Our "Vacation"

So, I spend a lot of time on the computer trying to keep in touch with friends and family. But I never make it around to writing in my journal or printing up emails to paste in and so much of my life passes in a blur. Thus a blog serves both purposes.

Also, since no one really wants to hear you complain and be negative unless you are paying them absurd amounts of money to listen, I decided that this would be my way to vent. You see, I am the mother of three young boys, the eldest of which is severely autistic. My husband is a band teacher so he is rarely home between teaching and working his afterschool job, teaching trumpet lessons. He does this of course so that we can make ends meet without me having to go to "work".

I try to take everything with a sense of humor because if I didn't well, I probably would have lost my sanity a long time ago. Also, I will be referring to my sons as S1, S2, and S3 in order of their birth since there are way too many creepy people out there and I don't want to put them at risk in any way.

Recently my brother Paul got married and we went home for the wedding. It was a long drive but we took two days to do it and the rental van had a DVD player so it was bareable even though it was a twelve hour drive. The kids absolutely loved staying in a motel. You would have thought it was the Marriott and not a Motel 6 by how they were bouncing off the walls - literally. My fifteen month old, son #3 (S3 from here on out) would run across the room and throw himself into the door, stopping his head from whacking the door by sticking his chubby little arms out. Then he would turn and run back the way he came and do the same thing on the opposite wall. Bet our neighbors were thrilled since it was past 10:30 pm.

My four year old, S2, thought it was so cool that we had two queen beds and couldn't stop talking about it. He was especially thrilled that when we stayed at the same Motel 6 on the way back that he could "see the pizza store out my window!"

S1, the six year old autistic son, kept us on our toes since he kept trying to climb out the window to escape the room or flip all the locks on the door to escape. He finally fell asleep when I layed down with him pinning him down with my leg. Oh the joy of it all.

The wedding was the day after we arrived. S2 went to the wedding with us since he was the only one who could behave. After the ceremony we picked up the other two boys and headed to the family luncheon- which was a blast - not. Who wants to sit and eat when there are so many neat places to wander around at the country club? The highlight was when S1 decided that he was done sitting in the high chair and eating and started throwing food up in the air over his head! By then luckily we were done eating so Dad took him for a walk along with S2. S3 had fun waddling around and begging food off of everyone and taking turns in relatives arms.

We finally were able to get a picture with our entire family, but we are still waiting to see if one turns out where everyone is looking at the camera without S1 covering his ears or pushing his dads face.

Then we dumped all the kids off at the in laws and headed over to the open house. I was kind of ticked because there was a swimming pool with water falls in the back yard and candles everywhere so I couldn't bring S1 even though it was pretty much a kid friendly affair. But kid friendly and autistic friendly are two totally different things. S1 is a water addict. He loves to be in water and there is NO WAY to keep him out of it (unless you tie him up and then he is just mentally tortured staring at the water). His autistic little brain doesn't get why he can't go in and I guess I could have put his life jacket on over his white button up shirt and dress pants but then all the other kids would have wondered why they couldn't go swimming too!

As for the candles, S1 is also extremely uncoordinated so when he wasn't trying to blow them all out he would have been falling into them. I wanted my brother and sister-in-law to have the kind of open house they wanted (it was their day) but I felt like having it where there was a pool was equal to having a relative in a wheel chair and having it at a wheelchair inaccesible location and just saying, "Oh well, sorry!" All in all it was nice to drop the kids off and not have to worry about them at all and just have a good time. I guess it was just another reminder to me of all the things that S1 will not be able to participate in because of his uniqueness.

Saturday I got a break from it all and went into San Francisco with my cousins, sister, mom and aunt. My cousins from out of town really wanted to go to the Crab House and Pier 39, which is where we spent the majority of the day since the Alcatraz tours were all sold out. The crab at the Crab House was good but a pain in the backside to shell. My cousin Jen and I agreed that king or snow crab legs are more worth the work to eat. My mother bought the boys, her only grandchildren, T-shirts, a hat and a fun stuffed snake. The gifts were well received until S2 decided that he'd rather have S1's snake than his own hat. Dinner that night was back at the house with the men of the family and we chowed down on Taco Bell tacos and watermelon. Talk about two gastric exteremes in one day, the Crab House and then Taco Bell! Next we went swimming but even thought the pool water was 82 degrees, far warmer than the ocean, it was still way too cool since the sun had already set. So we lasted about half an hour before calling it quits. S3 was shivering and his lips were turning blue but that didn't stop him from wanting to stay in!

Sunday was church and lunch with my inlaws, naps and then dinner with my parents. Thank goodness they all live in the same city. It makes traveling easier and there is always, usually, someone to take over the kids if needed.

Monday my parents and I took the kids to a place called Pixie Playland in Concord. Basically it is like a little amusement park for kids. There are about seven rides. The boys had a blast and after a couple of hours we left and went to Costco for lunch while my mom grabbed some vitamins. Then we went back to the park because we had gotten all day passes for the boys. Of course S3 finally fell asleep for his nap so grandma stayed in the car parked in the shade with him while grandpa and I went back in for 1 1/2 hours of more fun. We then returned to their condo and went swimming. Although the water was still 82 degrees, at least the sun was shining on us. After an hour we called it quits, especially since S1 had gotten out and was starting to throw any pebble or rock he could find into the pool. S1 and S3 then stayed with their other grandparents while my husband, myself and S2 went out to dinner with my parents. Upon returning to my inlaws that night we go the kids down and started to pack for the return trip.

Tuesday we were up early and got everything packed in the van, kids fed and were out the door on our way to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield. My parents and youngest two siblings came with us, along with my sister's friend. The boys loved being surrounded by so much candy! S2 especially enjoyed the tour with his dad. They all loved the Jelly Belly water bottles that grandma got them and the Jelly Belly Flops that daddy bought them. Plus we took their pictures with a Jelly Belly that was larger then them. In the van they got changed into "Sunday" clothes for our next stop.

Once back into the car we headed to Rancho Cordova where we went to the LDS Open House for the Sacramento Temple. That was a very nice experience to have with all of our children. We are LDS and look forward to the day when our children are grown and go to the temple to be married. S1 however will more than likely never come close to this milestone, and it was wonderful to be inside the temple with him at least this once. We took a couple of pictures in front of the temple and then piled back into the car.

This time we were off to see my husband's grandmother, Great Grandma Ruth (GGR). By now it was past lunch time so we grabbed some food on the way. GGR's house not only is not kid friendly, but definitely not anywhere near autistic friendly. She collects figurines and glass baubles of every kind. In fact on the living room table there is a huge bowl filled with glass balls. S1's dream come true (remember he likes to throw things) and his parents worst nightmare. We ate outside on the back patio until S1 lost interest and started running around the back yard almost knocking over all of her garden knick knacks, throwing pebbles and shredded bark up over his head. Then we went inside and he immediately found all the little black stones in the pot of her fake tree. Those he didn't throw right away, he started shoving those in his mouth instead. To her credit, GGR is extremely relaxed and not worried (outwardly anyway) about the kids breaking anything. As she says, they are just things. She would rather the kids feel comfortable.

S3 found a neat candle holder to roll across the floor. When dad picked it up and put it away on a shelf, S3 marched over, pulled it off and then put it back just where it belonged. It was so funny to see. Anyway, as soon as everyone had finished eating, diapers were changed and people changed from their nice clothes to their traveling clothes we got out of there before something broke.

Then it was back on the road to try and hit our Motel 6 before midnight. Luckily this time S1, who hadn't napped all day, was pretty pooped out and fell asleep shortly after we walked into the room. The other two were semi-wire but since it had been such a long day after an hour they were ready to sleep.

Now we are home and trying to get back to "normal", whatever that is. Our first day back was filled with three dentist appointments and an OT/Speech appointment. School starts in less than a week, hooray! Then S1 won't be so restless and I'll have more time to keep things up around the house.

One thing that I realized on this vacation was how hard I do work given that my eldest is severly autistic. Several people helped care for him and they all pretty much said, "I don't know how you do it, I don't think I could." Well, I don't know how I manage to do it either. I just take it one day at a time.