Halloween?

L. started extended summer school on Tuesday. I was glad. He gets so bored at home, and a half day of stimulation does him good. Anyway, that morning I made sure he had taken his medication, had breakfast, and his back pack was out. The thing I did not bank on was that he would decide he wanted it to be Halloween. He came downstairs in his caveman costume that I had sewn for him several years ago. A costume, I might add, that he refuse to wear that year. In the mean time he has discovered The Flintstones, and he thinks the caveman costume looks like Fred.
He has the costume on and he says, "Wilma I'm home!" and it sounds just like Fred, I tell you.
Not that I care too much what other people think. At this point I'm beyond redemption, if you know what I mean. So I said to him that we should take the costume off, but he didn't want to.
He told me it was Halloween. I tried to explain that Halloween does not come in July. He continued to believe that it was Halloween. I figured no amount of insisting was going to change his mind, and envisioning the tantrum that would ensue, decided not to push it. When the bus arrived, my little Fred Flintstone climbed on, as happy as a clam and sat down in the seat next to the window, smiling from ear to ear as they pulled away. I can't help but marvel at how simple a thing as a caveman costume can put him on cloud nine. His innocents and joy in living always leaves me in awe.

Meat On My Mind

I found out this evening that one of my children accidentally left the freezer door slightly ajar on Sunday night. AAAAAH! What with the warm weather (or should I say hot), it defrosted quite quickly. A task that I have been meaning to do, but keep putting off. So this evening I spent my time cooking 12 lbs. of chicken, an 8 lb ham, and 6 tubes of sausage. I got chicken breasts, taco flavored chicken, BBQ chicken, diced ham, sliced ham, etc., etc. Needless to say, I won't have to cook for a month. In order to save it, I cooked it, and then refroze most of it.
My husband was once a manager at a restaurant. He still has his trusty meat thermometer and he went through all of it, testing the temperature to make sure that it hadn't gotten too warm. All of it was salvageable, which I guess was the silver lining. There were other items that didn't fare too well that had to be gotten rid of so I should count my blessings.
Vegetarians beware. If you are offended by this blog I apologized, but at this point I'm so sick of cooking meat, I'm tempted to join you in your crusade! The funny thing is, my son L., which I have previously mentioned, likes to repeat things from shows was jumping up and down, chanting, "I love to eat," from Elmo's World. At least someone appreciates me.

Having Guests

For some reason, if we chance to have a guest, my son turns into a real jester. He doesn't like any sort of change in his routine. So if someone drops by he goes a little crazy. For instance we had company this afternoon. We offered them the couch. When they went to sit down, he threw himself across the length of it and began to laugh. I guess it could be worse.
When my parents came he tried to get them to leave the whole time they were here. Pretty sad, considering they were visiting from Tennessee. He gives them the boot only minutes after they've arrived. His favorite line is from A Series of Unfortunate Events. He says "Can you stay?" as he's shoving them through the door.
My favorite was when my sister came over one day. He gave her her shoes and said, "Get in your brown car and go." So much for subtle hints. There was no reading between the lines on that one. While it is sometimes rather embarrassing, it is also kind of funny. So we laugh, and say "Isn't he cute", and try and make the best of it. It's not like you can tell him to stop. Or I guess you could but it would do no good.

Speaking Engagement

This past Thursday I was invited by Cedar Fort Publishing to speak about writing my book Keeping Keller and my experiences behind it. To be honest, I wonder what people will find that is interesting about me and my life. But then there are always people who are quite surprised by my antics with my children.
A lot of people want to know what was real and what was fiction. I tell them that the experiences with Keller in the book are pretty much equivalent to my life with L. It's hard to believe but they were all real, perhaps changed slightly to better fit the story, but real.
I had enough material to write two books. Ha ha.
At any rate, it was very kind of Cedar Fort to give me this opportunity because I am a new author and I do have a lot to talk about. For those of you who know me it wasn't hard to fill the hour. I discussed not only my personal history with autism, but I also discussed the latest statistics, symptoms in diagnosing it, and learning to live with it. I had some thoughtful questions and some great comments. All in all I think it went fairly well. So thanks to L. for supplying me with the material for my little talk.

The Zoo

One of the few family outings that we are all able to enjoy is the zoo. Unlike the store, or church, or parties, or social functions, L. is in his element there. He has an obsession with animals. Many children who have autism obsess over something. A friend I met at a book club in Pennsylvania has an adult son that knows everything there is to know about sports. My friend Lala's son loves all things weather. My younger son H. was infatuated with letters when he began to read, now it's musical notes.
This love for animals began when he was very young. He would hardly speak to us, but he would go over and over the names of animals. One evening as my husband and I were watching the Discovery Channel they flashed some footage of an animal we had never seen before. I said to my husband, "What is that thing?" My husband replied that he didn't know. Then, out of nowhere, L. said, "Wombat." And by gosh it was.
We decided that since we could enjoy the zoo as a whole family unit, and L. was generally on his best behavior, we would purchase a season membership, which we use quite frequently. The best days are snow days, rainy days, cool days, because no one else really ventures out and we have the park nearly to ourselves. In accordance with his scheduled route, we fight him to go to the first monkey house, only to rush through the second monkey exhibit, so that we can get to the elephants, his absolute favorite animal of all time. He tells us, "Elephants are the biggest land mammal on the earth." We move on to the Peccaries. ( I just asked my husband 'what those pig things are call at the zoo', and he thought I said 'what are those big tall things made of poo?')
As we navigate throughout the park he proceeds to tell us some snippet about each animal. He's a real walking encyclopedia. The penguins, for instance, "are birds that can't fly, but they can swim". Then we get to the giraffes. "They are the tallest land mammal on the earth". And so on and so forth.
The only time I've seen him ever break his announcer style commentary on the animals was when I took him to see the Gorillas on a day when it was just he and I and his baby sister. After pressing his face to the glass for some time, observing with an intensity that I relish, the Gorilla did something a little disturbing. He ate his own excrement. L. said, "Oh, yuck! Don't eat poop! That's yucky!"
Smart Kid.

The Fear of Loosing Them

Tonight, on our local news, they ran a story about a twenty year old man that is missing. Most people wouldn't think that a missing grown man is something to really worry over. But then this young man has autism. His parents pointed out that although he has a grown man's body he is mentally a seven or eight year old. I have had to explain that to others as well. L. is a very big boy. Now at the age of eight he is over one hundred pounds and reaches my shoulder in height. Mentally he is around three years old. Imagine if you will your three year old getting upset with you, tantruming, getting physical, and then picture them the size of a twelve year old.
What was particularly heartbreaking is the thought of this man's parents and the anguish that I am certain they are going through, worrying over him. It is something that I have feared for a long time now myself. If someone asks my son his name he will not tell them what it is. He can't recite his address for telephone number. I panic when I imagine what might happen to him. The ironic thing about children with autism is that many of them run. They figure out ingenious ways of getting out of their homes, or backyards. For instance, L. figured out how to open the gate on our fence. After a few heart racing, stomach nauseating moments, I found him down the street playing with the neighbor's dog. We put padlocks on the gate to keep him in the backyard. He began to disassemble the fence, and we're talking the tall vinyl fencing that has no slats in it. He would squeeze through the cracks he had managed to make and roam free once again. You really have to save them from themselves sometimes.
I just hope and pray that this couple find their son, that he is returned to them safe and sound, just as I would want my son to be if it were me.

He's Retarded, Do You Know What That Means?

Over the years I have learned to accept the fact that my sons have autism. There were times when it wasn't easy. There are still times when it is not easy. Whenever L. should be making a milestone that the other children his age have hit it hurts me all over again. I think that whenever I see someone staring in public or acting as if he was from a different planet, it also makes me experience the heartache anew.
When L. was just four he was the size of a six year old. I didn't have much of a choice, when I went somewhere I had to take him with me. My husband worked two jobs and there was no switching guard duty, like the way we do it now. He comes home, I run errands, he has to leave, I come home. In this way we have avoided the difficulties of fighting him in public.
On one particular occasion I took my son L. and my two other children to the store with me. It nearly broke my back, but I managed to haul him into the cart because he had a tendency to run away. You can imagine the complications of him not being able to tell anyone his name, age, address, or telephone number if he were to run off and get lost. Although I had good intentions when I confined him to the cart, he was not happy. He began to really throw a fit, to the point that I got some curious glances.
One woman approached and began to good-naturedly scold him. "Now you shouldn't be putting your mother through such antics," she was telling him. "There's no need to behave that way. You need to be a good boy."
I politely explained that it was no use for her try and talk him out of crying. He likely had no idea what she was telling him. I told her that he had autism. She was very kind and seemed sympathetic, saying she understood because she drove the bus for the school system and had a few special needs children that she drove back and forth.
During the duration of our short conversation an elderly man tried to pass my cart. L., in desperation, reached out and grabbed him, trying to use him as leverage to get out of his caged prison. Well, that did not go over so well. The older gentleman became very angry. He began yelling at my little son, chastising him for his bad behavior. At this point the woman, thinking she was coming to my aid, looked at the man and said, "Sir, he is autistic."
I suppose the man had never heard of that term before. He seemed confused. "What?"
She became very indignant. "He's autistic," she tried to explain again.
"What's that?" he wondered.
In a huff she replied, "He's retarded! Do you know what that means?"
Oh, how I wish the floor would have opened up and swallowed me. In all fairness, I knew very little about autism until L. was diagnosed, so it was understandable that not everyone else understood it too. But that day the woman's words struck me to the core. I thought to myself, if adults can't even behave civilly to a child of four years, what will lay ahead on the road before us. Luckily, I've never faced such a scene since, or at least not to that magnitude. I still get the questioning looks, or the people thinking that they are protecting him by asking if everything is alright or if he's my child, to make sure I'm not abusing or kidnapping him when he's in one of his 'vocal' states. But I still can feel the embarrassment of that incident, as if it had happened just yesterday. It has been a lesson to me to not be so judgemental towards others, when I do not know or understand their circumstances or their set of problems. It maybe is just payback for all of the times I condescendingly said to myself, "My child will never act like that!" when witnessing something that was probably similar to my own crying child in the shopping cart that day.