Thursday, July 15, 2010

Summer time and the livin's easy...

Well, not really. BUT it is being good to us.

MM is doing well at home. She has made a few subtle gains. I am very excited about this. Any gain is a good one. We have been stagnated for so long, that I am doing the happy dance about them.

She is only doing two days at a summer program, one day with therapy and one day with her baton lessons. Otherwise, mom & I are working with her. What. a. difference! Her behavior has been quite good, ticks/stims way less and just an overall sweetie. I see her little personality peeking out through the ASD and she has a wonderful sense of humor. She has even made some jokes.

After talking to my friend (who is a special ed teacher), she said maybe the school day is too long for her. I am wondering if she is right. I have the girls at therapy documenting her behaviors, gains, etc during summer break. Once school starts & we see how things go, I might consider decreasing her day. If she is not making any gains because the day is too long (too much going on, too many interactions, etc), then I might shorten it.

We haven't really done much else. Life has been kind of boring, but boring is good. I have been slack on the blogging/being a blog buddy front. I guess I have been on a blog break. I said it before, I have a bunch of posts started. I'm just not sure I want to finish or publish them. They came from when I was in a dark place. I am back in the light now. Depression is such a miserable thing. Hiding it is even harder & worse.

Love & light to all of you. I'll be back to commenting before you know it!

4 comments:

Angela said...

i am so glad you are having a gainful summer! I think of you often and I was so happy to see your post this morning. I have been slack in posting - and have a lot of things I want to share as well. Miss you and hope your summer continues to go well!!

Colleen said...

Boring is good! Glad MM is doing well this summer.

Anonymous said...

Love & light back to you, too! :)
Barbara

Anonymous said...

When I was MM's age, my parents would sometimes pull me out a few days to a week early before summer break because I'd be exhausted and overwhelmed with school. Even if MM is strong academically, being in a social setting all day is exhausting for someone on the spectrum. During the university school year I have very little energy for doing anything on weekends. I have friends, but I usually like to visit them for short periods of time rather than for long periods. For many people with ASD, the socialization aspect of school is more exhausting than academics. I end up having a lot of sick days during the school year, simply due to this exhaustion even though the academics come easy to me. I finally made the decision a few years ago to take a partial courseload and it was the best decision I ever made as I really need the extra downtime. I think this applies to MM too in the sense that it's better to take longer to complete your education than drive yourself to the point of exhaustion. I hope someday when MM is older and doing some advocating for herself that she'll be able to make decisions like this as needed.