Special Olympics, Day Two

I am so happy to report that day two at the Special Olympics went more smoothly.

It didn’t start off that way though. For obvious reasons, Puppy was nervous. The tantrum he had the night before had left its mark on him. He was wearing a band-aid over his injury and now his teacher and the aides will know he did not have the good behavior we are teaching him. But he had to face the day like any other and managed to calm down enough to get on the bus.

He talked his teacher and explained he had the tantrum and in his mind it was old news and not going to happen again…or so he promised…again.

The events were getting on their way, and I hadn’t mentioned that Puppy’s campus is walking distance from the district’s student activity complex.  In fact, he goes there often throughout the year for walks and runs with his classmates.  But today he was participating in the softball throw.  I remember his first competition in this sport, not so good; so glad he’s improving and focusing on eye-hand-coordination. Here’s a picture another parent sent me. He’s waiting for all the students to arrive and take their turns.

Puppy did pretty well. He placed second and received the Silver Medal for his efforts.

Oh the joy on his face. I’m so thankful for my friends who knew I couldn’t be there, and captured this picture for us. But doesn’t end here, there was a celebration dance! And yes, his teacher sent me a picture of this, too.

This was a sweet end to a much better day.  Congratulations Puppy!

And congratulations to Claire for achieving what seems like an impossible task of inserting images.

Special Olympics 2012, Day One

This year’s Special Olympics has come and gone.

The two day event went a little differently this year. For starters, it was the first year I didn’t get time off from work to watch the competitions. Puppy wasn’t too happy about that and even voiced that he didn’t want to participate, in his words, “I don’t want to go outside today.” I was hoping that after his morning call to my sister on Wednesday, he would get his pep talk and be convinced to get on the bus, go to school and change into his uniform for the events. Luckily, it pretty much happened that way. His teacher wasn’t going to let him sulk or stay in the classroom alone while they all went to the field.

On the first day of the Special Olympics, he did fine at the 50 meter run. In pictures that were taken by another classmate's mom, I see he was grouped with 4 other kids, him being the tallest and biggest. I think those little runners had an advantage over him…just saying. He didn’t place and came in 4^th or 5^th. 

It was it long day in the sun for Puppy though. His after school routine was changed, too. He was dropped off at my parents’ house after school. My sister was there and asked if I would like her to take him with her to my brother and his wife’s house until I got out from work so I wouldn’t have to deviate further from my route home. I got there and he greeted me like he usually does. He was excited to tell me about his day at the Olympics and how he ran as fast as he could to get his ribbon.

I sat down on the sofa to visit with my sister, my nephews and niece. Puppy on the other hand, was ready to go home. When I told him we’d leave in a while he didn’t like it, but waited. My brother got there, then my sister-in-law, and so I was catching up with them as well. By now Puppy was even more bored and asking to leave again. My sister-in-law asked us to stay for supper, but still…Puppy wanted to leave. When I said to him we’d leave after we ate, he took a deep breath and walked to another room and screamed he was going to bit himself if we didn’t leave. I told him soon, let’s eat first. And he took his hand to mouth and bit down as hard as he could. His braces left a terrible mark and open wounds on the backside of his right-hand. He started yelling, “I bit myself hard!” “It hurts!” I went and found him sitting on the bed crying with his hand in the air. Puppy’s first response was he’s sorry. He knew it wasn’t good behavior and figured I’d be angry. I was, but it was done. My instinct is to comfort him. It may not be the right thing because generally it was giving him attention. But as I saw it, my attention did not reward him and we were not leaving. Instead, I did comfort and his wound was cared for with ointment and a band-aid; and we walked to the kitchen to eat.

I read his face and saw embarrassment. But he tried to make small talk with others just the same. By this time Ms. H had arrived to meet with us for the evening. He sought her undivided attention for a while before asking to go outdoors. He was fine for the remainder of the evening. This was the end of day one.

What caused his tantrum? I will never know. I can take guesses. I can speculate. But Puppy has autism and can’t tell me himself why he turned to self-injury. Something triggered it, but looking for attention was not it, because attention does not take him to another location like he wanted. He wanted to go home and probably wanted some of this day to have routine to it and ultimately…none of this day was familiar or routine to him.

Puppy is doing well now and looks down at his hand. “Why did I do this, mom?” I don’t have an answer.

I learn a lesson, too

It was definitely my turn to learn a lesson. Keep two or three steps ahead of Puppy, if possible. He’s a clever one. As you are probably waiting to read, did he or didn’t he pull one over on me? Yes, he did. 

I picked him up from after school care. He had his list of items he still wanted to buy with his now $11.18 since last count. I needed to stop to buy some dog food, so I made a deal with him. No wallets! No tape! And he was in agreement, so I drove us to the dollar store on our way home.

I went towards the dog food and he went to search for whatever. I went to the front of the store with my 14 lb. bag and he met me there with his Ziploc bag filled with loose change in one hand, and a watch in the other hand. Remember, it’s the dollar store, so a watch was only $8.00 plus tax. It seemed like a good deal…he gets a watch, he uses $8.66 of his money which brings the total down considerably, so it was a done deal!

I had also picked up Domino’s Pizza on our way, so we were set for the evening. I asked him to set the watch aside until after supper and then we’d open the ridiculously awful plastic packaging it came in. He knew that if he listened, he’d have the watch shortly and so he complied quite nicely. 

He gobbled down his pizza slices and soda. Then with a quick rinse of the hands he was heading upstairs to tear the plastic wrap. But we were able to stop him from doing it alone and possibly getting all cut up in the process. Ms. H helped him get the watch out and he was excited. He didn’t notice that I was just as excited to not have him talking about his wallet for a few minutes. It’s a short distraction but a safe one as long as he doesn’t start asking for more and more watches.

So on this day, I was the only one learning a lesson.

Another lesson learned

You know how sometimes words don’t come across like they should; and you need to teach a lesson another way?  Well I did just that on Monday. And it seems to have worked.

Puppy was in his usual frame of mind when I picked him up from after school care.  He was asking for this or that, but mostly he was asking to buy some tape at the store so that he could make and tape his paper sleeves to the wallet for his credit cards. His wallet only has one surviving sleeve that managed to survive the scissors, and a flip-it from another wallet that holds cards on both sides of it, and is held onto the wallet with a glued piece of paper at both ends. (I really need to work on learning to add pictures.)

However, as it turns out, he has been going around the house for about four days searching for loose change and not to mention he basically stole my counting jar of change to successfully collect a total of $9.92 to use. To my son, that is a whole lot of money. But to me it’s a pain in the butt, because he's letting his imagination run wild. He wants to buy a wallet, a watch, a credit card holder, tape, glue, faded blue jeans from Academy, etc. This is a birthday wish list, not items you buy with $9.92.

Well like I was saying, I picked him up and he was asking to go to the store, but he forgot he left his money at home. So he quickly searched his truck door handle; that's where he puts change, and he came up with $1.27. He asked if I would take him to buy a tape and didn’t care that he didn’t have enough money. But we parked at the store and I talked to him. If he finds tape, goes to the register and has enough money, then it’s his. If not, I’m sorry. He probably didn’t even hear a word I said and was just itching to jump out of the truck. I could see him through the windows walk over and smile as he found the tape. He waited for two customers ahead in line. Then I saw him put the tape back in its place and walk out of the store. But he wasn’t too sad and his head didn’t hang low. He got in the truck and said, “Mom, you were right, it cost too much.” And even, “My wallet is fine just the way it is, I don’t need tape.” This of course brought a big smile to my face with a saddened heart. I could have given him the money. But what lesson would I have taught him? 

This lesson might have worked this time. But as I’m typing my blog I am laughing out loud all by myself. I just remembered he may have tricked me this morning. As we were going over the places he could use his money at, like school book fair, or the candy store at school…he asked if he could put it all in a Ziploc bag to ask his teacher’s permission or suggestion for how to spend his money. Yep, it all seemed so innocent this morning. I will probably be writing a follow up to this story of how I stopped at the store on our way home, haha!

Doing pretty well

Puppy is doing much better since I started the changes in his medications last week. His teacher tells me he is a more pleasant person, talkative, responsive, and overall happy.  These words are music to my ears. He’s come such a long way from the deep darker side episodes of repeated tantrums and meltdowns. 

He has also become a persistent debater whenever it comes to him wanting or requesting a new wallet, or just wanting to modify his present wallet with tape to create new sleeves (which is everyday); or arguing that his dirty jeans with the rip on the back pocket that shows the wallet are not really that dirty and he HAS to wear them because they are his favorite pair. And now two pairs have rips, so he has two favorite jeans that he switches back and forth. Oh and did I mention the rips were made by scissors and not wear and tear? That’s just Puppy.

I am actually seeing progress in his weekly spelling words being put to use in his everyday conversations. I beam with pride whenever he is studying and he makes random sentences with the words; it reassures me he has understood the definition of the word. 

So I can say that as long as there are no more unannounced visits from the police, or torn jeans, we are doing pretty well.