Tony was struggling for a while with accidentally holding down the side volume buttons on his kindle for too long, which would mute his device. His brain takes longer to get his muscles to learn how to replicate motions he sees (it is not a matter of understanding, his brain knows what it wants the muscles to do, but the connections between his brain and his muscles misfire), so it took a few weeks for him to become fully independent with the method I was teaching him of locating the sound icon on his tablet screen and using it to pull up the volume bar and manipulate it to increase his sound levels.

Once he mastered that though, he started cranking up the volume on max all the time.

On the one hand, it’s a victory to have my kiddo with the hyper sensitive hearing not only be able to tolerate that, but to crave it. On the other hand, it’s a bit too loud for me sometimes, it can bother other people when we are out in public, and it can make conversations difficult.

So I had to get him to cooperate with turning it down. I tried showing and asking him without giving him anything in return, but that wasn’t so very effective (it totally didn’t work). Since Tony fluently speaks the language and accepts the currency of skittles, the very first time I offered him skittles to lower it, that volume was independently turned down and he’s replicated compliance every time I offer skittles with the request.

We’ve been doing this less than a week now. I praise him and give random skittles for keeping it down.

And it’s been a great week for that to be happening. Life has felt like it’s been on full volume lately, with things blowing gustily through my schedule one after another, and it caused the kind of headaches that loud sounds nurture in all the wrong sorts of ways. Sometimes I just wish I could turn the volume of life down sometimes, or at least put the crisis button on mute for a while.

But I can’t.

So, I have to find a different way to make it feel like the volume is lower and more manageable. I really can’t change, for example, that my 2010 Prius needed a new engine this week, but I can focus on being thankful that when the oil started pouring out of the bottom of the engine in a few places, I was pulling into our garage. I mean, yeah, it took two hours for that tow truck to arrive…but not having to spend two hours on the side of the road with Tony, that’s some seriously reduced volume right there if I think about it.

Maybe instead of dwelling on how much it cost to repair my car I can think about how the service rep hooked me up with a loaner car from their dealership that I only had to pay a $35 deposit to use. They had my car for a week, so definitely that helped make all of this easier and I am profoundly thankful for it. They detailed my car for free too…it was so clean, I didn’t even recognize it. I pretty much don’t ever have time to wash my car, much less budget time to take it anywhere for that, and it’s not really something I feel is a necessity to budget for moneywise either. But I definitely appreciate having a clean car, so it’s something to enjoy while it lasts 😀

Yeah, I had an increase in allergic reactions and problems after the Xolair attempt at the end of December (all of that is calming down now, I definitely don’t want anybody to worry). But none of it was serious enough to require hospital care or my epi pen and I am beyond grateful for that, because that kept me able to still show up for and do everything else on my schedule.

Sometimes things we’re going through over here are pretty hard emotionally, and I don’t really feel like it serves my son or my family to detail all of it. And it can be hard not to let all of that blow away any chance I have to feel happy about anything. And sometimes I need to do things that aren’t hard, but I just timewise wasn’t planning on, like ABC data for the next week for our son’s new BCBA. Extra things even if they are smaller time commitments can feel stressful right now because of how maxed out I am. But, if I think about how incredibly lucky we are that he once again has ABA services that aren’t coming from me…it’s a greater gift to have that to focus on because it’s the part of this that means and matters the most to me and to our family.

And even if I don’t have time to do anything else for myself, I still spackle on my makeup for little hints of daily joy, and it helps me remember that life can be colorful and not just dark. Sometimes noticing the things that I can be grateful for can’t mute everything that’s going on, but it does make the volume seem a little less intense.