Yesterday was the July 4 and it was pretty well a normal day for us. The interesting part, which I figured would be, was when we all went to see the fireworks last night.
Jackson started off excited and eager, we got to the place we were going to watch from, probably 1.5 miles away from where the fireworks were actually taking place to try to ease the explosion volume on Jackson. The kids played and there were a few random fireworks that got his attention, but he remained pretty focused on seeing the big show. When it started getting dark we saw some small ones behind a tree so we changed locations in the school playground we were watching from. Chris and Maddux went over to other side where they didn't miss anything and Jackson, Alaina, and I brought up the back. As we were crossing the booms started and Jackson started to freak. He was holding his ears and screaming to the point that he simply turned and started to run away from the booms without even seeing where he was going. He started running toward this group of people watching, I caught him and his expression was horrible, he was scared to death so I did not even get to tell Chris we were going back to the van, I wanted to get him back to a safe area. He, the baby, and I went back to the van to watch, he wanted to go home not stay.
Once I got him in the van, I started talking about the colors and which ones "we" liked best, the quiet ones. I tried to turn it into a game for him, identifying colors and telling which ones were loud and quiet to him where I could get an idea of what volume of blast bothered him. That seemed to work and he enjoyed it as much as he could. We were at the van about 10 - 15 minutes when Chris and Maddux returned and we left. We drove around closer to the fireworks where they could see a few more and Jackson was fine with this.
Overall I feel he did very well with the noise because I know how that affects him and I am proud of him for sticking it out.
