My boy had a wow of a day

The Aspie teen has had a couple of minor meltdowns - and I do mean minor - with the yelling, swearing and aggro lasting all of 10 mins.
Yes, we thought it was such a lovely change from the hours on end of mental breakdowns he had to endure, too!
There's a couple of things we may be pointing the finger at - the gluten finally leaving and/or the build up of the fish, flaxseed and Evening primrose oils he's been taking.
He's calmer, he's making sense, he's almost back to his old self.
*sigh*
Took him in to see the Rupert Bunny exhibition at Fed Square; found some excellent homeschooling resources for it as it's had some education kits developed for use within schools. The downloads were for both primary and secondary students, very appealing, simple and easy but challenging to the student to use their observational skills in each painting.
He zipped through them without a complaint; fully focused and loving every minute of it, this is how I know he's getting better.
Then he chose some postcards of Rupert Bunny's and McCubbin's paintings, and quickly mentally calculated the cost (correctly), again showing that he's getting back on track.
Then we continued the homeschooling lesson up at the Melbourne Town Hall where they held a free organ concert;  twas fantabulous, the organist David MacFarlane brilliantly and wittily introduced each piece, explaining the strengths, the arguments within the music, who was influenced by what when it was created, etc.
The kid loved it so it was a great success.
The choice to homeschool him 4 years ago has not only paid off for him being able to spread his wings and explore both secondary and uni learning ahead of his peers but it's allowed him to have these hiccups along the way without putting more pressure on him with having to cope with mainstream school, too.

Happiness is going to bed before the witching hour!

We've slowly debriefed ourselves from our whistle-stop trip to Bendigo and have plans to both return to see more and to do a wander through Kyneton.
Aspie teen has remembered how to negotiate his schoolwork each day with me instead of having monsterous meltdowns because he's brain isn't clicked into gear for coping with maths or literature comprehension, etc.
Writing contracts on the back of envelopes helps as does sticking them on the fridge so they jump out at ya first thing in the morning.
Also, I took a leaf out of Madmother's book and added Evening Primrose Oil to the Flaxseed and Fish oil; possibly may be seeing more connections and less fritzing on the wiring.
We let him have a normal burger from the House of Jack Who is Peckish and we've seen a few little hiccups of behaviour - whether it's the gluten in the bun or just Aspie teen, who knows, but we're in one piece with no bruises and nary a scratch on the house or the contents (yippee).
Yes, we count our blessings tiny though they may be.
Just negotiated 8 pages of text book exercises with an episode of Glee which has highlighted another of his strengths - love my boy who can't figure out most social situations but who can clearly see that homophobia is so frickin' last century.
Who are the ones with the disability again?
Anyways, last night we got more culture than just the tub of yoghurt when we let him watch a production of Coppelia on the idiot box - that's a classical ballet with a loopy toymaker thinking he can make his doll turn into a living chickybabe - heartily approved of by Aspie teen who is asking to see a ballet on stage, now.
I'll just hunt down the leprechaun with that pot of gold.....

Catch up

Well, the teen of the household has spent the better part of the past 2 days hiding out in the bedrooms as the house was being rewired.
No outbursts, only a tiny bit of aggro and the over-whelming need to hide away from the 3 sparkies.
He was so shy, much more than usual,  and happily pottered with his text books, ABC radio and archaeology mags in the bedroom safe in the knowledge they'd finished those rooms yesterday.
Tomorrow we claw our way from under our blankies at the disgusting hour of 4.45am to traipse off to Bendigo for the day; a combination of itchy feet, the McCubbin exhibition and the need to get some fresh country air to blow away the cobwebs of blah that have taken up residence of late.
Blah cobwebs are grey and drain everything of colour and life.
I've faithfully looked up the op shops in Bendigo and am going to print out a map for him to navigate us about the place (which could be interesting - if I'm not back in Melbourne by 6pm release the hounds!).

Counting blessings

I am so thankful for Aspie teen's paediatrician.
He not only knows the Spectrum inside out, is well-versed and knowledgeable but he treats his child patients as equals, talking to them instead of down to them or dismissing them altogether.
He has reassured my boy that he has nothing to be ashamed of, that what he's experiencing is not his fault and that he is a perfectly normal kid who's having a few ups and downs.
My son's Russian teacher has been marvellous, too, setting homework for him, openly acknowledging his quirks and working to his strengths to circumvent his weaknesses.
She even stated he is seen as an inspiration, a bench mark, for the other kids which she shamelessly uses lol.
He's gone back to using heavy blankets and asking for tight squishy hugs throughout the day.
He's also borrowed hubby's DJ headphones to block out sounds while listening to music or playing games.
He can hear what we're whispering 25 feet away.
Maybe I should enroll him in ASIO and he can get stuck in a squishy drain pipe ear-wigging to sensitive info?

Send in the clowns....oh, wait, I'm here

Thank you so much for your kind words. I really appreciate them, it makes me feel less isolated.
Aspie teen has stretched his Achilles tendon - he actually did it over a week ago at footy but it's got worse to the point he complained of a sore foot Tuesday night; high pain threshold + hypermobility = unexpected injuries weeks later.
Told he may have to consider sitting out the footy season til his body matures a bit more and play next year, depending on how he pulls up after footy this Sunday.
Major meltdown this morning which resulted in a spontaneous nose bleed from high blood pressure.
Another just now - both meltdown and blood nose but in reverse order where the sight of the blood may have been the trigger.
Or it might have been Saturn in the 4th house of Jupiter was the cause.
Dear Holly Robinson Peet "Puberty plus Autism? Challenging!"
I'd say you're being rather understated there, poppet, but Hell, I could kiss you silly for your words.
And though I highly doubt mine is experiencing seizures this article made so much sense, too.
Finally, another mention of almost everything we're going through here makes me feel normal.
Were any of you told of the possibility of seizures at puberty?
There's a fairy godmother flitting about somewhere handing out the goodies for all the teens hitting their hormone bootstraps when the silly old biddy hands out seizures to the Auties/Aspies.
The silly cow flits in, drops a great lump of hormones, rage, hormones, seething emotions, hormones, possible seizures and hormones on the ASD teen in the middle of the night and the next thing you know is you're living Invasion of The Body Snatchers.
Or Shaun of The Dead.
Except I don't do the fence hurdling too well.
I have to laugh cos I'm all cried out from today.

ADHD wasn't discovered yesterday

During one of Aspie teen's university studies he came across some confronting claims from a lecturer who stated that ADHD was a 'created label' rather than a recognised condition.
This was apparently seen as permission to the other students to vent their spleen at all the kids with ADHD who'd had the gall to cross their path; some claimed ADHD stood for Apparent Death of Hard Discipline, spouting recommendations for a length of garden hose or bamboo to sort the kids out instead of medication and therapy, with almost all of them stating there had never, ever been a kid with ADHD in their class/school when they were kids.
Others claimed it was an alternative form of controlling students in the age of not using the cane, others still stated they believed it was lazy parents unwilling to teach children social boundaries while another claimed it was older parents lacking the energy to stick to routines and discipline. Still another suggested the label had been invented to absolve the teacher and education system of any responsibility when children didn't conform to the accepted rules of the classroom.
Who knew so many people could turn rabid at the mention of a medically diagnosed and recognised condition?!
These were people who were possibly going to become teachers.
Amazingly the lecturer stated ADHD hadn't existed 50 years ago which many tended to believe and agree with.
Yet the behaviour was noted as far back as 1848 (possibly even earlier in 1798) and given further medical details and diagnosis from 1902 onwards.
Yet some in the education system insist on treating those with ASD, ADHD and other medically diagnosed and recognised learning disorders as nothing more than a stubborn child who refuses to do as he/she is told.
And it's little wonder when that belief was encouraged by one lecturer, at least.
Ironically, they are very inattentive to a condition that commonly causes inattention.
Perhaps there's a few more adults who are undiagnosed....?

Further information on ADHD history HERE.
"Is it Severe ADHD or is it Asperger's" summary HERE.
Asperger Syndrome and ADHD HERE.
Language Disorders and ADHD HERE.
DSM-IV criteria for ADHD HERE.
DSM-IV criteria for Asperger's Disorder HERE.
Oldest known history of ADHD HERE.

Diets and chocolate are not mutually exclusive

Serendipity was being ladelled out in droves yesterday.
On the bus to a certain large shopping centre (that is so big it has its own atmosphere) I commented to Aspie teen that he may need to start back on the GFDF diet full-time, as he has a few minor health issues which may - or may not - resolve themselves once more on the diet.
We have followed this diet in the past - oh, yes, the screaming is such a cherished memory, bless - and there was a huge improvement in his health, his behaviour, his language/social/motor skills and edyamakashun that I'm happy to leap back on it properly, even if it's just to rule out any environmental factors that are bugging the carp out of him.
We have been more avoiding a lot of gluten in his diet rather than completely excluding it for the past few years.
We trundled through the crowds, snaffled the bits and bobs we were there for then as we were going through the check-out at Aldi I grabbed a copy of their next week's specials catalogue.
There on page 9 it was laid before me in all of Aldi's glory.
Their new "Has No..." food range.
Has No... is free from gluten, dairy and wheat, with some items even free from soy, egg, yeast, GMO and cane sugar while being suitable for vegans/vegetarians.
They have plain and SR flour, pancake mix, gravy, bread mix, (tinned) spaghetti, rice crumbs and, most importantly, They.Are.All.Affordable.
They are only a special item for the week beginning May 13th - I rang and checked this with the head office - so we'll be taking notice of this message from Ceiling Cat/The Universe/ the fairies at the bottom of the garden and will stock up!
Aspie teen was decidedly unimpressed with the whole notion until we got to the crux of the problem - he was worried he'd be unable to have chocolate.
I reassured him there were many, many, MANY more available GFDF food lines since he was last on the diet full-time and there were plenty of chocolate alternatives out there.
Now he's a happy Aspie!

Aspergian sub-culture

Last night on the Alone in a Crowded Room doco there were comments and observations passed that I've noted myself but kept to myself as so many 'specialists' prattle the same mantra contrary to basic logic.
The fact that those on the Spectrum are forced into behaving like neurotypicals; we're torturing square pegs to fit into round holes that they will NEVER fit comfortably in.
Dr Wendy Lawson stated that it would be far easier and better for neurotypicals to make the effort to understand and accept the neuro-diversity offered by Auties/Aspies than it was for Auties/Aspies being made to conform to a false ideal of "normal".
And this other ideal, to separate those on the Spectrum from each other and to push them into socialising with neurotypicals to learn to mimic their 'socially acceptable' behaviour, is bizarre and cruel.
I was  listening to an interview on ABC radio recently where journo Paul Raffaele described how the African chimps and gorillas had different sub-cultures inside groups in the wild; how orphans were being saved from poachers but brought up in a vacuum without their family/tribe culture and knowing only the fear/terror and angry behaviour from witnessing their mothers being slaughtered in front of them.
Our Auties/Aspies aren't witnessing murders but they are growing up in a vacuum where they're frightened and scared, made to feel like the outsider, that they are the oddball in a group of neurotypicals when they are in fact part of one of the fastest growing groups in the Western world.
The odds have changed so quickly many media outlets aren't keeping up with the ratios anymore as Valerie pointed out in her post HERE; it's 1 in 90 in USA, here in Oz it's 1 in 100.
When Aspie teen was first diagnosed it was reported as being closer to 1 in 250+ only 11 years ago.
Either the kids are getting in on the fad early or it's no longer the last thing specialists consider.
So, if our ASD kids are in such numbers and they know the funding isn't there for early intervention/integration aide funding and they know the mainstream systems don't always work ...why isn't the whole thing turned on it's head and neurotypicals made to just accept someone as being different?
And embrace the neurodiversity on offer?
Cos without the Spectrum we'd all still be gnawing on a raw hunk of meat in a cave somewhere.

Aspie social

So, Aspie teen waltzed off into the dark night with his dad.
Pouring rain did not dampen his enthusiasm to join the Aspie social support group.
Nor did it dampen his nerves.
At one stage during the day he began babbling 19 to the dozen, tripping over his own words and not waiting for answers.

Social groups 2

My Aspie teen is off to his first social meeting soon, full of excitement and hope.
We've worded him up early, giving him time to adjust his thinking and mentally plan his movements around this new event on his calendar.
I'm prepared for an outburst as the date draws closer, perhaps some trepidation at meeting others or even just the fact teen girls will be included (we're still, just, at the "ewww, girl germs" stage).
There'll be a few flutters from his mother but his dad plans on plugging into his iPod while the teens socialise (his father's way of coping with new situations) so I'll be parked at home attempting to watch some murder mystery whodunit on the edge of my seat from waiting to see how it all went.

Social groups

I've called to arrange our membership of the Asperger's social group.
Woot!
This is the first Spectrum-specific social group my son will have attended since he was in prep.
He's joined many community groups like lawn bowls, dancing, etc, but that was more a concerted effort to get him to observe and copy socially acceptable behaviour from neurotypical people both young and old.

Shifting sands

My eldest is, we suspect, well and truly on the Spectrum.
But this is tantamount to an insult as far as she is concerned.
With her poor social skills and inability to recognise body language/behaviour around her all her brother's life she has considered him as spoilt.