Every year on the 4th of July I tell my husband we are leaving town. Our neighborhood is absolutely nutty with fireworks and I get it, we love the patriotism! But where we live, it feels a little excessive to be blowing off M-80s at 3:00 in the morning. This goes on for days and it really messes with Alan.
This year, we pulled the trigger and skipped out. We went up to a Great Wolf Lodge in northern Michigan. I thought that if we can tire him out enough at the water park and pools then the nighttime won't be as much as a factor, and it definitely wasn't. I also learned that our neighborhood is not the norm and people actually DO stop blowing them off at a decent hour, just not where we live.
Anyway, the vacation... it was 60/40... This is according to the 80/20 rule I live by. If I eat healthy to prevent illness 80 percent of the time, the other 20 I don't have to be as strict, only if I want to. If I workout 80 percent of my week, then if situations arise, I have the other 20 percent to slack off and not beat myself up about it. This is the same for Alley. When we go to an event, or school, or his day to day at home, if he has good behavior for 80 percent of it, then that's a huge win in our book. We know there will always be that 20 percent (or much more in some cases) that he will let out his frustrations. This vacation was no different, but like I said, we were more like 60/40 this time around.
The drive was long from where we live. It seemed like we hit that 3 hour mark and he was over it. And I mean OVER IT. He starting melting in the car, which was hard to contain, watch and have Vinny and Joey sitting right there with front row seats. Everyone felt helpless, not much we could do as we are on the highway. My husband must not have been paying attention to his speed at this point because just our luck, sirens and bright blue police car rolled up right behind us. Shoooooooooottt, talk about terrible timing. I'm in the back of the van trying to calm Alan, sitting not legally, and he is super upset. The officer came to the passenger side window, asked my husband how fast he thought he was going. Well apparently he was wrong and going much faster then that. Al explained that we have a son with severe Autism and he was having trouble at that time. Right as Al
said that Alan let out a big whale of a sound, so clearly we weren't lying. The officer took our info back to his car, I sat like a statue and didn't move. When he came back he told us we were his "only warning of the day" and to "slow down". Looking back on it, Alan's melt saved us. We carried on and finished the drive. Alan was better as well.
The Great Wolf Lodge was super accommodating to us and Al. Their staff was trained on Autism recently. The water park was amaizng for him. He had so many things to try and because it was so loud in there nobody heard him if he was upset. It was actually nice to avoid awkward stares all together. We did a lot of swimming and water parking and sun time. We also took two days and went to the lake. In the midst of all of this Alan developed a rash on his inner thighs. The poor kid was walking around like he had just gotten of riding a horse for days on end. This would result in many behaviors throughout our stay. Like I said it was 60/40, and I attribute a lot of that to the itritation and pain he was in. There were some real bright spots, for instance with one of the of the water slides Alan would go all the way to the top with my husband, wait in a line of at least seven kids (patiently) my husband would then go down first and Alan would follow on his own after. He did it at his own snails pace coming down but eventually we would see his head leaking around the corner and he would make it down on his own. Which is huge! He must have done this about forty five times. It was nonstop.
And his brothers, I cannot brag about them enough. They were so great with Alan, helping when they can, listening to Mom and Dad when he was having a hard time. To see the pure love and concern from them was just too much goodness to put into words. They have hearts of gold those two and that has to do with being raised in a family with Alley.
All in all it was another vacation for the books. There were plenty of times that I cursed myself for planning this, and putting us in a position where Alley was going to get upset. But in the long run the boys and us will look back on it and only remember the good memories that we will carry with us forever. We shot for 80/20 and got 60/40.... just have to keep trying. That's all you can do.
With Grace-
This Autsim Mama
Comentarios