It has been one of the worst weekends. Theres a saying here: "El hombre propone y Dios dispone"; which means that you may plan but God has the last word on what you acomplish. Yes I know how it sounds but ever since Friday all that I had plan never came to be. For Friday I wanted to stay at home in the morning so I could do some work with Sharkboy; but I couldnt stay because my sister-in-law showed up with some problem with her car and I was the only one around to help. The time we spend together that morning proved one thing: how embarrased she is of her godchild! We made a stop at a store because I had to exchange a shirt Lavagirl needs for her dance class. While being there Sharkboy had one of his classical tantrums because, first, he needed to buy a toy and secondly because he wanted to go home. He did the usual crying, falling to the floor etc, etc...a tantrum. Most of the times I ignore the behavior, explain consequences and keep on with what I was doing. The interesting thing was that my sister in law tried to help me look for the shirt but whenever Sharkboy would get close or start his whailing she would make a dissapearing act. Finally she stayed out of the store...As always they stay far away hoping that it would go away...

After that I had planned to take the kitties and a puppy for vaccines at the vet. After having catched them and locking them in cages I went to pick up the books for music class. Then Sharkboy decided to pet them and forgot to close the door....So everybody hid...Lost an hour looking for them...I was so mad because the time lost looking for them made me late to pick Lavagirl up and obviously we couldnt make it to music class. So I headed back home looking for things to recycle because the scout meeting was at 6 and he had to bring some, had another fight because none of them wanted a bath and finally he said he wanted to stay home. I gave in, my migraine was so nice that I simply couldnt refuse the offer. Then I remembered a friend, who also has an autistic kid in the scouts, told me that one has to keep in mind that there are days when things cant get done and we should be happy if you want to live at all.

On Saturday I wanted to wake up early so I could do laundry before going to work but thanks to the meds I didnt. My husband decided to do it at his moms so half of it could get done at least. The only problem was that my in laws have the dexterity to tell him to do things and they have to be done inmediately if not they are like a mosquito lying around your ear at night. They always keep reqesting his help for everything and bug him if thing are not done; forgetting in the process that he has responsabilities at his home and with his kids. They had a huge fight over some things, the laundry never got done and I had a pissed man cursing all day through. Lovely, all thanks to the in laws...Gotta love them! Anyway, I got off work almost at 3:30 - 4:00 and decided to do window shopping for at least half hour. I needed to get my mind away, relax...getting home with a lot of tension doesnt help with the kid's anxiety...By 5 I picked up everyone and headed home realizing then that I had forgotten to take Lavagirl to dance class...

After dinner and failing attempts to do schoolwork the usual sesion of fears started....I have always wondered why he gets those feelings more or less at the same time...The thing is that the fear is of certain things or simply fear out of the feeling itself. Its really mind draining trying to help a kid through those feelings...one gets very, very tired and very, very easily upset when nothing works...I have even considered going back to medication but the side effects outweight the benefits. I have noticed that since quitting the meds certain behaviors are making a comeback...He loves to spin objects, he is doing the up and down walk, talks to himself, the noises he likes to make...He has a lot of sensory issues...He tries to stimulate himself by noise or movement, sometimes by touch but he mostly dislikes being touched...

I am mentioning this because 7 years ago docs would tell you that Autism was a mental illness...Opposed to know that it is a genetic disorder or a problem of the wiring of the brain...I remember that we tried to evaluate him with different specialist hoping that something physically wrong would show...but nothing did. It took me a while to accept that he had a mental illness...To hear it reversed now has conflicting feelings because one may wonder if I had pushed for more testing...had I gone to the states he wouldnt have had all those meds...he could have gotten a better treatment...

Last night Nick had a special program about autism....It was by far one of the best that I have seen, it presented some of the different types of autism from severe to high functioning. Plus it gave an insight to the stories of the families and what it is like. I was in awe seeing a kid with home therapists!!!!!!!! an Asperger kid with an aide only for his social problems!!! Here social problems are never adressed...It was very touching to see how the families have accepted their childs behavior and try to help them be as happy as any other kid. One of the brothers even said that he had finally gotten used to his brother's weird hand movements at the mall....It is like they said: We must not teach autistic kids to manage their behavior, we must teach them to manage ours.

Guess that is something I have to learn to do: love and accept him as he is, and not work towards changing him to our neurotypical ways...