Down for the count...

Another week come and gone, and here it is Friday once again.  

It's been a mess of the week here for us.  Mister Man goes through cycles (I refer to them as A(autism) and B(better) days)  periodically, based on all sorts of sensory triggers.   On B days, we're out and about, busy as bees.  But on A days we're just barely getting to the basics.  He becomes extremely emotional, often times very depressed… and has major sleep disturbance issues and problems with daily functions.  Often times these periods hit with little to no warning, and then it's just a matter of hunkering down and getting through it.  On rare occasions I can see it coming…my Mami  senses start tingling!  And of course 10 years in, I know there are certain triggers which are guaranteed to set him off.  

One given is any sort of extreme temperature.  Here on the East Coast the weather has been horrendous...humidity and heat are the defining characteristics of an East Coast summer, but this past week has been off the charts.  Air as thick as pea soup...allergens enough to be visible...and the temperature, oh, the temperature.  Step outside and boil from the inside out!   Even with the air conditioner running 24/7 on full blast, the inside of our home has maintained above 85° day and night.  Mister Man is miserable, dysfunctional and whimpery...and my bag of tricks is proving inadequate.  

Homeschooling this week has been a joke. It's accomplished little more than make us both even more ornery than we were to begin with!  One positive note in all of this is that last week we finally made it through our chapter on division, and one little boy is absolutely delighted to be done with it!  While he generally loves math, and is very advanced and capable, let's just say long division involving hundreds and thousands is not his forte!  This week we've moved onto rounding and estimating reviews, and decimals.  One new strategy I am trying this homeschooling session is allowing him to use the iPad for his creative writing.  Handwriting has always been a problem for him. Rather then waste the time that it would take for him to handwrite out a short story (an excercise in futility) it makes much more sense to me to allow him to use the microphone feature and create a word document.  We can tackle the writing dysgraphia in other ways, without interfering with the creative process.  Of course the microphone presents problems in and of itself.  Because he tends to speak quietly and not very clearly, the microphone transcription has written some very interesting babble.  So in that regard, using the microphone is almost like a speech-therapy session. He has to work extra hard at enunciating his words and speaking in concise sentences.  And he has to think out what he wants to say in advance, before pressing the button.  The first few days using this method were definitely challenging, but I feel as though we are progressing nicely.  His current story is really filling out quite well.  

As for me, my allergies have been wreaking havoc on my whole system.  About eight or so years ago I started getting this strange eye swelling thing. The very first time it happened I woke up in the morning and my eye was swollen shut. It looked as though there was a golf ball behind my eyelid.  The whole thing itched like crazy and it looked as though all the fluid in my tear ducts just backed up.  Over the course of the next few hours the swelling went down completely.  In the months following, this continued to happen about twice a week. Coming on overnight and disappearing in a few hours.  I tried allergy eyedrops, and even tried changing the allergy prescription I take every day. But to no avail.  About a year in, I noticed that it was happening less frequently but the symptoms were lasting longer.  And before the swelling set in, the area around my eyelid would itch horribly.  Fast forward to present day, and now it happens much less often, but the symptoms stick around for days. And instead of my just noticing it affecting my eyes, it seems as though my whole body is having an allergic reaction.  Years ago when this first started happening, Mister Man told me I looked like a one-eyed snake monster...because clearly it was incredibly disfiguring.  What can I say?  That description stuck in my mind. So now every time it happens, I not only feel unwell but also have that phrase running through my head!  Talk about feeling insecure!

Hoping for a weekend reprieve...

~Leanna