siblings and autism
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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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Autism Doesn’t Exist in a Vacuum
There have been very few moments where J and W haven’t shared the same space. They’re 22 months apart, and in the early days, it felt like I had twins. Because of J’s developmental delays and W’s precociousness, they moved in the same sphere. We had teachers and speech therapists in our house weekly, and while the adults struggled to engage J and keep him attentive, W sat at the table, ready to learn, the wheels turning. W attended J’s early intervention preschool as a peer model, pre-screened to meet requirements of academic readiness and the ability to have compassion for children with special needs. She moved around the preschool…
- 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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Real Life Instagram
W is the kid that doesn’t want to miss out on anything. She’s a feisty, spunky, little fighter. She’s competitive, she hates losing or getting bad marks in school. She’s an equal opportunist–that goes from anything like women’s right to making sure everyone in the has the exact same amount cinnamon rolls, slice of cake, etc. (Those cinnamon rolls or slices of cake also have to be exactly equal in size, because if someone gets a slightly bigger share, W’s quick to point it out.) I really can’t tell if she’s naturally inclined to be that way, or it’s her birth circumstances–being the second child (and being the second child…
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A little track family
W wasn’t so sure if she wanted to join track this season. She had reasons. I think the biggest reason was the one she didn’t bring up when we all sat down at dinner and talked about it. J and I had gone to the first practice that afternoon, but W had decided to stay home. I told her that everyone had asked me where she was, and told everyone that she was still thinking about coming out. “I don’t know, I’m busy,” she said. “And I really liked XC. Track just isn’t the same.” (This is coming from the girl who has never tried track before). “You can do both,”…
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Some are born great
This week has been W’s week. W was “crowned” student of the week at her middle school (not really crowned–just a free t-shirt and vouchers for Buffalo Wild Wings), performed in a select orchestra concert Thursday night, and received 1st place in the music composition category in the PTA Reflections contest (again). A trifecta of achievement. The line from Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night came to my mind this week as we bustled through all of W’s events: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” In some ways W falls under all three categories. I’ve always felt like she’s been my miracle baby since day…
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It’s complicated
The drama on Wednesday started when both kids came running into the car in tears. To be honest, it really caught me off guard. The day had gone really well for me—I felt really productive work-wise and the weather was unseasonably mild–and all of a sudden my car is full of two children in their separate meltdowns. Because I was caught off guard, I didn’t handle the situation with much grace. J was in tears because he was stressed out about something—numbers, letters, and/or staying 2 or 3 minutes later than the bell because he wasn’t ready to get out the door and W was upset because all of this…
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Character development
I feel like I’m hitting that phase in parenting where all of a sudden, I’m connecting with my kids on a different, more mature level. Some of it (unfortunately) has been because of what’s been going on in the news lately. I’m finding myself having discussions about words like “groping” and “sexual assault” during afternoon pickup times. Usually it’s not a problem having NPR in the car when I have the kids around, but even as unflashy and unsensational public radio usually is, there’s just no way getting around quotes sometimes used by recent public figures. Most of these types of conversations I’m having are with W. But J was…
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W’s turn
Most of the time my life is consumed with J. I go to bed thinking about J. I wake up thinking about J. In the throws of summer most daytime hours are spent with J. J and I get up and run, we work on math, we work on reading. We talk about managing anxiety outside of meltdowns, I coach him through the anxiety meltdowns as they happen. I’m his one-on-one tutor, psychologist, and coach. Almost every waking minute. All while W floats in the periphery, taking care of herself, spending time reading in her room or outside with the neighbor kids. Sometimes she’s tinkering with Legos, sometimes she writes stories. Since she is so independent,…
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iPhone notes
I have 267 notes currently on my iPhone, including an extensive amount of memos, lists, and observations. There’s random lines of poetry I’m tinkering around with, story ideas, and J notes. Lots of J notes. Notes to track J’s phobias, notes of ideas as to how to approach J’s phobias, new approaches to try with J, my observations of J. This week’s iPhone notes included this little tidbit of new J behavior. We’ve been on vacation for the last week and a half, and we’ve seen the full gamut of behaviors. This one happened at my parent’s house while the kids were trapped inside for most of the time…
