Vacation in Hindsight.

FINALLY! Something she LOVES to do!

Ok. I guess it's not surprising it took me a while to post again( considering my previous post.)
But that was Sunday morning. The rest of vacation was a little less dramatic but not what could be called FUN by any stretch of the imagination.

Monday, we were able to spend time at the pool. Joy spent alot of time with Grace in the outdoor pool so I was able to get alot of pictures of them together- which is a rare thing.
Joy was really good with her- she even got her to mimick her floating and Gracie actually made her own attempt at floating and was very pleased when she received applause for it!

We could not do much in the evenings because her sleep schedule was so off. She'd be up at 4 AM and we had to be up with her or she would have been out on the second floor balcony all the time. Then by 5 PM she was DONE and cranky so we had to stretch to get her to stay up till 7.
By the end of the week we finally had security locks on the two outdoor deck doors AND the front door- but by then it was time to go home.
TUESDAY:

Cousin Rachel came to stay to keep Joy Lin occupied. We spent Tuesday with Aunt Susan, waiting for the storm to come. Rachel is a great help with Gracie and she gives Joy a playmate.  So Wednesday we went to the pool and all the girls were having good time, when something that sounded like thunder happened; once. 15 minutes later they kicked everyone off the pool area due to IMPENDING THUNDER STORMS!! You must understand- our pool has 117 rules that you must follow- they did away with 10 minute adult swim every hour on the hour but now they have a Nazi guard lady that chases you away at the sign of a grey cloud. SO it was sunny the rest of they day but we couldn't go to the pool. 
SO we tried to go fly a kite at the beach. It was a beautiful day but we are really beginners when it comes to kite flying. The good part was that Grace sat with me on the beach while Chris, Joy and Rae attempted to keep the kite in the air. She just sat and played with her stickers- which was a new step for her. Last time she HATED the beach. 

They did manage to get the kite in the air. But they also bonked two people on the head with it.So overall, it was a good thing. 

 

 WEDNESDAY:
THis was the one day we had that was a success. We started at the pool and managed to stay the whole day. The girls were in the pool for 4 hours! THen we went to an early dinner at Fish Tails. THey have a outside sand yard- well the whole place is a sand box for kids and adults- which makes it Gracie-friendly.
So they were pretty much done after dinner. So we went for Kohr's up in Fenwick- Have to have Kohr's at least once each vacay. Then we went home and drove by the fountains. THey were up and running for the first time in a while. So we parked the car and walked back.
Finally, we found something that the child loved. She didn't care that she had her clothes and her shoes on. She plunged right in.  Finally, her diaper started to drag so we had to finish for the day. She went to bed happy... but with her shoes on.

 

THURSDAY: They were calling for thunderstorms all day so, SURPRISE ! they closed the outside pool.
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY>  Anyway it was time to pack up in earnest. Since the pool was closed, we took the girls to the fountain. Gracie could have stayed there all day, I think.  Later, Chris took them to the pool(the indoor one) while I cleaned up. We finally got a storm that night but it didn't last long. We stayed in a watched movies. Chris and I started to watch the incomprehensible "Cloud Atlas" and the girls were playing on their devices. AND then HELL broke loose. The girls accidentally dropped Joy's Ipod and it cracked (for the second time) because it wasn't in its case. Chris exploded and I had two sobbing 10 year olds to try to get to sleep. It was the perfect end to the perfect vacation.

So Friday we went home. When we got home Grace was happy as a clam. So was I. Vacation was finally over. I used to hate when vacation ended. Life changes.

Vacation with Autism- Day 2

Ok. Day 2 begins at 6AM. Gracie is up and out of her room( where we had put a gate up to keep her in) . Chris and I have no other choice but to get up because she was already on the outdoor deck. I am not a morning person but since I was up I took our shepherd-husky Tasha for a walk - a short one- and came back to the house to find the door open.

No alarms go off in my head yet- I just forgot to close it tight. I found Gracie's teddy bear on the landing - still no alarms. I go upstairs. Chris and I ask at the same time- 

"WHere's Gracie?"

Ok NOW THE ALARMS are going off!!!

I run down to the pool- the first place I know she would go. Chris comes out. She's definitely not in the house. I run the back way to the garage, thinking she might head to the car since she wants to go home all the time. Nothing. At a loss I go back to the house. Chris has gone to the front of the development after asking one of the janitors if he saw a child.  So now he is looking to- He heads straight to the bay! THank God I didn't think of that! Chris found her out by the fountains , carrying  all her valuables, (puppy, her car steering wheel from her stroller and her musical teapot- she had dropped her teddy bear on the way out!)

Thank God that her guardian angels were with her and that we didn't live where there is alot of traffic and that it was early.

So now I had to get an alert bracelet for her. Security found her and was trying to get her into the golf cart to bring her to their little housing unit at the entrance and she was having none of it. 

THank God Chris came at that time.

Ok. She can't talk. She doesn't like to be touched by strange people. The guards were probably fit to be tied.

I found out today that this happens alot with autistic kids. They even have a name for them.

They call them Elopers. Is it me or is that a dumb name for the situation?

From US NEWS and WORLD REPORT:

Nearly half of children with autism wander or "elope" from safety -- often to pursue a special interest or goal -- with more than half of those kids disappearing long enough to cause great concern about their well-being, new research suggests.

Researchers from the Interactive Autism Network, a project of the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, found that close calls with traffic injuries were reported for 65 percent of the missing children and near-misses with drowning were reported in nearly a quarter of all cases.

"There's reason to believe that this is a leading cause of death in children with autism and possibly the leading cause of death," said senior study author and Interactive Autism Network director Dr. Paul Law. "Still, that's in some ways the tip of the iceberg, because most families are able to keep their children safe but have to modify their entire lives to do so. Families are often blamed for this and they're certainly not deserving of that because this is a very difficult problem."

Wow that made me feel better. So now I have another project. It never ends.

After I had time to calm down, I tried to picture how it must have looked through Gracie's point of view. But I don't even know how she perceives things. Does she see them in pictures-patterns-? How did she feel when the strange people came up to her? She made sure she had all her valuables before she left. Was she trying to go home?

So we will see what lies ahead tomorrow.

A Vacation with Autism- Part 1

There are two kinds of vacations:

1. a vacation without Autism

2. a vacation WITH Autism.

We have had both kinds. 

A vacation with autism is not easy. Sometimes it doesn't feel much like a vacation.

You have to balance fun for the rest of the family with security for the autistic one.

this is where she likes to be

Gracie used to like to come to the our place at the beach. But not this year. This year something spooked her.

She cries when she gets to the driveway, even though she has no problems on the drive down.

She goes right up to her bedroom and cries. She won't eat in the kitchen.

We think she reacted badly to a very high pitched sound the refrigerator made.(She is very sensitive to high frequencies. Though the refrigerator has been fixed she still is very hesitant to go into the kitchen.

Also lately she has been very afraid of going out to eat.

So we will see what tomorrow brings.