The 12 Joys of an ASD Christmas #5 The Christmas Tree 🎄

Yay! We have at last put up our Christmas tree. Kind of been putting it off but in reality we’ve just not had time!

In the past I have put it up myself more recently Jasmine has helped. Holly has no interest at all in putting up the tree. She just likes looking at certain decorations. The ones with photos or that are a bit different.

She seems to home in on the ones that are breakable or that are precious and have sentimental value. We have to literally tie those ones on with wire so she can’t pull them off!

I love the decorations that have special memories for me – the ones given to me by old friends that have special memories attached or that the girls have made.

The ones to remember loved ones departed.

But I know the tree will not look like this for long! Holly likes to take decorations off. When she was younger we just used to put the decorations higher up so she couldn’t reach them. So by the time it got to New Year all the decorations were on the top half and the bottom half was bare. She can reach all of it now so that won’t work!

We will see what happens this year. We also have the added destruction by the Poppy dog!

We may need a new tree next year!

😆🎄😆

The 12 Joys of an ASD Christmas #4 Christmas card Hide and Seek!

It’s a great tradition… sending and receiving Christmas cards! In our house it just becomes a game of hide and seek.

Holly loves to open cards although there is no care taken and often a card may not survive this initial stage! If it does end up in one piece once opened we put them in the card holders that we have around our house. But slowly over time they start to disappear…

They are posted behind/under/inside various places! She posts under doors, behind the tv, in cupboards, in the bin, under the sofa and sometimes they even end up through the letterbox and back out of the house! Hollys favourite place for posting is behind the radiators! She posts all sorts of things behind them!!! We are often still finding Christmas cards in the summer. If she likes a picture on a card she has been known to carry it around for several days or make a hole in it so she can thread it on to something.

Cards have been delivered all week so the fun has begun! 😆

The 12 Joys of an ASD Christmas #3 The dreaded Advent calendar!

Yep Advent Calendars! Who invented them? Holly doesn’t get it! It’s like torture. Presented with a box of chocolates BUT can only have 1!

Holly really doesn’t understand this. She doesn’t do waiting at the best of times so having to wait a whole day to have another chocolate really is not good! We end up hiding the advent calendar up on top of the kitchen cupboards so she can’t see it. But by about day 5 she knows where it is so when you’re not looking she climbs on a chair to get it! Then she eats as many as she can before being notice!

Once we put the advent calendar on top of the cupboard and forgot about it! We found it in April when we were hiding the Easter eggs! 😆😆😆

The 12 ‘Joys’ of an ASD Christmas – #2 Absolutely NO Crackers

A couple of years ago our Christmas Day was a complete disaster! We couldn’t work out why Holly was in such a constant distressed state! Aggressive behaviour (pinching, grabbing,hitting etc) Sweating, self-harming, crying etc. It wasn’t until the next day when we were at Nana’s house and we witnessed the instant change in her behaviour when someone pulled a Christmas cracker in the other room that we realised the cause!

So since that year, we do not have Christmas crackers and we’ve also found out that popping corks cause major anxiety in a similar way. So we have to open bottles in a different room or when she’s not around! We already had an idea about fireworks! And those are a whole new story!

A Gradual Christmas

Everyone does Christmas in their own way. People celebrate in different ways. Our Christmases have changed over the years. We used to decorate lots of rooms etc. But now we have to introduce decorations and customs gradually, a little bit at a time.

No instant Christmas as this causes major anxiety resulting in meltdowns and challenging behaviour! So it’s the outside lights one day. The tree another day etc. Some of our decorations are in rooms we can lock and Holly is only allowed in there when supervised otherwise things would just be destroyed!

We have done the elf on the shelf for several years…

Holly really didn’t get it. We managed it because Jasmine, the youngest, was so keen to see what the elves had been up to that she was always the first awake in the morning. So she saw them before Holly even got up! Also Clyde and Twinkle did things in the rooms that were locked.

Over time we’ve learnt what to avoid. Absolutely NO Christmas crackers! We still have a tree although we’re not bothered if it ends up not quite the same as when we put it up – usually all the decorations end up at the top! And outside lights are ok. But other than that we don’t do much more!

Everyone has their own traditions and does things differently. It’s just about finding out what works for you and your family! And then sticking to it!

Really Not a Fussy Eater!

Holly is not fussy about what food she eats! Whose food it is! What time it is! Where it is! Or even if it’s actually edible or not!

Not a fussy eater at all! The problem is more that she is always hungry! She can spot the McDonalds sign from miles away! And she will eat ANYTHING! Holly loves pasta (even if it’s not cooked) and ice cream which she will even eat in the snow in the middle of winter! But… she also eats things such as buttons off her clothes and furnishings, snails from the garden, dog treats, paper, clothes … anything! Not just food!

She once ate the bottom off all the strands of the plastic fly curtain so it stopped about a foot off of the floor. Unfortunately it wasn’t that efficient at stopping the flies after that!

At times we have wondered if she has actually eaten these things but then the evidence appears later in the toilet/nappy!

Holly has always made the “Mmmmmm” noise when she eats! So if we hear this and she’s not in view it means she’s either stolen food and is eating it in secret or she’s eating something inedible that she shouldn’t be eating at all!

Holly is brilliant at stealing food. Once, when she was younger and in a big pushchair, we were queuing at the til in Sainsburys and I heard the “Mmmm” noise, turned around to see Holly taking a bite out of a baguette that the lady behind had put on the conveyer belt with her shopping! I was SO embarrassed!

Holly is an expert at distracting you (eg turning the shower on full to flood the bathroom) and then stealing food from the kitchen cupboards. Her favourite thing is taking a bite out of every KitKat of a multipack!

Everyone eats fast in our house! We’ve learnt over the years that if you don’t Holly steals food from your plate and eats it! But Holly now has a rival for her food stealing crown… “Poppy dog!”

And sometimes, I’m sure these two are ‘working together to share the prize!’

The only only thing Holly has never eaten is grapes!

The Master Shredder!

Anyone else’s child always look like an extra from the musical Oliver! or like they’ve just walked out of the Michael Jackson Thriller video? No? Just mine then?…

Holly is a master shredder. She rips toys, clothes, bedding, curtains… often into shreds. She starts by biting a hole and then using her hands to rip whatever it is. Once she’s made one hole she can’t stop there… and keeps going!

We’ve tried different fabrics- We thought we were on to a winner with denim clothes! But no! She soon ripped those too!

Hollys school almost found the solution with these…

… glad the overalls aren’t orange! But she’s managed to rip these too now!

Night time is the worst! We can never find pyjamas without holes so now she wears two of everything – one the right way and another back to front so we can cover the holes!😆😆😆

And we go through so much bedding!!

We’re not sure why she does it? Could be sensory? Habit? Boredom? Or just an urge to destroy things? Who knows?

But…. If anyone knows of any clothes that are un-rippable or any kind of solution… we’d love to hear from you!

Feeling Inspired

Wow! THERE SHE GOES! What a fantastic series on BBC4. At last a realistic view of what it’s REALLY like to live with a child with Autism and severe learning difficulties. The struggles! The milestones! The achievements! The feelings and emotions! The strange things you find yourself saying! Those moments where you don’t know whether to laugh or cry! We LOVED it! It was like watching our lives on screen! Absolutely brilliant! AND to know we are not alone meant so much!

So I’ve had a Twitter account for a while where I have shared a few of our experiences and gained several followers. So inspired by this and the wonderful tv comedy drama I decided to join the world of blogging! Arrgghhh! Now, I won’t be writing long posts. I’m not a big reader myself and I prefer to draw. So inspired by @garyscribbler and his #doodleaday I may be doing a bit of doodling too!

Here’s a doodle I did earlier … just to brain storm a few ideas for my posts.

Any of these things look familiar?