autism
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Ohana means family
Every two years, Steve’s family has been trying to do a “destination family reunion” where Steve’s four other siblings, their families, and my mother-in-law all meet up somewhere and share part of the summer holiday as a family. This time everyone wanted to hold the reunion in Hawaii and it was an exhausting, exhilarating, and lovely time. It was kind of a big deal too. Big meaning the travel out to Hawaii was quite the adventure. Our family got out the door by 8:17 am July 12, drove up to Winnipeg, caught a 2:30 flight from Winnipeg to Vancouver, and then flew out of Vancouver at 6:10 and arrived at 10:30…
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Reality VS Perception
One of my professor friends posted this picture on facebook the other day with the caption: “For my friends in academe.” Every teacher I know feels the same way about the summer “decline.” Once the fourth of July comes around it seems like the first day of school is around the corner, which means all of my grand ideas for working with J hit a reality check. I realize that I haven’t come even close to doing all of the “catch up” things I’ve planned with him. This time around, I haven’t been close to even starting half of the things on my list: summer running, J’s weight training…
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A Mr Rogers Intervention
Thursday night at 7:30 the Beck family picked up a pepperoni pizza at Little Caesars after the late matinee showing of the Mr. Rogers Documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? I’ll get back to the movie in a moment. It’s important to talk about the 7:30 incident in the Little Caesar’s parking lot first. For some reason, Steve and I had forgotten past incidents of the bewitching hour—when J’s blood sugar is low and hangry levels are high, but being the imperfect parents that we are, we did. In fact, not only did we forget about the bewitching hour, but we decided to make an extra trip to Barnes…
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Family is family no matter where you are
For my entire life, I’ve had to travel long distances to see my extended family. At one point, my closest cousins lived in Calgary, Alberta, a three hour drive from my family’s house in Edmonton. In the early 1990s, however, they moved to Lethbridge, a six hour drive from Edmonton–but still much closer than the two day’s drive across Canada to see the rest of my cousins and grandparents. Then, in the mid 1990s, my parents, sister, and I moved to the States. Now we’re all grown up we’re even more scattered. I have cousins in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and England. My parents live in Colorado, my…
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On Re-Finding Your People
Tuesday afternoons I sit in the visual therapy waiting room and watch moms give their son or daughter a quick shower of encouragement before their child goes back with their therapist. Almost always there is a sigh of momentary relief. Sometimes they’re alone and they pull out their book or phone and have a peaceful 45 minutes to themselves. Sometimes they’re multi-tasking their book or phone with their other children in the waiting room. Sometimes they’re out the door again to pick up their other children from an activity and ten minutes later they’re back again with another child in tow. It wasn’t until J gave me a very enthusiastic,…
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A New Label
J’s met with a lot of new people this month–a new orthopedic doctor, new trainers in his weight training class, new therapists at the eye doctor. And in almost every conversation he’s had, one of the first things out of J’s mouth? “I’m a runner.” J has never identified himself with another label besides his name, so to hear him describe himself in a conversation as a runner? I was shocked, and elated, and little emotional. It’s been amazing to see J’s growth both emotionally and physically with this running journey. It’s like every few months, he becomes a new kid. And once again, this week, I got to…
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Making Peace with the Body You’ve Got
Maybe it’s my autism parenting experience, maybe it’s my own personal journey, maybe it’s my years of people watching, but I am thoroughly convinced that every single person, regardless of age or gender, has a continuous personal battle to make peace with they body they’ve got. I am 100% confident if I asked everyone I knew the question, “If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be?” every single person would be able to come up with an answer. Height, weight, hair colour, eye colour, physical features like noses and ears and toes and fingers, that sagging mommy pouch you tuck into your pants–I know every…
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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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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…
