Bobby's World: October 2015

My mom called me early last week and said that my niece, Kaitlin, was coming in for a weekend visit!! We were excited for the visit, because of work, she was the only thing/person that was missing from our awesome Colorado trip in August. By the way, when did my nieces, who are still 3 and 5 years old in my head, become old enough to have work obligations and drive/fly themselves to family visits!!!

I thought about it for a couple of days and decided to keep Bobby home from school on Friday so that we could all drive to the mountains of our home state of WV and take some fall family pictures, have a picnic.....just spend the day together.

Thursday Bobby started with a cold. According to school, there were a couple of kids out sick from his classroom. Ugh, poor timing dude!! Friday morning he was in full blown cold mode and would have had a sick day anyway. I gave him so medicine and we set off to pick up Grandma and Kait and see what the day had in store. As soon as we got on the interstate, he started...."it's a train" repeatedly. We remembered that we took a train ride this time of year going in the same direction.

We all decided to give Bobby his train ride!! We stopped bought tickets, got some lunch, and went to Wal-Mart and bought a few $5 blankets to wrap up with on the train ride...it was cold outside. We still had a 50 minute ride into the mountains to the train depot and my mom even commented on this ride, "we are going to have the train to ourselves" after all it is a cold Friday afternoon.

We got to the train depot with 45 minutes to wait. Time to take some pictures!!!

We all used the bathroom, got snacks at the little store, and found a picnic table to wait for time to board the train. Then.......a tour bus pulled into the parking lot!! My mom yelled, "go get in line" for the train. A bus full of senior citizens departed their bus and were making their way to the train. Once we were boarded on the train, there were zero empty seats!!!

The train took off and Bobby was bouncing in his seat......SO EXCITED!!!

Then.......he decided that he was done. He started YELLING!! Ugh, nothing I did was making him stop. Heaven help us, we still have 1 hour and 45 minutes before this train ride is over. "IPAD," "blanket," "Jeopardy," "sleep," were yelled continually. He just didn't feel well and just wanted to be in bed with his blanket, ipad and Jeopardy on the tv.

The train makes a stop and he got out. I kept him out as long as I could to get his energy out!! He did enjoy this part.

We made it through the ride and the 2 hour plus ride home, I gave him some night time cold medicine and he slept for 10 hours. What a day!! Bobby's behavior wasn't his best, but it was great to have Kait all to ourselves for one whole day!!

When Mom said that Kait was coming, I offered to host a dinner on Saturday in her honor. I texted her to see what she would like for dinner, "are crab legs too extravagant?" was her reply. LOL!!!

Bobby still didn't feel well on Saturday, but he got to hang out at home all day. Before the party began, we had to have a fall "photo shoot" for Grandma!!

I obliged her request and we had a shrimp/crab leg boil for dinner with a table full of family!! Perfect evening of family fun!! Only picture of the actual dinner was while waiting for the crab legs to steam.

After dinner we all went outside and played cornhole in front of a fire. I was excited when I was looking at the small screen on my camera and it looked like day light even though it was dark outside. However, when I downloaded the actual pictures, they looked horrible!!! LOL!!! Even though they aren't the best quality, here are some pictures of the big game, please excuse my mis-spelling of Y'All, which stands out perfectly in the pictures (and drives me a little crazy)!!

Kait left on Sunday.....boo hoo. Bobby still didn't feel great and was grouchy, bored, something. At the last minute, I decided to go ahead and take him to a birthday swim party that he was invited to. He got into the water for about 40 minutes, got out, walked over to me and said "sleepy." Alright Bobby, lets go home and get you to bed!!

On Monday I decided to keep him home for another day so that he could get over his cold. Tuesday was a scheduled day off of school for a teacher in-service day. He was feeling much better and he asked repeatedly to go swimming. Off to Stepping Stones we went and he swam in the indoor pool. He also had tumbling in the afternoon.....things getting back to normal!! Yay!! Back to school on Wednesday. Oh great, we received a 5:30 am phone call, 2 hour delay due to a water main break. He was not happy after waiting around all morning to get ready for school, after all there was no snow on the ground. Finally he was on the bus and I could have a little break. Less than 15 minutes later, school was cancelled because of another break in the water line. The bus aide called and we arranged a place for me to pick up Mr. Bobby from the school bus. Talk about a confused kid!! This morning, Thursday, after 6 days off, Bobby finally went back to school. I got to the grocery store so we can all eat again!! LOL!! Ahhh, how we autism families love and need our routine!!!!

Bobby's ABA therapist asked me to take some pictures of him doing basic everyday things to make flashcards. The main purpose of these flashcards is for sequencing. He will have to put them in order. They will also be used to increase him vocabulary as he will have to say a sentence about the card, such as...."I am brushing my teeth." As I was looking through the pictures, all I could think....where did this big kid come from and where did my baby go???!!!!!!! He just looks so grown up!! I was also thrilled with some of the pictures because he is doing things I never imagined, such as pushing the shopping cart to the car, opening the back and putting the groceries in the car.

So without further ado, pictures of Bobby living his life........

Getting dressed. I pick out his clothes, but he does a great job dressing himself. He even looks for the tag inside his clothes to see which way to put the item on. I haven't had to fix his shirt or pants in months.