We are flying today. It will be the first time in a long while for The Boy – a couple of years, at least. He actually really enjoys flying, and has been begging me to fly on our frequent trips … Continue reading
Flying with Autism
Tag Archives: autism
Sunday Shout-Out: Are You on Pinterest Yet?
If you are, you’ve probably already encountered the fabulous ideas there. You’ve probably also encountered just how very much time can be wasted on this fabulous resource. If you aren’t, you probably just haven’t figured out just what it’s all … Continue reading
A Look Back at October
Can you believe it’s November? Here are some of the top posts from October you may have missed: One of the Toughest Things The irony of autism is its unpredictability, when the person with autism craves predictability… Birthdays Past and … Continue reading
Residual Effects of a Fire Drill
fire_alarm (Photo credit: auchard)
I bet moms with neurotypical kids don’t even know when they have had fire drills at school. I bet they don’t even think about fire drills often, if ever.
In our house, fire drills happening at school is huge news. We rarely know in advance, and yet hear about them for weeks afterwards.
The Boy’s school had a fire drill yesterday, and consequently, our Fun Friday consisted of going to another school in the district after kids club to look at their fire alarms in the gym. The Boy found that they did not have the proper coverings (the cage-like covers that protect them from balls and other flying objects in the gym), and wanted to go find the custodian to inform him of the fact that they needed to be covered properly. I suggested that I could email him rather than roaming through a school that is not ours to confront a custodian we don’t know about his naked alarms. Luckily, The Boy was OK with that. It was also lucky that The Boy is a bit of a celebrity in the district, and one of their kids club employees is the mom of one of our kids club employees, so that we were able to enter the school and let The Boy do his thing without anyone raising an eyebrow.
And so, for the next week or so, The Boy will be pointing out the different fire alarms he sees wherever we go, and comparing them to the catalog of fire alarms he has in his head, “Those are like the white ones at the middle school!” As I write this, he is having a pretend fire alarm at the pretend school where he is the pretend gym teacher. “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm,” I hear from the dining room.
The Boy’s Poem
Every once in awhile, some piece of work will come home from school with The Boy that gives me a glimpse inside my son’s brain that I never had before. I end up with a goofy grin and tears, all … Continue reading
The Struggle With Outerwear
The Boy has long had issues with clothing. Last year, it became a big problem when he would refuse to wear his coat during the winter, or would wear it, grudgingly, but refuse to zip it up. It gets COLD … Continue reading
One of the Toughest Things
One of the toughest things about autism is its unpredictability, which has a certain sense of irony, doesn’t it? The person with autism relies on predictability, craves it, seeks it out, and yet the disorder itself, for those of us on the outside, has it’s own set of rules, or more like a general sense of chaos. Just when you think your kid has a handle on the process of setting out clothes the night before, and understanding that we can’t wait until bedtime to decide to wear something already in the dirty clothes, here comes a curveball: “Where’s the sweatshirt that goes with these pants?” You know, the sweatshirt that got donated a year ago because it had a blob of glue on it…
And I have no solution. I try to distract, suggest alternatives, to no avail. “I’ll just spend all night looking for it,” says he. No, no you won’t. You’re going to be miserable, making me miserable until you pass out, which most likely will not be until the wee hours of the morning. And I can only hope you can move past this in the morning, or the first hour of my morning will be a trial, too.
Damn you, sweatshirt-with-the-blob-of-glue. Damn you.
Birthdays Past and Present
It is my birthday! Notice the exclamation point there? Yep. For someone fast approaching 40, you may not expect me to be at all excited about this anniversary of my birth, so very long ago. Except that I am. Here’s … Continue reading
Dog Safety and Special Needs Kids
This summer, The Boy was attacked by a dog. He wasn’t injured seriously, just some very minor scrapes, but it was very scary for him, for me, and for the others who witnessed it. We were at the home of … Continue reading
My Kid is in the Choir
The flyer came home announcing that the choir would be singing at the local high school’s football game against their biggest cross-town rivals. In fact, six elementary choirs would be there, singing before the game. A parent must accompany the … Continue reading
Simple. I Just Do. 