Activity Overload!

Wednesday was spent with cousins as we decided to go out for the day together. We planned to go to a National Trust place to do outdoor activities, however, the weather had other ideas and as soon as we got there it rained a lot! Boy Wonder, who seemed to be better after yesterday, became tetchy at the unsettled weather and the likelihood that plans would need to change. We stuck it out for a little while but in the end we had to give in. We decided to go back to cousins house to have an indoor picnic and then think about other things to do from there. The day ended up taking care if itself as the children played well together and we settled for a relaxed day indoors. This seemed to suit Boy Wonder well as he soon settled.

Thursday and Friday were spent at the outdoor centre for Boy Wonder. Stream walking, fire starting, den building and go karting were on the agenda. He seemed to have a great time and was very well looked after.

Boy Wonder and Cat Girl spent Saturday with Super Gran and Biker Gramps as we went to London to the theatre.  They went to a farm park where they fed animals, played, painted pot cats and watched a quail hatch out of its shell. Boy Wonder was fascinated by this, resulting in a patient wait whilst the chick pecked its way into the big wide world.

The rest of the weekend was spent around the house , fitting the burglar alarm system ( which was the  likely trigger for anxiety due to it stirring up memories)  and being visited by friends and family.  Boy Wonder was struggling to hold it together at various points, namely playing with more than one child and sitting down to eat. These are obvious trigger points for the majority of people with autism but tolerance levels change depending on other factors such as other stresses, illness, worry etc. This resulted in a near meltdown as Boy Wonder misread the signs of other children being daft and jokey. They were bemused by his outburst and he was just not getting it. After half an hour sat in his room on his computer ( Minecraft) through his own choice, he came down for tea and dealt with this by jumping up on the table, singing at the top of his voice and ultimately trying to control the environment. As soon as he had eaten, Boy Wonder went into the lounge and set up Top Trumps and demanded that everyone play. Luckily the Grandparents know the drill when he is like this and we agreed two games. However, there was then a knock at the door from the boy next door and he went into the garden to play with him.

The evening was one of ups and downs as Boy Wonder was clearly bubbling under the surface. Lots of rocking, baby talk and 'leave me alone' on repeat was pretty much the content of his settling down. However this didn't amount to anything more than shouting and eventually he calmed.

We received the response to our complaint to the Local Authority on Friday. As expected it covered none of the points raised and essentially was just a timeline of their intervention. It did however state that  an OT is being appointed to support Boy Wonder which it doesn't say in the proposed statement. We have a meeting with them next week to discuss matters further. And we will!