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Birthdays and autism can be a really rough combination. Birthdays for kids on the spectrum can be a sensory overload circus. (I have years of videos and pictures of J covering his ears and crying at not only his birthday parties, but W’s too.). Milestone birthdays are rough on parents because it’s another one of those reminders of all of the things your kid isn’t doing. When W turned 14 in August, we threw her a masquerade murder mystery party. I even made homemade stuffed shells and bought rosemary rolls from Breadsmith and cheesecake to make the dinner part fancy schmancy. She prepped for that party almost a full month…
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Willmar with a Side of Poutine
At around 5:00 Saturday night J, Steve, W, and I sat in a Wendy’s in Alexandria, Minnesota. Actually Steve, W, and I sat at one table. J sat at another table, insisting he eat by himself. We weren’t going to push eating together as a family. J had cleared the two biggest hurdles that have consumed his mind since Labour Day weekend–exit 55 and 67–on the way to his Willmar, Minnesota meet and he ran a good race. We weren’t going to force him to be at the same table as a box of French fries. J has a phobia about French fries. It doesn’t permeate to all potato-related foods.…
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Using the Autism Toolbox to Make XC a Little Easier
J is the boy in the black and gold Brooks. Arms drooped around his neighbours’ backs. Pieces of masking tape bound around his fingers. The droopy arms and masking tape scream to me “autism,” although they probably don’t to you. I think that’s one of the funny things about autism. I’m always super aware of all the quirky or socially “different” parts of J that I don’t think a lot of people think twice about. J has gotten really good over the last couple of season of “looking like a XC runner.” J goes to practice all by himself now. J takes the bus to meets on his own. J…
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A Life Outside of Autism
24 revisions. It took me 24 revisions to get chapter 3 of my novel right and I’ve been slugging away at that beast for at least 4 months. Longer than that, really. Versions of that chapter have been emerging months before that. For most of last week, I was up until 1:30 am working on that chapter. Thursday, at midnight, I finally finished it. Those 24 revisions are in a folder titled “Revision 4” under a folder titled “Thesis Revisions.” Since graduation in 2012, I’ve been trying to revise my thesis into a fully robust, sound novel ready for publication. Revision 24 of chapter 3 isn’t good enough right now…
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A Tale of Two Meets
It’s been interesting to watch the last week two weeks go down. After the Minneapolis fiasco last weekend I’ve been high alert for J’s triggers while looking back to the days leading up to that weekend, trying to understand why he just couldn’t pull through things like those two darn numbers. J had two cross country meets in the last two weeks. The first one was in Wahpeton/Breckenridge (North Dakota/Minnesota) on the Thursday before the long weekend. Historically, this meet has been one of the worst meets for J. I’m not talking worst times–I’m talking worst because of not finishing the course/having a meltdown during the race, so Steve and…
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The Minneapolis Trip That Didn’t Happen
Three years ago we brought autism to a rock concert and the Women’s FIFA World Cup. Since then we’ve taken autism to California, Ontario, Manitoba, Kansas, Florida, Colorado, and Utah. We’ve taken autism to the Canadian Rockies and we’ve taken autism to Hawaii. I go back to these posts and look at all of the little hiccups we encountered along the way. Sensory overload at the Imagine Dragons concert, “tainted” hotel room numbers, late nights, disrupted schedules, toenail injuries and urgent care visits. Anxiety over tram rides. Time zone jumping and red-eye flights. None of these trips happened without some sort of minor autism crisis–but we managed them all. I’d consider all of…
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That’s evolution, folks
A few days ago, Steve called me to the window. “You see it?” he said. “What do you think is wrong with it?” I monitored the large brown and spotted bird, sitting perched on a short trellis in our neighbour’s flower garden, for a few minutes. “It’s one of those sparrowhawks,” I said. I hate sparrowhawks. We’ve lived in our house for 10 years now and every August the sparrowhawks show up to terrorize the song birds, squirrels, and rabbits in our yard. I’ll never forget a four-year-old W, shrieking and pointing at the very same window where Steve and I now stood, a hundred white feathers floating in the…
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Scattered Brain, Scattered Thoughts
I’m not really sure what to write about for this week’s post. I’m really feeling so many things as my kids gear up for a new school year. I’m ready and I’m not ready, and right now I’m just trying to make it to the finish line (end of summer) or starting line (a new school year, however you choose to look at it). I know I’m not running at full mental capacity–I’m forgetting texts, am working off of two different calendars (one with my general responsibilities, the other with orthodontic appointments, XC meets, XC practice times that switch from one week to the next). My brain is on lock-down…
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A Funny Thing Happened When We Gave J an iPhone 4
I think it’s one of the biggest ironies of my life that I am obsessed with language, communication, and literature and those three things are the biggest things my son struggles with. I’ve loved language as long as I can remember. I remember staring at my Cheerios box as a kindergartner, figuring out that gratuit next to the picture of a key chain meant that something free was inside, that the word pamplemousse on the juice container meant grapefruit, and being absolutely thrilled to finally start learning French at school in grade 4. The only math I liked was when had to solve math facts in order to decode messages…
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Without a doubt
Back in April, I blogged a little bit about my anxiety and very real struggle of signing up my autistic son for a new extra-curricular activity. Especially extra-curricular activities where J is the only special needs kid in the room or team. Signing up J for the Sanford Power Summer Weights Class at his high school was a really nerve racking choice for me. Going into it, I really knew nothing about the program. I knew some of J’s XC teammates were signing up for it. I knew the class was run by trainers from Sanford Power alongside some of the high school football coaches and that’s about all I knew. I knew…
