We had a doozy of a week. I'll post about Christmas, which was wonderful with our kids later. We learned a lot about Austin's sensory needs and not in a good way. Last Fri Austin had a meltdown/screaming fit that lasted around 30 min in the car. We put on a Veggie Tales CD that had a decent amount of bass in the beginning which seemed to help. The day before Christmas Eve we were at the ILs and brought my laptop & played a Veggie movie for him on the way home, and it seemed to keep the screams down, and he was calm until the end. Christmas eve - church & my parents' house - small meltdown leaving my mom's and we only made it through 30 min of church. Christmas night was ok, just a small one once he was in the car, a big one getting into the car.
Last night was the worst I've ever seen, and it was horrible. We're still learning what sets him off, and being tired is usually one of those. We went with Brian's parents to Bellingrath Garden's light festival. It's a walk through tour of acres of lights over a lake, through the gardens. Amazing. Austin loves lights and says oohh pretty and 'ights'so we thought he'd have a ball. We were so wrong. It was cold, so he was layered and had his 'backpack' (his leash) on, which he loves to wear around the house, I think for the pressure. There were so many people - I had no idea it would be so busy. We got inside, he was walking and we got maybe 15 to 20 min into it before he started melting.
He ended up screaming on and off for 20 min, but then went straight screaming and hollering and kicking and fighting Brian who was holding him. Because of how far in we'd gone, we couldn't just walk out, and there were so many people. Poor little guy - he wanted to touch every light and the trees and the path and then it became way too much. We were almost to the end and Brian tried to get him to walk again, but it didn't work.
Brian got ahead, and I got stuck in a group of people. They were talking about him and what they would do if he was their kid - several mentioned a leash and one a shock collar. I was so mad, I snapped!! I informed them that he has special needs and the situation was too much for him. He was not pitching a fit!! We got to the end, in a dark spot and sat and waited for the ILs. He was much calmer and was content to sit down with us. When we got out, he was perfectly fine and walked with MIL and Brian. It was like a switch had been turned on and off. We let him run around in our SUV for a bit, put him in his seat, and handed him his cars. He was perfectly fine.
Putting him in the car since then (church, Wal-mart & dinner at Sonic) has been horrible and I don't think we'll be going anywhere anytime soon. We're looking into re-arranging the budget to buy him a DVD player to put on the back of Brian's seat and eventually a big one, permanently in the SUV.
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