DC Metro Moms

Renewing My Blogging Vows

I almost left.  No good-bye, no explanation, just disappearing into the dark and blogless night.  It would have been a fitting way to go I suppose.  An exhausting second pregnancy left me without a creative bone in my body and I am not one of those gals who can just fake it, ya'll.  Not with my keyboard and blog at least. (wink, wink)  I tried. I posted pictures.  I updated with blah blah blaawgg and oh, babies are hard work and I'm tired, Waaa! But my heart wasn't in it. 

On January 30th I gave birth to my gorgeous baby girl and any concept I had of personal time and space became a total mirage of laughable proportions.  Three weeks later my son was diagnosed as being on the Autism Spectrum and let me tell you, when it rains it pours.

Me Too. I Get It.

I was alone at the grocery store today checking out, when a man and his son got in line behind me. He asked me a question about one of my items, then we both went back to what we were doing—me using the self-checkout, him chatting with his son.

And then, from the corner of my eye, I started to notice things. I saw the way the boy was acting, I noticed his stims, and I heard the way the father was talking to him, and it started to become clear to me that this kid had a developmental disability similar to my son Jack's. And I wanted to say, "Me too! Me too! We're part of the same club!" 

But of course I didn't, because I think that might have been weird. 

School of Hard Knocks

I'm not quite sure how it got to be June already, but it seems like it was just August and I was sending my autistic middle son, Jack, off to his first day of kindergarten. That first day was a humdinger, with a call from the principal and an early pick up because Jack had such a tough day.

There's nothing like crying in the principal's office on the very first day of school after he calls you in to pick up your child because he had such a hard day and tried to escape from his class several times.

I called my husband in tears that afternoon. I cried because I didn't expect the bad day to happen. I cried because I'd been in the basement of someone's house and my cell phone didn't pick up the first call from the principal. I cried because I was worried that I would never be able to be farther than ten minutes away from Jack's school again. I cried because I'd hoped for better.

Losing a Friend

When I picked up our 6 year old son from school on Friday afternoon, he told me that two of his classmates, twin brother and sister, were leaving. I asked him how he felt about that and he said he was sad as he hugged me in front of school. On the surface it may not seem like a big deal as the DC area is notoriously transient, but in our home it was a major breakthrough for our son who has an autism spectrum disorder and doesn’t form attachments easily.

Until this year he has never formed a bond with any of his classmates, and the majority of his interactions are still in parallel. He rarely mentioned anyone except his teachers, and even that was only peripherally. Occasionally he would make a book with the name of all of his classmates, but that was as far as it went, so we knew this particular boy was someone important when our son began to mention this boy in conversation earlier in the school year.

Hope for a Cure, or At Least Hope for Insurance

Ever since our oldest son was identified as having an autism spectrum disorder, our family has focused on getting him as much assistance as possible in school and at home. We’ve never had hope for a cure, just hope that all the therapy will help him to learn the social skills he needs to function well in life. He’s had speech therapy and attended a six week summer camp that focused on communication skills, and we were very encouraged after that program. With the assistance he received via his IEP, he was able to successfully transition from preschool to kindergarten and adapt to his new environment and routine. He communicates about his school day with the help of a visual daily journal that outlines the activities he participates in and helps him express his feelings about the day, a huge improvement from previous years when he could only state his teacher’s name and couldn’t describe the activities. All of this is helpful, but it’s not a cure.

Barack Obama Is Coming to Our House?

The conversations started in October when our six year old son came home from school talking about the elections and how he was going to vote. He didn't have a full understanding of the whole presidential campaign thing, but he could tell us that Bush was currently president and we were going to get a new president. He repeated it several times a day for a few weeks, and was thrilled when we took him to the polls to vote. After the election he began telling us we had a new president and asked when Barack Obama would come.

"The new president starts his job in January," I always said.

"But that's a long time," he would reply, looking dejected.

I would explain that the new president had a lot of work to do before he could start his new job. We would look at the calendar together and count the days until January 20th, and every few days or so he would tell us how many more days until Barack Obama became our new president.

After he started back to school this month, he began talking about Martin Luther King Jr. Day and how that holiday was the day before Barack Obama was coming. As the big day approached he got more and more excited and got his four year old brother excited, too. I started fielding questions from both of them.

"When is Barack Obama coming?"

He's Not a Bad Kid, But it Sounds Like He Is

My son Jack is having a tough time in kindergarten this year. Most of this is due to his disability—he's autistic and needs a lot of support. My husband and I, Jack's teachers, and Jack's aides think he needs a one to one aide, meaning it would be someone's job to sit next to him all day and make sure he can learn with the rest of the class and remain safe.

We have a meeting scheduled for this Tuesday at which time we will be presenting our case to Jack's educational team, as well as representatives from the district. This is the second meeting we've had about this issue. At the first meeting, everyone who works with Jack on a daily basis (and me—his mother) said he needs one to one support. Then the special education supervisor from the district who had met Jack once turned us down.

We're going in better prepared for round two.

A Burden to His Brothers?

When you have an autistic child, as I do, you hear lots of unsolicited opinions and advice from friends and strangers alike.  Most of it is well-meaning, so even if I don't agree with what someone says, I try to make something good out of it.

Sometimes that means I get to give someone some positive information about autism. Sometimes it means that I give the comment some thought and clarify what I think, if only to myself.

Still, sometimes it's hard to hear what people say. A few days ago someone was talking to me about my three sons and made the comment that in some ways Jack is a burden on his two brothers.

My first reaction was to inwardly cringe. Even though she meant that my other two sons have to work harder to get attention or that they copy some of the negative behaviors they see from Jack, my autistic child, it hurt that anyone would consider him to be a burden. He's beautiful, sweet, smart, loved, and wanted in every way.

Autistic Children Are Not Brats

In the slightly more than five years of my son Jack's life I've called him a lot of things. I've called him a trouble-maker. I've called him adorable. I've called him loveable, joyful, and charismatic. I've also called him solitary, difficult, and autistic.

I have not, to my recollection, called him a brat.

Brat is a negative term that goes past discussing mere behavior all the way down to a child's core. And it is a hurtful term. Not as hurtful as some, but call any mother's child a brat, and that mother will be upset.

Enter radio talk show host Michael Savage. Last week he called autistic children brats on-air, saying, "In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out."

Sometimes Failure Begets Success

Sometimes something that seems like a failure turns out to be a success, just depending on the way you look at it. And when you have a child with autism, as I do, even little successes see big.

To explain: My oldest son, Sam, has been going to karate class twice a week since last October. On his very first day in class I came to the conclusion that karate just might be the thing for my then four-year-old autistic son, Jack. To Jack's delight, my husband and I decided that when Jack turned five, we would enroll him in karate.

Jack's 5th birthday was in May, and his first class was July 1. Unfortunately, no matter how many people agreed that it might be just the thing for him, Jack didn't take to the class. By halfway through his fourth class, he was done. He couldn't pay attention, he was crying, and he was claiming his stomach hurt.