Interesting Facts About Our Day-to-Day Happenings

I was sitting here on this cold, rainy day thinking that since I was stuck inside, I should write a blog post. But then I have this problem all the time of not knowing what to write about. So, I read up on some of the autism blogs that I follow, and I saw that a few of those bloggers have at least one post about some interesting facts of their everyday lives. So I thought I would do my own in hopes that some of you would like to know why we do certain things and the reasoning behind those things. Hope y'all enjoy!


1. We let JB bounce. On anything that can be bounced on. We have a big trampoline outside, but we also have a small exercise trampoline in his room. We also have a large ball that he can sit on and bounce on. But he also will bounce on the furniture and the beds. We try to limit the furniture and bed bouncing by re-directing him to something appropriate to bounce on, but honestly, if its helping him calm down, I'm all for it.

2. We have to lock up the food. Most people who have kids are able to regulate and watch what their child eats. Not us. JB will eat anything. And I mean anything. Literally. Including digging in the garbage for some half-eaten piece of scrumptiousness. The garbage thing doesn't happen often--thankfully--so we haven't had to come up with a way to lock that up--yet. But we do have a bike chain on the refrigerator, and we turned a large gun cabinet with locking double doors into a pantry. Its awesome! I keep everything that he might possibly want in the cabinet. The veggies are apparently safe on the open shelves. *smile*

3. We have alarms on the doors. There was a time not too long ago that JB decided to go for a walk. Even since that day, we have had some sort of lock and alarm system on the door. These days, we have a loud 'ding-dong'-type alarm that goes off when you open the door. It uses batteries and was super easy to install. Previously, we have used things like jingle bells on the door to let us know if it was opened. We also had a hasp lock on the very top of the door that we put a pin through and at one point we even used a pad lock with it. Be creative if you have to folks. You may get laughed at by some for being a redneck (I know from experience), but at least your child is safe.

4. JB wears hearing protection muffs a lot, especially in public. If you see JB wearing his very large red and black hearing protection muffs, its because there is just too much going on for him to function. He gets very overwhelmed by large crowds and noisy places. So these help to block out a lot of the background noise. And yes, they are actual shooting muffs, made for hearing protection while shooting. We happened to have these (because we shoot a lot), and one day we discovered they helped him. So they are now his.

5. We may have to remove JB from overwhelming situations. Sometimes we are out somewhere and JB just has a hard time being there. These are usually places where you are expected to sit still and be quiet. Awards assemblies, church services, weddings, anything like that. And usually when we have to take him outside, its not because he is mad or angry. Its because he is happy and he gets very excited and starts making all of his 'happy noises'. Most people are considerate and tell me not to worry about his noises, but I just believe that its considerate of me to remove the noisy child and let everyone else enjoy whatever is going on.

6. We have to set a timer for computer time. If we didn't, JB would never do anything else. EVER. He must believe YouTube exisits solely for his enjoyment. There is a constant stream of Sesame Street and other PBS shows on going on over here during his computer time. This one is especially annoying when heard over and over and OVER! So to stop all of the "overs and overs" we decided that we would try a timer. And it works beautifully!


Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, but if anyone has questions, post them in the comments and I'll be happy to answer them!