One of those weeks'!!
No school for the kids this week. Cambridge had February vacation week. The first couple of days were hard. I am not use to having my kids at home during the day. It always takes me a couple of days to adjust. On Monday I felt really tired and depressed. I think it is because I was mentally drained from taking care of Kara. She asks for food all the time. She needs a lot of oral stimulation. She thinks the best way to get that is by eating all the time. I have to cut her off at certain point because she would eat all day if I let her. It gets really tiring when she is always signing for food and I am continuously going into the kitchen to get it for her.
After Monday we seemed to get into the grove of things. Kara has recently been taught to play by herself. She has been doing pretty well with it. She will go in and sit in her bedroom and play for 10-30mins. That is really good for her. It gives me a break and it teaches her to be and play by herself. I wouldn't have made it through this week if it weren't for Emilie. She is our respite-therapist. She came everyday to relieve me for a few hours. Emilie, I love you!!
Kaleb has been having a hard time lately with Kara not being able to talk. He woke up one morning and said "mom, Kara talks to me at night when we go to bed,” I said "really, what does she say to you?" He said, "she asks me if I want to play baseball." I said "WOW." He then continued to tell me that they play in their room for an hour and then go to bed. It was the cutest thing I had ever heard him say. I didn't really think anything of it until the next morning he said the exact same thing to me. Later in the day he was lying on my bedroom floor and started to cry. I said, "Kaleb what is wrong." He said, "I wish Kara could talk." It broke my heart into a million pieces. I hadn't really thought about how Kara's autism affects Kaleb. He said he wishes he could talk and play with her. I told him that it is hard for her and us. We don't know why she doesn't talk, but I know that Kara loves him very much.
I looked over at Dan and said, "let's play Kara style." I told Kaleb to get up and we would show him how Kara can play, we just have to play a little differently. Dan then started jumping and throwing the kids on our bed. Kara also really enjoys it when you run up to her and scare her. She gets scared and grabs whatever is in reach of her. Dan started to run from one room to the other and scare both of them. Kaleb was lying on the bed and they both grabbed for each other. They played jumping, and the scaring game for a while. After they were done Kaleb had realized that he can play with Kara he just has to do it her style. I have put a video on here of Kara and Kaleb playing with his monster truck. It was a present from grandpa Randy. It was great to see Kaleb take what Dan and I had showed him and made his own ideas on how to play with Kara.