autism, chris, sleep

Overnights —

101_0016Actually took this picture at dusk in December, but it was a neat example of darkness outside and how I captured it with my new camera at the time.

But overnight, such a peaceful time.  You want everything dark, and quiet, and to sleep solidly and restfully.  And you want that comfort and peace and routine for your children.

I don’t understand why many children with autism cannot sleep at night.  Chris is up now, it is 2:45 a.m.  We thought he would be up – he has this weird giggle that starts about 5 or 6 p.m. on nights that he won’t sleep, and strangely enough, like the beginning before they say “Wipeout” in that famous song.  Whenever he makes that giggle Rog and I look at each other and usually say, “Wipeout,” and then say, or think, “Up all night.”

 

I am glad when he stays up all night at our house, as that means the next night when he’s at Rog’s mom’s and dad’s, back with him staying there too, with him, he should sleep.  We all need to share the care.  I just wish I knew why he doesn’t sleep.  We have tried about 20 different medicines, many of which make all people sleep all of the time, seemingly.  But not Chris.  He is on melatonin but it doesn’t so anything – – – Clonidine worked for 6 years but wore off – we tried it again but it didn’t work.  Geodon worked for about 3 years, then wore off.  Those were the only two meds that ever worked.

http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/helping-your-child-with-autism-get-a-good-nights-sleep?page=2 may help some individuals who can’t sleep with autism.  Hmm.  I hadn’t heard of the ending item, bright-light therapy.  Maybe something to bring up as another treatment?

 

chris, life, work, writing

Missing writing, missing an important part of me!

I need to take more time to write here. I do feel my life is kind of taking on a pace all of its own that half the time I feel I have no control over!!!

First of all, Chris is doing great — dsc00342 We went out to eat with him today and he was very happy. Ryan also had a plate of spaghetti dsc00343

Continue reading “Missing writing, missing an important part of me!”

children, chris, colleen, Ryan

Busy times!


baseball 3

Originally uploaded by

criscollrj

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Ryan went to a baseball game and did great! He went with Papa and Dad. We also visited his new school, and went to an outing with Chris’s school mates. And Ryan went to a birthday party, and so did Colleen. I tried to put some of these pictures in sets to make it less confusing and more organized – lots of work to do!!

Today was Chris’s last day of school. Unbelievable. He is now a 10th grader!

More soon —

autism, children, health, sleep

I do exist still —

I think. We are so tired — all of us — our oldest has been ill and we are not sure what is wrong. He has autism as I mentioned before and he has been crying most of the time the last week. Drs. don’t know what to do. It’s sad and difficult. We love him so much but don’t know what to do. We are loving on Vanilla Coca Cola (me) and coffee (hubby) and just trying to get through it — it happens like this every few months and then it gets better.

Owen also is going to be evaluated to see if he has bi-polar disorder. We visited a psychologist today and she believes he may have that from our initial descriptions of him to her. So perhaps another piece of the puzzle of our beautiful but very mysterious son…

In my absence our baby son “RJ” also had ear tubes put in. He had 5 bad ear infections in 5 months. He is doing very well now!

Sometime soon I will finish the history I had started before, about meeting my wonderful hubby, etc.!

dori

edit – reading this over again for a 2nd time – read the entire blog during COVID in Dec. 2020 and now am starting to read again, July of 2024.  RJ now known as Ryan is back to having ear infections again and we are going to try and get him to an ENT to find out why.  2003 to 2024, 21 years later, crazy.