Manic Monday

Well it seems....one can hope....maybe things around here will level out a bit now... my cyclical shift in hormones is weaning and therefore making me less scatterbrained and less umm...bitchy again.. according to the people around me anyway.. :P

Unfortunately with hormone fluctuations, it seems n matter how well the Concerta is working for me, I become a complete bumbling idiot at this time. it drives me nuts, because it affects me on so many levels, and I end up going around in circles like I have one foot nailed to the floor. I hate that it means that I spend my time catching up, and falling behind every month... I really need to get a handle on this, as the management of it right now if not effective. Suppressing my menses with a birth control pill, as my family practitioner suggested, has not been effective at ALL thus far.

So today meant the start of catching up on the stuff I always fall behind on during my cyclical trip to ADDworld for a week to 10 days.thankfully, when my mom & dad were passing through on the way home, my mom ( also ADD) whirled through my kitchen and cleaned it up for me, so I've been trying to stay on top of what she did, and not let it get too bad, so it has not been too bad.

I'm still feeling a bit sctterbrained, my attention span is pretty low... but I'm trying to push through.

Today I got up, feed the kids ( homemade waffles and icecream) They were totally impressed that mom gave them ice cream for breakfast, but hey.. I figure, it is dairy, and they'll eat it, and has no more sugar then a box of fruit loops with milk anyway, or pouring over half a bottle of syrup on them... and the coolmom points I gained for that maybe help offset how crabby I've been this last 2 weeks. After the icecream breakfast the boy required bathing because he was covered in icecream and he hates being sticky.one of his sensory issues, among others.

I went out and got a yard cart full of wood. made a fire. did a sink full of dishes,folded laundry, put more in washer, & switched some over to dryer.

Then I cut out pictures of clothes from the weekly ads for clothing stores. My daughter who is 8, never puts her clothes away when I give them to her, and her dresser is EMPTY, with her clean clothes all over her room getting mixed up with her dirty stuff. She's a visual learner,and get overwhelmed easily by stuff she thinks is too complicated or require multi steps to finish, so I asked if some pictures on the drawers would help and she said yes, so we sat together and cut out socks and underwear, sweaters, shirts, pj's and pants and dresses pictures and stuck them on her dresser with clear packing tape. Quick and dirty, but she was happy, and now she can see what goes where...4yo son wants the same done for him stuff. more cool mom points.

Then I went upstairs with my fixed computer to set it back up. Hubby finally looked at it last night after supper when I asked him to if I brought him everything he needed. I had alreayd had the power supply unscrewed and case open, and the power supply from the kids PC un hooked and ready to go inot mine. As suspected, the power supply had died for some unknown reason, but Dh was not up to looking at it since I had done that over 2 weeks ago. As I cannot edit any of my pictures or write anything without my computer, I was getting antsy, and I think did pretty good at not being pushy ( read crqabby and bossy) at him to look at it. it was not easy for him to do, but he did it, thankfully...( he got paid later in trade :P)

My computer is upstairs in the office, but no networking wires have been run yet, so I'll have to put stuff on a thumb drive and bring it down here to the laptop in order to upload anything to the internet, but at least I can work again. I need to get working on the websites.

Anyway, I got the computer hooked back up, and my desk moved a little more over to where I wanted it, unpacked 5 boxes, and made a few phone calls needed to be made about acquiring some real fire wood...yes already CUT & Split! I'm working on getting that in the next week...for the rest of our cold weather, and to help us get a head start on next year's cold season.

Then I fed hubby a late lunch, which required him reminding me he had not eaten to remember...concerta takes away my appitite, and when I'm not hungry I don't think of food, so I literally need a schedule or it is not even on my radar. He was complaining he was cold at his computer...our bedroom is on the main floor, and with some well placed fans and a good fire we can usually get it up to a decent 19 to 22 degress C in there, but for some odd reason the front door on the house blew open last night with minus -18 degress outside and was open for about 10 to 15 minutes before we really noticed...( because we were sitting right BY the fire) I kept saying to DH " why am I feeling such a cold draft all of a sudden?") The door somehow popped open, and was sitting WIDE open, letting out all the hot air , and our bedroom has been unable to get above 14 degrees C since last night. I was worried about our budgies getting a chill, as they are right near the way through the bedroom to the front door of the house, and the breeze was blowing through there, but they seem fine, thankfully.

I decided to do something about the issue, and hang the fan up high in the doorway as we'd been talking about for a while now.

Well being the ADDer I am...the tools I needed to hang the fan, were missing...still are in fact. this kind of thing, drive hubby NUTS, and in order to not go insane watching me, he had to just walk away and leave me to it, because I had to look for a drill bit and hookeyes etc. I searched and looked around and cannot find the drill bits, but my ADD saved the day, because I went to the workshop to get the ladder, and got sidetracked off searching through other stuff, and found a better option to hanging the fan that would not require the cuphooks and drillbit! :) I ended up finding a different option, and went on the mission to hang the fan by our bedroom entrance ( no door yet) to let the hotter air that rises go into our room. It took me over 2 hours to find the stuff I needed with that little side jaunt in the workshop, and getting the ladder, putting in the hooks, and getting the fan up there.. but I got it up there...hubby snapped a picture from his phone.

Super ADD Girl to the rescue :)



the black wire in the picture is a temperature sensor from a thermometer DH's father bought him for christmas, that has come in quite useful, as it tells us the temp up high where I hung it around the corner, and then also down low on his bedside table where the middle of our room basically is.

I had to go get another yard cart of wood, and make another fire, but it has now been an hour since I hung the fan and the bedroom is now gone from 14 to 17 degrees.. with the fan hanging blowing air that is at about 24 degrees into the room. Hopefully in another hour or so with keeping up with the fire , the bedroom should be back up to a decent temp.

now that I took all this time to write this I need to go make supper.. which I actually planned in advance ( a bit) so hopefully it won't take too long.

Let's bridge the gap between parents of kids Diagnosed with Austism Spectrum

In recent years parents of Autistic children have been divided into two categories. Being told their child's vaccinations didn't cause their autistic traits, or parents of children with Autism from birth being made to feel like choosing to vaccinate ( or other parental choices) caused their child's Autism.

It is time to knock down the wall and stand together, rid of the guilt one way or the other and band together.

My daughter has been diagnosed with PDD NOS, the general blanket term for a child who has autistic traits co-morbid with other combined traits like oppositional defiance, sensory integration, auditory processing etc.

She's been that way since birth. In fact it runs deep in the family DNA, so I am well assured that any delayed and selective vaccination we did with her did not make her the way she is.

However, I do not agree with recent scientific studies and claims from the medical society saying that vaccines are not causing health issues for some children that are being labelled as Autism.

I don't disagree that families are seeing a correlation between the vaccinations and other environmentally caused health issues presenting them selves as a neurological issue that can be categorized under Autism Spectrim Disorder. It is something that I've been saying for years.

The problem is that when it walks and talks like a duck we assume that it is "just a duck", but we fail to see that there is more then one kind of duck in the world.

It seems at this point in scientific study, the medical establishment is unable to call what children affected by vaccines and other environmental issues like food allergies what it really is. The families of kids with acquired autism are being told they are wrong, when the correlation is as real as you or I.

I believe that we do not know a lot about the brain yet, and it's mechanics, and therefore nothing can be counted out...I believe that yes...environmental things like toxins, and things in vaccines could cause issues that present like textbook autism.. we just don't have a name for it yet, so these kids are being labeled as Autistic.

When the parents start to change diets, and stimuli and detoxify they child's system, and there is improvement, it looks negatively on us parents with a child who have ASD from birth due to wiring. ( some days I swear If one more person tells me my kid needs to stop drinking milk and she won't be like she is I'll smother them with a cow!)

No one wins when we are not open as a society at looking at both sides of this autism coin. We are doing these children and families of these acquired autism cases a disservice by not looking at it and accepting it as a legitimate issue.

We are doing the families with children who have had ASD from birth a disservice by fighting about the "cause " of autism, and making them think they did something "wrong" in choosing to vaccinate or drink milk , or eat hot dogs, or lick the batter from a cake batter ( or whatever someone thinks is the reasons tomorrow) while we waste time trying to find a "cure" and ease our parental guilt rather then learn to adapt and cope, and live better WITH autism.

I'm not for nor against vaccinating for the record... it is a personal choice that each family must make on their own.... as a parenting team my husband and I could not agree on vaccinations so we met in the middle with the decision to selectively delay vaccinations administered individually.

It is my belief that any child who presents with symptoms or traits of autism should be tested for toxins in the system... and tried on an elimination diet etc., and if that doesn't work, it can be assumed that they were autistic from birth and should be given the diagnosis of ASD GIN ( Autism Spectrum Disorder, Genetic In Nature) , and if they respond to detoxifying the system, or diet eliminations process, they should be given the label AASD EIN (Acquired Autism Spectrum Disorder-Environmental In Nature)

Which ever form of ASD you child has, however it happened, whenever it was notice, the children are showing signs of developmental delays and have extra needs that need to be addressed. We need to stop fighting about how it happened, it just did. We need to band together without guilt and blame, and work together to give the children the best lives we can. Be it, through learning to accept and cope with lifelong autism, or while going through reversing AASD EIN.

It's time to recognize both, and it's time to stop fighting with each other.