I have five children, all are affected by Asperger's (currently classified as an Autism Spectrum Disorder), and I have it too. It means we're considered "high functioning" autism participants... We can understand a lot, in some instances we're pretty smart (think of #2 doing six digit multiplication for fun in third grade, or #1 and #2 having college level reading in 5th and 6th grades)... but it comes at a price. Social interactions are exhausting, trying to keep up the facade of "normal" when around other people is increasingly hard the longer you're around people. And over stimulation can cause major meltdowns. So, apparently, can lack of outlet.
It's no secret. I'm exhausted. Every morning I get up at 6:00 to bring the dog out to go potty, wake the girls up by 6:30 so they can be down for breakfast before the bus comes. Dealing with people in the breakfast area is grating. I try my best to be polite when approached, to avoid people, to keep my eyes averted, and to talk to the girls so that people are less likely to approach us or speak to us. But every day, inevitably, even if nobody actually speaks directly to us, I end up completely wiped out by the time I see the girls off to the bus. This morning it was an excessively loud business man on his laptop greeting two other people who'd come in the night before for their meeting later in the day - which is already altogether more information than I ever needed to know - but I now know where the woman drove in from, when she arrived, where the man will be going in two weeks, what their meeting is about, and what company they work for.
Now add in that when I get back up to the hotel room, I can't just lay down and go back to sleep... No, I have to stay awake for whenever housekeeping shows up. Sometimes they show up at 9am, sometimes at 10;00. One morning they showed up at 8:30 and today they didn't show up until almost noon. I can't turn on the tv or clack away on the computer because I still have two sleeping children in the room. For a while anyway. I have to wake #2 up an hour before breakfast closes so he has a chance to go and eat before his online lessons start. When left to his own internal alarm clock, #5 will often sleep until 11:30 or noon, and then be perfectly fine all day long. Here, with people coming and going down the hallways, housekeeping stopping by every morning, and #2 clicking away on his computer for school work, #5 has not been sleeping as late as he normally does. Which makes him high energy and crabby - all day long. No, he won't go to sleep early. In fact, if anything, it causes him to stay up later in the midst of meltdowns, which makes each day that much harder than the last as he gets less and less sleep.
When the girls get home it's a crap-shoot how the rest of the day will go. If they're worn out from school, they might settle in their room for a while until they get hungry for dinner. If they're upset about something, or wound up, or just too loud when they get back from school, it can push #2 into a meltdown - and his can simmer for hours, even days, cracking into yelling matches, threats, throwing things, and slamming doors...
As you might be coming to realize - a hotel is not a good place for five autistic children to be stuck in two rooms (that are not connected except through the public hallway) for weeks on end.
Once a week we go to my parents' house to let the kids run off some energy, but once a week just isn't enough. Kids need an outlet every day. With me having been sick this past week, and Tony working 10-12+ hours every day, it leaves very little time or opportunity to get the kids out and active. Pokemon Go lasted all of two days before they started to bicker over which group one of them joined. And that doesn't help the youngest two to run off energy.
So it was really no surprise at all tonight when the front desk called to tell us one of the other hotel patrons was complaining about our noise level. It didn't help that one of the kids answered the phone before I could grab it and - thinking it was a sibling in the next room calling - answered in a snarky sarcastic voice. Wonderful, now we're making people angry.
I do understand why the front desk asked us to quiet down. It was 10pm and we were getting kids sorted for bed. Yes, we were talking loudly, but not screaming or shouting - nobody was having a meltdown. They were just a little hyped up from the ice cream they got for dessert (which we had to walk to go get hoping they'd wear themselves out and be better prepared for bed). But on the other hand, it wasn't the middle of the night, they were getting ready for bed - we weren't screaming or stomping, and let's be honest... Five kids, in a hotel for weeks on end - this is inevitable.
We still have no word on when anyone will come and fix the house. Honestly, my mom is convinced that by the time anything gets done the entire house will be a loss. It's been festering in sewage smell for nearly three weeks now. Anything that wasn't destroyed by the flood itself is likely going to smell like sewage forever now. It's disgusting.
Which leads me to being stuck with the insurance for replacement. They want us to photograph stuff, and come up with a list of everything that was in the basement, how long we've had it, where we got it, how much it costed, and how much it would cost to replace it with an identical item... Seriously - they want us to wade through septic-contaminated stuff in full hazmat gear and snap photos? Is that even legal? Shouldn't THEY have to come out and do that? Isn't that their job? Maybe I'm way off, but if we have to find and hire a specialized clean up crew due to the biological hazard of septic flooding... I'm pretty sure it's not safe for us to be walking around in, picking stuff up and taking photos and measurements of stuff to figure out replacement value. So of course, with Tony working full time, and my at the hotel with kids, this hasn't gotten done either.
We have now been prisoners at this hotel for 19 days. I've been trying really hard to stay positive, but after the angry call from the front desk today, I think I'm completely burnt out. And of course as I'm typing this (at quarter to midnight) I've got little #5 on the floor sobbing because I won't put his swim trunks in his dresser drawer right this second. Once again, up too early this morning, and now fighting sleep with everything he's got because he's upset.
11 days until we close on the new house. In just two weeks I will be moving into a new house, far away from people, where my crazy family can be loud and run and play and not have to worry about what other people think of them, or how people perceive them, or if they are stomping their feet too much as they run and play or if the neighbors want to go to bed at 9:30 when the kids want to play until 10. Two more weeks... I keep telling myself... Just two more weeks.