Friday, April 1, 2011

What "needs constant supervision" really means

This post has been percolating for a while, pardon the rambling. Remember, Dominic is 6 now.

One of the reasons that Dominic has a 1 on 1 aide in public school is that he's a flight risk.
- In our life, our living room screen door is always triple locked (we even bought a hook and eye and have it up high to slow the escape...).

- Any room / closet that is out of bounds for Dominic is kiddie locked 100% of the time. Right now this includes our guest room because its my vegetable garden starting area, and he tends to pull seedlings up.

- The fish tank lid is duct taped down. We tried last week taking the tape off, and he killed 2 more fish.

- Dominic is never allowed to play in the front yard, and really only ever in the front yard on the way from the house to the car.

- The backyard is surrounded by a (locked) 6ft privacy fence. This at least allows us to have him play somewhat independently. We do have to pick up the dog poop frequently or he gets into it (plays with it... etc).

- We cannot leave something on the (gas) stove unattended even for a few minutes if he's awake. He will pull a leaf off a houseplant and go stick it in the flame to watch it burn. (he did this is in 2 minutes that I left a pot of boiling water on the stove to run his bath yesterday)

- When grocery shopping, he rides in the cart. He's too big, really, but we do that because of the containment factor. We have started experimenting with very short grocery trips, doing them with him not in a cart and so far its a 50/50 kind of thing.

- Things he cannot eat have to live in the refrigerator in the garage, the door to which is kiddie locked. This includes butter... my quiche...

This is just a few examples. Constant supervision is just that. Constant.

Mix this with his problems communicating and multiple stims including (currently) high pitched squealing, spinning in circles, spitting, picking his nose and it makes for long days.

We are so glad he goes to bed around 7.

1 comment:

Eva said...

Joy, you guys are such amazing parents! Dominic is very lucky to have you!