The Austin Walks for Autism Speaks was this Saturday. Blue and I participated together. In fact, he gave his very own cash donation, without my prompting. "I just want to help," he said. He also bought us breakfast that morning -just donuts and milk, but hey, what a wonderful gesture. His brother won't even share a french fry with me, after I bought them.
Blue's teacher from last year invited us to join her team for the Autism walk. She misses him. I know that he misses her as was evident by the bashful smile on his face when he saw her and several other staff members from his elementary school. He greeted them all with authentic hugs, not the 'please don't get to close to me' kind-of-hugs that he usually gives. I miss them too. They know him. They have known us for so many years. Knowing is half the battle in educating a child with autism. They didn't have to read his social cues. They just read his heart and knew how special he is. I always knew they had his best interest at heart.
Later Saturday afternoon, we met our friends at a neighborhood festival. Blue gets along so well with all of my girlfriend's daughters. He played games, won prizes and gladly shared them with Skye. He treats her like a sister -only better. She's a girl -but a tough cookie. It was so fun to watch the two of them having it out in the giant inflatable boxing ring. It's a joy to watch the two of them play together. I am secretly trying to adopt all of my friend's daughters, since I will never have a girl. Hopefully, I'll have lots of nieces when my sons grow up and forget all about me.
Good days like this are rare -so I must take notice when they happen. There are many times when I see families out together having simple fun. I am envious, although I know I shouldn't be. I wish that we could go out as an entire family, smile, laugh and have a good time with no issues. It is what it is. I'll take what I can get.
This was book "Aspergers What Does It Mean to Me" was an excellent resource when my son started asking questions about why he was different. It really helped him understand Aspergers and made him feel good about himself. I think we may make it bedtime reading again for a while...
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Simple Pleasures
Logging you in...Comments by IntenseDebate
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago