knitting, nature and living with autism in the family
Just a quick note to say that I may not get your email if you send it at the moment as my email address has been hijacked by some xxxxxx and so my inbox is constantly filling up with returned spam emails!
I’ll try and sort out a new address and post details soon.
Anyone else had a similar problem? If you have any advice please let me know!
Thanks so much for all the kind and thoughtful comments that were left on the previous post – reading them really helps and I’m really grateful for the chance to get stuff off my chest without everyone thinking "she’s off again…!". Toby is definitely much happier now that his tooth is out and so life here has returned to normal.
I thought I’d do a quick hedgehog update before the weekend. This week has definitely had an autumnal feel to it – the leaves on the trees have started to change colour and drop (I’ve even been out with my rake gathering piles of leaves to dry for Herbert’s bedding). Herbert him/herself is doing great and is now tipping the scales at 498gms which will probably mean that he’ll be up to the target weight within the next week.
I’m beginning to feel a little sad though at the thought of seeing his little prickly behind waddling off into the distance and so plans are afoot for a spot of house building this weekend – hedgehog house building. We’ll be putting the house in his run and letting him camp out in the garden next week so that he can get used to all the smells and sounds of being outside all the time (up to now he’s only been out in the run after dark for a few hours and then back into the crate in the garage). One he’s acclimatised we’ll remove the run and he’ll be free to roam. I’m really hoping that he’ll stick around and maybe use the house to hibernate in but we’ll have to wait and see – he may have other plans!
I’ve not taken any recent pictures of Herbert as I’m trying to limit contact – we’ll get some to remember him by before he toddles off! So hodggie pictures today are courtesy of Hamlyn’s 365 Animal Stories, 1975 vintage!
If you drop in here regularly you'll know that I do my best to keep my blog focused on the happy aspects of my life and mostly on my knitting. But ocassionally there's a need to give it a little flavour of what is going on in the background as there are times when I struggle to be positive and carefree. So today I'm going to be self-indulgent and get something off my chest so that next time we can go on with the business of knitting and having some gentle fun.
Since Toby was diagnosed as severely autistic I've had times where I'd wake each morning with a feeling of expectation and find myself thinking "things will start to get better when…" …he starts nursery, …he starts school, …the summer comes… and thinking in that way is probably a saftey mechanism that has helped me get through some especially tough times. The problem comes when the realisation hits that things haven't got easier and I start to think "what if this is as good as it gets?"
This weekend I realised that I had got through the summer
holidays by thinking that once Toby was back at school
things would be better – foolish thinking because of course they are not. In fact the last week has been one of the toughest for a long while. For a start Toby slept less well than usual (and usual is bad enough!) but he's also been incredibly restless and demanding and the constant high pitched keening noise that he makes when he's distressed is especially hard to take.
Because Toby can't communicate we were left guessing as to why he was so out of sorts and then on Sunday evening I made a breakthrough! I spotted a wobbly tooth. I don't think it was actually causing him pain – it's just the fact that it felt different and in Toby's world different ain't good!
This kind of sums up autism – that something as simple as loosing a first tooth can cause so much angst and distress and in turn push a family to the edge of reason. We're all very grateful that yesterday the tooth fairy zapped the offending tooth and since then Toby has seemed much happier and actually slept through last night!
* Since the offending tooth has disappeared without trace (probably swallowed) I've had to use a stunt tooth – one of Amy's which the tooth fairy let me borrow (just incase she reads this!)
little cotton rabbits 