Ryan Made My Day!!!

He has been dealing with anxiety / depression for a long time.  He is not confident in himself, tends to be overbearing, and is driven to be the best at everything.  Over the past few weeks it has been really bad.  He wanted me to remove the knives from the dishwasher, for fear he'd intentionally hurt himself.  And then he came right out and claimed that he felt like killing himself.

Woah!  So we've been talking a lot about anxiety and how it makes a person feel.  We are reading together Stress Can Really Get on Your Nerves! by Trevor Romain and Elizabeth Verdick.  We've just begun, but it is clear that Ryan has several anxiety symptoms.  I'm looking forward to getting into the sections that talk about how to manage stress.  I think that both of us could learn better stress management skills.

Now on to the part about how Ryan made my day.  Yesterday he wrote me a letter.  He said that I am his hero because I'm always so helpful and nice.  He also feels that I'm helping him deal with his depression.  That is very important to me.  I do not want to dismiss his feelings, or invalidate them.  They are his feelings and he has a right to them.  When he needs help dealing with his feelings, it is my job to help him find resources.

Bicycle Ride with Luke

I replaced my old Trek hybrid with a new model, the Trek 7100.  Bikes have come a LONG way since the early 90's.  I never really liked my old Trek, so didn't ride it much.  My new bike is very adjustable, so I have it adjusted so I'm sitting up pretty straight.  It has a nice seat.  My old bike had a bar running across like a men's bike, but not my new one.  I just step right thru.

Here in Missouri, we have a very nice and very long hiking / biking trail, the Katy Trail.  I've been considering riding the trail for a long time, but wanted to wait until both kids gave up training wheels.  Luke just gave his up a few weeks ago.  We've ridden the trail a few times, mostly me, Luke, and Ryan.  So far we haven't made it out of St. Charles county.  Most of the area we've ridden in is wooded with the river on one side and cliffs on the other side.  Beautiful.

Here are some pictures of a ride me and Luke took.  This stretch starts near Weldon Conservation area and goes towards St. Charles.  We never make it very far when Luke is along, since his bike is small and he's still pretty new at riding.  On this trip, we went about 5 miles.


My goal is to eventually take them across a bike path attached to a highway bridge.  The bike path lanes are completely separate from the bridge traffic.  The bridge is over the Missouri river, providing a beautiful view.  It goes between St. Charles and St. Louis county, into a park on the St. Louis side.  Just need to get them acclimated, since they'll both be a little nervous about the highway noise.

The Shoes of a Sensory Seeker

My son Luke is a sensory seeker.  That means that most sensations he LOVES and will seek out eagerly - often to a much larger degree than others.  He loves dirty play, bear hugs, and anything that provides extra sensation.  He's usually the kid you see going a bit too far.

He is also rough on clothes and shoes.  Jeans usually have worn knees, shirts have stains and stretched necks.  Shoes look worn after a short period of time.  Here is an example of his last pair of shoes, that we just replaced.  They were already getting worn out, but he finished them off yesterday while at school.  There were plenty of puddles for him to play in.  His shoes were soaked, socks soaked, and this shoe was flapping in the wind.  And he loved it.  Instead of complaining that his shoe was broken, he made a game out of it, flipping the toe part of the sole back under his foot as he walked, actually making it worse!!!

What a Mom of an Aspie Suffers

I'm really trying to focus on the positive, but I have a hard time with that.  My parents visited this weekend and Luke really gave them a show of his bad side.  We tried to go to the Art museum, but were only there for about an hour before we ended up leaving because Luke just couldn't take it any longer.  

My dad has a pace maker, so can't be too active.  So I decided we could go fishing the next day.  Bad idea.  Luke kept getting his line tangled and Grampa had to undo it.  Then Luke kept getting frustrated and leaving his pole.  Then it was too hot and he was thirsty.  Then he wanted to go home NOW.  Well, we finally decided to call it a day because it was pretty hot.  We stopped at a gas station to get cool drinks.  Me and my dad went in, my mom and the boys stayed in the van.  While we were in the store, Luke got uppity with Gramma and actually hit her a few times.  Wow - Gramma hit back!!!  And then he insisted that Gramma say sorry first.

Today we had to get new shoes for Luke and Ryan was along.  It is always harder when they're both with me, because they get on each others nerves.  Well, that would have been better than what actually happened.  Luke ran around the store making everyone think I'm such a loser mother.  Then we tried to go to the store to get some frozen pizza for tonight.  Luke wouldn't get out of the van.  I took away electronics for the rest of the day and things went downhill from there.  He lost electronics for 2 weeks for several bad decisions: throwing socks at me, shoes, headphones (that hurt), purse, and garbage.

And then he wanted me to say sorry to him for hurting his feelings.  Uggghhh.