Author Archives: simpleijustdo

Me-Time: Free Hour

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English: A Glass of Tea. Français : Une tasse ...

English: A Glass of Tea. Français : Une tasse de thé en verre. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a recent post, I lamented that I had not pre-planned how I should spend my time when The Boy was camping with Fantastic Babysitter.  So I’ve been thinking about some ways I could spend a free hour…

  • Take a 15 minute bike ride (weather permitting)
  • Go shopping (or browsing) for girly underwear
  • Take a nap
  • Crank the music up and dance around the house
  • Sort through some toys to donate
  • Go to the bookstore
  • Go to a café, get a drink or a snack, and read
  • Take my camera somewhere and take some pictures

What would you do if you had a free hour to yourself?

The Ex and Empty Promises

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Red phone

Red phone (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The ex and I divorced 4 years ago, and in that time, The Boy has been on the receiving end of many empty and broken promises.  These range from “I’ll call you on Thursday,” (empty) to “I’m not going to be picking him up for his week with me,” (broken).  As you can imagine, this would devastate any kid, but to a kid with autism, who is reliant on schedules, timers, and routine, it can be catastrophic.

This was actually a common theme before the divorce, so I am used to it, but The Boy was 6 when we divorced, and has learned only by experiencing it so often over the past four years.  He still enjoys talking to his dad, and still enjoys visits to his dad’s when they occur, but the empty promises wreak much less havoc now.  There are still tears, and “Why isn’t he coming to pick me up?” but he now knows his dad has a tendency to break promises, and he’s starting to understand that it’s something we can’t do anything about.

The only thing I can do is to make sure I don’t break my promises to The Boy.  It’s very important to me that he knows he can rely on me, and he does because I’m consistent.  There are times I know he thinks I’m the meanest mom in the world, but he knows I love him, I will never leave him, and he can always count on me.

Pomo What? How the Pomodoro Technique is like Behavioral Therapy

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As we head back into the sPomodoro techniquechool season which is hectic for most parents, and extremely hectic for the special needs parent (can anyone say, “Transition”??), I have to admit that I sometimes need motivation to get done all of the things that need to get done.  In other words, I need something to get my butt in gear when it comes to chores at home, because in my whole scheme of things, they are often the last priority.

If you aren’t familiar with lifehacker.com, it is a site that offers lots of techie tips, but also its fair share of life techniques that can help you simplify processes and save time.  A few months ago, I read about The Pomodoro Technique on lifehacker, and have been using it with considerable success in my own life.  There are even free apps for using this technique, which makes it even better.

The gist is that you set your timer for 25 minutes, and work straight through at your task until the timer goes off.  You then reward yourself with 5 minutes to do whatever you’d like.  You can also modify those numbers, if you want to work for shorter or longer, or reward yourself for shorter or longer.  Only you know what will work for you.

Those of us familiar with visual schedules and behavioral therapy recognize this basic principle of “work-then-reward”, and the truth of human nature lies within – it’s hard to be intrinsically motivated when doing things you hate to do.  The best part is that I am not too overwhelmed to get started on my chores when I break them down into 25 minute chunks, and I can walk away in the middle if I need to attend to something else.

Check out the lifehacker article here, and the official website here.

What tricks do you use to get everything done?

Doctor Visit

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After our less-than-successful dentist visit last week, The Boy and I both had anxiety over today’s doctor appointment.  The obsession with being done by a certain time popped up again, and I had to explain in detail three times that we would likely not be done by 3:46PM, as there was a lot of waiting involved with a doctor appointment.  Each time, he seemed even more anxious. I was expecting to be there for at least an hour and a half, maybe longer, and I was envisioning another meltdown.

We went a bit early because we missed our appointment last summer.  I called to tell them I would be 10 maybe 15 minutes late, and whoever I spoke to on the phone was pretty pedantic with me, repeatedly telling me how important it was to be on time, and that they would have to reschedule our appointment.  I was furious.  Today, I was not going to take the chance of being a minute late, so we arrived about 20 minutes early.

Ideally, you shouldn’t do this, as this is more time for anxiety to fester, but I kept him busy with games of slappy, a new app on my phone, and plenty of cuddles (which must look pretty weird to others, this tall, lanky boy on my lap, but I really don’t give a flying fig – whatever it takes to dispel my son’s anxiety is what I will do).

Wonder of wonders, they were on time.  Took us right in, and the nurse who did the prelim stuff was a PRO.  She made a game out of everything, and The Boy was having fun.  At the doctor’s.

The doctor came in, and she was quick and efficient, answering my questions, and allaying his fears all at once.  And when she was done, The Boy said anxiously, “What time is it?”  I looked at my phone, and it was 3:34PM!  We zipped out of there, sucker in hand, and were home by 3:44PM.

We even discussed how our next two visits would include “pokes”, his biggest fear when going to the doctor.  By the end of the conversation, he was telling me the reasons why “getting pokes” was important, and how brave he would be.

They were such pros.  HE was such a pro. And I am very, very happy.

(Photo attribution: By Bart Everson (Flickr: Doctor’s Office) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)