My Parenting Is A Lot Like Football Season

It is. When my team is doing well, I wear my shirt, post on all of my social media accounts, and tell anyone who walks past. BUT when my team decides that they're going to drop passes, miss field goals, and throw interceptions, I turn off my tv, watch via my ESPN app, and am not too keen on wearing my team gear.

The same can definitely be said for my autism parenting. When Madeline is doing great, I'm out there taking about autism awareness, taking her places, bragging about her strides, and feel pretty good at the parenting thing - I feel like this progress will last forever. Then just like that, we are slowly sliding into chaos and the last thing I want to do is talk about autism and how wonderful it can be and the very, very last thing I want to do is take her autism out into public. This is why I haven't been on the blog since ....ummm ... November?

A lot of people find their Christmas break is a time when they can take a rest from the busy schedules, do Christmas crafts and cute activities, and go into kind of this unwind mode. This was most definitely not the case for us. Autism, combined with ADHD,  does not like breaks and down time. It thrives on structure and routine - AND for Madeline, that routine works best when she is learning facts about animals, doing math, reading - all of the nerdy stuff most kids want to take a break from. Here's the kicker - she thinks she can only do those things at school. That combined with the fact I am not running a school the entire Christmas break, and her medicine needing tweaking, sucked that holiday spirit right out of me.

I won't go into details because I don't ever want to post something on this blog that would ever embarrass her or cause her to later on feel horrible I would share things about her life/autism. I will encourage her to embrace her autism as she ages, but right now she's not old enough to comprehend how to do that.

So basically, I'm back. Hopefully. Because sharing this autism life can be fun and awareness is key. And I'm learning how to deal with all of this as well.... and hiding out for the past 2 months probably wasn't the best thing ever.

Can't get rid of me that easily! Love ya'll! 😀

** Side note: I am already planning for summer break... I have a few months to get my act together... Lots of swimming, sprinklers, fact finding scavenger hunts, and tequila.... LOTS OF TEQUILA!!!!!