milestones
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Practically Glowing
J has just completed 1 month of running on his own. I call it the “off-season off season.” It’s that time after regular season XC finishes and before the “off season winter running” begins. Because we’ve had an early winter and J’s a better runner, I haven’t been able to trail him with my bike or run a close distance behind him like I have in the past. J’s been running almost every single day after school, on his own, on the XC practice routes that run closest to our house and have the minimum amount of road traffic or intersections. As proud of him as I am, it made…
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16
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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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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This is our life right now
I have a favourite coping strategy and it goes sort of like this: “Give yourself (insert number of days or weeks). This crazy will be over in (that number of days or weeks) and then life will be manageable again and you’ll be able to do get to that list of things you really want to do.” It’s not a good coping strategy. It’s living in survival mode. I feel like a lot of my life is run in a constant rush or whirlwind or copious amounts of stress and I feel like I’m just hanging in there by the skin of my teeth. But sometimes I’m good and I…
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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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This Kid
While going through the MFA program, I wrote about J a lot. J wasn’t my thesis, but he was the topic of my Creative Nonfiction classes. He was eight years old at the time, and I had a lot of subject matter to write about. I wrote about the quirkiness of autism, the feelings of inadequacy I felt being his mother, the small victories we had, the really puzzling aspects of autism to which I had no answers. I didn’t realize it, but often I would refer to J as “that kid, this kid, or the kid.” Someone in workshop picked up on my word choice and asked me, “why…
- autism, Education, family, high school, IEP, milestones, motherhood, siblings and autism, teen years
The four year plan
W is the second child in our family, so it’s really rare (as a parent) to experience something that I haven’t experienced with J. In grade 3, J’s whole class made gingerbread houses before winter break, so I knew that when W hit grade 3, she’d be doing gingerbread houses too. When J started touring with the elementary school choir at the mall and rest homes, I knew when W got to that age, she’d be doing it too. When J graduated from elementary school in a “classic” coming of age ceremony with a field trip to the zoo, followed by a graduation slideshow with cake and lemonade, I knew…
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Looking backward, looking forward
I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, New Year, and holiday! It’s crazy how fast it’s flown by for our family. Years ago, I would be shouting off the rooftops how much I wanted the kids to be back at school, but over the last couple of years, I really need our time together as a family. We need to play together, because my kids are at the age that they don’t have time to play anymore. And we need the time to catch up on that academic stuff (we are ALWAYS learning in this house), especially since this is the first year of high school and there are FINALS…
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The Sound of Music
After the choir concert Thursday night, it was J’s special education teacher that reminded us how far J has come. I needed that reminder, because I came out of that auditorium with a knot of embarrassment in my stomach. I wanted to pull J aside, scold for chewing his mouth raw while standing on stage while the rest of his peers sang all the songs he’d practiced at home and sang with such gusto. I wanted to scold him on the way home in the car for suddenly getting obsessed with his hair onstage, picking at it and combing it with his fingers while the rest of the group stood…
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Reinventing Halloween
Last year was J’s last year as a trick-or-treater. It was kind of a rough realization, at least for me, because after all the years of J struggling with Halloween (because of his autism), all of those years to try to get him to learn all of the social rules and nuances of going to a stranger’s house and saying a random, empty phrase (who ever does a trick for their candy?–and since when is it socially acceptable for a kid to demand candy from a stranger?), all those years of learning that some strangers will let you pick out of the bowl and others will think you’re rude if…
