cross-country
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The fragile and complex autism ecosystem
Even when life is predictable and the autism variables are in homeostasis, I’m always looking at ways to make sure the very fragile and complex autism ecosystem is running in optimal form. Because J has been managing his obsessional behavior much better, because XC requires us to be more disciplined in his school and academic responsibilities, because J’s spontaneous expressive language is getting better and better, it’s been easier to see what deficits need a little more work or attention. Because J has been so cooperative with math, French, and other subjects that require daily after school study, I’ve been able to see that a lot of J’s struggles currently lie in his…
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Evolutions and adjustments
Even though we’ve settled into our school routine, there are always those unexpected “bumps” along the way. Those “bumps” aren’t always bad things. Sometimes they’re just added adjustments to the regular routine to make things smoother. Since J’s been going (and participating!) in his team’s XC meets, we’ve had to figure out how to make up for that school time and study time lost while attending meets. We live in Fargo, North Dakota, and do a lot of traveling to nearby small towns for meets (because there’s just not a lot of people who live in North Dakota outside of Fargo!). J’s had meets in Jamestown (which is about 2 hrs by bus there and…
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The Lindenwood meet
When friends or family ask me who’s going to be J’s running partner for the next meet, my answer is, “I don’t know.” I don’t have an answer for them because I try not to drive the coaches too crazy with too many J centred-questions, and thankfully they take my “helicopter mom” persona in stride (I really try hard to keep out of their hair). Each workout and each meet they have been pushing J toward a little more independence and my gut feeling is they really don’t want to set up a runner for him every meet. They had a runner for J in the beginning, but they’ve expressed to me…
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Firsts are hard: Part 2
I really thought J was going to rock that first XC meet. J’s been preparing for this day for an entire year. Last September J started shadowing the XC team, trying to build up his endurance enough so he could at least keep an eye on the next to last runner two blocks ahead of him. J ran almost every day through the entire winter. An entire FARGO winter–winter gear, running cleats, double layers, and even a face mask on some days. J ran through the spring, every day after school with the middle school track team. He built his endurance to four, five, and even reached a six mile run and managed to keep…
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Concussions, autism, and processing
Thursday morning threatened rain. Not just a light drizzle, but a big Midwest rain. The cross country team runs no matter what the weather is and so as we ran out the door that morning for practice, I pulled J’s windbreaker out of the closet along with a baseball cap. I’ve been trying to get J to be okay with running in the rain. He absolutely hates running in the rain. In the rain he runs like the walking dead, arms locked by his side, his shoulders up to his ears. He has sensory issues with wet clothes. He hates rain in his eyes. I thought the wind breaker might keep him drier…
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Running with bean bags
It amazes me sometimes the things that J can do and the things he can’t do. It amazes me that these strengths and deficits permeate into every aspect of his life–socially, mentally, emotionally, and yes physically. Today’s post is about some of the physical deficits J struggles with. Throughout J’s life, J has had physical struggles at fundamental developmental levels and stages. He was a great crawler and subsequent furniture cruiser, but he didn’t have enough guts to let go of the furniture and take steps on his own until he was 14 months old (most kids start walking at 12 months). He was a great breast feeder, bottle feeder,…
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Full Catastrophe Living
The turn of events this week are all because of one teeny tiny mistake. I thought J would picture this week in the exact same way as I pictured this week. I do this sometimes. I remove me and J from the world for a little bit, we work hard on hard things together, and then I expect us to end up at some better place I’ve created in my mind. I’m not shooting for the stars or anything. Just a small, positive change. One step forward instead of three steps back. That’s all. No Disney inspirational movie making plot here. I’m just looking for baby step progress. This is how I saw this week and…
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Little Changes and a Step Closer to Empathy
Fall is in full force here in Fargo. J insists that our fridge is stocked with chilled cider and that every morning starts with hot chocolate chip muffins. He has set ideas about these things. I insist that J looks for the changes in the trees as we walk to the high school for XC practice. Fall is by far the best reminder for me that little changes happen every day. The way that the tops of a maple catch crimson one day and in a few more days the fiery red has spread to the next tier of branches and then the next week a new tier catches fire.…
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Today’s Victory
J has been “shadowing” the high school cross-country team and tonight marks J’s fourth cross-country practice. I can’t shout louder from the rooftops how proud I am of how hard he’s been working. It’s been a hard week. A lot of learning curves. But he keeps going back, and the high school kids are so great with him. The coaches are so willing to work with us. And he ran the best he’s ever had so far today. Today, he actually said, “no breaks now mom, I want to make it to the next (traffic light, stop sign, road sign, etc) without stopping.” Who’d have ever thought that J would love to run? We started…
