Parental Meltdown

You woke at 6am, and I asked Mummy to go and get you. I was exhausted, and I thought that it might be a good thing for me to get a lie in. Mummy came, put you on the bed, and went back to sleep. I was very pissed off and had an argument with Mummy. So she left for the day. I think that we really need to work out a better way of dealing with exhaustion. It is no good to get someone to be with you when we are not exhausted, but when we break, everyone else needs sleep more than us.

I stayed in bed and left you with Nanny, who made you cornflakes. You were much happier and not showing the signs of illness and flakiness from the day before. I'm glad I didn't give you the megadoses we discussed with Roni, though it is good to know we can use the supplement as an option. She told me to go and have a bath, and she took you on a two and a half hour hike of building sites, the café by the beach, the beach, the boat at the bottom of our building. By all accounts, you were well behaved, you didn’t run off much and you held Nanny’s hand

When you came back, I was in the bath having a soak. I was reading the book Diet Intervention and Autism by Marilyn Le Breton. There were lots of things in there about why you need to do this diet, and her son Jack showed lots of signs in behaviour and physically like you. His diet streamlined to bread and milk, he had stress attacks that could be calmed with food (ie illicit ones), and had red cheeks. She said she was convinced when she read a list of physical and behavioural traits that were typical and her boy had this intermittent red ear. How could they know?! I however was shocked that eating sand was on the list of strange behaviours, and excessive clinginess was part of the weaning process. You spent 10 days maybe (and not now) asking for constant cuddles. It’s much less now. It really is an excellent book. It has lots of things in there which are great to read – in layman’s terms – about the mini-fix that you get from MSG and aspartame. I was intrigued to read that you needed several fixes every day, I thought that you had one that lasted a long time, hence the long weaning process. Now I think about it, I can see this is right.

In the afternoon, you had a sleep. Probably well deserved to be honest. Me and Nanny watched the Bourne Ultimatum, which was a good film though probably not one to watch if you are feeling seasick – the camera doesn’t sit still. When you woke up we had a good afternoon, your mood was very good. It was about 4pm, so you’d been asleep maybe 3 hours. In this time we had cleaned the house, mopped the floor, cleaned the windows and fixed the hoover. It’s good having Nanny around sometimes. You of course thought it would be good to put your stinky dirty hand on a clean window or two. You will be punished.

Mummy came back around 7pm, and she’d been studying. You were very happy, and quite lucid this evening. Mummy told Nanny that I was a brilliant father, and an absolute saviour for you. She has said some things that have hurt me so much in this last year. I was in horrible trouble a year ago today, but to hear her say that I am the best father she’s ever seen was very special. Nanny said she had never seen one so selfless, or someone to change their world so much for their kid, and she told Mummy that I need a break more and more support.

I made a decision to try and start a low salicylate diet from tomorrow – pear and banana shake, dates are high in salicylates. I made one up and it tastes ok. I tried to get some Zinc in you in the pancake I made but you just didn't want it. Bugger. Also, the cherry jam is actually cherry pie filling. Tasty, but not jam. Apparently Zinc needs to go in last so it does it's job best. Of course, that leaves it open to being left. I'll devise a better plan for it.

You were really quite playful tonight, and your bedtime routine went pretty well. In bed by 9.30pm. We were in bed by 10pm! Nanny is taking advantage of the time difference I think.



Little Steps:

Sleep: Nap - 1pm - 4.10pm (woke up yourself). Bed - 11pm

Poop: 12.30pm - loose/soft, quite smelly

Today's Food
Breakfast: Cornflakes and Rice Milk (8am), Banana & Date Smoothie (started 8am, drank most of between 11.30am and 12.15pm) with 1/4 tsp Calcium, 550mg Buffered Vitamin C and 1/2 capsule Nu Thera
Snack: Orange Juice
Lunch: 4.30pm Two slices of Eggy Toast with GF Bread, one egg.
Snack: Chocolate Cake (didn't finish), Orange Juice
Dinner: 8.30pm Good For Me! Chocolate Cake (didn't finish again), Homemade Banana Ice Cream (with Eggs Yolks, Sugar and Almond Milk), Orange Juice with 1/4 capsule Nu Thera