I mentioned previously, when Henry got his first real haircut, that Henry and Daddy have been doing more together.
Well, Daddy is quite in demand these days. In fact, we were joking this weekend that "daddy is the new mommy." (Not quite. I go upstairs to put away some laundry, and the next thing I know, the 2 little boys I left downstairs with daddy are now dancing around me, peppering me with requests. And daddy is flipping through the channels. Why does he get left alone so often??!!)
But anyway, back to my story. The boys have been really interested in superheroes lately. And daddy seems to have infinite knowledge of superheroes. They will sit at the dinner table and say "daddy, will you tell us about Batman?" And Bill begins (for the dozenth time), "Well, when Bruce Wayne was just a little boy, he was walking with his parents, and some bad guys attacked his parents..."
He tells them the origins of all the superheroes, and then the boys repeat the stories back to me: "Peter Parker went to a museum full of spiders! And one spider was craaawling up his arm... and it BIT him! Ahhhh!"
It's really sweet and cute. Henry will even venture outside to pursue daddy! In the picture above, I got both boys to eat dinner (pizza) outside while daddy read them books and told stories. It seems kind of primal- the elder males of the species passing down legendary hero stories to the next generation...
I posted quite a while ago (on Valentine's day- I can't figure out how to do the link) about songs that make you smile. Today I heard a great one on my way to work: Ball and Chain by Social Distortion. (You can click on the link to watch a video- I didn't find a link to just hear the song.)
Bill is out of town this week. I like to think that I do everything around the house anyway, so what's the big deal if he's gone? But I guess he helps more than I realize, because yesterday was very stressful!
-Tommy isn't feeling well, and is VERY whiny. I took him to the doctor on my lunch hour, and his ears are ok, it's just a virus.
-Henry is really freaked out, (I mean, dysregulated :-) by:
a.) school ending
b.) the Easter Seals program hasn't started yet, so his big sister is watching him this week. She is really doing great with him, and they have fun together, but it's just something DIFFERENT, you know?
c.) Daddy is gone. Yesterday Henry told Kate "Daddy will be home in no time." (This is a mantra that he often repeats when someone is away at work or whatever.) Kate told him that Bill will be home Friday night. Henry replied "today is Thursday!"
-Kate had a youth group activity last night in an opposite area of town. All three of us had to drop her off and pick her up- both boys whining in my ears the entire time. By the time we got home Kate could tell that I was ready to lose it, so she helped the boys clean up their room and get ready for bed, while I sat on the couch and ate some Dairy Queen (brownie batter blizzard) and drank a glass of wine! Thanks, Kate.
This morning I dropped Tommy off, drove through Starbucks and splurged on a half-decaf coffee (I know, I'm a mom gone wild in my minivan), and then the Social Distortion song came on. It was just what I needed to hear, for some reason. I turned it up really loud and sat in the parking lot at work, singing along in my very loud off-key way.
Maybe I just need a moment like that to make me feel like I actually still have some freedom of choice in my life. Some independence, even if it's as meager as sitting alone and looking like a dork as I sing along.
I thought about my friend Sal, and others who ride public transportation to and from work. When is their opportunity to sing at the top of their lungs?
Yesterday was my 9th wedding anniversary. I had hoped to scan a photo and share it, but it just didn't happen... (Thankfully our wedding day was not as horrifically hot as the past week has been.) On May 31, 1997, a gentle rain fell throughout the day and I married my best friend in a shelter house in front of a fire. Every day since has been better than the last. Happy Anniversary husband. I love you.
______________
We have just returned from an end-of-the-year trip to the zoo with Henry's class, and are cooling off, each on separate floors of the house. (Not temperamentally cooling off, but physically cooling off.)
The zoo trip was fun. I love Henry's teacher and aides. One interesting observation though: there are only 4 kids in Henry's class. I have only ever seen one other parent. This father was there for "meet the teacher" day in the fall, was at the fall party I went to, and his IEP meetings always seem to be scheduled before or after ours. This dad clearly has an ASD, and I think he's the first adult I've ever met who seems to have full-blown autism. Every time we see him, he asks us where we live, how much we paid for our house, why we decided to live here, whether we live near the Jewish Center (we do), whether we belong to the Jewish Center (we don't)... you get the idea.
This guy is kind of irritating (I'm sorry if that offends anyone, but hey, Henry's constant inappropriate questions irritate me sometimes too.) But today I realized that at least he really seems to take an interest in his kid's life. He takes time off from work (as a computer programmer) for these events and really makes an effort to talk to the other kids and get to know the adults too. Where were the other 2 kids' parents? I know it's not always easy to get off work (my vacation time is practically at a negative balance), but I have not seen them at anything throughout the year.
On another subject: I was proud of Henry at Target this weekend. He picked out 2 DVDs to look at. I said that he could look at them while we walked around the store, but could only pick one to take home (praying that he would choose Chicken Little rather than Power Rangers.) We talked about it as we shopped, with him always saying "I want to take TWO movies home mommy!" Like, he couldn't believe I was having so much trouble understanding that. Anyway, we got to the checkout and I was expecting a mammoth meltdown. I asked "which movie do you want the most?" And he calmly answered "Chicken Little." I said "OK, then we'll leave Power Rangers here" and he said "OK." And that was the end of it!
We also attended a Memorial Day parade last weekend. Henry protested that he didn't want to go, which surprised me, because he has always enjoyed parades. And he did enjoy it once it began, but the anticipation of the noise and all the people seemed to upset him beforehand. It didn't help that I misunderstood the time the parade started and got us there an hour early. We bought Timbits from Tim Horton's and then the cottonwood flying all around stuck to our sticky hands and sweaty faces. Summertime is so gross.
(I intend to clarify some points on the last post, but need to get the psychologist's report out of my files. So, until then...)
Kristin, I haven't seen you post much about ice cream lately. This week I found a new treat that I love: Klondike strawberry cheesecake flavor bars. Mmmm. They have chunks of graham cracker crust stuff mixed in. Also, a friend in Toledo, Ohio reports that her favorite flavor of ice cream is
Toft's yellow Cake Batter. I don't think we have this brand around here. Do you have it up in Michigan? Anyone else? What's your favorite ice cream?
I've actually been trying to do the slim-fast thing lately. But also eating Klondikes at night for dessert. My husband assures me that there's nothing wrong with that. (As if I needed one more reason to love him.)
Henry had fun for the first few days at L's house, but we think this "inclusion" is getting to be a little too much for him. Today and yesterday he said he didn't want to go. A couple boys like to play a Super Mario video game, and he doesn't like that for some reason- I think it has scary parts and scary music. Of course he can just leave the room if they are playing, but the bad connotation of the music seems to stay with him and trouble him.
So I may try to take tomorrow off and have a mommy/Henry day for the last day of his spring break. I thought we could go to a dollar movie or... I'm not sure what else.
I wanted to share a few random stories and then realized that most of them involve Disney in one way or another. Henry's perseveration has influenced the rest of us- that's bound to happen. In a similar way, Tommy is showing a lot of interest in doing puzzles- the 24-piece, 3-6 year old puzzles. So he may become a puzzle prodigy too, modeling after his big brother.
Here are a few bits and pieces of our life recently:
-The Tramp in our current favorite Disney movie refers to Lady with the endearing nickname "Pidge" (a derivative of pigeon, I suppose.) When Henry recites these lines to himself (with his autistic accent) it very much sounds like he is saying a different nickname for a female: bi*%$.
"Hey, what's the matter &*$%@?"
It's stopped me short a couple times during the past week.
-All the dogs in the pound sing a song about Tramp. One bulldog kind of sings backup: "bum bum bum ruff, bum bum bum ruff." Bill sings that part sometimes and the boys think it's really funny. Tommy asked me to sing it last night. I kept trying, but was doing something wrong. He kept saying "no, mommy, sing 'bum bum bum ruff'."
I sang it over and over, when all of a sudden his face lit up and he said "yeah mommy yeah!" with this huge smile. I finally got it right.
-On the subject of a different Disney movie... We were discussing Toy Story one day, and I noted that Sid is a mean kid.
Henry said "Sid...kid... they rhyme!"
-Last night Tommy was playing with our little people doll house and playground sets. (Bought in an attempt to get Henry to practice some imaginary play- they remain in pristine condition 3 years later.) So I was pretty excited to see a child play with these things in the way they are intended. But before long Thomas took two characters to the top of the playground slide, made them fight, and then said "mommy, my girl push my guy down. Talk to her." So I told her that pushing is not ok and to be nice and to apologize to the "guy". But they went right back to fighting. So Thomas' imaginative play seems to mirror what goes on at the babysitter's house. Poor L. She must get tired of telling the kids to be nice.
-Yesterday Tommy and I stayed home with a tummy bug. But I seemed to feel a lot worse than he did. He kept wanting me to play and stuff. At one point I said, kind of to myself, "do you hear me sighing a lot?" And he said "yeah mommy. You is sighing a lot." I had to laugh because I doubt he really knows what sighing is. And he obviously doesn't get the implication that a person who sighs a lot is feeling unhappy/tired/irritated.
And my final issue for today: Eileen, where are you? I've added my home e-mail address to my profile, if anyone feels like writing me rather than commenting. I'd love to hear from you. It's my home e-mail, so I don't check it as often as my work, but I will check it.
March Madness is Bill's favorite holiday. Superior even to Christmas, I think. This year he took today off work and planned to eat chicken wings and watch basketball all day. I requested the day off too. Although I'm not so much into the basketball, I thought it would be really nice to have a Friday off together, sitting on the couch. I could read a magazine or something, and maybe have an uninterrupted conversation with my husband. (Although probably not unless it involved the bracket.)
Then we got this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for tickets to the tournament games in Dayton (about 1.5 hours away). At first I foolishly thought that he and I could go to the games together. But then reality set in:
A. Someone needs to meet Henry after school at 3. Although we could make arrangements for someone else to do that, there is the more important fact:
B. Kate and Bill would have a lot more fun together at this event than Bill and I would.
So father and daughter are having a little adventure today, while I just went in to work in the morning and shuttled my little boys around in the afternoon.
See, here's the selfish part. Even though I know this was the right way for things to work out, I am a little jealous/pouty/miffed that my lame plan for a day on the couch was nixed, in favor of a totally awesome day of watching 4 basketball games (including favorites OSU and UNC) for Bill and Kate. Kind of like "why do they get to have all the fun?"
And then I feel even worse when I think "well, this is a really special interest they share. If a really rare opportunity came along for something special I enjoy, I would get to do that." And then I start to wonder what that special thing might be, and then I get even more bummed out when I realize that I have no hobbies or interests. Some women are into scrapbooking, and might take a weekend scrapbooking getaway, for example. Or a golf vacation with girlfriends. Or a hiking trip, or some other crazy athletic thing...
I did get to talk to my brother in Sydney tonight (which was a special opportunity, and I'm glad I didn't miss it- see, I'm seeing the silver lining already). We talked about this issue and I realized that the one special thing I do, just for me, is keeping this blog and reading my ever-growing circle of friend blogs.
It's kind of a weird, solitary thing I do here in the basement. But maybe that's the most I can hope for at this point in my life: waiting 'til the kids are asleep and then sitting down in the cold basement "talking" to my cyber-friends.
So, thanks for being there guys. Until we can organize a yearly convention to spend a weekend together, this is my little getaway.
(I sure hope I don't sound like as much of a pitiful loser as I feel!)
Although I don't want to diminish Henry's achievements, or my pride in him, I thought I would expand on the statement "he has mastered all of his goals" by telling you what some of them are. Many of our goals at the beginning of the school year were really basic stuff- basically getting him to participate in the classroom setting without hurting someone. Some of his goals were:
-Henry will transition from one activity to another w/no protest
-Henry will take turns w/others and respond to questions in group situations
-Henry will tolerate using the same space and materials w/peers with no aggression
The goals related to his knowledge were things like stating all the sounds of the alphabet, associating the quantity of a group to the correct number, etc. I never had a doubt he could do those things, although after last year I did wonder if a teacher would be able to get past his behaviors to get the knowledge out there.
So, still a great job for Henry, but I didn't want to give the impression that he had mastered his goal of writing a novel or something!
Henry had a rough day on Friday. The boys were heading to my parents' house for the weekend (we had a wedding to go to last night) and Henry and Tommy were both SO SO excited. I try to give Henry plenty of advance notice when we are going to do something special. We wrote it on his calendar and crossed off the days until Friday. Friday morning they both wanted to go right now, but I explained that we would go after work and school, at dinnertime.
Here's what his notebook said Friday afternoon:
Henry had a rough day. He kicked a student in the face (though not hard, it left no mark), & also went after another student. This hasn't happened in forever :( He did apologize to both students.
There was also a math worksheet in his bag with this note written on it:
Henry had a bit of trouble-mostly just refusing to do this.
I e-mailed her and said that I thought it must be related to his excitement about the weekend. I also told her that when I asked Henry about it he told me that he was being Scar (from the Lion King). Here was her response:
I agree. Henry seemed VERY excited about going to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Additionally, one of my assistants was out today, and there was no sub available. As a result, two of my students were unable to go to K inclusion as they always do daily. All of these things factored together could have proven to be a very big change for Henry in one day. As I said, he did apologize to the student. He told me he was being the rat from Lady and the Tramp, though. Exactly what happened was the student approached Henry as he was laying in Quiet area and said, "Henry, my birthday is March 16." This is when the kick happened. However, since nothing like this has happened in such a long time, I don't think we need to become overly alarmed. Thanks so much for your email, though. Have a great time at the wedding, and I'm sure Henry is loving Grandma and Grandpa's house!
I still wish I knew a little more about this. Why was Henry so ticked off about the kid's birthday? Maybe he talks about his birthday all the time? Kind of funny.
The wedding was pretty fun last night. I bought a new dress and shoes which I haven't done in a long time. The only thing is, unfailingly, at every event like that, I am ready to leave before my husband is. It's like I have this social tolerance timer, and when that time is up, I just shut down. Bill, on the other hand, seems to feed on the social stuff, having more and more fun as the night goes on (I realize that this is how most normal people respond to a fun evening with friends!) It was a wedding of someone I work with, so maybe I'm just over spending time with these people, since I do it all week long. Or I just don't get out enough, so I'm out of practice.
I talked to my mom yesterday around 10 am and the boys were eating post-breakfast cookies. Always a good time at Grandma & Grandpa's house.
(Cough, cough from upstairs)
Bill (calling up the stairs): "Henry?"
Henry: "Yes Daddy?"
Bill: "Are you OK?"
Henry: "Yes Daddy."
Bill: "Good. I love you buddy."
Henry: "I love you too Daddy."
That may seem like a pretty boring exchange to some of you, but would not have happened at our house 6 months ago. Bill came smiling around the corner and said "did you hear that?!"
------------------------------
(Tommy is carrying around something of Henry's)
Henry: "Tommy, may I have that please?" (Said in a quiet voice, not the house-on-fire voice that you might expect.)
Tommy: "Bubba, here go." (Hands it over.)
Henry: "Thanks Tommy."
------------------------------
These are the little things that autistic kids need help with. These are the things that his teachers work on all day, every day. And it's working- he's getting it- it just takes a lot of time and a lot of persistence and a lot of patience.
I've realized that a good, quick way to explain the differences in parenting these two boys is this: I can tell Thomas "oh, don't touch that Tommy, that's not safe." And he's likely to stop touching the thing and reply "not safe mommy." (That's not to say that he listens all the time, of course.)
But if I were to say the same thing to Henry, especially when he was younger, he would have responded by screaming at me. Either because he didn't understand the concept of "not safe" or because he thought he was in trouble, or because he just didn't like being told "no"... I can't say why exactly.
But parents of autistic children sometimes have to find sneaky ways to communicate with their kids. We have to pussyfoot around saying "no", or trick them into stopping the thing they're doing, or into eating something new. That's what's so exhausting about it. And hard to make others understand.
Henry and I have to go through this little ritual when he takes medicine. It's MUCH MUCH MUCH, a thousand times easier than it used to be. But still, we have to talk about how he doesn't want to take this medicine, etc. Several years ago he was prescribed some cold medicine that was purple. Ever since, every time he takes medicine, he says "which medicine do you like the best?" (wanting me to pose that question to him) So I ask him, and he responds "the purple medicine." Then he opens his mouth to take the current medicine. Why do we have to have this little exchange every time? It somehow comforts him, or makes him think all is right with the world, if we talk about the purple medicine first.
Getting in the car in the morning is similar. Bill is already at work, so every day Henry says "you miss your daddy." And I have to figure out which of the responses will comfort him today: "He's at work." "You'll see him later." "He misses you too." "I miss him too." "We'll all be together tonight." I try a couple of these and then Henry repeats the one he likes. Then I tell him I love him and shut the car door.
I'm trying to keep a notebook around so I can jot down things that both the boys say. Here's one more:
Henry: "You want some jigsaw fruit."
Kate: "Jigsaw fruit? What's that?"
Henry: "It has cherries and pineapple and peaches and grapes."
Jigsaw fruit = fruit cocktail
Basketball season wears me out. Kate plays on the JV team and Bill coaches a 5th grade girls' team. I encouraged him to take on the coaching job because I know he really loves doing it. But those two teams combined take Bill and Kate out of the house just about every evening. We both work outside of the home all day long. My point here is that it's cold and dreary and the holidays are over and the two people closest to my conversation level are gone most of the time. And by the time they get home at 9 pm, all hyper from their practice or game, I'm ready to go to bed because I've been "snuggling" in Henry's dark room for 1/2 an hour.
So it's easy to start feeling negative. I have plenty of negative stuff I want to share with anyone who might read my blog, but I thought I'd try to focus on some positive things today. So, with apologies to Martha Stewart, here are some "good things":
1. Henry's swimming lesson yesterday. He has been taking lessons at Easter Seals since the summer of 2004, and I love to see his progress. It's not measured in leaps and bounds- he's no Charlie Fisher. But he runs over to the steps, hustles into the pool, greets his teacher with enthusiasm, and flounders around in the water- unafraid of going under, getting water in his nose, wearing goggles... If you had told me any of this a year and a half ago, I would scarcely have believed it. And yesterday, something new: he started planning what he wanted to say to his swim instructor! "I had a nice Christmas." He said, as we walked in from the parking lot. I deciphered that this must be what they talked about last time. So I suggested that this time he could tell her that he got his picture taken last week. Sure enough, I hear him in the pool talking about the mall and the Disney Store. Then he saw another instructor and shouted "there's Mr. Chris!" several times until we all acknowledged it and Mr. Chris said hello to him. Once Henry's lesson was over, he ran over to me and said "I had a great swimming lesson. I jumped off the edge. I swam under the water. I slided like Superman." (This is a thing they talk about, I guess to get him to stretch his arms and legs out straight?)
He said all those sentences using "I" spontaneously. And he almost sounded like an NT 6-year-old, babbling excitedly to his mom.
As if that weren't enough, then he started cheering for the kid who's lesson was after his! "Great swimming (kid's name)!"
2. One icy morning last week, traffic was really slow. But a really good song came on the radio (Matthew Sweet- "Girlfriend") and I took a sip of my decaf latte (I've recently had to give up caffeine because I was having heart palpitations- that's the saddest news of all), and I thought how good it tasted, even though it was decaf, and how much I was enjoying this drive, even though most people probably weren't.
3. Remember I was pondering getting a reptile pet of some kind? Well I mentioned it to a friend, and she said that she had two turtles that we could have!! So the turtles moved in yesterday, and they are so fun to watch! They live in an aquarium with a little "dock" that they can climb up onto, and they eat pellets of food you can buy at the grocery store. Very low maintenance and everything was free except that I needed to buy the food. I will get a picture up soon.
4. One night last week when we arrived home after picking Kate up from practice, we noticed that the stars were out. So the four of us stood in the driveway for a minute, looking at the stars. I started singing "twinkle twinkle" and Kate joined in with me.
5. Saturday morning, Henry and I were having our "it's Saturday." "That's right, it's Saturday" conversation. "It's not a school day." "No, it's the weekend. We all get to stay home together. Except poor daddy had to work this morning."
Henry said "don't cry daddy, you'll be fine."
6. Last week Henry's teacher wrote "Another wonderful day! Henry shared his book at lunch w/ another student (who is not even in our class). The aggression towards peers has really diminished as well. I think we will be ready to talk about some inclusion at our next conference."
I'm sure there are more, but I've neglected my sons in front of a DVD for long enough.
Some of my fellow bloggers have kids who are not verbal, or who are aggressive, or who scream. A lot. Or who are not quite potty-trained yet. Our family has been there- at age 3, 4, 5, and some of those struggles are on-going. But I just want to say that you and your children will move past this point. You will have a conversation. (S)he will stop having accidents. (S)he will start using words instead of screaming or hurting someone. You know that already, but I am just re-affirming it.
It's all good.
I mentioned previously, when Henry got his first real haircut, that Henry and Daddy have been doing more together.
