A REAL BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

The Easter holiday is over.  And it's back to the school routine for Jacob, well sort of.  The weekend was great.  My mother planned to have Easter dinner at her house on Monday, so Shannon didn't have to plan anything special for the holiday.  Normally we have some kind of special meal on Easter, but it was nice to just relax and enjoy the long weekend.  (I have a hard time even typing Shannon because I've always called her Shannie, so that's what I'm going to type from now on) 

Then of course, a curve ball.  I had to work on Monday, which wasn't that bad because the holiday made the pace at work a little lighter.  So it was up to Shannie, with the help of her sister, to get Jacob to my mom's house.  Dinner was at 4:30 so Shannie let Jacob know at 3:00 that they were going to Grandma's soon and he needed to get ready.  I don't know if it was the chocolate or the fact that I wasn't there, but Jacob absolutely refused and became very angry.  And Shannie gave him over an hours notice, which was plenty of time for him to finish what he was doing.  But even after an hour, Jacob was still hot.  However, due to her amazing parenting skills, she still managed to get Jacob to Grandma's house on time.

I arrived at my mom's at about 4:30 and Jacob was in rare form.  He was yelling and arguing with everyone.  So instead of arguing back, I ate dinner and then I asked Jacob if he wanted to leave.  And of course, he did, so we said goodbye and went out the door.  As soon as we were outside, I could feel the stress leave Jacob and he began to relax.  It's amazing how removing him from a volatile situation can have such a quick response.  Once we were home it was like nothing happened.  Jacob became his old self and was playing quietly within minutes.  Shortly afterwards, Shannie came home and we talked about Jacob's behaviour.  During our conversation, Shannie said "Maybe he's getting sick."  I shrugged it off and Jacob went to bed at his usual time, but he didn't fall asleep until midnight.  He couldn't be getting sick, could he? 

Then today, at 10:30, I get a call from school.  Now you can call it mother's intuition, and Jacob was sick all over the learning resource room.  It was on the floor, the table, the chair, in the garbage can and on his clothes.  Luckily we live close and Jacob was able to walk home with me.  I quickly got him changed and a drink of water. He's relaxing on the couch (with his DS of course) and he's drinking water, but the puke bowl is beside him.

And do you want to know what the funny thing is?  Today is Shannie's birthday.  I had planned the entire day out, I was going to let her sleep in, pick up Jacob from school, give Shannon her presents and take her out for dinner.  But of course like I said earlier, a curve ball, and I'm not that big of a baseball fan.  Thanks to Jacob however, we're used to adjusting our plans and schedules.

Hopefully Jacob is feeling a little better by dinner time.  If he is, we'll still be able to go out to dinner, but we may have to come home early.  We'll just check in with Jacob's aunt after we eat and see how he's doing.  If Jacob's feeling okay,we might go out shopping or something, I'll let Shannie decide.  After all it's her birthday.  In closing, I'd just like to mention how thankful, that Shannon and I are, to have learned the key to raising a child with Asperger's;  you have to remain positive.  And since we're looking on the bright side of things, at least Shannon was surprised on her birthday.