Saturday, March 18, 2017

About That Autism Conference ...

I am still processing the experience of being in a sizable audience and hearing parents talk about their lives with their autistic children, followed by Templin Grandin's mother and Temple Grandin herself.

Amazing and well-worth it, are the two thoughts that keep recurring for me. I laughed along with the speakers, because you have to laugh or your heart will break with some of the things you will have to deal with for your autistic kids ... and the rest of the world.

I kept crying too, more than I have in a while. Because so much just gets squeezed into a "don't think about it, just get through it" closet, papered over with "la-la-la-la's". I just kept leaking. But you know what? I had a lot of company. And it was dark. It was therapeutic. So there.

I had renewed appreciation for James' strengths, as well as his overall good health.

I felt more hopeful, among all the threats to my family from our current federal government, about the support and strength in numbers of parents and professionals dealing with autism and the resulting fall-outs.

I didn't feel alone. I was surrounded by others who had to fight for simple things for our kids and ourselves. Who found themselves cut off from friends and family members despite the best of everyone's intentions. Who could hear the weirdest stuff and just nod heads in solidarity.

It helped, to hear that autism tears families apart, as mine has. It still hurts, but it's being talked about. Confronting problems goes a long way to finding solutions and a measure of prevention. Hearing Temple Grandin's mother talk about her family ... well let's just say her story is so much more true than a certain former Playboy bunny's story and I appreciate Eustacia's sharing her story with us.

I felt a sense of accomplishment, in the simple act of following through on a long-standing wish to see and hear Temple Grandin in person. It was symbolic of breaking a depression of years of denial of simple things like driving 65 miles to visit my familiar stomping grounds because "gas is too expensive".

I picked up two books, feeding my inner Heroine Granger: A Thorn in My Pocket, by Eustacia Cutler, and The Loving Push,  by Debra Moore and Temple Grandin. They have helped me refocus to deal with some long-standing challenges. Hence working with the school for James' chart and his taking showers on his own.

I got to meet and talk briefly with three amazing women: Regina Stoops, Feda Almaliti, and Temple Grandin. Those encounters will be whole other posts.

This was a great boost, emotionally and logistically, to get me going again to tackle my current challenges. I sure am going to need it.



Friday, March 17, 2017

Matisse Appreciation

James has been enjoying art as an elective this year. I used to like doing crafts with both kids when they were younger, including cut outs with construction paper to make cards and collages. It's nice to see him enjoy it as he grows older.

James brought home a portfolio of art work from this recent semester of school. He wanted to share this with me:


It's inspired by Matisse, who is also once of my first and perennial favorite artists. When I was in college, I painted a huge mural from an odalisque painting by Matisse. I never expected being able to share something like this with my son. It makes me feel very close to him.



Thursday, March 16, 2017

Careers, Hobbies, and Social Stuff

I have been working with James on the idea of developing a hobby or hobbies, so he can become more independent and directed with his free time, while engaging more with others with similar interests.

Tonight was Career Night at his school, so we went to keep pursuing this goal. It's also a good idea to get James thinking about work and what kind of life he wants to have. He wore a nice polo shirt, clean pants, and his regular shoes. I dressed up a bit.

Well, we got there and made the rounds. I tried to not lead James too much at the tables for social interactions, but his questions tended to sound like:

  •  "Do you know about the high school?" (high school teachers and random tables after that) 
  • "Why do you like the government?" and "What was the other country you saw?" (for the Marines representative)
  • "Yeah" (lady with the cute Tutu table)
  • "Do you know where the food is?" (local market representative).
That's okay, we are practicing our social interactions and learning about classes and job opportunities. 

We brought back schwag.

I found out the local market starts hiring at age 16. That's only four years away. Hmmmmm ...


Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Breakthrough

So, for years it has been a nerve-wracking prospect to get James bathed or swimming. While he was fascinated with water (as is typical for many kids on the spectrum), both he and his sister hated water on their head, on their faces, and especially in their ears. It really distressed them.

James kept screaming and shrieking (and he has great lungs) and fighting bath time until fairly recently. The fussing and whining and "ow-ow-OWWWW" continued to make bath time the equivalent of a forced march. Up hill. In the cold mud.

Not a lot of bathing was done.

Enter a fine combination of being able to hear Temple Grandin talk and James' team at school. I cannot tell you what exactly shifted, but my approach to bathing went from "omg, how long can I the put off" to "this needs to happen and here are your choices." James' OT gave James a bag of hygiene products for guys. James' teacher and OT came up with a chart that looks like a combination of PECs schedule and a hygiene chart. It's additional homework.

James does not want to come to school with his homework undone, which - yay -  works in our favour.

After about a month of this, James has asked to and started to handle all bathing aspects on his own. After testing to see if Mom really notices if he uses bathing water or not, he has committed to the schedule - to the extent that he now initiates bathing and prefers to shower.

Remember James and the shower? Yeah. This is happening.

Growing up, being responsible, being independent. So proud of him. So thankful it finally happened!

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

DVD Dividend

James recently watched Madagascar again. This time, Mr. Louis Armstrong struck a chord. Pun definitely intended. For the past three days, James has been playing, replaying, and re-re-re-replaying What A Wonderful World.

At first he asked questions about why they used the song in the movie. It's a bit trickier to explain than you'd expect.

Then he started to sing. And it was one of the coolest, sweetest things I've heard in a while. We sing it in the car. We experiment with the timing. I'll try a different song and James will stick with this one, grinning ear to ear.

Then we found this:

Makes a nice break from the everyday and national crazy going on right now.