Military, Moving, and Autism

Good morning everyone!

My one friend will be so impressed with me, at least she BETTER be! ;) Two days in a row of blogging. ;) :D

Okay, back on topic. Yep, ADD strikes again. ;D

If not stated before (I'm too tired to read through old blogs right now), we're a military family. And being military, you can tend to move, a lot. Right now though, we're not moving because of the military, we're moving cause we're buying a house. No problem, right? Wrong.

For any of you with a child with autism, and you're military, let's see how our stories compare. When my son was younger, there was no problems with getting him to move. No kidding. No fits, no freak-outs. See, before all the therapies, homeschooling, getting a dog, going raw, super jumps in verbal and cognitive abilities, he was easier to manage when it came to moving. Because it didn't seem to affect him AT all!

But this move? This move has been absolutely INSANE! He doesn't want to move AT all! He's super attached to this house (we are all really) and his room in particular. I've tried packing in front of him. All Hades breaks loose then. I've tried getting him to help pack (I was utterly amazed with the quickness he was able to tear a box to shreds), and I've tried packing while he sleeps. Packing while he sleeps is like lying to him, it's deception, and something I will never do again.

So for this move, I just have to endure the yelling, crying, screaming child my beautiful angel becomes. He's finally stopped trying to physically stop me from packing (we're packing his stuff dead last), so I can deal with the heartache soothing I have to do for him. It's better than him tearing boxes to shreds, and DEFINITELY better than him not going to sleep because he doesn't trust what I'll do once his lil' eyes are closed.

If there's any reminder I would give to others out there in our kind of situation, it's this:

No matter how much it sucks, how much our ears hurt from the screaming, how much our heart breaks to see them that upset, the move still has to happen, AND, it's SUCKING for them and their hearts are breaking a million-fold more than ours are. So no matter how frayed or snapped your last nerve is, use that as an excuse to take a break from the packing, sit down, cuddle, hug, and console that lil' confused soul that so rocks your socks off when they're not sad. You'll both feel better for it. :D