One of these days...

I may actually finish blogging about our summer vacation. It's ONLY October ya know...and we're just in the throws of Fall and all. Well, it only feels like "Fall" in Vegas because it's not 90 bazillion degrees at 7am, it's actually in the 60's now, whew! I love when we finally get a respite from the summer heat come the middle of October. Vegas is so great, except for July, August, Sept, and most of October :)

Allie standing with Wild Bill

So our next stop after the Alpine Slide was Deadwood, SD.
It's a tiny town that's famous for the fact that Wild Bill Hickock was shot and killed there. We got to watch a few reenactments of the shootout and see the actual bar that he was shot dead playing poker at.
Deadwood's a cute little town full of tourism fun in the summer. Well, everyone but Eric and Chase got to see the shootouts, because when they fired off the first gun shot, I've never in my life heard Chase scream like he screamed at that moment. He was sitting by me on the sidewalk where everyone was waiting for the show to start, and they set a tin can on a stool and shot it off before the actual show started and Chase about had a heart attack. The shot was pretty loud. Chase screamed, covered his ears, and then jumped on me to hide. I felt SO bad for him, and then I was kicking myself for not even thinking that Chase wouldn't be able to handle the noise. Duh! I know his autism makes loud noises hard for him to handle physically and emotionally, but none of us were expecting he'd be affected so drastically. The fear in his eyes when he looked up at me ripped my heart out, tossed it on the ground, and ran it over with a semi.
After that happened, and as quick as could be, Eric scooped Chase up, threw him over his shoulder, and took off faster than a wet cat thrown in the bathtub. When we all got back to the car, Eric said Chase screamed the whole way back to the car and only stopped once they were settled in the van :(  My heart still hurts thinking about it, how scary it must have felt for Chase.  I was about to jump up and take Chase away but when he jumped into my lap, it threw me off balance and as i was trying to settle myself, that's when Eric took over.
(This is moments before the tin can got shot)

This is the pic that got taken from dropping my camera when Chase screamed out.

So, needless to say, Chase didn't see the show. As much as I wanted to go with Eric to comfort Chase as best I could, I knew I needed to stay with Allie. It's sometimes quite hard to find that balance between having a child with autism and another child without autism. I never want my daughter to feel like she always got jipped in life growing up because of her special needs brother. I don't want her to resent him for how we have to live our lives. Jealously is a common factor in a "typical" ( normal, no handicaps) child who has a sibling with special needs. I mean, it totally makes sense for them to get jealous when they're brother or sister's milestones are applauded maybe just a little bit louder, because they are longer coming. All the therapies Chase has had and still has makes the focus go towards Chase more, and she's had to deal with that almost her whole life. So we try hard to make sure she feels special, even if she gets less attention from the world. It's a very fine line to walk and must always be watched. But it's worth doing.