I used to think it would be so hard and challenging to do all these activities, and I will be the first to admit I don\u2019t always have it in me to do obstacle courses or special activities every day. His first therapist once told me \u201cI bet you are doing more therapy at home than you realize\u201d and she asked me a bit about our daily routine. She pointed out the simple things I did for Everett without even realizing it had therapeutic benefits. For example, when we are watching tv, I use a weighted lap pad or vest and a chew for Everett. When we are in the car, I keep a big bag of twizzlers in my console. (we call them chew sticks), and give Everett a fun way to give him oral input. When we are at the playground, him running around and climbing is sensory work too. He wears his Fun and Function dino cape when we go out and his body sock to hide in when he is overwhelmed. I give him back scratches and rubs and big squeezy hugs. I give him warnings about transitions and tell him a lot about what we are doing. All of those things help keep Everett level.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no Autism\/SPD saint. Everett still has frequent meltdowns (especially over potty training and sharing with his brother and sleeping and and and), but I do my best and really, that\u2019s all anyone can ask, right?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everett gets 1 hour of therapy with a trained therapist per week. We rotate biweekly between occupational therapy and feeding therapy\/yoga. What does that mean? The other 167 hours in the week are ALL ME. Granted, he sleeps for part of that, so lets say approx 100 hrs a week, I\u2019m focusing on what I need to do to balance Everett\u2019s therapeutic needs with everything else, like Finn and my husband. I\u2019m not going to lie, sometimes I lose sight of that bigger picture, but I\u2019m working on stepping back and taking a breath when we get frustrated and overwhelmed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,27,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advocacy-education","category-travel","category-urban"],"yoast_head":"\n