Autism Awareness month is making me a little uneasy. I wonder what I'm supposed to do to acknowledge this? Because I live Autism Awareness all the time. People who come into contact with me and my family learn about autism through us. I don't shout at them about cures or about vaccines, I just am and I just talk and I think they get the real story.

I frankly become exhausted by acquaintances who say "I saw Jenny McCarthy on Larry King last night. She said there's a special diet that can cure autism." Yeeeaaaahhhh. Sigh. Or even friends who say "I watched part of Autism: The Musical. Wow- it looked so hard to live with some of those kids." Yeeeaaaahhhh. It's hard to live with any kid on a given day.

I don't know- one of my kids has autism. He needs special education. Certain situations are challenging for him, and thus challenging for the rest of us, his family. I want people to be understanding of that and I'd like the medical community to continue to probe what can be done to make my son's life easier.

But my other children find different situations challenging. I want people to be understanding of them, too. I think if you gathered up all my mommy worry in gallon jugs and measured it, you'd find equal parts of lifetime worry devoted to each of the 3 kids.

Finally, this may seem unrelated, but it just really seems right to me today: the folks found guilty in my jury trial last month have been arrested in an attempt to leave the country. In my world, where few things seem to be cut-and-dried, black-or-white, I just like knowing that these people did wrong, they were found guilty, they are proving their guilt by trying to run away, and they were caught by the good guys. Sometimes a good cops-n-robbers/law-n-order story just really hits the spot.

last post on the judicial system

My fellow jurors reached a verdict yesterday, and I feel compelled to write one more post about jury duty. I would not have traded this experience. It was not only educational, it actually has renewed my faith in people.

That might surprise you, if you consider that I spent 4 weeks listening to details of fraud and egos run amuck. But, as the judge told us during jury selection, the system really does work. It does. And that gives me comfort.
And the regular folks who were chosen for the jury were really good people- all 15 of us. Yeah, I got bugged by being shut up in a room with them all day every day. But here's what struck me: the difference in my colleagues between jury instruction Tuesday afternoon and announcing the verdict yesterday.
I stood with one of the alternates and the jury deputy as the jurors filed in to a packed courtroom. Those 11 hours of deliberating had really taken a toll- each one looked as if he/she were ready to cry or vomit.
The alternate and I were able to go into the jury room after the verdicts had been read on each of the 26 counts, the jury had been polled, and then dismissed. My neighbors in the jury box throughout the trial each hugged me. One of them started to cry. She was one of two women who were put up in a hotel during the week because their commutes were so far. The other out-of-towner started crying too. "Gretchen, would your verdict have been the same? Would it?"
I assured them that it would have been. I hope the defendants in this trial realize how seriously these jurors took their responsibility.
We exchanged e-mail addresses and good wishes- I will very likely never talk to any of these folks again, but I feel glad to have met them. From juror #1 who collects guns to juror #15 who's a vegan to juror #3 who drove in every morning from her hometown with only one traffic light, they were all good citizens.

something had to give

So I'm not on the jury anymore.

As the 4th week of the trial ended and I headed into an awesome weekend visiting family, I was still totally committed to being on the jury and following the trial through to its conclusion (however many more weeks that would entail).

Sunday night, as we drove home from a busy weekend and I dosed up my sick 4-year-old with ibuprofen, I started to get this anxious knot in my stomach.

Tommy had caught a bug from Bill- the bug that had knocked Bill out for over a week. During the month of my jury duty, Bill had missed work both because he was sick and because Henry had been sick also. This commitment I had made was forcing a sacrifice, not only from my workplace, but from my husband's as well.

Last week I had scheduled Henry's IEP meeting for noon on the 14th, and had been fretting ever since about how I would manage to fit the meeting into the court's lunch hour.

I woke up with Tommy several times during the night, and then tossed and turned, worrying about what to do. I got up in the morning and called the jury deputy to explain my predicament. She is a working mother as well, and said "there's nothing else you can do. Your family comes first." She contacted the judge, who excused me from the jury and thanked me for my service.

It was a really hard decision, but the right one. I hated to feel like a "quitter", and go back on an obligation. But, I also feel like I gave it my best shot. I could not have predicted during jury selection that 3 of my family members would come down sick during the course of the trial!

I was home with Tommy for 2 days and when he returned to his sitter's house today she informed me that she needs to take March 20 off- one more reason I'm glad to not be on the jury anymore.

I read that on Monday the prosecution rested its case. I will keep in touch with the jury deputy to get an idea of how long the defense's case will last, and I plan to return to the courtroom for closing arguments, if possible, and for the verdict.

my week

I'm having a hard time with this new routine. With my new life as a JUROR. Please indulge a little play-by-play boo-hooing:

Monday was a Federal holiday, so we had no trial. So I went in to work and tried to get as much accomplished as I could. Then, Tuesday, Thomas's birthday, I had to go back to court. Just as a coincidence, L had an appointment that morning and had asked us weeks and weeks before if we could just drop the kids off at preschool that morning, and she would pick them up.

If I were attending my real job, that would be no problem- I'd get to work maybe 1/2 hour later than usual and would be able to pick up donut holes for Thomas to take to school for a birthday treat. BUT, in the current circumstance, I can't be 1/2 hour late for the trial and make all those people wait for ME. So I had to run to the store at 6:30 am, pick up the treat, take the boy to Bill's work, and Bill took him to preschool. It's not a huge hardship for anyone, but it was just frustrating. Partly I think I was just being sensitive because I wanted to be the one to drop off my birthday boy. I wanted to give him one extra birthday squeeze. You know how weird we moms can get on a birthday.

So I was pissy all day at court. Tuesday I tried to be a little more social with my fellow jurors, but by Thursday I was grumpy again. I have these anti-social tendencies at times, and I'm starting to chafe at being forced to hang out with these 14 other people (we have 12 jurors and 3 alternates) all day every day. All of them are nice people, but the longer we are together, the more our differences come out. The snowy and cold weather hasn't helped much either- we get over an hour for lunch, so when the weather is a little nicer, maybe I will go out and wander around downtown.

One day I will post some pictures of the courthouse and the downtown area- it's all very picturesque.

Wednesday court let out a little early. The judge asked if any of us would have a conflict with starting early the following morning. I nodded my head, and later explained to the court deputy that I would NEVER be able to start earlier than 9, as I have to put one child on the bus and take the other to his sitter each morning. She said that was no problem. But then the juror next to me started asking questions

"Can't their dad get them off in the morning?" No, he goes in to work at 5:30 am. Not to mention the fact that he already returns home to help out once a month when the school has a late start day.

"Can your son go to latchkey?" Now, the woman who asked this question is an aide in a special ed classroom and we have discussed that my son is autistic. What the hell is she thinking? I thought through all these possibilities a long time ago and discarded them. I am not going to change my life now because of jury duty.

I suppose people like this are trying to be helpful, but it's going to be a looong however-many-more-weeks sitting next to her, that's for sure.

The trial itself is so interesting- I can't wait to tell you about it. (If anyone is interested in the case, you can e-mail me and I will give you some suggestions of places to search for stories about the trial. But of course I can't discuss it with anyone. It's killing me!)

Friday we were scheduled to not have court (I suppose the judge needs some days to get other work done?) Because I had been so on-edge all week, I didn't plan to go into the office, but rather to get some things done at home. A "mental health day", if you will.

Except we had snow and freezing rain and ended up having a snow day. A mental health day is not as effective when all one's children are home with one.

It actually turned out fine- both boys played out in the snow with me for awhile, which is really big for Henry. He is usually quite averse to, well, doing anything outside, but especially in the cold and snow. We also ran a few errands and spent some of Thomas's birthday money.

I wanted to share a couple more pictures from his party. Here are all the kids getting warmed up:

And here is something awesome- Henry doing a "bear walk". You would not have seen this strength and coordination in this boy a year ago!

Henry did have some anxiety about the party. He spent the morning saying he didn't want to go to the party, he didn't like parties, etc. Then, once people started arriving, he got quite excited and kept repeating things like "it is Tommy's birthday! We are having a party! The party is starting!"

He played along and did gymnastics for maybe half an hour. Then he started saying he didn't want to, that he wanted to "help Tommy open his presents", and started getting really anxious about the present-opening. I think Bill missed a lot of the singing, cake, and presents, because he was doing stuff like this:
Then, once everyone was leaving, Henry started asking to "do more gymnastics". But our time was up.

I made a new friend this week, and I hope you'll check out her blog: Rooster Calls. Her son is 3 and she suspects he is on the autism spectrum, but doesn't have a diagnosis yet. She has been reading some blogs, looking for reassurance/guidance/support and stumbled across mine.

I've been thinking about what I convey, as the parent of an 8-year-old boy with autism, to some of the newbies in our community. I hope I don't seem to really know what I'm doing, because that's definitely not the case. But I can say that, with the birthday party being a good example, our family has learned how to cope with Henry's differences. And as he has grown he has become better able to express his needs and wants in a more appropriate, if still atypical, manner. If this party had happened when Henry were 3, or even 5, he probably would have screamed the entire time. We wouldn't have had a party. If it were someone else's party, we would have left early.

So we are all figuring it out together. It gets easier. And we're all happy to lend a hand to someone else, knowing that's one more hand to pull us up when we need it too.

civic duty

I've been selected to serve on a jury in Federal Court, and they expect the trial to last 6-8 weeks. So my internet use will be quite restricted for the foreseeable future. I'll have the evenings and weekends, of course- we aren't going to be sequestered or anything...

When I first received the jury notice, I was excited. The two days of jury selection were educational- sometimes entertaining and sometimes tedious.

Today the trial starts, and I feel quite nervous. Nervous like I'm starting a new job. A new job where people's futures are depending on me.

But I also feel proud to be part of the process.

I already have so much that I want to tell, but I can't. So I will have to save it all up for 6-8 weeks!