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Born to run
I don’t know how he does it, but without fail, when J starts a new season of XC, track, or runs a race in the Fargo Marathon, he takes off minutes–MINUTES off of his PR from the previous season. This weekend was the Fargo Marathon and J took off 1:39 off of his 5K time and 3:21 off of his 10K time. And Steve and I were totally shocked at how much improvement he’s made from last year’s 2017 5 and 10K races. J’s been running XC and track for three years now. He’s a conditioned runner and those dramatic reductions in time should start to wane and finally plateau. But…
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A Good Car Cry
I’ve got a lot of insecurities. Some come from being a mom of a special needs kid. And some of them come from my own personal issues that I’ve carried around long before I had kids. I like to think that most of my insecurities come from being a special needs mom. This week proved me wrong. This week was a Sarah Beck-no autism attached-insecurities kind of week. I’ll let you in on a secret. Maybe it’s not really a secret–maybe a lot of you who know me know this already–but I like to think I’m really good at keeping this secret: I am a very disorganized person and I…
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The Beck Comedy Show
May is here and it’s the time of year where I feel like I’m slowly losing my mind (more than usual). I’m frantically trying to get my projects in a spot ready for the summer so I can (hopefully) get away with an hour or two of work a day instead of the six hours I’m used to. I’m trying desperately to keep track of all of the choir, orchestra, and (sometimes conflicting) track meets. We’ve got some other random things going on too: J and W need passports for our trip this summer, we’re getting J assessed for his visual processing, we’ve got routine dr’s appointments, a checkup on…
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Growth Spurts and that Growing Village
Sometimes a lot of good things happen all at the same time. This week was one of those weeks. Monday–Track Meet #1: J PRd the heck out of his mile: By almost 30 seconds! J’s mile time was 7:03. Last year’s PR for that same event? 7:32. When J first started this whole XC/Track business? 13 min miles. That’s growth, folks! Running with a stronger pack: Monday’s meet was a really small meet (3 schools) which meant that there was going to be only 1 heat for the 1600m. I was super nervous about this, because that meant he was going to be running with the fast kids. Yes, he…
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Leaps of Faith
Signing up a child with autism in a new extra-curricular activity—especially a sport–is a very stressful experience. I can’t just look at the Fargo Parks and Rec catalogue and say, “baseball would be fun,” fill out the registration and send off the cheque. There’s a lot of stewing and agonizing, questions to consider like: “Are we doing this because J wants it or because as parents we want it?” “Will the teachers in the class be accommodating and understating of J’s special needs?” “Will the kids in the group/activity be accepting of J” “Will J be distracting or hinder the learning of the other kids in the group” “Does J…
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The Cross Culture Kid
When I was 16 years old, my parents moved our family to the United States. Being a Canadian expat is a strange, strange experience. It’s forever changed the way I see the world and my cultural identity (and I’m still really confused about both). I have no real hometown. In a lot of ways I feel like I don’t “belong” as a citizen of anywhere. I live this strange life where people assume I’m American just like them, and in some ways I feel like I am. But then I have these moments where things get weird, like when I explain to them that I’ve never seen an episode of…
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You Just Never Know
In honour of celebrating Autism Awareness Month, we’ve been living this week in typical (unpredictable) autism fashion. Here’s a little recap of how this week totally threw us for some unexpected surprises. Sunday: Our good friends invited us over for Easter lunch, and it was the most entertaining, heartwarming lunch I’ve had in a long time. J got to meet my friend’s new dog Tucker. Fred really did work some miracles for J when it comes to dog interactions. Fred taught J about “dog bubbles” (like “you don’t run up to a dog and give it hugs” and “you give it time to get to know you”). Fred taught J how…
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A Letter to My Younger (Mom) Self
Dear Young (Mom) Sarah, I’m writing you this letter on Autism Awareness Day. It’s 2018. Right now you’re sitting in the early 2000s and you’re overwhelmed and confused and frustrated with autism. It’s new and something you’ve never heard of until now. Activism, pride, and awareness are not on your “to do” list. In fact, right now you want to hide the fact that J has autism. You’re secretly hoping he’ll “grow out of it.” You’ve gotten your hands on every single resource and it’s almost impossible to find information, studies, and narratives about teenagers and adults with autism. You’re terrified of what the future holds for J because no one…
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Little-big things
Little things are always big things when it comes to autism and though we’ve had a pretty low-key week, it was still filled with lots of little-big things. Here’s this week’s list of top 3 little-big things (in no particular order): Little-big thing #1: Varsity kids. J had his second track meet of the season this Saturday and despite his awesome performance last week, he still has a lot of little things to figure out. Last Saturday he missed his warm-up and cool down, and was a little confused on the new number system. (In middle school, his number was written on his hand. In high school, he gets two…
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3.30.35
When they called the fourth heat of the 800 metre race to line up, I looked over at a few of J’s XC teammates, who had also congregated on the sideline, and said, “Yeah, I’m pretty nervous about this.” “Yeah, we’re nervous too. But he’ll do great. He’s been getting so fast lately.” Then the official called the boys to line up by numerical order. Of course, this is J’s first high school track meet–first indoor track meet, for that matter. In middle school, he ran with kids from his team and so J always had someone who knew him (and knew he had autism) help him line up. But…
