Searching for Beds

Yes, I am in search of beds. Theresa has learned that she can climb in her crib (sometime ago) and this is now translating to attempts to climb out of it to get a book that she wants. She is in need of a new mattress and it turns into a day bed. The problem with it turning into a day bed is that I’m afraid either she won’t stay in it at bedtime or the constant tossing and turning she does to get situated during the night will result in her falling out of it. I am in need of a new bed as well but that is a different story all together.

The problem I have is that her room is small. She already has another bed but it is the bottom half of a bunk bed set. I am afraid that she will fall out of it since it is a bit higher off the ground that I would like. I have thought about putting rails around it but then I am afraid that she will climb them.

I’d like her to have a cute bed but my budget is only allowing for practical at this point. I still need to rearrange her room. I’m thinking instead of buying myself a new bed I’ll simply use the one from the bunk beds until it wears out. I’m wondering if I know anyone talented enough to build her a frame if I simply purchase her a mattress and box springs. Given her love of climbing I’m a good mind to set them on the floor with rails around them so she’s less likely to fall out or knock it down jumping.

Her OCD tendencies will not allow me to rearrange her room. I have tried and it upsets her, so I have to be slow and careful about what I do in her room.

Ok off to search for a solution that satisfies us both.

Never Ends Does It?

It doesn't matter how well your day is going when you are the parent of an Autistic child there is always something to deal with. When you are the broke parent of an Autistic child the stress begins to pile so high you can't begin to see the end of the tunnel. There is always something in the back of your mind giving you the nagging feeling that you are forgetting something. I have found that forgetting is not that hard to do when you have almost a dozen different things to give your child each and every day. Then there are therapy appointments and doctor's visits just to have lab work done because your child is on so many supplements. It's expensive.

I read somewhere that it costs approximately $50,000 a year to raise an Autistic child. I'm still wondering where that's coming from. I don't think we can cut anymore corners but somehow it's always all right in the end.  I have to gather up all of the little ones supplements so I can write down the names and doses for our next doctor's visit. I am so confused right now I can't even find the child's clothes without going on a treasure hunt in the mornings. I am so far behind and I'm so tired right now that I have no idea what to do.

I used to have a schedule that was second nature and now it's kind of flown out the window. Oh well, today I will type up pages from old diaries to destroy the paper copies and still have record of things that I need to go read to see just how far I've come these last few years. I'm going to get back to work on that now since I latest project is stalled.

A week off to prepare for school

OK only one day left in July which means that I have approximately twenty-five days left to finish potty training the kid. The 25th is the first day of school for the Head Start and there is no transportation provided this year. This is going to make for a fun school year. Monday morning I’ll begin to get up at 5a.m. in order to get used to it in time to get the kiddo to school by 7:45. It’s really hard to believe that the summer is almost over and we’ve done very little.

I still haven’t purchased the new uniforms that she’s going to need. I have to go on a treasure hunt for them and I’m really hoping that they’ll be some available small enough during the tax free weekend. That’ll save us a little bit of money even if I only get her two or three. I am currently working on everything possible to come up with the money to get her two complete outfits because at the moment I can only get partial outfits.

We’re trying the schedule for the potty and I’m leaving her there as long as she’ll stay. It seems that typically the longer she stays on the potty the more likely she is to use the potty. We’ve made amazing progress this summer and I need to step up the game and finish it up. The fact that she has the ability to tell you she has to go to the bathroom is a good thing, bringing that ability out is something else.

Right now there is recycling on my front porch that needs to be loaded up and hauled to the bins. I think that I’ll do that when we go on the treasure hunt for uniforms. I found the data sheets for potty training in my desk drawer and the last time I had used them was back in mid-June which isn’t that good. There could be two reasons they hadn’t been used in so long. The first is that she was having too many accidents to count. The second is that I was too busy working and no one else would do the data for me. At the moment I’m relying on a time to tell me how often to take her to the potty. I’m going to go with every thirty minutes now that she has drinks in her.

I’m going to increase the time between trips now that the diarrhea she had last week has hopefully past. Too much detail I know.

OK I have to get back to work and I have some pictures to put on disk so I’ll be going I’m hoping to put the pictures on disks while I go through her clothes I have to separate my photos into smaller albums so that I know what I have saved and not saved or I may save them all online and take them to disk later.

Figuring it Out

Theresa has a test that I can't pay for that I have to get. She's being good today just sitting in the bed with me. That means she forgives me for going to the store without her yesterday. It's rather unusual for me to go without her but my back was hurting something awful.

I've been trying to move for a couple years now but it's not going to happen anytime soon. I really wish that I could afford to move now. I'm not coping well with all the repairs that have to be done. I hate it here but I'm stuck here. I lost my flash drive and I really need it. I can't work without it because I don't have enough space on my computer. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Memorial Day Means the End of School

Today we celebrate all those that gave all they had to ensure our freedom. Today for me also means that there is only one day of preschool left for my little one this year. There is no summer speech for Theresa this year from the school. The speech therapist sent home a speech packet and the teacher sent home some a packet with worksheets and mini books to make in it. That should do us about a week before I'm back to printing out my own for her.

One of her three therapists (she has five during the school year) that see her year round is a half page behind because she doesn't listen if she's in a hurry. I gave her some of the worksheets and she copied them after saying something about so I could do them at home. I'm pretty sure she doesn't realize I have my own pages to go over with the child and I was trying to get her to focus more on academics than teaching my child to be a mimicking monkey. My biggest pet peeve is that people usually don't ask they just assume that if it's something they would let their child have then your child can have it too.

I have to work, watch the kid, take her to therapy and some how keep my house from looking like the city dump. I may be behind on more than one of those fronts. My other half is off for the summer and supposed to be finding a job to make it through it. I'm really hoping that he is going to find one because with the blows to my income we're going to need him to have a job year round to take the sting out of it.

Changing the therapy schedule

Friday's we now start our weekend later. We now have speech at 11:30 instead of 9:30 in the morning. That gives us two extra hours before we leave in the mornings. It just means that I won't get to start my weekends until 12:30 on Friday mornings. If I get up early enough I can do a load of laundry to hang out before we go.

I just made the mistake of letting Theresa do "S" by herself, when she finished she threw the sheets. Now she's having a screaming fit that only she understands. I think that she's telling herself "good job." Or at least she was until I gave her some paper with glue on it and an old container filled with dried peas to glue on it.

I'm already tired. I have managed to add about a paragraph to each of the articles that I was writing. I really wish that I had more time to work, and this summer I might.

Finances are going to be a little bit tighter from now on, until I can get back on track with the writing and submitting articles to various places.

A sick child is a hyper child......

once they start to feel better. At least mine is. The pizza she split with her daddy for breakfast didn't agree with her. So she got a bath and a change of clothes, my kitchen floor and part of my carpet got a bath too. A couple of my towels got thrown away and I got to take a shower and change clothes in the middle of the day. So far she hasn't seemed to notice that she didn't have therapy today. I never realized it before but as much as I enjoy those days when I don't have to go anywhere, they are the days that make me the tiredest.

I've done three loads of laundry, working on folding that now and re-hanging the ones that are still damp b/c I put them too close together on the line. I was running out of clothes pins. I did dishes and made lunch. Now I get to do dishes again, they're soaking in the sink as I type and enjoy a pot of coffee to stay awake. It's not helping but I like the taste. I've got to refill my sugar container now.

I got a call from the clinic where Theresa gets therapy this afternoon. The next time we go up there (hopefully tomorrow) I can pick up an application for a grant to go to a two day Autism conference. I want to go but it's awful early in the morning and I don't have child care. There isn't anyone I really care to leave Theresa with either.

The highpoint, at the end of the week it's supposed to be 79! That'll be a relief to me, I'm hot already. I don't want winter to come back though.