Do We NEED Blue Pumpkins? Can't We Just Be Kind?

(Updated for 2019 - Originally Written and Posted in 2018)
DC always enjoyed the costume and candy part of Halloween, but it took years before he really understood the waking around to get said candy and years after that before he understood that he could not walk into people’s houses.

He could not understand why we were ringing the doorbell and not going in.

Halloween, now is his absolute favorite.

He has a costume for every party and another for the big day.

I don’t feel that I should have to take that all away from him because some people see him as “too old” to trick-or-treat.

Like many children and adults with autism, his interests are limited and when he really shows an interest or enjoys something out of what would normally be thought of his “comfort zone” - you better believe that we are going for it; all the way. 

Please be kind if an adult in costume comes to your door, or a child without a costume due to sensory issues.

Their parents will handle it if they try to walk into your home or don’t understand “take one piece” - Not having the ability to say “Trick-Or-Treat” is okay too......really. Don’t try to force it. 

It IS everyone’s Halloween. #Autism #Halloween

Facebook Status 10/31/18 




Updated for 2019:
About the blue pumpkins....
My opinion is that they are yet another attempt to make our children conform to the way society believes Halloween should be done.

Do I believe they will help to raise awareness?
No.
I imagine that the folks who need to be educated will not even be aware of the existence of the blue pumpkin.

How about we just do not force kids to say Trick or Treat in order to participate in Halloween?

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This blog is used for shorter posts, off topic posts and also for longer Face book statuses. Please visit my official blog site at: Taking it a Step at a Time 

Another Week (Or So) In the Life

Some weeks are just "busier" than others here in DC-land.

This week was certainly memorable.

When you look past the humor of some of it, you really can see some progress and independence.

FB Status - October 17, 2019

So.... DC decided that it was a good idea to shave off (most of) his eyebrows last night.
Happy Thursday!

(No worries, though - he seemed pretty proud of the "accomplishment")

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FB Status - October 19, 2019

First Party of the Season:
It’s funny... last year or maybe the year before, knowing DC's love of Disney characters and of course, Halloween - someone messaged me to see if we had a Sully costume in our collection. I told her that oddly enough, DC had never asked to be Sully for Halloween.
Well out of the clear blue sky, he asked this year...
So ‘K’ - this one will be available after the party today if you never ended up doing the Sully thing that year

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FB Status - October 22, 2019

This is DC sitting calmly waiting for blood work to get done.
Sitting calmly...
Not only was he sitting calmly, we got out of there a whole hour earlier than I anticipated. I don't know if it was a fluke or what, but I'll take it...
Such a difference from that first time 4 years ago (here)

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FB Status - October 23, 2019

DC works works in Group Supported Employment. During the summer, he works in their greenhouse and sometime in the fall he moves inside to "Make The Dog Bones" (the dog biscuit room). We are in the "Dog Bones" portion of the year.
The other day I got a note that, just to switch things up and I assume because they needed help in another area, he and one of the IA's went to work packaging hole punch labels (? no idea what that means)
He wasn't happy and after a while announced "I quit". Which I thought was pretty funny (but I'm the Mom and I can't laugh). But I was also surprised because I had never heard him say that or use that phrase.
Today when he called me on his way home, I asked as usual what he did that day:
DC: Dog Bones Room
Me: Oh, you didn't have to do label packaging today?
DC: I quit!
Okay, so he does know what that means AND the quitting stuck.

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FB Status - October 24, 2019

You have heard me say it before..
DC has a habit of calling me upstairs to say absolutely nothing. He does it on a regular basis.
Yesterday I was in the kitchen putting dishes away when I hear “Vickie, please come here”
I yell from the kitchen “What’s wrong?”
DC: Come here please.
I stop what I am doing to run upstairs and first he says:
“Nothing wrong” and then...
“Play with band-aids when I am done” - nothing that couldn’t have waited until he came downstairs.
So I tried once again to explain that he shouldn’t keep making me run upstairs to tell me something like this. It can wait until he comes back down.
Realizing that he could possibly take that to mean “don’t call me to come upstairs at all - even if there is something really wrong”, I back tracked and said that he should call me if it’s an emergency (DC’s concept of an emergency is anything he might need help with so I felt confident using that word).
Today, from upstairs I hear. “Mom, it’s an emergency”
Up the stairs I go only to hear..
“Mom, your hair looks horrible”

#ThisHasBeenATestOfTheEmergencyBroadcastSystemThisIsOnlyATest
 #IGuessHeShowedMe


So there you have it. A little bit of independence and standing up for himself, a little bit of problem solving (or testing me) and the blood work, let's not forget the blood work!

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This blog is used for shorter posts, off topic posts and also for longer Face book statuses. Please visit my official blog site at: Taking it a Step at a Time 

More #TalesFromTheDayProgram

I read a note in DC's "Talk Book" on Thursday...

"DC was a little bit upset this morning" ... that went on to explain how upset he was, what he did and that they did not know what it was all about.

Now, if this had been the morning before after two random meltdowns, I would have understood, but that morning he was just fine when he left for work.

I read the note as soon as I got home from work. DC was still out with his staff so I texted his driver to see if anything had set him off on the way.
He told me that DC was perfectly happy when he got out of the car.

If you have been here for any length of time, you already know that communication is difficult.
I can't ask too many questions or he will shut down.
I have to be careful not to ask leading questions because he will just give me a random answer.
I have to be careful about how many times I ask the same question because he will think he's gotten the answer wrong and change it.

I asked him if he could tell me why he was so upset at work that morning.

After all of the "Not upset", "Happy", "Nothing wrong" replies that I usually get when I try to figure out what is going on, I did finally get a few clues.

Usually when he gives me these random clues, I can, at times figure out what happened. It takes a lot of thought about things that may not have been noticeable or seemed relevant at the time, but for some reason stuck with DC.

But I wasn't there, so the information meant nothing to me. I could only come up with a few guesses at what might have happened.

"Lights were out"
"Door was stuck"
"It was an emergency"
"Bathroom door"
"Raining"
"Running"

I wrote all of this in his talk book with a few guesses as to what may have happened.

Maybe the bathroom light went out or he couldn't get into the bathroom.
Maybe the door to the building was stuck or locked and it was raining.

As I said, I wasn't there but I wrote that maybe they could make some sense of all of this.
I know that usually "Emergency" has something to do with the bathroom.

The reply in his book when he came home on Friday?

"Thank you for the info" and the basic note about what he did at work that day.

Nothing to explain what happened.
Nothing to say that they were able to figure out what happened or even that they were not able to figure out what happened from what he was able to tell me. Nothing, almost as if to tell me "This is what happened. We don't care why it happened. We don't want to know if there is a problem that needs to be addressed. We really don't care as long as he stopped."


Just nothing.

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This blog is used for shorter posts, off topic posts and also for longer Face book statuses. Please visit my official blog site at: Taking it a Step at a Time