"You were my first love." In honor and memory of my grandma Bobich

I have been having some sleepless nights lately due to mostly my job so as I lay there the other night tossing and turning trying to take my mind off of Target I start to think of my dear sweet grandma Bobich that we lost on December 7th. I think of her every day and how much I will and do miss her. All of a sudden my mind shifts to Hunter and the relationships with family and friends that he may not get a chance to encounter in life due to his autism and social skills. I immediately start thinking of all of my family mostly my grandparents and instantly get sad. I am fortunate enough to have shared my 37 years with amazing grandparents. My mom was married twice so I was blessed to have 3 sets of grandparents and great grandparents. Some of them were also married a few times so I was lucky enough to have even more. When I was a kid growing up I couldn't wait to go to Grandma and Grandpa Dennis's in Maybee for the weekend or go hang out at the ballfield in Dundee with grandma and grandpa Pilbeam. Some of my best memories are going up to Hawks to Lake May with my grandma and grandpa Bobich. My great grandparents were amazing too. Great grandma Grace's stories and jokes were full of laughs and great grandma Bobich loved to give us juicy fruit and pennies and til this day I can hear great grandpa Bobich saying " aww it's dee dee". I remember great grandma Straub cooking and taking care of great uncle Frank and great grandpa Straub playing the accordion and singing. He was a jolly ole soul. I remember my great grandpa Dennis wearing his bib overalls and sitting outside his garage every time we passed by going to grandma d's. Grandma Midge was taking care of Ronnie and Bill and always invited us in for something to eat.  My grandpa Dennis's jokes...enough said. LOL! Holidays as a kid were the best for us growing up. We had all of those family traditions as most families did. I laid there felling sorry for myself not for Hunter because he is innocent and doesn't know what he could be missing out on. All of these things I enjoyed and remember as a kid Hunter may never experience. Autism is such a mysterious thing. I get angry sometimes because we don't get to go shopping or out to eat. We can do these things yes but it is easier to keep Hunter in his comfort zone. We know we are not doing the best by getting him out and about but until you have walked in our shoes please don't judge. We are working on this more and more. He doesn't usually attend holidays, we haven't been out to eat in years as a family or even gone grocery shopping together. I went to a listen to a speaker on autism one day and they gave us an exercise to do on what goes on in the brain of an autistic child or adult and it was eye opening. They can't process thought and feelings like we do so it makes their brain seemed jumbled at every minute of the day. I am in no way saying he doesn't have a few close relationships. Hunter is very close to Cliff's mom and dad. Cliff's dad Clifford recently passed so it has been hard on all of us escpecially Hunter because he doesn't understand what heaven is. Cliff's mom June is a amazing she has helped us take care of Hunter since day one and Hunter goes there with no problem. He has his own room there. It is his second home. He is close with my brother Bro and his girlfriend Chelsea. Hunter calls her uncle Chelsea. My dad John Ray and stepmom Cheryl have been important in Hunter's life as well. They helped us out a lot with watching him when he was younger. He gets along well with my brother in law Dale and he will occasionally wrestle around with him. He has an amazing friend for life Miss Michelle( his teachers aide from preschool to 4th grade) and many other teachers and school aides as well as special bus drivers. He remembers everyone of my friends but usually will ask them to go home when they come over. He is getting a little more polite these days when our friends are visiting. All of these close relationships he has are amazing but I sometimes wish he could experience more. This entry has turned into my therapy session for myself I think. I hope I can sleep tonight after all of this blogging and to think this blog entry all started from thinking of the last words my grandma Bobich said to me before she passed which was "you were my first love."

 

Trials and Tribulations of Parenting...

 It has been 5 months since I have posted on Hunter's journey.  I am posting today because it has been a rough week for all of us at home and at school. Hunter has been doing decent with the transition into his new school. He has mostly good days but recently has had bad days. He is with an aide 95% of the day and has to be prompted to do his school work. He still isn't interacting with his classmates. He has a friend named Jacob that he really likes. He likes to hug Jacob and when he does he is to rough and thinks it is funny to not let go. They are working with him to shake Jacob's hand since at their age hugging is not appropriate at school. His speech therapist made a social story on the classroom Ipad that has pictures and story. I hope Hunter seeing this will help with this issue. He has been swearing a lot and has to be taken to the sensory room so he doesn't disrupt the classroom. It is pretty bad. I had to pick him up last 2 days due to not being able to calm him down. I curse at ourselves for allowing him to watch youtube because he finds bad things on there and repeats them. Youtube has  voiceovers on kids shows that adults have manipulated and say disgusting things and of course my child finds everyone. I am sure as you are reading this you are thinking "well shut off youtube." but I assure you it is not an easy thing to do with an ocd child with autism.  We swear and I will admit he has heard and learned things from us but things he is saying is not things we walk around the house saying. It is time to buck down and practice some tough love and this is where I feel we have failed him by letting him do whatever he wants because he has autism. I hope the days to come get better because right now I am not feeling good as a parent because my child acts like this. It may be time for professional help at this point. We have a meeting next week with the school to see what we can do for him. Please pray for us that we all make it out ok.