Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Plus 4.

Thought it might be time for an update... it's been a few days... wow. 2 weeks, I guess. Time flies. Funny. I was actually dusting our bedroom the other day (a shocker in itself), and we have this little hourglass decoration. I dusted it and flipped it over to watch the sand twinkle down to the bottom. About halfway through, it stopped. And I haven't touched it since that day. And it's still stuck. Wouldn't it be cool if time stood still for a few minutes? As hard as some days are, I know that in a few years I will long to have these days back. Sigh...

So, wanna get on the roller coaster ride tonight? The last time I wrote I was ready to rip up Vicki's carpet. Well, we finally did. We took our time and tried to find something that would work for her room. And you know what? It's hard to find what I wanted. So we compromised on some things, and ended up with a snap/lock floating floor in a pretty hardwood color. Clean-up might not be a complete cinch, but it has to be better than my resolve carpet cleaning system! I just couldn't find exactly what I wanted: a bright red vinyl floor, one big piece, with no texture, no seams, and super easy to install and don't forget very affordable, oh, and I want it today.... (I was imagining it to look like those booths in a diner in the 50's. That wasn't what I started out wanting, but I saw the underlayment that my husband put down for the new flooring and it was red. And i liked it. But, geeze, they don't sell it.) Just as an aside, snap/lock flooring systems are not as fun or easy as they sound! They should be called "snap, swear, stomp, swear, pop, snap again, and then beat with mallet flooring system." That is a much more appropriate name. :)
 
Anyway... you know when you think things are going to go one way, but then with every little step there is a problem, you know, pretty much anytime you do a home improvement project. (wow... let's count how many times I write 'you know' and 'so' and 'anyway'. It could be the blog drinking game.) With tearing up the carpet in Vic's room, we have pretty much rendered our upstairs useless. So, since it was Memorial Day weekend and we had a long weekend of cleaning and working around the house, we decided that we would go 'camping' in our living room since the upstairs was not in the best of shape. I say, always camp in the living room... 1. you are in air conditioning. 2. there are no mosquitoes 3. there are no rocks or dirt (well... maybe dirt!) and 4. no ticks!!  It's a win, win. :)  Joey pitched his tent and the festivities began Sunday night. And, even though we could probably clean up enough stuff upstairs so at least 1 kid could sleep in their own bed, but, for those of you who have multiple children, you know that 1 kid would NOT be happy. So, it started out with 3 kids in the tent in the living room. 5 minutes after bedtime, Ally was on the big comfy chair, 'they were squishing me!' 10 minutes after that, Vicki was on the couch. (More so because she moves around quite a bit and giggles and talks for a long time, and one thing I never realized, tents are scratchy sounding when you move around.) So, 15 minutes after we went to bed, Joey was in the tent, Ally was on the chair, Vicki was on the couch. And, yep, mommy was on the floor. And now it's Wednesday night. And after a few days of the floor and Motrin, mommy is over this adventure! Kids are still digging it. In fact, I was really surprised at how well Vicki did with the change up in routine. I take her up to her room every night, and show her the progress daddy is making on her new floor. And she has no problem walking back downstairs with me and jumping on the couch. I am actually nervous now to put the kids back into their rooms... I may have some trouble, and not just with Vicki. We'll figure that out when the time comes, hopefully tomorrow!

So. Floor is almost done. Yippi! I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again. But honestly, besides the soreness of sleeping on the floor, it has been much easier sleeping next to Vicki and keeping an eye on her than it has been for the last 2 weeks. After the last time I wrote, I had many more resolve cleaning sessions with the carpet and late night showers for Vic. In fact, there was one night that was especially bad... after cleaning in the basement (another pet project of mine of the last few weeks, it seriously looks like we are hoarders down there... oh I have lots to say about the basement, most of which doesn't have to deal with autism, so I guess I shouldn't go there... But I will diverge here for a second and a few thought about the basement and autism. I am certainly not going to blame the disorganization of the basement on autism, although I would like to... but it is very challenging to do things in the basement. When Vic is home and I don't have anybody else with her, it's kind of impossible to even go down into the basement, let alone 'clean it'. I can't be away from Vic that long, not even long enough to throw a load of laundry in, which, I would like to blame my lackluster laundry skills on autism too, if I could :) while I am at it! Anyway (drink if you are playing!) Where was I? Oh, deep thoughts on the basement and autism... I have a lot of boxes in the basement, filled with lots of random stuff. many years of random stuff. And I found a box of some of Vicki's old therapy stuff and things she did in preschool. And it makes me sad. Because so many of the things I saw in that box, Vicki is still struggling with. Years and years of struggling. And there were so many old toys in the basement. Preschool toys that Ally is way past. But I'm not sure if I should get rid of them all yet, because Vicki could still really benefit from them. I will pick back up with this thought another time...I was talking, I think, about an especially hard evening after I had been cleaning the basement...) After cleaning the basement for a few hours, my husband had been watching Vic on the monitor, but in the few minutes that I asked him to come to the basement, yep, she had smeared. After the cleaning routine was done, I took the laundry to the basement and kept working. In that amount of time our dog, Layse, had peed. Cleaned that up. Maybe an hour later, my husband heard someone crying upstairs. Ally. And she was sick again. All over everything. My lpoor ittle girl who was just sick on mother's day, was sick again. Clean. Resolve. Waning. Bath. Snuggle on mommy in chair the rest of the night. That was a hard night.

I will make one final  (long) statement about the nighttime potty issues we have been experiencing nonstop. There are many things we need to do. What we have been doing can not last forever. Changing from carpet to flooring may help ease clean-up, but it doesn't solve the behavior. I don't know what I did wrong. Somehow Vicki was reinforced, and continues to be reinforced, I am convinced, by someway I responded to her during clean-up. So many maybes... Maybe it's all sensory. Maybe she really does have to go. Maybe she just wants that shower. Maybe she just wants a response. An emotional response. Any response. Maybe... maybe... maybe... We need a better communication system for Vicki at night. We need to ramp up reinforcement of using the potty all of the time and at night especially. We are trying using a shower as a positive reinforcer for going to the potty at night, not for after for clean-up. I've thought and thought, and talked and talked (ps... if you are reading this.. thank you for talking and listening and just making me feel better!! xoxo). And have no answers yet. And now I am terrified of putting her back in her room. I take her to the bathroom much more frequently throughout the night now. And really watch her for the first 2 hours of bed. We had been watching the monitor and running in for any little thing we noticed. When it was 'bedtime' for the kids that used to be my ahhhhh... time. My coffee time. My me and my husband time. But now it's stressful. And I'm tired. And school lets out in 2.5 weeks. And then it's every minute of the day. Whine. Whine. Whine. Sorry!!!  I missed writing. Maybe I should call it whiting. Whiny writing. :P  Thanks for listening, again! xoxo
Talking about time... being a mom and a wife, no matter what the day looks like, is how I want to spend my time. Always.

If I could save time in a bottle
The first thing that I'd like to do
Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away
Just to spend them with you

If I could make days last forever
If words could make wishes come true
I'd save every day like a treasure and then
Again, I would spend them with you