What better way to celebrat a birthday than at the Magic Kingdom?
We just spent almost 6 days at the Disneyland resort in a beautiful room with a view to die for!!! The weather was great and we could see Downtown Disney, The Grand California Hotel, California Adventure, and all the Famous mountains of Disneyland--Space Mountain, Big Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and The Matterhorn plus we could watch the fireworks from the living room of the suite!
The best thing about the resort is there are many things you can do besides going to the parks. Not only do they have several pools but there are arcades, gift shops, waterfalls to explore, koi ponds, large park areas to just hang out and several eaterys including Goofys Kitchen {rather pricey,but} a must if you are celebrating a birthday.
Things were a bit different this year as Dakota was still in a wheelchair last year and it made for a really difficult time . Although he is still struggling through issues physically he was at least up on his own 1 and 1/2 feet which helped mobility. Behavior was stellar this year only one real meltdown -- and that was in the pool because of his foot and inability to be sure of himself and the unfamliarity of his surroundings he got very frustrated . I had also met a Mom who had an autistic son who was in the pool so we struck up a conversation which added to his frustration. I know it was attention seeking behavior because he was afraid of his surroundings so when he started exhibiting the frustration i just said ok its time to go and we headed back to the room and by the time we got back to the room he had managed to decompress--
For the most part we had a great time but I have to share one incident I think could help someone else "read their child"--We had gone on Splash Mountain toward late afternoon it was still warm outside but we got horrendously wet even with a few hours of daylight left to dry Dakotas shorts were a bit to heavy and never really dried. We continued a few more rides and towards dusk started back to the Hotel. We stopped for some reason for a minute and he grabbed his stomach on both sides and put out a big groan - - - - - I asked him what the matter was and he said "nothin" ; we started out of the gates and stopped at Jamba Juice , I was speaking to thejuice girl when I turned around to find him slapping his foot on to the floor like a horse and throwing his knee to the outside -- just at that moment I realized that the shorts being wet were rubbing his legs and he was gaulded. We took a short cut thru The Grand California Hotel and I got a valet to shuttle us over to our hotel-- My point is this when Dakota grabbed his stomach and groaned he was trying to tell me something then but I focused on the torso and kinda blew it off that his stomach couldnt be hurting. I knew he wasnt hungry so we pressed on until I finally caught the foot slapping in the juice store. Had I been just a little more in tune I may have found his ailment sooner . I'm saying that with these kids they dont always have all the tools to tell us when something is wrong . You have to be a little bit of a mind reader and an extra special parent to take time to not react when they act out. Investigate to make sure they are not hurting or trying to tell us something is wrong-- {I have another story I will write about later --The Sucker }
It is so incredibily easy to want your kid to conform to "typical " behavior that when they act out in public we tend to be quick to "squawsh" the behavior. Always Always Always take a few minutes to analyze whats going on and see if you can find another reason for the behavior-- I know its hard and even I trip up after 19+ years but our kids find different ways of telling us theres something wrong or theres something different. This has been a hard lesson for me . For the most part I think it is hard for every parent whether they have challenged kids or not but our kids -- our autistic kids have different forms of communication and we have to give them the benefit of doubt when they are trying to tell us something -- One thing I believe 100% is that not one "behavior " happens for no reason ; we may never know all of the reasons but at least let your child use what ever means or tools he has to tell you something is wrong - - Spare an extra moment or two to read the cues
In the long run you will be a better parent and in our case I have seen and improving child-- muchless acting out and more meaningful behavior as well as the ability to self monitor when a behavior does errupt!
As for Disneyland a great time always and once again a learning experience!
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