motherhood
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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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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…
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When Life Will Be Different from Now
In the quick moments we had with my uncle and cousin after our Hawaii trip (they came through from Ontario and stopped for a visit on their way to Vancouver), Steve helped pack W up again for her trip to International Music Camp in the Peace Gardens. IMC was W’s first time at a co-ed camp with kids ranging from middle school to high school. She wanted to go last year, but I was a little nervous. This year I felt more comfortable about it. My Uncle and cousin were out the door at 7am Sunday, and our friends the Wagners graciously picked up W at 8:30 and drove…
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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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Drops in the bucket
It was raining and I had one preschooler to get from the parking lot to the school. The toddler had to come along too, because you can’t leave toddlers in the car by themselves. Toddlers and preschoolers don’t like you when it’s raining and you’re in a hurry. They either lift up their feet and execute very exaggerated, enthusiastic stomps in the middle of a puddle sending water up their legs, pants, diaper, and everyone else in close proximity, (which is you because you’re holding their hand trying to lead them away from all the water hazards in the parking lot), or they stand petrified in the middle of the…
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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…
