First Post

The last few days have been really stressful at our house. Between my dad being in the hospital for 4 days, having an extra child, and now Clay being suspended I figured it would be a great time to start blogging about my life. Add that all to our daily life and my husband working a second job it adds up to me not sleeping and just feeling blah!!!!

I am the mother of 4 (three teenagers and one 10 year old with Aspergers) I have been married for almost 18 years and I homeschool my 3 oldest kids. Life at our house is always an adventure.

My youngest son Clay was diagnosised with Aspergers about 4 years ago. We always knew something was different about him. He was very attached to me as a baby and toddler. So much so that he rarely went to anyone else with out a fight. He also was very sensitive to food textures and clothes. So much so that he only ate about 3 things until he was 3. He also had strange obessessions. The first one was people in hats. He loved hats. He once wore a hat for almost 6 months straight. We would try to take it off while he was sleeping and he would wake up. I took it off a couple of times a week to wash his hair. He screamed bloody murder but that was okay be he screamed over baths and hair washing everytime. (By the way he still can't stand having his hair washed) Let me tell you this stage was better than the one where he wore a red bike helmet for about a month straight. You can imagine the looks we got when we were out.

Clay was a late talker. We just accounted this to the fact that he had 3 older sibilings to talk for him. Wrong. Never assume that the reason a child is not achieving a milestone is normal. He was also a late walker and did not potty train until after he was 3. One thing we were thankful for was that he was loud. And when I say loud he was really loud. We moved to another part of the country when he was almost 3. Our new house did not have screens on the windows and he figured out really fast how to escape out the window. We spent alot of time running after him. We only had to look for him a couple of times because all the rest we could hear him.

When he was 3 I took him to the doctor for a regular checkup. I talked to the doctor about all his different behaiors and sensory issues. He assured me he was just a boy and they sometimes develop a little slower than girls and not to worry. His words were something like "oh he's a boy just let him be a boy". So I did. My life revovled around Clay. We would have to take turns doing school so someone could be with Clay all the time. He just could not be trusted or save by himself.