Hello friends, it's been nearly a month since we received Susie's autism diagnosis. Although it gave us confirmation, it didn't really change anything in our daily life. We have been accommodating Susie's special needs for quite some time. We are in the process of getting extra resources to help her succeed in school and just in life in general. In the meantime, there are things our family does everyday to keep Susie safe and to accommodate her needs.
Eloping, or running away is an autistic tendency that we haven't had too much trouble with, until we did. Recently Susie has fallen in love with the back yard because of the trampoline. So, every time we would open the front door, Susie would run to the backyard before anyone could catch her. One day, she bolted toward the road. She is usually pretty good about holding our hands but when she wants to do something, she's gonna do it now! We solved this issue by building a gate, and new railing on our front porch. Susie is extremely happy to come outside and the temptation for her to bolt is gone.
If you are familiar with my house in the summer, I always have hanging baskets of flowers EVERYWHERE! Last summer this became a huge problem for Susie. She was eating the dirt and swinging the flowers so hard she was breaking them. This year we decided to cut back drastically in hopes to not overwhelm her with too many flowers. She has done great so far at leaving them alone. So, if you drive by my house and it looks different than most summers, now you know why!
Susie is a strong creature of habit. One Sunday, Susie wandered into the adult Sunday School room at church. The kind people there gave her a donut, her favorite. Now, every time we get to church she heads to the Sunday school room to collect a donut. The Sunday school class doesn't do this every week, so dad goes to Casey's before church, hides the donut and plants it in the Sunday school room for Susie to find!
I believe I have mentioned it before, but Susie loves to get in the fridge. She gets tubs of butter, cream cheese, etc. as you can imagine, this can become quite the nuisance and has the potential to make her sick if she eats too much. We have had to install a fridge lock, multiple, actually because she's sneaky and has broken/figured several of them out. However, don't worry, she still gets plenty to eat. She will take one of us by the hand to the fridge or freezer to get us to open it for her. This creates a bit of an inconvenience for everyone else, but we just need Susie to be safe!
Susie doesn't do the best in restaurants, unless it's a buffet and the food is readily available. Last week, we were meeting my sister and her daughter for Mother's Day. I thoughts for a while where we could go that we could have a successful lunch with Susie. I had the idea to have a picnic in the park! We could all eat, and visit while Susie, and the big kids got to play! It turned out o be a wonderful visit!
Learning to adapt to Susie's needs isn't about "letting her get away with murder" or "not making her mind." It's about meeting her where she is and helping accommodate her needs so she can be successful. The best advice I have received in regards to Autism is it's Susie's world, we just have to figure out how to be a part of it.
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