IncredibleMom
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2004
- Messages
- 64
2 days ago, we returned home from a most incredible 3 nights at the Wilderness Lodge followed by 3 nights at the Boardwalk Villas. We spent 6 days in the 4 parks and ate at Garden Grill, Whispering Canyon Cafe, California Grill, Cinderella's Royal Table, Le Cellier, Tempura Kiku, and Kona Cafe.
Our Background Story:
IncredibleMom and Dad are parents to 2 amazing little kids: Kamryn, turned 7 on Groundhog's Day, and Ian, just turned 5 on Valentine's Day! (We were going for minor holidays)
Kamryn and Ian both have Autism Spectrum Disorder. If you're not familiar with what this means, you'll get to know a little as you read on. Autism is referred to as a "Spectrum Disorder" because individuals with ASD have different combinations of such a range of varying symptoms in varying degrees. So, there really aren't 2 people with it that have exactly the same combination of symptoms.
Kamryn(7) is really mild. I can put her quirks in a nutshell by saying she's like "a foreign kid, who doesn't completly speak/understand English and has a bad case of ADD and OCD". She loves princesses and castles, squirrels and ducks, drawing pictures of the Magic Kingdom (especially the teacups), and the color pink. She hates rainy days and deviating from her preset ideas, ideas which may or may not necessairly be rational or communicated with anyone else around her...this make for some interesting melt-downs. Also, she has a love/hate thing with the personification of inanimate objects. She has been in Montessori School since she was 3 years old (against the strong advice of some 'professionals' at the time) and her teacher refers to her as the "Classic Montessori Child" - says her lessons are picture perfect. She's very very smart - been reading since she was 2 1/2 and she even does the "Rain-Man" thing, determining the day of the week of a specific date, instantly in her little head; we're already planning her 21st birthday trip to Vegas to take her card counting! Ryn (as we sometimes call her) is a very agreeable, easy going child... as long as she is given a heads-up on what's going on.
Ian(5) doesn't have so much of the language processing and OCD issues as his sister, but more of the physical symptoms of the disorder. His big problems are in sensory processing, ALL of the senses. We really found out how this rules his life on this trip! He has moderate-severe apraxia (not uncommon among kids with ASD) which is basically a motor coordination dysfunction - mostly affects his speech as he didn't have much intelligible speech, communicated mostly with sign language, until about 6 months ago
Basically, he is bothered by crowds and loud noises. He requires a slower pace and frequent breaks. We found that all of this combined with the amount of walking we did really did a number on his problems with proprioception.
Proprioception: your sense of where your body is in relation to what is around you. Example, you can feel your butt sitting in your computer chair and your fingers on your mouse or keyboard, or the distance between your body and the sofa and coffee table as you walk through your living room. But, people with poor proprioception can't feel the pressure of a chair under them or judge the distance between themselves and obstacles as they are walking through space.
Back to Ian: Anyway, he loves cooking and pretending to cook, drawing and cutting out pictures of food, and asking "what that?, What he doing?, where he going? what we doing next?", etc. (which I'll NEVER get tired of answering...waited too long to hear those words!) He is a very sweet little boy who craves your attention, tests your patience, and loves finding new ways to annoy his sister and thrives on being given 'jobs' to do (we found a great way to keep him focused and occupied - giving him a piece of trash and having him find a trashcan!). Ironically his lack of patience requires alot of ours. Generally a pretty high-maintainence kid, but we wouldn't have it any other way!
"NORMAL KIDS ARE BORING"... That's the motto in our house!
Speaking of our house, that's why we needed a vacation:
Two days before Thanksgiving, our entire attic burned and about 1/2 the house downstairs got the H2O treatment. What a way to turn these kids' lives upside-down! Fortunatally, not alot was damaged (except all of our holiday decorations and 3 boxes of the kids' keepsakes dating back to their births, and our bedroom and livingroom funriture). But, what better excuse for a trip to Disney World??? (As if we really needed one)
We decided we'd like to try out renting DVC points for at least part of our stay and wanted to try out the Boardwalk Villas. As our kids are big Magic Kingdom fans we wanted to spend the first few nights at a MK resort. We ended up booking a MYW w/Dining package with 3 nights at the Wilderness Lodge and 6-day park-hoppers (2Ad/2Ch: $2106) and the following 3 nights in a Studio at the BWV ($420).
I booked our flights on American from Shreveport, La to Orlando connecting in Dallas ($920)
The date was set February 23 - March 1 was something to look forward to!
Next up:
Day 1, "We'll get there...eventually, but never eventlessly"
(Kamryn loves these "bouncing beans")
Our Background Story:
IncredibleMom and Dad are parents to 2 amazing little kids: Kamryn, turned 7 on Groundhog's Day, and Ian, just turned 5 on Valentine's Day! (We were going for minor holidays)
Kamryn and Ian both have Autism Spectrum Disorder. If you're not familiar with what this means, you'll get to know a little as you read on. Autism is referred to as a "Spectrum Disorder" because individuals with ASD have different combinations of such a range of varying symptoms in varying degrees. So, there really aren't 2 people with it that have exactly the same combination of symptoms.
Kamryn(7) is really mild. I can put her quirks in a nutshell by saying she's like "a foreign kid, who doesn't completly speak/understand English and has a bad case of ADD and OCD". She loves princesses and castles, squirrels and ducks, drawing pictures of the Magic Kingdom (especially the teacups), and the color pink. She hates rainy days and deviating from her preset ideas, ideas which may or may not necessairly be rational or communicated with anyone else around her...this make for some interesting melt-downs. Also, she has a love/hate thing with the personification of inanimate objects. She has been in Montessori School since she was 3 years old (against the strong advice of some 'professionals' at the time) and her teacher refers to her as the "Classic Montessori Child" - says her lessons are picture perfect. She's very very smart - been reading since she was 2 1/2 and she even does the "Rain-Man" thing, determining the day of the week of a specific date, instantly in her little head; we're already planning her 21st birthday trip to Vegas to take her card counting! Ryn (as we sometimes call her) is a very agreeable, easy going child... as long as she is given a heads-up on what's going on.
Ian(5) doesn't have so much of the language processing and OCD issues as his sister, but more of the physical symptoms of the disorder. His big problems are in sensory processing, ALL of the senses. We really found out how this rules his life on this trip! He has moderate-severe apraxia (not uncommon among kids with ASD) which is basically a motor coordination dysfunction - mostly affects his speech as he didn't have much intelligible speech, communicated mostly with sign language, until about 6 months ago
Basically, he is bothered by crowds and loud noises. He requires a slower pace and frequent breaks. We found that all of this combined with the amount of walking we did really did a number on his problems with proprioception. Proprioception: your sense of where your body is in relation to what is around you. Example, you can feel your butt sitting in your computer chair and your fingers on your mouse or keyboard, or the distance between your body and the sofa and coffee table as you walk through your living room. But, people with poor proprioception can't feel the pressure of a chair under them or judge the distance between themselves and obstacles as they are walking through space.
Back to Ian: Anyway, he loves cooking and pretending to cook, drawing and cutting out pictures of food, and asking "what that?, What he doing?, where he going? what we doing next?", etc. (which I'll NEVER get tired of answering...waited too long to hear those words!) He is a very sweet little boy who craves your attention, tests your patience, and loves finding new ways to annoy his sister and thrives on being given 'jobs' to do (we found a great way to keep him focused and occupied - giving him a piece of trash and having him find a trashcan!). Ironically his lack of patience requires alot of ours. Generally a pretty high-maintainence kid, but we wouldn't have it any other way!
"NORMAL KIDS ARE BORING"... That's the motto in our house!
Speaking of our house, that's why we needed a vacation:
Two days before Thanksgiving, our entire attic burned and about 1/2 the house downstairs got the H2O treatment. What a way to turn these kids' lives upside-down! Fortunatally, not alot was damaged (except all of our holiday decorations and 3 boxes of the kids' keepsakes dating back to their births, and our bedroom and livingroom funriture). But, what better excuse for a trip to Disney World??? (As if we really needed one)
We decided we'd like to try out renting DVC points for at least part of our stay and wanted to try out the Boardwalk Villas. As our kids are big Magic Kingdom fans we wanted to spend the first few nights at a MK resort. We ended up booking a MYW w/Dining package with 3 nights at the Wilderness Lodge and 6-day park-hoppers (2Ad/2Ch: $2106) and the following 3 nights in a Studio at the BWV ($420).
I booked our flights on American from Shreveport, La to Orlando connecting in Dallas ($920)
The date was set February 23 - March 1 was something to look forward to!
Next up:
Day 1, "We'll get there...eventually, but never eventlessly"
(Kamryn loves these "bouncing beans")
Can't wait to read more.
