken him several times). I told him my mom would also take him to Lowe’s (his favorite store, haha) and possibly to the park, so that made him even happier.

But still, lunch out while his sister gets the opportunity to spend the night hardly seems fair. I’m sorry, baby.

Ryan has been rocking and headbanging for the last nineteen months. I don’t know if he’ll ever stop, and I’m worried that his bald spots and spine callouses/cysts will be permanent.

The show was interesting, to say the least. It was also quite sad, seeing the various issues the six children deal with. Sarah in particular is the worst, the one who is “beyond reach”, as Daniel so eloquently put it. I feel for the parents, and I hope that they continue to receive help and services to enable them to reach each of their children as best as they can.

I’m also grateful for having only one autistic child. I also reflected on how our choice to have another child might have differed if we had Ryan first, or if Alyssa was autistic. To be quite honest, if my firstborn was autistic and I knew of the diagnosis before deciding for another child, there wouldn’t be another child. Raising an autistic child is like a full time job on top of the full time job that is parenting. I can’t imagine doing it for multiple autistic children. And believe me, if I had the choice, I would have an autistic child and no other children, period.

And speaking of Ryan, I injured my back at some point on Tuesday. I’m thinking it was while Dan and I were enjoying some time to ourselves, but I’m sure that lugging around a 40lb. kid doesn’t help things. Ryan has a bad habit of falling asleep on the floor, behind his bedroom door, where there is a dresser nearby, and it is not easy to bend over and haul him up and get him back into his bed. Not to mention he does the spaghetti legs routine throughout the day, and climbs and hangs on a lot of things that he shouldn’t, so I’m continually picking him up, putting him down, pulling him off of things, etc. You’d think he was a monkey that grew up swinging from Apricot trees with the way he acts and loves to climb!