You know you have special needs child when......

[ShinyHappyRocketsGoingBANG]

(a thread like this was the first I ever encountered on MN and I cried with laughter and relief. So can we have another one? It's too long ago to be able to find and resurrect..)

You know you have an SN child when...

..everything in your house is getting higher and higher in order to keep it out of harm's way.. so high that even poor-little-short-DH can't reach some things...

.. your storage cupboards are fixed together with hair bobbles...

..you have a whole filing cabinet devoted to the your SN child's various reams of paperwork...

It upsets you to see kids the same age as your child and they are nt and your child will never be in their class or even school

You have to avoid loads of shops or places etc as you know your child cant cope going there.

You have a drink with your dh and end up talking about special needs all night!

You find it hard to know what to get your child for Christmas and birthdays.

You are scared to think of what your childs future will be like.

You never realised you would know all your kids teachers, assistants, and therapists so well and in a way you wish you didnt have to

You would love a proper family holiday but that is not going to happen.

Sorry mine arent very happy ones but its the way im feeling today.

Ah 2mum- every one of yours is one of mine too ((hugs))

you cry until your heart breaks

You take your child to Kids up North and see a man dressed in a tiger suit (of course DS2 is terrified). When your NT child brings a friend home from school, SN child roars (like a tiger) instead of saying hello.
What made us laugh the most was that the visiting friend jumped a mile but we all thought that roaring was perfectly normal!

When your regular early alarm call doesn't wake you up for once(ds), and you wake much later than usual. You rush around like a headless chicken fretting that school will give you a black mark, whilst ds has no understanding that being late might be a problem, and demands his usual requirements of the morning, which you have to comply with, otherwise getting him to school in a relatively co-operative manner will not happen. Even though I rush myself, attempting to rush ds is futile, it only causes even more problems.

When you have to fill in the stupid dla form (arrrrgh!) and can't think what your child's problems are! (I have until Friday, and am petrified of the stupid thing!)
When you sign 'finished' so often,(in an effort to get ds used to transitioning from one event to another) that your nt oneyear old does it and you don't bat an eyelid. Then sadly realise that asd ds can't actually sign yet, for anything.
When everything in life is such a struggle, you can't get help for your child, or for your self.
When you are so sleep deprived that to have 3 hours of sleep in one go, is a good sleep

Bump - reading a similar thread on FriendlyASD forum... Funny :o

This thread was started before ds was even born.

@ Anoah, DS 7 obsession with Zelda, he know everything there is to know (as do I now) including Ocarina of Time which hasn't even been released yet. He completed Twilight Princess when he was five.

When your 7 yr old can explain how trajectory and height affects the speed of something falling but he can't spell the word long.

when your NT sons mates know to expect poo on the bathroom wall at some point during a vist.
when the same mates know to keep their shoes/coats with them or they will be hidden
when stuff goes 'missing' you know to check DD bed
not to find it weird that your DD sleeps with various random items
not to want to invite NT children after school, just incase DD calls them a fucking dickhead or they see a poo smeared wall
when your friends use your loo, then tell you that they wiped the poo off the wall/seat for you

When you have wee stains all over the sofa,
the carpet is filthy,
you always find used pull-ups dumped on the bathroom floor in the morning - along with the jammy bottoms
when you crawl out of bed on the weekend, you find cereal scattered all over the kitchen floor (even though DH is supposed to be watching the )
you can spot all the SN kids in the Lego store!
You have to check your DC every night before you go to sleep to make sure the pull-ups are still on
You wake up in the morning to find your DC beside your bed naked, the pull-ups inside out on the bedroom carpet and their duvet soaking wet!