Change is hard

If you know me or been to my house over the years, you know I like to change things around. I like to rearrange the furniture and things.

But when you live with a child with Autism, not everything can change. Carson has never had any problems when I move things around. Even when we change things in his room, he does good with it. But there are some things in his world that you don't change. And man it is tough. 

Going back to school is a change for him, and the past couple years, he doesn't have any issues with going back. I pray Wednesday will be no different.  Back to school means back to packing his lunch. Which means the battle will begin on where he puts his lunchbox after school until the next day. He thinks it needs to be in the middle of the dining room floor. It drives me crazy. I walk by and pick it up, he comes by and puts it back. 

One of Carson's chores is to carry his juice in when we buy it. He loves Hawaiian Punch. Problem is he thinks they need to be lined up by the fridge. Out in the middle of the floor. I have stubbed my toes on them way too many times. 

In an attempt to try to get the juice and lunch box out of the middle of the floor, I cleaned off a space on a cabinet for him to place his lunch box and the juice. This morning, I said to him that it was Carson's shelf. For his juice. I placed one jug on the shelf. He protested and put it back on the floor. Tonight after Carson went into bed, I picked up the juice and put it on the shelf. I know he will protest, but I am hoping that if we continue to work with him and be persistent, we can get him to keep his juice and lunch box on the shelf and not on the floor. 

Here's hoping....

Small Town Love

I know that there are some people that can not wait to get away from small town living.  I on the other hand, do not want to live any other place.  When you live in a place where you know everyone it never fails that someone has your back.  Over the past few weeks, I have seen so much of this love and for lack of better words, the love is overwhelming.
After the death of a young man in our town, so many hearts were broken, and even though he was only an acquaintance, and not a close friend, I had friends and family that were close to him. And when their hearts broke, my heart broke too.  I wanted to help, so I put my craft hobby/business to use and made a flag in hopes that it would make the family of this young man, feel a little better.  Nothing I could do would ever take away their pain, I knew that, but maybe it would help a little.  After the flag I made a few decals, that lead to a t-shirt, that lead to more decals and more shirts. Then hats and can koozies.  All of that to love being spread around our small town.  Being a part of that love makes me feel amazing.
Then I was asked if I would be willing to help a family in a neighboring town if I would make shirts for a family to help with medical expenses.  I said, Yes.  So another t-shirt campaign was launched.
Not long after that one was off and rolling, another t-shirt fundraiser was launched to help a young couple whose sweet little boy was born with a birth defect and had an extended hospital stay and surgery down the road.
People ask why I do this.  I don't do if for recognition or for putting money in my pocket.  I do it because I am a firm believer that when you do good, good things happen to you.

The good things happened to us today....

When Carson becomes fixated on things, it is very stressful and hard for us to get him off those things.  We just try our best to do what we can to make things work for him and what is best for our family.  When he decides that the living room couch is better to be used for a place to line up a bunch of VHS tapes and DVD's - you find a different place to sit, and let him do it.  For some reason today, he wanted to play the VHS tapes, this is something that could last for a couple hours, or a day, or weeks or even longer.  So in an effort to keep things calm in our house, I wanted to put a tv and vcr in his room so that he could watch his videos when he wanted without disrupting the entire family with his fixation.  If I didn't put it his room, With watching little ones, he could decide that he wanted his video playing in the middle of the kids doing their thing.  And when he is doing his thing, he doesn't like people interrupting him, or being close to him.  He needs his space.
Bill and I both thought we had an extra tv in the basement, but we didn't.  So I put a post on Facebook asking if someone had a small tv that they wanted to get rid of or we could buy cheap.  Within 10 minutes of posting - I had an answer that a friend had one, and she was coming to town and would drop it off. So I told Carson that a tv was coming soon, for his room. He did wait as patient as he can do.  He actually put his face in front of me at one point and said Wait, Wait, Wait. ( I  couldn't help but smile).  It wasn't long, and my friend showed up with the TV. I was blown away when she came to the door with a brand new television, still in the box.  They wanted Carson to have it. Our friends and neighbors did a good thing for us to help our family life go smoother.
I went back and hooked up his tv and vcr up (the vcr was given to us by another friend a few months ago, but was just sitting on the shelf till he decided today that he wanted it watch videos).
I wish you could have seen the look on his face when that video started playing on his tv in his room.  He exclaimed "IT WORKS" and the smile on his face was as wide as he is tall.
The kindness and love in our small town made my heart grow once again today!  I love this small town and my family and friends.  The saying is, it takes a village - small town family village!!