We had a lovely snowfall very early this past Sunday morning. Weather forecasts for our area had mentioned freezing rain changing into rain, so we were quite surprised to wake up that morning with three inches of snow on the ground! This after the ice-encrusted snowfall from a few weeks ago had just melted a few days earlier. Another three inches of snow fell by late Sunday morning. Then we got a bit of rain and freezing rain that afternoon, but the temperature was into the lower 40s so everything was kind of mushy. It was easy to clear the snow away, but school was still closed yesterday.
Samuel knew even Sunday morning when he saw the snow that he would not have school Monday. I prepared a few short lessons for him, which we did late in the morning. He hasn't been in a very good mood the past few days. He seems to be in his own little world of "The Upside Down Show." He has also been very territorial with the television. He doesn't want to watch anything but when the other boys or my husband watch television (do you think that I ever get to even think of watching the television during the day??? That is an activity I indulge in only at the "edges" of the day when noone else is awake to make demands of me!) he gets quite perturbed when they want to change the channel. Changing the channel time would be a good time to use the technique of "counting down" we were taught by our in-home service providers, but the boys and my husband don't usually think of things like that (I'm still learning too!).
I had hoped to clean, organize, and just have a nice relaxing day yesterday, but I was on edge the whole day because I was preparing to go to a parents support group meeting last night. That meant anticipating and planning all my required chores so that I could make my getaway in time for the meeting. As usual, I was late and , as usual, quite stressed out!
We have a small support group that meets at our church. It is for parents of children with special needs. We don't have a regular showing at these meetings; heck, I probably only attend one every three or four months. Most of the people who attend are moms and most of them are mothers of autistic children. The group is open to anyone, not just members of our church. One mom attending last night just found out her daughter has Rett Syndrome. I knew enough that it was an autistic spectrum disorder but I don't know much more than that. Another thing to add to the "things to be researched" list!
It's hard for order to be maintained at our meetings because we have (God bless them!) some rather talkative people. That's okay, in a way, because that is good therapy for us. I do think however, that our group could benefit from some basic meeting structure. I should talk to the group organizer about taking on a "facilitator" type function. I'd offer to do it, but I just don't attend regularly enough. An upcoming project for our group is to get together a directory of resources for each other. We're going to share our most useful websites, people, and phone numbers with each other.
I wouldn't call the area I live in rural, but we are just "over the mountains" from the Greater Northern Virginia area so we don't have anything like an autism society chapter out here, yet anyways. I suspect that will change in the next few years. I could travel about 15-20 miles to another town where they have an autism support group, but I haven't done so yet. I think I need to be here at home where I am needed while the baby is so young and Samuel needs the consistency in his evening routine. I do, however, take one or two evenings each month to get out: either to a support group meeting, a Special Education Advisory Committee meeting, or perhaps to go out for coffee with a friend (I am finding my best friends these days are other moms with special needs children). For right now baby girl has to come with me when I go out, mainly because I'm still breastfeeding her. My husband has kept her a few times though and I'll definitely leave her at home when the breastfeeding stops. I'm finding the group of people I'm getting to know through blogging to be a great support group as well!
My homeschool student (oldest son) is sick today, which is why I've had the luxury of time on the computer like this during the day. Now time to get back to work!
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