At the End of My Rope...

Never in a million years did I think at nearly five years of age my child would still be pooping in his pants - and not just an occasional accident, but regularly and on purpose! I am so over cleaning poop out of Reiss's pants on a near daily (sometimes two, three, or four times) basis, I could tear my hair out.

And he was doing so well there for several weeks.....

But no, Reiss is now back to pooping in his pants almost daily and is proud of himself for doing it. He wants to wear a diaper because Milla wears Pull-Ups (visualize me saying this in a snotty voice). Seriously, I could cry. Actually, I might just do that later.

Today alone, I have cleaned poop out of Reiss's pant two times. Weeks ago, even just days ago, the threat of wearing a diaper would send him into a tantrum begging not to have to wear one. He goes back and forth though...one day he wants to wear a diaper to be just like Milla. The next, he is having a record-breakingly loud and extensive meltdown at the mere mention of having to wear a diaper. Make up your mind already, ya' know??

How in the world is a person supposed to know how to handle that? GRRRRR!!!!!!!

And by the way, I hope I never sound like I don't like or love my own child. I love Reiss to pieces but some days....some days I wish with all my being things could just be even a teensy bit easier.

On a more positive note, my husband and I are working with a woman who is the former director of a therapy facility for children on the northside of Indianapolis in helping her and her husband (also a former director of the same facility) get the word out about a similar facility of their own that they hope to open by summertime.

Their facility will provide ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy services all in one building - a wonderful benefit to those parents who either have several therapists coming to their homes and/or travel to several different facilities in order for their children to receive their different therapies. This is exactly the kind of thing this side of town (we live on the southside of Indianapolis) needs, as no other facility of its kind exists here.

I always say the southside is the worst place to have a child with autism because all the professionals specializing in autism treatments are on the northside. The one place that is not is downtown and is a university-based autism treatment facility that is so overwhelmed with patients they cannot provide the intensive treatment these children need. Just ask me and my husband. Unfortunately, we know first-hand. For example, their recommended form of therapy for Reiss was ABA for one hour, one time per month. Anyone who knows anything at all about ABA knows that one hour of ABA might as well be nothing. ABA is generally given to children ten to thirty hours per week, with some children needing a little less, others needing a bit more. However, one hour per month would never be considered effective treatment by the professionals who originally conceived the ABA theories.

In other news....(is that so cliche or what?)

A girl, well, she's actually a woman now, I went to school with and am facebook friends with sounds like she is in the process of beginning the journey into autism with her son. It breaks my heart to know others have to go through what we go through but it's nice to know I have been there, am still there, and can help others just now joining "the club" that no one wants to be a part of, but many of us (and a growing number of us) are forced into joining.

There were some other positives to my day today. I didn't ditch my friend, Carol, and our regular Wednesday mall-walking date like I have had to do for a few weeks now due to other things going on. So I did get some exercise today.

While at the mall, in addition to walking two miles, I also rocked the Bath & Body Works store! My brother-in-law gave me a giftcard for there. I was unsure of the amount of the giftcard and kept forgetting to call the 800 number on the back to find out. After walking this morning, I had some time to kill before going to get Reiss and decided to go spend my giftcard before I forgot about having it. Their semi-annual sale is going on right now and that is one sale I love so much that I actually tell people about it. I must sound like a real dork telling people about a sale but this sale is a good one. How can I pass up stocking up on gifts for people when they include getting body sprays for $0.35???

Anyway, so I picked out what I thought was probably around $25 worth of stuff. It ended up being a total with tax of $30.39. My giftcard was for thirty dollars so I got 21 items for $0.39 out of pocket! Not too shabby, especially considering I was just guessing at the amount of the giftcard.

After robbing the Bath & Body Works store, I took Milla to the play area for the remaining little bit we had before needing to pickup Reiss from preschool. She played and ran around and I hope she had fun. She looked like she was having fun. There was one mom whose little girl of about eighteen months, by my guesstimation, ran out of the play area. The mom was young (but then, anything younger than thirty seems young to me these days) and was sitting there talking with a friend and not watching her daughter. I was watching her daughter and Milla at the same time and wondering how long it would be before she got up to go get her daughter. Finally, after her daughter was about fifty or so feet from the play area and getting ready to enter JCPenney, the mom got up to go look for her daughter. And it wasn't even in an oh-my-goodness-where-is-my-daughter sort of way. It was more like la-dee-da-dee-da-I-guess-I-will-go-find-my-daughter-now kind of way. GRRRR!!!! (Just for fun, can you count how many times I used the word "daughter" in that paragraph? Sheesh, where are those writing skills people used to gush all over me about?)

Anyhooooo.....surely anyone reading this to here is bored to tears by now so........

I'm off...back to conquering the world I go. HA!