Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello friends here in the Cadre sphere and happy Thursday to you. If you are joining us live here on Caregiver Thursday, I will give everyone a moment to catch up. I'm Ms. Shannon Paul, comedian, speaker and author hubbing out of the great state of Minnesota. And also hello Speak Wonder. Hello, hello. Also, I happen to be very fortunate to be the mother of an adorable 16 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum. Hello Ray. Ray, thank you for joining here on the Thursday edition of Comedy through the Chaos.

I hope that you are all hydrating here on this. If you are somewhere in the Midwest, it might be quite wintry. If you're somewhere in warmer climes, I hope that you are soaking it up on our behalf. So just to bring you up to speed, in case you were just popping in here on Comedy through the Gay A**. Hello. Hello. Here on Comedy through the Chaos, I share a variety of things that I usually go through in the mental wellness space based upon the situations that I have with my kiddo most of the time because he is the primary person that I care give for.

He is amazing. As I said, he is 16. Oh, major snowstorms. Boo. Sorry, Kathy Joy. Boo. Yeah, we had like flurries here in Minnesota, so it's been cold, but not so cold that I like, I, I almost made myself a problem. And I'll tell you this before I get to the story about this morning. I shared a while ago that I'm always looking for things to occupy my kiddo. And so I had bought him an inflatable hot tub that he thought was fantastic over the summer to the point that I made sure that I figured out a way to winterize it hopefully against our Minnesota winters.

And thus far it has done well. I am not near any wood, just like some particle board. So I'm not going to knock on that because I don't think that's good. Oh, you had to drive. That's the worst thing about driving in snow. Like people go, what makes you. Do you love being a stand up comedian? And I usually say yes, but the things that made me want to quit being a stand up comedian had nothing to do with the audiences or anything like that. It had to do with driving in blizzards in the Midwest every year.

That made me want to quit comedy. So to make it easier on my kiddo, I winterized his inflatable hot tub. So I had put down some foundational things on the ground so that that didn't seep up and make it colder. I bought Some blankets to go over the heating pump and also to go over the hot tub itself to help keep the water hotter. And then I actually. Yeah. Speak on this rough. And then I also bought one of those. You see him, like those bubble domes. Like, I saw him first. We're here in the Midwest.

They'd have people at restaurants sitting out in them, and it looked very romantic. I don't care about the romance. I do care about the fact that it maintains the heat around his inflatable hot tub so that he has been able to go outside and have something to do. Because you can get a little stir crazy here in the Midwest and in the colder climes if you don't have stuff to do in the winter. So I'm glad that it's working out. And so that brings me to today's story about glad that things work out. I know that as caregivers, regardless if you were caring for somebody older, younger, whatever it is that you're dealing with, of course we have these expectations of how things are going to turn out.

And we have been on winter break, as most kiddos were. Today was his first day back at school. It's like, I was actually really happy about that because that means I had today and tomorrow, like, a little soft launch back into school. We didn't have to, like, all of a sudden go from, you had two weeks off for winter break and now just go back and pretend like all that wasn't fun, you know, kind of thing. That's just silly. So I'm glad that he only has these two days, and then we'll get back into things in earnest next week.

But of course, the way our house works is that it needs to be consistently inconsistent. Like, of course, my kiddo does better when he has a similar routine. And if anybody's going to break the routine, he can break his own routine. He doesn't like when other people break his routine. So I usually historically had a very difficult transition back to school at any given time. And so he's been doing much better, you know, much better. And I think that's a combination of just some tips and tricks, tricks and skill sets that I managed to add to my personal caregiver tool belt from talking to other therapists and just trial and error throughout the year.

So I have to then work from my perspective of calming down the expectation of what the first day back to school is going to be, because what I feel serves me best is to plan, because I'm one of those people that likes to plan, come up with some ideas, decide how it's, you know, how it can be smooth. Ish. And then after I've gone through that process, do my best to release it to the universe. And what will happen is what will happen. Because the more I entrench myself in, either it's going to be terrible, then I end up manifesting a difficult day for us, or, hey, I hope it's going to be uncommonly amazing, then I end up, you know, as much as I want to manifest that, then I end up setting myself up for failure.

So for me, living life just seems to be the best course of action. So that's what I've been really trying to do about the transition that's gonna happen back today. And so I'm gonna give myself a chance to really, like, enjoy a couple of things. Cause I always encourage us to do that to celebrate the small wins. So I think I mentioned, I mean, I have a 16 year old. And yes, he happens to be on the autism spectrum, but he's still mostly 16. So I still deal with a bunch of just grumpy teenager stuff.

If any of you live with a teenager, I know you know what I'm talk. And you could talk to the. Listen to the other Shannon on here as well. She could tell you as well, teenagers are complicated and I try to give them a lot of credit, but dude, you could just be just a lot. So to try and make my morning ritual a little bit calmer, what I have been doing is I bought a bunch of smart light bulbs and echo pops and things. And those are in the house. And so because what I realized is a lot of times I would go in there, I'm pretty much like this all the time.

So I can't even deny I'm kind of a morning person. So I would go in there all happy and chirpy in the morning and be like, good morning. And then my kid will respond inevitably with no good morning. And now we're both grumpy. He's grumpy at me because his first response is, why'd you come in here? You know, with tweeting birds and yelling and turning on the lights. And I'm like, why are you trying to be such a downer on my good morning? You know, kind of thing. Mom loves you. You could just say good morning.

So that's how things were going around the house. And so what I like to do is find things that are the same as far as the consistency, but different. So what I ended up doing is I don't wake him up anymore. The house wakes him up first, especially in his room. The light bulb. I have a little routine that the smart light bulbs do where they start coming on and they turn on and get lighter and lighter in his room. And then also the speaker in his room says, good morning. So if he wants to say, no good morning, he could say that to Alexa.

He doesn't have to say that to Mom. So now both of us get to preserve our space. So I don't have to be salty because he grumped at me, and he doesn't have to be salty because I came in there and overly enthused at him. So that's how the house has been going for a while. So the more this morning, the first day back at school, all of those normal routines start happening, you know, kind of thing. So I hear his alarms go off. I gave him a little bit of time. I, you know, went in there because he wasn't coming out yet.

And I went in and I said, good morning. And you know what he said? He rolled over and said, good morning. I was stunned. I have not had an authentic good morning from this child in six months. And so the fact that we got an authentic good morning on the first day back to school already, I'm like, the universe is smiling on me. That. That made my day. So thank you. Yeah. You know, speak one of me. These teenagers. Yes. And thank you, Ray. Ray. It's just. You just got to figure it out. So it's a lot of times, like, if you ever just want to workshop some ideas on how to avoid walking into the grump cloud, I have done that a lot, which leads me to the next thing that we did.

So a lot of the process that I had to adjust and you can talk. Here's some of these tips from our friends from the Minnesota Autism center and these other things. For me, I mean, I'm a professional speaker and storyteller and comedian. I use words, words a lot. But with my kiddo, who's also a lot more introverted than I am, I can't come up with him, come at him with as many words as I would normally covet people. And I usually want to talk to talk to him. We're going to talk this through. We're gonna do that.

I have to really. It's say less. A lot of times with my kid, it's say less. So I had been trying to figure out what was going to be the best way to start the routine. So he knew that today we had to go to school. It Wasn't just, you can get up and putz around, we gotta go back to school, buddy. And so throughout our evolution, he and I, I've done social stories, I've done a variety of those things, but sometimes it just makes him more anxious because he has to think about it too much if I give him too much lead up time.

So what I decided to do, we have a lot of these whiteboards in the house because I only needed like one or two and they were on sale, so I have like 15, so if they break, I replace them. But what I decided I was going to do today, instead of going in there and saying, we're going to go see our friends, which is our code language for let's go to school, I decided that instead I was going to write it on this board. So I just wrote on the whiteboard, today I go see my friends. And then I just put the whiteboard in front of him in his room and walked away.

And then gave him a minute to process. And by a minute I mean five to process. Then went back in there and asked him, what did the whiteboard say? And he said, go see friends. I said, right, you gotta go see your friends today, so do you want help? And so he kind of started the process on his own. Then he asked me for the marker and I went, okay, so I gave him the marker. And what he wanted to write next is the next sequence in our little communication strategy when we got to go to school is I go, you know, mom will pick you up at 3:00.

Because that's what makes him calm down, you know, is that he's, he knows the routine, he's going to get there, he's going to do his job, he's going to play with his friends, do what he's got to do at school. And then mom is coming at 3:00. I always pick him up. So mom will pick you up at 3:00. So he asked me to write, and it's backwards. Mom picks me up at 3:00. And then he took the marker and wrote, mom, pick me up at 3:00. So I am proud of this little guy because he, instead of responding with the angst that I quite often get, he figured out a way to communicate.

Oh, okay, I guess I'm not terrible about this and I can go back and see my friends and my mom is going to come and pick me up at 3 o'clock and it's gonna be okay for a Thursday. And so I'm very proud of him. I got him a I knew it was a special first day back to school outfit, but I had not emotionally attached that he was going to wear it. So he got to wear his new pink and black sweatsuit today. He looked very snazzy and his new hat looking very dapper. If you're interested, I'll put a photo of it in the chat later.

But I tell you that story to remind you that, Sarah, often if you give yourself a moment to pull back and think about the way in which we give care, that quite often it's figuring out a way to consistently do it in a manner that provides not only the space that you need, but the space for the person that you give care to. But also sometimes you have to be able to do it in the same but different way. So we still have to get the same thing done, but I have to figure out a way to do it a little bit differently because we've either reached an impasse or we've extended all of our resources in a certain way, or there's something about it that has gotten so entrenched that is causing the person that you give care to to actually push back.

And sometimes it's just. Especially with. Since I'm dealing with a kiddo, it's pushing back because we get in a cycle of, well, when one person says this, my response is going to be that. And it's the same thing for us. There's lots of times where we have boomerang responses to the people in our life that we get accustomed to it. And maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a family member where you have that boomerang response, and you might be the one that's getting that boomerang response.

And so instead of going, why do you treat me like that? Why do you act that way? What I try to do is, once I realize where we're at, is to spin it and go, all right, the outcome is what matters most, and the care that I provide still needs to happen. How can I figure out a way in which to do the same thing differently? So today it wasn't, I'm gonna go in there and say, go see your friends. It was this. So if you need to figure out a different way to do it, and sometimes you're just looking for ways to workshop things, hopefully you have people in your circle that you can bounce those ideas off.

If not, that is a good thing that we can do Here in the Cadre sphere, there are lots of caregivers and so if you talk to a variety of us, and if you're not in a circle in your own community, if this is your primary community, hey, we get it. And it's really one of those, how can we exchange resources quickly in a way that you can go, okay, maybe not that exact way, but there might be a way of that working for me as well. And then you can add it into your toolkit. And so if it makes it your life easier, that is what we are here for.

If it gives you more peace and more time to breathe, that is what we are here for. If you need a reminder that, hey, you're not the only one dealing with some sort of angst in your life, especially if you're part of that sandwich generation, that is what we are here for. So I am going to honor mom pixie up at 3:00 today. So that means I have a little bit of time to get a couple of things done before I head out. It is always my joy to hang out with you guys on Thursday on this caregiver Thursday.

Most of the time I'm the one rounding out the information today, but then we pick it up again with more live streams tomorrow and we go all the way through the weekend. So regardless of what kind of content you're needing or where you're at in your moment, not only can can you pop in and often find somebody that you can engage with right here, right now in that live stream, there's also all of the replays that you can use. And if it's something that's important to you, please let us know. You can drop some information in the chat if you end up watching us in the replay.

So we appreciate all of you as we continue to move into this new year in 2025, there could be a lot of chaos on the horizon. We understand anytime we move into a new year, there's lots of uncertainty. So anything that we can do a restful weekend to you as well, speak wonder as my friend, speak wonder. So we hope that you have time to get rest, to figure out your way of rejuven rejuvenation and just know that you are not alone. You're here with a group of people that care about you. So enjoy the rest of your week, everybody.

We'll see you next time here in the Cadre sphere.