O is for Outrageous

O is for Outrageous.  Saturday morning, Apollo had his next to last soccer game with his 3/4 Galaxy team.  Yet again, I had to "coach" his team because the coach couldn't make it.  I don't know what I'm doing and Apollo doesn't listen to me, so it was interesting.  I felt like I did more "rearranging" kids than actual coaching, but Apollo did better than I expected.  We had our issues, of course, and that has to be expected when one is dealing with autism in any form.  You just have to learn to let the little things roll off your back and focus on correcting the big behaviors.  Apollo is not (and never will be) allowed to just run off the field like he wants to half the time, but if he wants to sit down on the grass and pick it, well, he's not the only one. I was pleasantly surprised this time to find he was kinda starting to get it - he kicked the ball the right direction and almost scored a goal.  His team won 2-0, so it was a pleasant beginning to a very long day.  As soon as his game was over, the whining began.  "I'm hot" and "I'm hungry" were constant complaints as we waited for Orion's game to begin.  Orion's game was a complete disaster - the short version?  His team is also a "ghost team" that gets neglected and his team has 5 players which is the minimum.  One got hurt Saturday and it escalated quickly into a near-fight, swearing and the cops being called - all of which Apollo was witness to, hence the outrageous beginning to our day.  Thankfully, he was so busy doing other things that the swearing never really reached his ears.  I guess O is for oblivious too - a rarely appreciated autism symptom.

O is for Ouch.  Following the eventful morning at the ballpark, Apollo and his brothers attended a birthday party to which they had been invited.  It was held at Jumps-A-Lot, one our local bounce around type places.  Apollo was WILD, but (to my surprise) somewhat controlled.  He blended right in with the other kids, none of whom he knew besides the birthday boy and his brother (who are our neighbors), and his own brothers.  The first place he went was to the giant slide and the bounce house, two things that are fairly familiar to him as he has done these type things before.  It took him a bit longer to warm up to the obstacle course that included a twenty foot high "rock wall" type climb, a speed slide and some other bits and pieces.  Once he conquered it the first time, it was hard to keep him off of it.   He was fearless, which is one of his extremes.  He's either completely terrified and you couldn't pay him a million dollars to do it, or he is gung ho like he just doesn't give a damn.  Some days he will even ping-pong between the two - those are the frustrating days.  Little man even managed to complete (and of course obsess over) the Big Baller obstacle course - think Wipe Out from TV.  I will post a picture of him doing it, but once he figured it out, he did it another 20 times in a row.  It was overall a pretty good experience for him (and me) until he realized that he had not one, but two friction burns from the giant slide.  It has proven to be a potentially life-threatening injury of course and requires intensive care around the clock (IE: he woke me up at 2 AM this morning because his band-aid came off and it was all over if I didn't replace it).

O is for Optometrist.  On Monday, Apollo went to the eye doctor for his yearly checkup.  When he was 2, I was told that he (like Orion) needed glasses due to an astigmatism and he was given glasses, which he promptly broke. Last year, he refused to sit still long enough to even attempt to measure his astigmatism and the vision test itself was practically a joke.  In the end, the doctor acknowledged he could use glasses but that at his age and cooperation level, it may not do much good.  So we opted to skip on glasses last year and see how his vision changed.  Well, this year he was able to sit still and poor baby got his momma's astigmatism just like his big brother.  His isn't as bad, but it's there.  He's also a bit farsighted, whereas Orion's issue is almost all astigmatism.  The vision test itself still proved to be a losing battle this year, due to a completely new problem.  Apollo has begun to make up answers to "tests" the way he thinks they should be, rather than what they really are.  At least, that's how it seems.  He laughed and giggled and said, "I can't see that... it needs to be bigger" but then he would look AROUND the "glasses" and still claim he couldn't see, even when he had already identified that same letter at the same size not five minutes before.  Even switching to the pictures yielded flawed results.  The doctor was able to get Apollo's vision corrected to 20/30 which we will take at this time.  His glasses are on order and he really does look super cute with them, so I am hoping this pair will work out better (and last longer!) than last time. 

O is for Otorhinolaryngology, aka an ENT (ear, nost, throat) doctor.  Apollo's well child visit ended up getting postponed due to insurance not being due to cover it yet, but they went ahead and checking his hearing because I have become increasingly worried that there may be an underlying issue magnifying his listening problems.  Sometimes, it is obvious that just straight up isn't listening to you and is ignoring you on purpose.  Other times, it is much harder to tell if maybe he's actually not hearing you.  The first indication that really pointed me in the direction to worry is the fact that if left unchecked, he will slowly bump the TV up to insanely loud level.  Loud enough for the neighbors to hear - probably loud enough for the little Moon men to hear.  And it has happened numerous times that he will turn to the TV up to unbearable levels, will request for me to turn up the radio when it is already thumping, or he will not react to something he normally would, such as telling him that he is going to see grandmama.  When that child doesn't squeal with delight at the mention of grandmama, you really do have to wonder if he didn't hear you.  So we have an appointment with Audiology at the University of South Alabama to have his hearing tested and narrow down the issue to whether his listening issue is medical and can be helped with a hearing aid or therapy, or if it related to his autism and he is tuning out the world on a whim.  Part of me is hoping for the former because it is correctable, and sometimes that makes me sad because who would ever wish medical intervention on their child? But if this issue proves to not be his ears and instead is a quirk, then there is little that I can do about it so it's a catch-22.   But I have to come find that a lot of things with autism are...