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A 1st grade graduation present

June 23, 2012 By 3 Comments

Yes, I still have to finish the much-belated-long-awaited post about Ash’s birthday party.  Ditto for my medical update, and the bit about his CSE meeting, and, well, a bunch of other stuff.  The thing is, I’m trying to pack, and those updates take longer than I really aught to spend right now.  Trust me, packing isn’t what I’d rather be doing, context aside.  So, in the meantime, you get another quicky post.  It’s a quicky post about my big boy….seven years old, with his 8th tooth wiggly (he wants it to come out NOW so we can warn the Tooth Fairy about the move), and 2nd grade on the horizon in a whole new school.  My big boy, who mastered buttons (before snaps?!), who has started eating peanut butter sandwiches (and who will consume an entire apple, as long as it is cut into four pieces — they can be any shape, but it has to be four), and who thinks it’s silly that I can’t always remember that the puzzle he won at his school carnival has a shape technically called a stellated rhombic dodecahedron.  My big boy, who in the middle of all this chaotic limbo has grown into wanting to sleep with his knight light on, and wanting me to snuggle him to sleep in his castle bed in the first place, “For comfort.”

Did you catch the bit about how he’s moving on to the 2nd grade?  Good, because that’s the context of this post.  Ash did it!  He graduated from another grade, while in an integrated program, in the first try, for the second time!  I am so proud of him!!  And, because I have friends that are lovable dorks and who notice my inquiries to other friends into the existence of coupons which would help me get him certain things as a graduation present, sometimes those graduation presents actually come from someone else.  Someone else who needs to be tackled by the child they blame their impulse on.  *cough*

Ash opens the box.  Not so long ago, he might have had trouble getting to that point before he had finished examining the box.

Ash checks out his new dragon.  He likes that it’s so soft, as well as that it’s shiny and green with glittery gold parts.

Ash notices the strap-on wings.  Build-a-Bear probably did things that way because most of their animals get dressed in little outfits, but since we’re us, Ash learned the word ‘prosthetic’.  Of course, he immediately thought that we should bring his new dragon to the zoo to show the prosthetic wings to the zookeepers and suggest something similar for the one-winged birds that they take care of.  If they are unconvinced, he will make them watch the How To Train Your Dragon movie with him, where, of course, another dragon flies again with the help of a prosthetic half-tail.

Ash is pretty proud of his idea.

Now Ash wants to know about the pendant-style tag on a gold cord around the dragon’s neck.  The tag notes that this is a limited edition critter in honor of The Year of the Dragon, (and features what Steffan would like to note is a horrible rendition of even the simplified form of the Chinese character for ‘dragon’).  I explain.  Ash points out — oh, I’m so proud! — that this does not look like a Chinese dragon, and wants to know if perhaps the explanation was that it was adopted by a Chinese dragon family.

Ash reassures his new dragon that this is the last time he will have to be adopted, because now he is part of OUR family.

Ash is pleased to get confirmation of this notion from both Mommy and Daddy.

“And you will help the rest of my dragon family guard my castle at night so I can be safe to go on dream dates with Mommy.”

It occurs to Ash to ask whether I have to pack up his dragons for the move yet, or if they can continue guarding his castle.

Oh.  Oh, it’s ok.

Whew!  That’s a relief.

He wasn’t so sure about that.

Now that we’re all feeling secure, Ash decides it’s time to name his new dragon.

“The first part of your name is like your color, and I think the last part is “full” because you are full of shiny green….your name is GREENFUL!”

Ash thinks it’s pretty darn cool that he got Greenful BECAUSE HE GRADUATED FROM 1ST GRADE.

It’s also worth giggling over.  Of course, pretty much everything is worth giggling over.

Ash shortly discovers that Greenful doesn’t just like to cuddle and giggle and prove that he can fly, but that he also likes to fly INTO people and gently bonk their heads with his own, just like he used to as a baby, as a way of introducing himself.  Greenful earns the nickname “Bonk”….not bad for someone who has been hanging out with us for less than an hour.

Attempts are made at two-way flight patterns for Bonk.

But for some reason, Bonk prefers flying at Ash.

Ok, this time he’s ready and waiting for it.

GOTCHA!!!

Welcome to the family, Greenful aka Bonk.  You’ll find lots of love here.  Thank you, Steve, for sending him to us….at Ollie’s insistence or otherwise. ;-)

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Easter 2012

April 12, 2012 By 2 Comments

Last year Easter was ON Ash’s birthday, and Steffan still wasn’t allowed to take the day off.  I had staged an egg hunt in the living room (see photo HERE), and that was about that, for what we could do for the holiday.  This year, Steffan has a boss that tries harder to remember — and accommodate — the fact that my husband is a person with a life and a family, and not just a hard worker in a cruddy job.  (♪♫ And the choirs of angels sing! ♫♪)  Despite the fact that April currently has more events, occasions, appointments and meetings than days, Steffan has had his work schedule arranged in a dysfunctional way that actually allows him to have the time off he needs for them, instead of a dysfunctional way that doesn’t.  This is a considerable relief, as well as cause for celebration!!  (I mean, Steffan even manages to have a day off for the family birthday party, for Ash’s actual birthday, AND for Ash’s birthday party!)  And after a day when Ash had a show to do, followed by an Endocrinologist appointment for me, followed by a doctor’s appointment for him….following a day when a doctor’s appointment for him was followed by a Rheumatologist appointment for me and then his show….a day off together that was only being spent on Easter, was going to come as a celebratory relief anyway!

There was another photo in which Ash's new hat wasn't falling over his eyes, but he happened to have his arms outstretched in a "Ta Da" gesture, and it looked like he was trying to crucify himself. Just....no.

Steffan is Cathoic, so Easter Sunday started with church.  Now, normally if Ash and I accompany Steffan to church, it’s to a special GLBT & Friends mass held in the evening.  That mass has the benefit of being smaller, being quieter, being more personal and informal, and being entirely comprised of people that are so happy we’re willing to let them get to know our son, and let him get to know them, that they are more than happy to be extra understanding of his special needs.  (It’s quite sad that that’s the way it is….but that’s the way it has been.)  This, though….this was a standing-room-only, 9am Easter Morning, gospel-style mass.  Honestly, Ash held up pretty well.  It might actually have helped that, with nowhere else to fit, we ended up being herded into the front pew, where few people automatically go no matter how friendly the church.  Being in the front put us closer to the loud music, but it did allow him to watch the amusing antics of the man at the piano, as well as randomly get smiled, winked and waved at by the Pastor, as well as a member of the choir that knew us.

I have to say, too, that I am ever impressed by this church.  I mean, it’s not every Roman Catholic church that a spiritually eclectic woman can show up at on a High Holy Day, and not feel offended by or at least uncomfortable with a regrettable chunk of the proceedings.  I mean, the Pastor is such an avid and outspoken supporter of….well, the same kinds of things we are….that we sometimes find ourselves wondering how he has managed to not get stomped on by Vatican hierarchy, yet.  Eniways, there were only two bits that made me twitch a little, instead of cheer.  One was a direct bit of required liturgy straight from Paul, in which the Jewish tradition of Passover was used as a metaphor for purging yourself of the sinfulness of Judaism.  Paul’s so good at that kind of thing.  The other was a line from the homily in which it was noted that eggs have been a symbol of Easter for hundreds of years, and went on from there….but the part of me that knows about things like “pagan” traditions older than Christianity, and Eostre, and eggs coming into things as a fertility springtime symbol….well, it got a bit fidgety, and wished that among the many religions the Pastor made a point of including in his goodwill, he’d thought to include those “New Age” ones that are actually really, really Old Age.  Ahh well.  It’s a learning process, at at least his mind is far more open to lessons, than most.

Overall, since Ash handled things well, it turned out to be an enjoyable Mass.  One cute moment thrown in was when the Pastor surprised a child congregant with a 4th birthday cake, and having everyone sing the birthday song to him.  (He also snuck over to Ash afterwards, and whispered to him about how he knew HIS birthday was coming up soon, too, and he hoped to be able to do something to celebrate it.  As it happens, our annual mass family birthday party thing is this coming Sunday, which is also the GLBT & Friends Anniversary Mass, so the Pastor, as well as some of our friends from that, are probably going to stop by the party on the way there.)  Another highlight was watching the baby who got Baptized — a baby who looooooooved bathtime, and considered water dribbled on his head to be close enough to provoke a lot of giddy arm-waving, drooling grins, and hiccupy giggles….also a baby who apparently passes out cold, mid-giggle, several seconds after bathtime is over.  ;-)   It was pretty adorable.  And of course, Ash loved getting to wear his own special outfit that let him be dressed-up like the grown-ups.  Steffan and I both wore burgundy-and-black-based dressy stuff, so that we’d match Ash, and we drew a lot of attention that Ash quite enjoyed.

There was an egg hunt for the kids after the Mass, but it just involved some eggs scattered loosely over a small patch of lawn, and by the time we’d spent a few minutes taking the pictures Ash wanted, all the eggs had been collected.  Excess candy was offered to us for Ash, but it’s not really a candy thing for him, it’s an issue of the fun of the hunt, so we thanked them and told both them and him that I’d just give him an Easter Egg hunt in our yard.  He wanted to change into a bunny for the egg hunt anyway.

I didn't get around to making face paints, so I just used some of my eyeliner to give him a bunny nose and whiskers. His re-used froggy Easter basket was still waiting, full of things like filled eggs, so we just did the hunt with empty eggs I had left over, glued together from broken ones, and a basket that the parent of another child in his class, had given out.

Doing the egg hunt in the front yard worked out rather well.  We got through one round of him finding the eggs after I hid them, and then N- the neighbor’s boy, and a young cousin of his, noticed us and came over.  Ash showed them the basket of eggs he had found, and they decided to get involved.  We spent the next hour or go getting into switched-up teams, and taking turns hiding the eggs and finding them, in different combinations.  Ash was re-introduced to the game of “Hot / Cold” during this activity.  Now, our front yard does not make for a very challenging egg hunt despite the need for mowing (and our back yard still has piles of deer droppings all over it), but everyone had a good time anyway.  In fact, N- later whispered to me, “You know, I did not think it would be so much fun to play the Easter Egg Hunt game.  I was just doing to to be nice to Ash.  But actually, it was a lot of fun!  I had a really good time doing that.”  Of course, as the mommy of a sensory kid, I also have to note with pride that Ash kept those ears-on-a-headband and that almost-face-paint on, the whole time.

He's just as giggly as a bunny as he is as a boy.

Ash's method of hiding eggs is to toss them around randomly. Then even he doesn't know where they are. ;-)

After we’d used up our steam for finding eggs, N- and his cousin wanted to know if Ash would like to come to the park with them and play “soccer” — which really meant taking turns trying to show off how far they could kick or throw a soccer ball.  That itself was amusing because N- in particular wanted to show off for Ash, but N- has only a smidge more athletic prowess than Ash does….and Ash doesn’t really have any.  Still, it all worked out well enough for them.  N- and his cousin were eventually ready to move on from there to the playground, still with Ash, but Ash was wearing out between his continued recovery and the excitement of the day, so I thanked them and excused us, so I could take him home to rest for a bit.

"Daddy, wake up! I'm pretending to be the Easter Bunny and I found and hid and found all the eggs, so now you have to see what I gave me!"

Easter goodies left under the Easter card that Ash had made the Easter Bunny.

After a bit of a breather, it was finally time to discover what the Easter Bunny had left him.  I’d covered the area with a blanket, earlier, because I knew if he got distracted by it before church, things would not go smoothly.  When the great unveiling occurred, Ash found that under the card that he’d made for the Easter Bunny (and mind you, I had just suggested making an Easter picture….it was Ash’s idea that it was meant to be a card to be left for the Easter Bunny — we’d never put much fuel into the EB myth, but he’d picked it up at school), was left a bunch of goodies for him.  The EB had filled his old froggy Easter basket that we’d left out.  There were Easter/Spring-y pencils, since he enjoys choosing between thematic pencils whenever he does his homework.  There were two brother-bunnies, both small and soft and otherwise identical, but one with blue fur, one with purple fur.  The EB must’ve heard about his interest in matching up his stuffed animals into likely genetic as well as emotional families.  There were a few shiny plastic eggs, one filled with a few sour-sugar-covered jellybeans to try (in a tiny ziplock bag, so they wouldn’t spill all over the floor when he opened the egg), one filled with a new red wiggle worm to replace the one that broke, and the rest filled with animal stickers of that variety where if you tilt them, the picture changes.  Ash can’t get enough of looking at animals, after all.  There were 3 small chocolate bunnies (he gets to eat half of one of them, if he first eats a significant quantity of something healthy he doesn’t normally consume a significant quantity of).  There was also one of those gel-and-air-filled sensory fidget squishies, shaped like a yellow chick, that had an LED ball inside it that flashes colors for 15 seconds or so, after you whack it.

There was also a DVD of “Pete’s Dragon” from our friend Jessica.  On top of that sat this year’s traditional bunny, which actually looks a bit like it might be the baby of the bunny featured in that linked post.  There was also a fabric flower with a bendy-stem, from us.  I’d thought of getting him a blue flower mylar balloon for Easter, since he enjoys them so much.  I’d also thought of getting him some manner of blue flower, for his school performance.  Since I didn’t have the opportunity to get that far, I reconsidered the balloon plan, and decided to get this sort of blue flower, for Easter, instead.  Now it can be a (somewhat) permanent prop for his imagination play — whether he’s acting out a more elaborate story in which a flower is featured somewhere, reflecting on the number of times he’s come across a reference that people often give flowers as a token of affection, or merely pretending that he can smell flowers.

This is the Easter card that he made the Easter Bunny.

Oooh....all kinds of good stuff in there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can't see it in-frame, but Ash is holding up the DVD triumphantly.

Ash is "smelling" his flower. Just take his word for it.

Those stickers are pretty cool, and it hasn't even factored in yet that they are stickers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The chick glows!

The chick's head kind of goes BLORP, when squeezed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magic Wiggle Worms. $6 at the zoo gift shop, $1 at DollarTree.

After a while of playing with his new things — by the way, the chick is no longer capable of going BLORP, although it does still light up — Ash settled down to watch Pete’s Dragon, while Steffan made ham for dinner.  Specifically, pieces of ham were grilled up in a base of orange juice and cinnamon.  Ash likes ham, but has never had it coated with anything before.  He ate it anyway!

Under all of the circumstances, he was allowed half a chocolate bunny for dessert. He kept making it hop to his mouth. Gee, and as a kid, I wasn't sure which made me feel worse....going straight for the head, or torturing it by eating up from the feet.

And that, my friends, was Easter.  Well, aside from the bit where the evening before, Ash dyed eggs for the first time…!

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A few moments from Steffan’s birthday

March 31, 2012 By 1 Comment

I wish that inflatable walled trampoline bouncers sized for living spaces, were more durable. This one had the walls completely inflated the night before, but in burning off birthday party energy, Ash had already deflated half the thing, a few hours into the event.

Ash practices blowing the noise-maker that will eventually be embedded into the mouthpiece of the fake horn/bugle prop I’m making for him for his show.  If he doesn’t hold on tightly to it, it goes flying through the air when he blows it.  He finds the projectile quality hilarious, I’ll grant you.

Ash hugging Daddy after singing him the birthday song an extra, early time, because he just couldn’t wait.  By the way, Ash wore that green shirt on his Daddy’s birthday, because his Daddy’s favorite color is green.

Steffan sits, watching and listening to Ash.  That’s the new hat he got recently, by the way.  I mention it because…

…this was Ash on the day that Steffan got the new hat (to replace a different one that has served its time keeping the sun out of his eyes).  A new hat for Daddy means a new hat for Ash to try to appropriate.  That’s just how these things work.  Ash doesn’t necessarily….ok, ever….succeed in truly appropriating Daddy’s hats for himself, of course, but you can’t say the efforts aren’t cute!  He knows it, too.  Of course he does.

Steffan is already wearing the shirt I made for him (because I do that kind of thing), and had given to him that morning.

It’s perfect for him, if you know him.  He gets a lot of grief — not from me — for his inner Don Quixote.

Of course, a shirt designed by me still isn’t as awesome as a shirt made with a picture Ash drew for him.  More awesome yet?  A Daddy who has no qualms with wearing it around publicly.  I don’t have a picture of that yet, but Steffan has done it a few times, so long as it wasn’t to work or somewhere else likely to destroy it almost immediately.

Everyone together now:  “AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW…!”

"Um, how old am I?" asked Steffan. "33 today, last I checked," I said, "The extra candle is for wishing on, remember?" "Well yes, but....um....I don't think you should try decorating cakes while Ash is having a hard time, even if I'm trying to handle him myself so that you can finished the cake you don't have enough time for," said Steffan. Whoops.

 

The cake, mostly fixed (nevermind that it should be 33rd, not 33nd like it was 32nd), and also later on after the removal of all the candles. Oh well.

The design was based on a snow leopard photo that Steffan loves.  Sort of.  Except for the bit where I was rush-improvising the cake decorating, because Steffan fell asleep on top of me on the couch from 9pm to 3am the night before….a time slot during which I might otherwise have made the cake long before his parents showed up.

Also?  I think we’re getting to that point where we need to start using the number-shaped candles.

Decorating snaffoo aside, everyone loved the cake. Even Ash tried some.

Ash still has trouble using forks.  He’d get a few flakes of cake stuck to his, largely by merit of frosting, and taste that.

Maybe if I pick up the cake and stick it ONTO the fork, instead of trying to stick the fork into IT?

Ahh, screw it.

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A landmark birthday party invitation for my autistic son

March 20, 2012 By 1 Comment

"Come ON, Daddy! You need to put your shoes on so you can drive me to the birthday party. I'm holding the present by myself, and I'm READY to GO NOW." ---- And yes, after this point, at the last moment, he remembered that he didn't want to wear his usual blue after all, but the shirt I'd made him for the day before.

Sure, this past Saturday was St.Paddy’s Day.  Even once the dregs of his Leprechaun Fizz were flat, though, the excitement wasn’t going to be over for Ash.  On Sunday, he had a birthday party to go to.  This would be his 6th peer birthday party invite ever, and the 5th he’d been able to accept.  (The first invite was from an NT kid and given to his whole Kindergarten class, but it was only the second week of school or something like that, and we didn’t have enough warning to arrange for Steffan to be off, so we could get him there.  I’d attempted to make some replacement plans for Ash and that boy, later, but the other parents weren’t as interested in follow-through as we were.  The 2nd (not-quite-NT) and 3rd (NT) birthday parties, which also were open to his whole Kindergarten class, I wrote about.  The 3rd birthday party (definitely not NT….in fact, almost all children there had ASD) I don’t think I ever got to writing about, but in any event it was for a boy from his summer class, and was HUGE….everyone from the summer program, and everyone in a local Autism group that they are a part of.  In contrast, the 4th birthday party (not NT), also over the summer but belonging to his best buddy from Kindergarten, was tiny….he was the only school friend invited to that one.)  Well eniways, this was also the first birthday party he’d been invited to, this school year.  I have no idea if there were others that he was excluded from.  I was just really, reaaaaally glad that he finally got invited to one again.  The reason I refer to is as a kind of landmark birthday party invitation, is that it is the first time he has been to invited to the birthday party of the same person, two years in a row.  Ok, sure, once again the whole class was invited, and A- happens to be in his class again, but still  Context might be everything, but sometimes, everything isn’t the point.

This was to be yet another bounce house party, at yet another different bounce house place, so I wasn’t sure whether to get my hopes up — or not — about the format.  A lot might ride on however good Ash’s motor planning happened to be that evening.  As it happened, this place featured equipment which was all designed to be a bit more entertaining (not that Ash requires more than an opportunity to bounce, period, to be entertained) than a plain square floor with mesh walls, but none of which involved anything that required you to be able to climb up a ladder comprised of wobbly, shallow, inflatable ridges for steps, and occasional loops of strapping for hand-grips….WHEW!

Actually, the whole thing went remarkably well.  We arrived only a few seconds after the birthday girl did, and as soon as she saw Ash get out of the car, she started calling his name excitedly, and running to hug him.  He gave her the present and she was as bouncy and grin-split as he was, loudly squee-ing to him and to her parents and grandma and to the world at large that it was so wonderful that he had come, and look, he’d come to her birthday party and he’d brought her a present and he was the best friend ever!

D’awww.

Want to see my kid happy?  See my kid feeling appreciated.

I wish I’d gotten a photo of that first ecstatic hug, but I was still maneuvering myself out of the car.

Oddly enough — and much to the confusion of the birthday girl and her family — Ash was one of only 4 kids that were friends with A- (not counting assorted peer-aged relatives and children of family friends), that showed up.  (He was also the only non-NT kid there.)  One, D’M- was a girl that was best buddies with A- in Kindergarten but is in a different school this year, and has barely seen her.  The other two are classmates of A- and Ash this year.  One of those, W-,  hadn’t RSVP’d (well, his parents hadn’t), and his dad had just dropped him off and vanished, so I had to tell A-’s mom who the heck he was.  Some were wondering if Ash had a brother they didn’t know about, and we’d just brought him along and thrown him into the fray automatically, pretty much just because they didn’t have any other context for him, and W- and Ash were the only “white” children there.  ::shakes head::  Eniways, I don’t know if more had RSVP’d that they were coming and just didn’t, or if even the response was just that poor, but I did feel a bit bad for A-.  Her grandma was going, “I don’t understand.  Everyone likes her.  It’s a bounce house birthday party!  Who doesn’t come to a bounce house birthday party, unless they REALLY don’t like the person?  Hell, at their age, I’d have gone to the birthday party of someone I didn’t like at all, if it was at a bounce house.”  I suggested that a factor might have been the fact that it was on a Sunday evening, before a school day.  That made her feel a bit better, although it didn’t make me feel better, since the day that Steffan was able to arrange off work for Ash’s hoped-for party, is a Sunday before a school day.  We can aim for doing it earlier in the afternoon, but still.  Plus, his social status is a bit more dubious than A-’s.  Plus, while I’m the sort of person that thinks the kind of homemade birthday party he wants is pretty damn cool, I don’t know if it’s as take-it-for-granted-cool as a venue-based bounce house party (which are all the rage).  Well, I suppose it’s not as if we weren’t putting a lot of prayers into lots of kids coming, ANYWAY.  Heh.  Steffan fears we’ll get our wish about the turn-out, only to NOT get our wish about the weather.  That would be a problem, although really, inhospitable park weather would be a problem no matter what the turn-out was.

A- and Ash goofing off together, near the end of the party. They were taking turns tickle-poking each other. Yep, they are the same age, she's just got a really tall Daddy. Also, Ash is not exactly tall, himself....but mostly, A- is just big.

Back to brighter thoughts.  The party really went rather well, for Ash!  He got along and played well with everyone there.

A-, as noted, was quite happy that he was in attendance.  She’s always been a good egg, and she’s got an exuberant personality similar to Ash’s….almost always with a big grin, a mischievous giggle, and ready to start jumping up and down and dancing because something good has happened to ANYONE.  Actually, she’s one of the kids that Ash’s teachers try to make sure sits near him in class, whenever they rearrange everyone’s desk assignment but Ash’s — thankfully, they agreed that moving him would be asking for some regressions on behalf of his motor planning, in terms of navigating himself efficiently between the places he needs to go — because she’s one of the NT kids that doesn’t get as frustrated if he starts losing control and stimming.  We like what we know of her parents, too.  For two years now, they were the other set of parents that were consistently involved in school stuff.  They are also the other set of parents that tries to be considerate and think about the staff and other parents….bringing food for more than just themselves, taking pictures of more than just their own child, etc.

D'M- might've needed confirmation that she did in fact remember Ash, but I think some part of her remembered having a thing for him, because she spent more time during the party focused on playing with him, than with A- or simply playing in general.

D’M- had been one of the little girls who was an especially great helper-friend to Ash last year.  She was a sweet little thing who always had a smile and a hug (for me, too) and a helping hand, and quite a number of pictures came home in his backpack, that she’d drawn for him.  In fact, she was definitely in the yell-his-name-excitedly-and-run-to-hug-him camp.  It was funny….I guess she has a pretty typical little kid memory without about a one-year attention span unless given reminders, because she ran up to me and said, “Hi!!  I….I think I know your son!”  I caught myself before saying, “Yes, sweetie, you do.  In fact, you sort of had a crush on him in Kindergarten.”  Heehee.  I just told her that, yes, she did — he had been in her Kindergarten class last year, just like A-, and they had been friends in school.  She was one of the kids I wish he’d been able to have a friendship with outside of school, too, and continue into this year.  Oh sure, they are approaching the age where you start to wish the best friends they already had were the same gender as they are, because cooties are on the horizon, waiting to leave at least one kid in any given social group in confused tears over why someone doesn’t want to be their friend any more, and why they are suddenly supposed to be gross.  Still, while I’m not exactly against Ash developing what friendships he can with other boys, I am not going to feel any less warmly about little girls he gets along so well with.  D’M- wasn’t at Ash’s reading level, though she was one of the better readers in Kindergarten, but she did, like Ash, love to read….so they were well-matched playmates in that, if Ash needed a break from playing together, they’d both be happy just taking a breathing and sitting quietly, reading together.

K-, in purple, was one of a number of children all piled in a giggly, wiggly mess, on this car. More specifically, on Ash, who was glomped in the bottom of the car. They'd all been running amuk together, W- included, but W- kept running, and the little girls all pounced Ash.

K- was the other little girl from the 1st grade class, who was there.  (You’ve seen her before, in the “Scary Devil vs. Friendly Dragon” captioned photo in my Halloween post.)  So far as I know, she’s always gotten along well enough with Ash, but I’ve reflexively been more on guard about her.  She strikes me as paying more attention to his differences, and actively deciding to not yet be bothered by them.  Part of it is that her personality tends towards wanting to be the leader of the pack, and Ash does not make for a follower that always does what is expected or asked of him.  I don’t know if she’s one of the kids that tattle-complains when his stimming annoys the other students in class.  One day when we brought him to school late because of a doctor’s appointment, she was signing in at the office at the same time, and volunteered to walk to class with him.  She took his hand and did so as we trailed, although then she, overlooking him, turned to ME to say, “Boy, he sure does like holding my hand.”  I think, perhaps, that she’s interested in and generally accepting of him, but at the same time takes for granted that adult intervention is a necessary element of the relationship.  I’m not sure whether that is because she has figured out what for her is the best way of bridging their gaps, based on how things work at school….or because she underestimates what he is at least sometimes able to do/say for himself….or some combination thereof.  I was fairly impressed/relieved when, during the party, Ash ran up to me to tell me that K- wanted to tell me something.  I found her, and she let me know that at one point when a bunch of them were playing in one of the bounce-houses, they were trying to move through one area, but Ash — who either was already flopped over in that spot when the other kids were coming through without him, or who perhaps fell over in that spot while moving along with them….I’m not sure on that point — wouldn’t get up and move when they asked him to.  I asked her if it was really a big deal.  She said no, she just wanted to know why he didn’t listen.  I told her that sometimes, if there is a lot going on, he had a hard time seeing and hearing and getting his body to move the way he wants it to, and he just needs some extra time to filter out all the craziness around him, and focus on what he is trying to do.  She said, “Ok,”, shrugged with a smile, and ran off again.  Ok, so it would’ve been better if she had handled that directly….but still, all things considered, I think it was handled pretty well.

W- and Ash took turns with their own private deviation from the games of chase going on at large, playing "Monster" -- one would simply be the monster and shout, "Raaaar!" while chasing (or dramatically catching) the other. Here, Ash holds off the very scary W-Monster.

W- is the other boy from class, who was there.  I know Ash likes him about as well as anyone else, but I have never witnessed or heard about anything to suggest that W- shows any distinct interest in him.   Well, whether it was just because Ash was the only already-known boy there or not, W- was plenty interested in him, at the party.  Like D’M-, W- would keep shifting from playing with the group at large, to playing a slightly more private version of the same kind of thing, just with Ash.  It was nice to see.

Most of the time, the kids played a vague game of tag, regularly losing track of the fact that one of them was supposed to be "It" and simply running through and over the equipment, together.

So….yeah, it went rather well.  Ash was actively included in all the group play.  (Occasionally, one of the kids would ask me to remind Ash that it was his turn to chase them.  With all the kids running in so many directions, and diving into different bounce houses and such, he sometimes lost track of what he was doing and just detoured off to bounce in whatever was closest to him.  The calls-out-to-him of his friends would blend in with the noise around him in general, but I, outside the game of tag, could fearlessly go to him to get his attention, and get him back on track.  About half the time, it was K- trying to cue his role in the activities, but then, she was doing that to everyone, to an extent.)  D’M- and W- would each play with him on their own, even if there was group play going on.  There was a lot of tag, and simply running about, and bouncing, and collapsing giggle-heaps, and tickling.  There was nothing in which it was expected that you were going to follow a specific path of movement, or a specific plotline, which were the things in which Ash, at previous bounce house chaos parties, had had more trouble keeping up with his peers.  In fact, the only time Ash was really left in the lurch at all was when it was time to eat, and the table — which wasn’t big enough for the number of people there, and which was packed mostly with relations of A- that Ash didn’t know — was filled up before he ever managed to find a seat near his friends.  He did get a seat at the end of the table, but you know, it’s not quite like hearing, “Ash!  Sit here by me!”  Ahh well.  There was pizza.  Pizza makes everything better.  There were also chicken wings, and Ash actually tried one.  It was lightly glazed with a mildly spicy, unidentifiable flavoring.  It was his first chicken wing.  We told him it was chicken.  Slightly later, after hearing a crunch, it occurred to us to tell him about the bones inside.

A mini-cousin of A- leads Ash to the water fountain, when he just couldn't seem to navigate himself to it.

Ash did ask to go home a few times, but that was just because he was overheated.  Most of the kids were….the temperature was almost 80°F that day, the kids were AT A BIRTHDAY PARTY IN A BOUNCE HOUSE PLACE, and there were no fans going.  As soon as we’d get him to sit with us for a minute or two and cool off, and have a drink, he’d be more than happy to stay.  After all, you can’t leave a birthday party until you’ve sung the birthday song before a candle is blown out on a cake, and all that!

No one got into trouble with the owners of the bounce house, or with anyone else.  Ash made the mistake of thinking the giant inflatable basketball court could be climbed on like everything else in the place, especially since it was rather long, the basket was waaaay down there, and the provided ball was a dinky thing and not even an especially standard-sized or aerodynamic basketball….but the owners only had to tell him once, and really, I think it was their mistake because there was no sign or anything to indicate that the one piece of equipment, for no particular reason, had to be treated more delicately than the rest.  Oh, there were the usual, bunch-of-little-kids-in-a-bounce-house mishaps, generally recovered from in several seconds.  Someone got fallen on.  Someone got knocked into and then bumped themselves.  Someone didn’t move out of the way fast enough.  Someone lost track of whose turn it was to be “It” in tag.  Nothing of particular note, though.  I had one of those mental close-calls when, at one point, D’M- came up to me and started ranting about how HE had done THIS and HE had done THAT and HE had DONE THAT AGAIN and SAID THIS, TOO and SHE HAD DECIDED THAT SHE DID NOT LIKE HIM.  Then she actually took a moment to breathe, and told me she was talking about W-.  Not Ash, W-.  Whew!

Steffan has mild Agoraphobia (his mother and one of his aunts have it much worse), so as tends to be the way of things when we take Ash to a birthday party together, he was on active duty keeping an eye on Ash from somewhere as out-of-the-way as he could be while keeping an eye on him….while I pretended I’m less ouchy and more extroverted than I am, and boinged all over the place between actually being with my husband, doing whatever Ash specifically wanted and needed Mommy for, being my typical, kid-whisperer self and having every kid in the place constantly running up to me trying to tell me things, ask me things, and/or involve me in things, and being the social person with the other adults, because ONE of us has to do it, and it’s easier for me than for Steffan.

That lead to a few other amusing interactions.  At one point A-’s grandma asked me where my husband had gotten to, and I told her he was over there, talking with D’M-’s  mom about the school D’M- had transferred to.  “You ok with that?” she asked me, “Because I got your back, honey.”  Hahahaa…..ohhh, SO not an issue. I get along well with A-’s grandma.  “Why didn’t y’all come to our party last summer?” she asked me, “I told you at A-’s birthday party last year that we were gonna have a pool party later in the summer, and you all aught to come!  We love you guys!”  Umm….yes, I remember her telling me that, but we never got invited.  “Pshhhh….Don’t you go trusting my daughter to remember to call people.  You give me your phone number right now, honey, and I’ll be sure to let you know whenever we’re doing something, and we can get the babies together, and you and me can hang out.  A- just LOVES Ash.  Every time she see him, she get a big ol’ grin on her face, and want to hug him.  He is so damn cute.  If I didn’t finally have a grandbaby-boy here, I’d still be telling you that I’m gonna have to borrow your boy to be my vanilla grandson, because he is just so sweet.”  I also had a tweenage girl tell me that one day she was there at school, and Ash came up to her and asked her if she was A-’s big sister, and she told him no, she was A-’s cousin, and he replied with, “Well I am her best friend!”  Ok, so he isn’t actually, but nobody is bothered enough by the idea that they are correcting him, so I’ll take it.

Ash didn’t get to see A- opening her present….the site rushed and kicked everyone out, before they got as far as present-opening….which made him a bit disappointed, since he was excited to give A- her purple (her favorite color) t-shirt with the sparkly pink rhinestone princess crown on it (she’s a girly-girl who loves princesses….well, the non-demure ones, anyway), that I’d made her.  Plus, he remembers how she had really loved the purple fairy barbie we’d given her last year, with the wrapping’s bow made with purple sparkly shoelaces.  He will, hopefully, get a good reaction from her while at school.  His goody bag sure had something good in it, for him….a noisemaker that, if all else fails, I can use as a mouthpiece for a fake horn for him to blow as Little Boy Blue.  What a convenient coinkeedink!  I think that the best thing I can hope he left with, though, is a more cemented friendship with A-, as well as more cemented dynamics between us and A-’s family.  Fingers crossed, and all that.

At the end of the party, A- and Ash look at the display case of toys that were not included in her party package, and discuss what they think she really aught to be given as an extra present, anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

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Looking back on 2011′s Christmas season (Part 5)

January 12, 2012 By 1 Comment

Ok, THIS really aught to be the last part.  Part 4 brought us to the edge of Christmas Eve, so there’s only so much left to cover, relative to the month of lead-in we had.  This was IT….the big days….

The funny thing is, it feels like there’s less to say about Christmas Eve, than the preceding days.  I mean, a lot went on, but more of it was all the same kind of thing, if that makes any sense.  That, and it went pretty much as Ash had anticipated the night before — and the things done in the morning and afternoon when it was just us, were mostly done together (and fairly lazily, because the day before had left him majorly depleted spoon-wise, and he’d need all the recuperation he could get before the next day), with no one to point a camera at us, and some of the things done later involved family that I only get into just so much, and don’t show photos of, on the blog.  There was one period, though, which I was distanced enough from to capture…

Yep, Ash has his own little wooden nativity set.  Some women volunteering at a charity Christmas-craft sale set up in the foyer of Steffan’s church had noticed Ash’s desire to play with it as we headed in past the table, last year, and surprised us by having chipped in together to gift it to him when we headed back out.  It was one of the little blessings last year, when, by the by, he pretty much just knew that the figures in the set included three wise men, three animals, an angel, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus.  This year he knows a little bit more of the context, in a vague kind of way.  This lead to the following amusing quotes:

“Baby Jesus was born in a barn instead of a hospital….which is more fun.*”

“And then he lay down in the hay and the animals looked at him and two white men and one brown man** who were very wise came to give him birthday presents, and then someone pushed a button to make the sky light up around him and sing “Silent Night”***….I think maybe it was his Mommy Mary or his Daddy who was named Joseph except or sometimes God.”

* Ash went into a barn during the Pumpkin Farm field trip his class took in October.  He got to pet a calf, twin goats, a lamb, and a bunny.  This was quite distinctly more fun than his times spent in a hospital.  He assumes that baby Jesus and the others share his preference for furry animals over needles and such.

** He is basing this on the paint-job of the figures in his set.

*** He is basing this on a book his Grandma gave him a year or two ago.

I also snagged a few shots while Ash helped with Santa’s cookies.  This year his help was a bit more effective than last, after having had the practice with the gingerbread men, along with just more developmental time, in-between.

Ash has placed and pressed in the letter-shaped cutters. Other cookies will be made....snowmen and Christmas trees and stars and the like....but these are the important ones for him to do himself.

Ash double-checks the cut-outs before trying to peel them out and hand them to me for placement on the cookie sheet.

I think my favorite part of the period when my in-laws were over, was that Ash, fueled by his pride and excitement over having helped make Santa’s cookies, because vaguely obsessed with the idea of being helpful in general.  This wasn’t just the usual interest in being helpful via wanting to break in and “help” someone do whatever he realized they were about to do for themselves (often in a counter-productive way, of course), or the also-usual leaping at the chance to do what someone has asked him if he could do for them.  This was stuff like him distributing cookies to everyone in the room, along with cups of things to drink, in case the cookies made them thirsty.  Granted, the cups he distributed were not always the cups left around by the family members he was handing them to, but hey, he was trying, and it was all his idea.

This is how things were left when Ash went to bed on Christmas Eve. I hope the reindeer aren't as hungry as Santa is expected to be!

We added the Christmas characters, but Santa did the rest. From the looks of it, I caught him when he was returning with the mostly empty carrot plate, to place one last special thing under the tree. He also snuck some candy canes onto it. Perhaps they no longer fit in his pockets (every child has noticed that Santa always carries candy canes in his pockets) after this latest stack of cookies and quintuple-scooped-cocoa was downed.

Honestly, I was surprised to find that any crumbs or drips had made it through the night, when I checked things Christmas morning! At least it seems like Santa was smart, and ate the special cookies spelling out his name, first.

Christmas morning.  Ahhhhhh, Christmas morning.  For once, Ash waking up at 7am when he didn’t especially have to, was him waking up LATER than other children.  In any event, with a whole two hours or so of sleep painting festive circles under the eyes of us parents, and perhaps the world’s best fuel source twinkling in the eyes of our child, we began our day.  The plan was to, like last year, begin with some us-time under our own tree….then get dressed and go over to Uncle S- and Auntie L-’s place — where we’d also do the family gift exchange — for brunch with them, Uncle A-, and Grandma and Grandpa….then come back to our place to let Ash unwind (and possibly open something else)….then go over to Uncle A-’s for dinner with just him and Grandma and Grandpa, since Uncle S- and Auntie L- would be having dinner with her family….and then finish the day with some more us-time at our place.  It was a rather full day, but at least it involved a number of flexible escapes, and we’d have the next day to share a more relaxed, just-us-three, Christmas-Day-2.  Typically, Steffan works a late night on Christmas Eve, and a very early morning the day after Christmas.  For once, he was opening on Christmas Eve, and off the day after Christmas as well.  HALLELUYAH!  Yeah, we were grateful.

Someone asked, for Ask Ash!, what his favorite thing about Christmas was.  I kind of lost track of who, so I hope whoever it was, is looking.  In any event, he answered that, “My favorite thing about Christmas is that family is there to have time smiling together….and also, things are sparkly and Santa comes if you’re nice.”

Ash starts on the outer rim and works his way in. The Christmas characters were an obvious place to start! This Rudolph started off as a moose from DollarTree. I clipped the felt antlers into a more reindeer-ish shape, sewed on a sparkly, red craft poof I'd had floating around for years to be his nose, and used a $1 jingle-ring like Ash had played with while caroling at school, as a special collar. BAM! Almost-instant, semi-DIY Rudolph.

Another DollarTree find from Mommy and Daddy was this piggy bank. Ash has learned to identify different coins and bills, in school, and has done some simple math related to them....now it's time to try AGAIN at working on some of the context and concepts related to money.

The stockings were no longer limp. Propped against the small pile of gifts from Mommy, Daddy, Great-AuntiePat, Emily Elf and a couple of family friends, were a few packages in Santa wrapping paper -- as gifts from Santa tend to be wrapped in, around here. Only one gift under the tree wasn't marked like the others, as if it had been prepared at the last minute, only upon arrival. It was a little, red, velvet box with a green ribbon. Inside that was a red satin pouch. Inside that...

...was the silver sleigh-bell that Ash had asked Santa for!!

“Santa gave me the bell I asked for when I wroted him my note!  And it was like the HeroBoy, because I believe!  And it rings for me, and it sounds beautiful, do you hear, Mommy?!  And you know, I think I won’t put it in a hole in my bathrobe.”

Ash gives the bell a good jingling. Actually, based on the scratches on his cheek and nose, this photo must have been taken later in the day. Every time we came home, the first thing he did was go to the tree, locate his bell, and ring it. It has also been the first thing he's done upon coming downstairs in the morning, every day since.

So….the scratches.  See, Uncle S- and Auntie L-’s house has a very, very enticing feature…

This is Cole kitty. He thought his placement under the tree suggested that he was trying to hide, NOT that the chance to pet him was going to be his gift to Ash.

"The PURPLE kitty doesn't scratch and make me wear a band-aid."

Really, it wasn’t so bad.  If the scratches hadn’t been bleeding at first, we wouldn’t have bothered torturing Ash with a band-aid on his face.  He didn’t care in the slightest that Cole had scratched him.  To Ash, no matter what he’s been told, the inevitable occasional scratches from one cat or another, guard as we do, are a sign that the offending kitty was being silly, not a sign that he should probably feel less of a desire to try to pet it….or the next cat that doesn’t seem as interested in him as he is in it.  Perhaps if his nociception wasn’t often off-kilter, his eiditic memory would counter-balance his complete lack of danger sense, in these matters.  Whoops?

Some conveniently-timed snuggle-squishes were put into effect, immediately after Cole's less than merry mood was made known to....the rest of us. At this moment, Ash and his Daddy were listening to someone or other else in the family.

Another thing of note from that part of the day was that Ash ate about half of a Belgian waffle (¼ from Daddy’s plate that Mommy didn’t know about, and then later, ¼ from Mommy’s plate that Mommy was, therefore, extra impressed by)….which was something new for him.  He ate plain parts, but still.

One of Ash's presents from his aunt and uncle, that he broke into once we got home again, was this toy-and-book set. "Jingle" the Husky puppy, if you have pressed his ear first, responds to certain phrases read from his storybook, by barking, howling a tune, etc. The book is quite simple, relative to Ash's reading level, but the "interactive" aspect delights him.

"You're a GOOD dog, Jingle!"

An interesting thing about Jingle is that he was first set off by Ash’s uncle, while at their house, before Ash knew what to expect….and Ash was barely startled, and only for a moment, and was not scared.  Apparently, Jingle was exempt from the stuffed-toys-or-otherwise-made-decoratives-that-look-like-creatures-and-make-noise-and/or-move-especially-if-it-was-unexpected-the-first-time-are-going-to-terrify-me rule.  Possibly this is because the first sound that Jingle makes is a bell-jingling sound, which rather blends into the overall audio backdrop of Christmas anyway.  I was intrigued, but mostly glad.  I had, after all, told my SIL that yes, I thought he’d enjoy that gift, and I had a feeling they’d pay attention to the abnormality of his reaction, and not any overlooked disclaimers about the manner and timing of introduction, if he reacted horribly a few seconds after they gave it to him.

One highlight of the part of the evening spent at Uncle A-’s for Christmas dinner, was Ash’s continued desire to be helpful, being taken advantage of by me to get him to practice utensil use.  Ash is not so good with eating utensils.  He has only recently improved when it comes to spooning anything that doesn’t stick to the spoon (like pudding), thanks to cocoa.  You’d think that spearing things with a fork would be easier than balancing things on a spoon, but he’s never gotten the hang of forks at all, with anything.  Don’t even ask about knives, ok?  Some day, we might just see how he takes to the old chopsticks-rubber-banded-around-their-rolled-up-wrapper thing, for the heck of it (I never needed that, but I know a lot of kids….and some adults….that required that trick for early chopstick learning stages, and Ash has far from the average kid’s motor coordination)….but in the meantime, he sticks largely to finger food when he’s feeding himself, whether or not anyone else thinks it is finger food.  Well anyway, Ash really wanted to “help” me eat the Christmas ham, so I told him I’d love it if he helped me, but I wanted to eat it with a fork, so he would only be helping if he tried to feed it to me with the fork.  Gee, did he think he could try to do that for me?  Pretty please with dragons on top?  It would be sooooooo nice and helpful for my tired hands…  I think everyone else in the room popped their jaws grimacing and wincing, waiting for me to be speared in the throat or stabbed through the cheek.  With cues to move the fork very slowly and gently towards my mouth and wait for my teeth to close on the ham before he moved the fork away, though, Ash did a fine job of feeding me without injuring me, and was so pleased with himself that he decided I was hungry for seconds, and would I please cut them up so he could stick them with the fork again?  Heheh.  Mommy wins.

Indeed, by the time we neared the last part of our Christmas day, Ash was still having a pretty darn good one.

By the time Ash went to bed that night, the living room looked like this…

Ash sits amidst the rubble.

The impressive part is that the room looked like that, but not all that much was opened.  It’s rather nice to have a child that gets so much out of each gift, and takes such time with each gift, that even without GETTING that many gifts, he still takes an average of one to two weeks to open everything and go through his stocking.

Speaking of which, here are a few post-Christmas highlights, mostly for friends that I know look here…

Ash and I play "The Magic Labyrinth" game, a gift from his "Big Cousin C-", for the first time. It has been played since, too. It turned out to be a GREAT game for Ash, in many ways.

Ash looks at the "Big Cats" book, also from "Big Cousin C-"....and tries to see if he can stick out his tongue as far as the yawning lioness can.

By the way, he says that lions are his favorite big cat, because the boys have manes which look so soft and fluffy, like his Daddy’s hair used to be.  Is anyone surprised?

These ladybug slippers come from Grandma.  They match his PillowPet.  Ash faces two challenges when it comes to making good use of them.  First, he must reconcile himself with the concept of “inside shoes”….secondly, he must master actually walking in them.

Ash and the Amazing Aurora, who is taking a turn balancing on the large weighted ball.

Aurora, a velvety-soft, blue and purple dragon with shiny parts, was one of Ash’s belated birthday presents from his “Auntie A-” that I set aside and saved for Christmas so she would lose one excuse to send him MORE for Christmas.  Aurora is Ash’s most playful stuffed dragon thus far, a character trait determined when she was so impatient to get unwrapped and pounce Ash that she somehow….magically, I suppose….managed to roar while still in her box, despite it normally taking precision effort to squeeze her neck in just the right way, to produce that effect.  As you might have guessed based on Abominable Snowmen, et al, this unlikely feat of impatient enthusiasm on the dragon’s part, was rather counterproductive.  Aurora’s box took another day after being unwrapped, to be opened, and it took the rest of that day to get Ash comfortable with playing with her, first indirectly, and then, handling her himself.  Had she not been such an endearing dragon, I suspect it would’ve taken much longer.

This no-bake gingerbread house book was another gift from "Emily Elf" -- there was too much sickness in our household to make one over Ash's winter break, but the book contains ideas for all seasons, so I expect another good excuse will come up soon.

“This is a mushroom gnome home, do you see, Mommy?  It looks like a mushroom, you know, and gnomes are kind of like faeries I think.  And do you know, Mommy….Mommy….when you say gnome, the ‘g’ is silent.”

This animal calender was from Ash's great-grandma. Ash thinks it's great, especially because the snow leopard cubs are on the cover AND inside, and that's his Daddy's favorite big cat. Naturally, Ash and I have taken turns pretending to be all the depicted animals inside....generally, a Mommy-baby set of them, whether or not that's in the photo.

A new, blue hoodie lined with super-soft plush fabric puts Ash in a good enough mood that I get him to try Ramen for the first time -- after he asked me to make him some and then immediately decided he wanted something else -- by getting him to imagine that it was squiggly-wiggly dinosaur seaweed, and he was a baby brontosaurus with a big belly to fill. This is the first time a trick like that has ever worked.

With it already being mid-January, I don’t know if I’m going to get as far as writing a separate holiday-gratitudes post, like I did last year.  So here, before I go, I want to add a few thank-you’s:

  • Thank you to E, my Fairy Blogmother, and Ash’s “Big sister”….all these years after you needed me to be a Mommy to you, you still always think about how to help take care of us, in turn.
  • Thank you to Mo, who sees no reason why saving our asses….sorry, arses….should be enough if she hasn’t filled Ash’s tummy with his favorite pizza yet.
  • Thank you to “Santa” for being sneaky again this year, so I have to let you get away with it.  You got our medication.
  • Thank you to Wolf, for giving us the ability to give Ash the animals that inspire him to aspire.
  • Thank you to Mike, for choosing us to be the adoptive geeks for your books.
  • Thank you to Moobs, for the sassy fashion show I just put on for my husband, and the chocolate we’re pretending isn’t bulging out from under it
  • Thank you to C-, for honoring Ash as one of the only little people you care for at all, let alone adore.
  • Thank you to E-, otherwise known as “Emily Elf”, for being insufferable.
  • Thank you to Kat for the….uh….reminder to snag a photo of Santa in the act.
  • Thank you to the friends and family — some who know about this blog, and some who don’t — who sent cards, sent gifts, have been thinking of us enough to be planning to send things, came to visit, are hoping to visit, etc. etc. etc.  Thank you to all who cry with us, scream with us, sigh with us, cheer with us.  Thank you for the wishes, hopes, and prayers.  Thank you for being you.

 

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Starting 2012 off right

January 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Today was the last day of Ash’s 2011-2012 winter break, and it ended with a non-whimpery bang.  Well, assuming that he doesn’t end up with a snow day tomorrow, anyway, it’ll have been the last day — but we’re reallyreallyreally hoping that’s not an issue because he reallyreallyreally is looking forward to school being open again.  Eniways…

I have to say, this had to have been one of his favorite days of the whole vacation, and that’s pretty impressive considering Christmas fell in there.  And yes, I know that I still have to finish writing about that.  ENIways…

The goodness started from the get-go.  Ash woke up at 7-something in the morning (naturally), called for us, and then, wonder of wonders, did something we’ve been trying to get him to do for ages….which was to announce that he had to go to the bathroom (not that we were sticklers for the announcement part) and then actually do so, instead of waiting in his bedroom for us to come in and suggest that he go, in the meantime having a potty accident through his Pull-Up and into his bedding that he might or might not have barely held off through the night until that point.

Win.

So after that exciting success, we got him dressed and agreed that, yes, he could go downstairs now.

SURPRISE!

Unknown to him, his “UncleMonkey” and “AuntieTora” had arrived after his bedtime last night, driving around 14 hours round trip to visit us for only around 17 hours (“And not nearly enough of them asleep,” Steffan adds with a touch of guilt)….because they are awesome like that.  There is much love shared by the five of us.  And….and most of you will understand what this means….I have to tell you, it’s quite something to see someone ELSE looking at your kid with such obvious love.  In any event, Ash went through a few seconds of shock / expectations-for-day-reset / processing, and then got the equivalent of a drug hit, except it’s all giddiness-laced adrenaline.  Or, possibly, the other way around.  And, really, we weren’t feeling it much less than he was, if at all, we’re just sliiiiiightly better at the self-restraint of it.  That, and we actually register fatigue more than once every few weeks.

Good feelings were fed, literally, when Daddy agreed to make him pancakes (plain, no toppings) for breakfast.  That was preceded and followed by more love and fun and silliness in general.  There was a lot of shrieking laughter, flying around, utterly failed attempts at looking innocent, hiding under blankets, hug piles, and so on and so forth and something else entirely again….and it wasn’t even all on Ash’s part.  Somewhere in there were a few calmer moments, too, I’ll grant you.  At one point he nicely sat down and read aloud another chapter of The Wizard of Oz, a nice (albeit condensed for children….but hey, it was in perfect shape and we found it at the thrift store for a quarter) copy of which was one of our Christmas presents for him.  (And next weekend, when he does his version of the we-want-parents-to-force-their-kids-to-read-for-ten-minutes-a-night-so-we’re-going-to-give-them-homework-asking-them-five-super-basic-questions-just-to-confirm-they-at-least-looked-at-the-cover-of-a-40-word-book homework, we’ll have him type his sentences about this book, which maybe, just maybe, will help them remember that they are supposed to be on the same page as us when it comes to skill-leveling-up his English curriculum.)  Oh, and breakfast-itself excitement didn’t even end with the pancakes, either.  Grandpa’s cookies, which had been delivered along with Christmas presents, had included gingerbread men.  These were actual gingerbread men, as opposed to the intentionally-overcooked sugar cookie “gingerbread men” that Ash was already fond of.  Ash had decided he wanted to try one — this was the day before — but only after he had finished off the stash of his Daddy’s snickerdoodles….and after his Daddy had already taken the last of Grandpa’s gingerbread men with him to work in his lunch.  Well, thankfully, Uncle A- still had a large stash of the gingerbread men, and was happy to share with his nephew.  Daddy had gone to get them the night before, so on Monday morning, after eating all of his pancakes and drinking his orange juice, Ash got to have one of those, too.  As it turned out, Ash found that he liked them.  He was also inspired, for the first time, to try dunking his cookies in milk.  Whoa!  That’s a big deal, on the texture-tolerance front!

After Ash had eaten and more or less immediately burned off what he’d eaten, he got to open the presents that they had brought him.  Previously, we’d inherited a Wii from “UncleMonkey”, but as we hadn’t yet acquired anything for it specifically with Ash in mind, it hadn’t gotten much use.  That was about to change, big time.  They got him Just Dance Kids 1 & 2.  Oh sure, I had to explain to him what the things were, and relate them to the Dance Dance Revolution game that’s made special guest appearances in gym class at school.  Once things were set up and we got him started, though…  Heeheehee.  He’s still figuring things out, but man oh man, is this going to be fun.  Bear in mind this is a kid who had a few famous Irish Stepdance productions completely memorized and would try to dance along with them on a daily basis between the ages of 2 and 4 or so.  Oh yes, this will be all kinds of fun.  Good-for-him fun, too.  Oh, it’s not that he’s short on exercise….not MY child, who, as I wrote once before, resembles in his activity the potential result of  a pogo stick and a pinball machine having a baby that was then raised by singing monkeys.  It’s just that this kind of activity is also PT for him, with a little OT thrown in on the motor planning front.  Totally worth having small-child-friendly songs stuck in your head for several hours after watching your kid try to mimic an elaborate version of the Chicken Dance several times in a row.

NOTE: One of Ash’s wishes during the bedtime routine on Monday, was that he could, “Dance to the Wii,” after his “3 Steps” on Tuesday after school.  He did so.  The pattern repeated on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Unfortunately, our guests would have to head back home as close to midday as they of course failed to leave us, so soon enough it was time to get ready for lunch.  Ash’s favorite pizza buffet place?  Check.  Getaways made after Ash was weighed down by three slices of cheese pizza, two garlic-bread-sticks and a bowl of lettuce, were….well, they were still sad, but, thankfully, we had more smiles still in store for the day.  In the wake of our dear ones’ departure, we stopped home just long enough to assess how Ash was doing, and then made our way to the zoo.

The zoo is always good.  Thanks to the same angel as last year, we can take Ash a few times a month, THIS year, too!

Yes, those are clownfish.Yes, those are clownfish.  Granted, it’s a male and a female, not a father and son, but the reality would be less exciting.

The zoo has a small aquarium area.  Despite Ash’s attachment to furry things, he still finds the fish pretty exciting.  Sometimes, we go to the pet store at the mall just so he can look at the fish tanks.  They entrance him.  Yes, some day, when we have our own place, and that place has a good place to put a tank, we’ll have one of our own for him.

It might be hard to tell, but this is Ash watching a small turtle sunning itself under a heat lamp.  Ash said, “The turtle has a sunshine lamp to make his head feel happier, like me!“

I wasn’t about to tell him otherwise.

Fish might not seem that exciting to look at, relative to some other denizens of the zoo.  Ducks might not seem that way, either.  Nevertheless, Ash is thrilled by duck ponds.  Bonus points are given for anything about the ducks that he can read.

Of course, it’s not that keeping pace with a snow leopard ISN’T all sorts of fun.

Then, it started sleeting.  That kind of cut into the animal fun, but it wasn’t without merits.

Thankfully, we weren’t far from a way back inside.  The lions weren’t so lucky.

Before we left the zoo, we happened to run into R- and her family — which was a pleasant surprise — and were able to pick up a new zoo member t-shirt, for the new year, for Ash.  He always wants to wear his member t-shirt when we go, so it certainly won’t hurt to have a second one to include in the spare changes we always bring with us.

When we got home, I had waiting for me in my InBox an inquiry about a play-date, from a boy that was in Ash’s summer class.  By God, the day was still going better than entirely well!  With buoyant hearts Ash and I headed upstairs to give him a warm bath, while Steffan braved the outdoors again so he could pick up some fries (“flavored” and curly ones this time, not the usual plain, “line”-shaped ones) that Ash had requested for part of dinner.  Bath-time was also a thing of extra anticipation, this day, for Ash was going to try out the color-fizz tablets that had been a gift from Emily Elf, for the first time.

Blueberry bubble bath plus one yellow tablet plus one blue tablet make lovely, aquamarine-colored water!

While Ash was in his ocean-colored bath, we discussed what manner of tail each of us would have, if we were mer-folk.  Ash decided that if he was a merboy, his tail would have sparkly-green scales.  If I was a mermaid, my tail would have shiny-rainbow scales.  If Daddy was a merman, his tail would have pearly-pink scales.  Pearly pink scales….really?!  (It’s not that we’re gender-typing, it’s just that Daddy….and Mommy too, for that matter….kind of hates pink.)  Well, Daddy later got him to agree that perhaps it would be ok if he had shiny-green-and-silver scales on his tail, instead.

After the bath (and shower, and getting dried, dressed and blow-dried….and by golly, he’s actually adjusted to getting his hair blow-dried, now!), Ash read me another chapter of The Wizard of Oz.  This proved interesting, because instead of simply reading it aloud as he was reading the words, as he usually does, he quite clearly scanned each page quickly with his eyes over a second or two, and then recited the text, with only a few small deviations that reflected the language processing issues in his head.  Ok then.

Following that, we watched a Zaboomafoo episode together.  Following THAT, we had a period of pretend-play with his “Christmas Characters” — a collection fleshed out this year — during which they all got named for the first time.

The penguin, from last year, is named Joe.  The new elf is named Em, and is the brother of Emily Elf, who….*cough*….made our matching family pajamas, and kept sneaking presents for Ash over here, when she’d come to check on his status for Santa’s lists.  The new reindeer which is obviously Rudolph, is named Rudolph.  Duh.  (No, Ash hasn’t learned to say that yet — thank goodness.)  The green bear, from last year, is named Rim.  The polar bear, from two years ago, is named Co.  The snowman in the hat, from last year, is Frosty (of course).  The reindeer in the Santa hat, from last year, is Blitzen — who, Ash would like to point out, is Santa’s 8th reindeer.  Santa, who is new, hardly needs introduction.  The gingerbread man, who is also new, is named Mil.  Yes, of course I checked the spelling of all these names.

The teddy bear with a heart on its chest also got named — named Teddy, as it happens — which I’m glad about, since it felt a bit silly that he’d named someone else’s new bear, but not his own.  It turns out that Ash had been delaying playing with it because he thought there might be a button under the heart that made noise, and he was waiting until he remembered to ask me about it, so that it would not surprise him.  That’s pretty smart, considering that when a toy DOES make noise unexpectedly, it scares the bejeebers out of him, and it takes him quite some time to work through that on a sensory-defensive front, even when he WANTS to play with the toy and hear the sounds it makes.  Now, I got Ash this teddy bear because the other month he was reading a poem in one of his old Highlights magazines, about a boy who has so many stuffed animals on his bed that he runs out of room for himself, and he commented to me that he had all the same kinds of stuffed animals that the boy did, except for not having a teddy bear.  Where was HIS teddy bear, he wanted to know.  Ash’s Pooh bear, which used to be his Daddy’s, doesn’t count.  That’s POOH.  The realistic-ish brown bear cub that had been in “Santa’s” gift bag last year doesn’t count both because it sort of looks like a real bear, not a teddy bear, and because the pattern, fabric, and degree of stuffing made it remarkably un-huggable.  The just-named Rim doesn’t count, because he’s lumped in with the “Christmas Characters” by having been a gift from his Grandma that was amidst them, last year.  All right, fine.  I got lucky and found Teddy….who is oh-so-soft….at the thrift store, for a buck.  He was in perfect condition, not yet even possessed of that you-know-it-when-you-sniff-it thrift store smell.  It seems his potential had been overlooked because at some point someone decided to either start dressing him, or start undressing him, and hadn’t finished.  He sat there on a shelf with nothing on but a pair of ill-fitting black mesh stockings, looking for all the world like a closet transvestite caught changing on the way to a club by his mother.  Once you removed the stockings, though, he was self-confidently adorable.

In the process of the imagination play, I also snuck in a lesson on phone etiquette.  Even if you’re just making a phone with your hand and pretending to get a phone call, it’s important, after you are ready to be done and say goodbye, to listen and give the other person a chance to say goodbye — or whatever else they need to say, first — too, before you hang up.  We’ll see if it sticks this time.

Steffan returned bearing french fries, which lead to yet another social skills lesson/review….this one on request etiquette.  That is, although they sound like they are almost the same, “Daddy, would you make me the french fries, please?” is more polite than, “Daddy.  Make me french fries!  Please.”  Also, while yes, it is important to stop and look at someone when you ask them to do something for you, it is also important to continue looking at them after you have made your request, until they have had a chance to reply.  Even if you are sure that they are going to agree, it is still rude to take it for granted, and turn around and run away as soon as you are done talking.  Yes, even if you are thanking them as you are running away.

With Ash, who always aims to be polite, this lead to sorry hugs.  THAT lead to a new decree:  From now on, when he asks if he can receive or give a hug, he should try to remember to specify whether he needs it to be a gentle hug or a big, squeezey hug.  If he hasn’t remembered to tell us, we will try to remember to ask.  That way, he’ll get the kind of hug his body needs, and not a kind that will hurt him, at that time.  Sometimes the person he is hugging might need a different kind of hug than he does, and then they will have to think of something else or try to do an in-betweeny hug.  Most times, though, just telling people what he needs will help a lot.

A new library book that Daddy picked up on the way home, filled the rest of the time until dinner was ready.  Ash happily shared the seasoned curly fries with us, and let us know that he hoped to have more the next night.  He also pointed out that the calender on the wall needed to be turned over from the December page to the January page.  I told him that the calender didn’t have any pages past December, and that I would need to get a new calender for the new year that was starting with January; I did not have one yet, though, and the only new calender was the animal one that his great-grandma had sent him, which I wanted him to be able to keep with his books so he could still look at it easily.  He told me he’d share his calender with us, and that I could put it on the wall if I wanted to, until I got a new one too.  Aww.

The night finished with a fabulous bedtime.  One highlight was Aurora joining the dragon honor guard on the battlements of Ash’s castle bed (the as-yet-unnamed-red-dragon had done so a few nights before).  This was pretty notable, since it means Ash has completely gotten over his fear that she might roar unexpectedly, without ANYONE touching her.  Ash also decided to add Teddy and Patchwork (a handmade gift from his “AuntieTora” a couple of years ago) to PrinceRibbit and Fafnir inside his bed.  Last but not least, he hummed along with me when I sang him his lullaby.  Awwww, so sweet.

It’s a good thing his castle hasn’t run out of battlements yet, because I know he’s going to keep wanting more dragons!

Teddy and Patchwork the purple unicorn wait on the nightstand by the rocker, until Ash gets tucked into bed.

I suppose it isn’t fair to say that Teddy is the only non-magical creature which joins Ash for bedtime.

Right now the most frequently requested lullaby is still the most recent version of Castle on a Cloud, which goes like this:

I have a castle on a cloud
I like to go there in my sleep
Aren’t any rooms where I can’t sneak
Not in my castle on a cloud

There is a room that’s full of toys
There are a hundred boys and girls
Nobody shouts or talks too loud
Not in my castle on a cloud

There is a lady I call Mommy
She holds me close, and dotes upon me
She’s nice to see, and she’s soft to touch
And she says, “My Prince, I love you very much!”*

I know a place where no one’s scared
I know a place where no one fights
Nightmares at all are not allowed
Not in my castle on a cloud

*The end of this line is usually whispered directly into his ear, or accompanied by lots of kisses all over his face, or delivered with silly vocals, or something of the like.

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And now I know

December 29, 2011 By 2 Comments

Ash’s version of eating a candy cane involves being super excited that he was given one, making sure everyone know how much he wants to have one, eagerly getting help unwrapping one, enthusiastically starting to lick and suck on one….and then, after a few seconds of distinct pleasure, deciding that is enough of that, and seeking to dispose of one.  (This is, as often as not, accompanied by the declaration that he will have another one later.)  Sometimes, I can get more than a single use out of even one of the tiny candy canes, by sticking it in a sandwich bag and saving it for the next time he tells me that he wants to try one.   If it is a large candy cane which Ash is on the verge of wasting, I’ll usually just break off the part that’s been in his mouth, and save the rest as a stirring-stick for Steffan’s cocoa.  Steffan used to be a peppermint addict, and while he is no longer surrounded by what I imagined to be sparkling green clouds, he still does not decide he’s done with peppermint after only a few seconds, especially if he can combine it with chocolate.

But why does Ash transition so quickly from enjoyment to dismissal, with the things?  I had my theories, but on a candy-cane-hung day this Christmas season when his language processing seemed to be pretty good, I took the opportunity to ask him about it.

“Because,” he told me, “The licks taste good, but then they get sticky on my tongue.”

Yep.  It’s a texture thing, as it so often is for my sensory boy.  As soon as his saliva has hit any given spot, the texture of the candy starts to change, and that’s that.  Does anyone want to guess how many of the times when he was younger, that he dug food back out of his mouth with his fingers after it had managed to actually get in there, it was because the food felt different as soon as he started to chew it?  Anyone?  Bueller?  No?  I didn’t think so.

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Ask Ash! If you could be any animal, which would it be and why?

November 26, 2011 By 4 Comments

On the heels of Ash’s first question for the Ask Ash! feature that I proposed recently, Naelany gave me something else to put to him…

 

Naelany asked: “If you could be any animal, which would it be and why?”

Ash answered: “Um….dragons are magical and cats are soft, but I would be a cow.  I think it would be so nice that I could be giving some milk to people.”

 

Ok, my child is awesome.  At one point, he surprised Steffan and I, and later, his kindergarten class, with his answer to a question of what one of his favorites was.  Go ahead and click to find the details.  (Sneaky me?)  Let’s just say his answer was based on what said chosen favorite had to offer him.  This, however….this was Ash making a similar kind of choice based on what it could do for other people.  He knows that the milk he loves and used to drink by the gallon every 2-3 days, comes from cows.  He has been told that it is good for him, that it helps him have strong bones and teeth, etc.  So here is is, figuring that other people probably would love to have lots of milk too, and if he was a cow, he could provide it for them.  (We’ll ignore the bovine gender issue here.)

I’ll say it again: my child is AWESOME!  I know he’s a remarkable sweetheart, but still it touches me so hard it leaves me reeling when he shows it in ways like this, without even any particular inspiration.

By the way, Ash’s recent account of the chronology of his drinking vessels: “Now I drink from my copper cup, or before that I drank from my shiny blue cup what goes to school with me, or before that I drank from my blue-green AutoSeal cup with the button, or before that I drank from a straw-sippy with fish or dinosaurs, or before that I drank from a bottle, or before that I drank from a cow.”

Um…

Ok, this is because he’s gotten as far as knowing that cows provide milk, calves drink milk from their mommies, and (many) people-babies like he used to be, drink milk from their mommies too.  Somewhere in the language processing there, the last “their mommies” ended up meaning the calves’ mommies, not the people-babies’ mommies.  Since the entire chronology was accurate up to that point and was never listed off for him, I can assume this particular subject within his eidetic memory gets fuzzy around the age of two.  No, I didn’t entertain for a moment the notion that my son just called dutifully-nursing me, a cow.

Although I did used to say I was practically an entire dairy farm.

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Halloween 2011 (part 1)

November 4, 2011 By 6 Comments

Ash, as we expected, was really into Halloween this year.

He had started talking about it two months or so ahead of time.

He never stopped.

It had been inspiring his imagination along the way.

The night before, he was as wired as the average, sneaky child is after they’ve ignored parental warnings and eaten through half their candy stash before even getting home.  I believe I tweeted something along the lines of how it would be a miracle if he ever fell fully asleep, although I maintained that oh-so-useful perspective and added that, of course….it was a miracle that he is excited enough about a holiday that it CAN keep him restless from positive anticipation.  It’s true.  Also of course, though, is the fact that anticipation alone, whether anxious or excited, can be a trigger in and of itself.  Ash has occasionally had meltdowns upon having within his grasp what he’d wanted and waited for, simply because it was something he’d been wanting so much.  This is one of those odd little realities that prompts me to point out that I think one of the most important things, when dealing with a neurological disability, is to remember that just because something doesn’t make sense to neuro-typical you, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense for the person with the disability.  In this case, it doesn’t make sense to Ash in the sense that he thinks it’s perfectly reasonable to respond to something that makes him feel happy, with fits of frustrated anguish.  It just makes sense in the sense that it’s what his brain sometimes does, and psychological rationality has diddly to do with it.

Eniways…

As Halloween dawned, the question was whether the potential for the holiday going even better than last year would result in it actually going better, or going worse instead.  Blessedly, we lucked out!

Ash holds his jack-o-lantern so I can see that it matches his shirt. "Now we just need a black kitty," he pointedly adds. (Sorry, kiddo, we can't until we own our own home.)

FP was predictably groggy when we got him up in the morning, after a night of restless sleep at best, but once he’d processed that we’d included, “Happy Halloween!” in our morning greetings, he sprang to attention.  He was excited to be able to dress for the occasion, despite needing to wait before putting on his costume.  “I love my Halloween outfit!” he said.  The shirt, printed with jack-o-lanterns and black cats (and he is on a big cat kick lately), was made by and a gift from a friend of ours.  He had to look the shirt all over to see if any of the pumpkins on it had lost THEIR teeth, like his had, before putting it on — did I mention he’s really fond of this jack-o-lantern, because he feels good about how much he had to do with it? — but all the same he was ready for school with time to spare.  He even had time to read me another chapter of a book, while waiting for the bus!

Boy, do I love having a 6 year old that’s a fluent reader.

Right, so….where was I?  Oh yes, Halloween.  We put FP on his morning bus with reminders that in a few hours we’d go to visit him at school, and that we’d bring his costume with us.  They were aiming to make the first half of the school day as standard as possible, with the shift to holiday activities, classroom parties, and the costume parade, after lunch.  Our plan was to go to a charity sandwich making thing, stop by Dollar Tree to pick up some electric tea lights for the jack-o-lantern and a new trick-or-treating bucket to replace Ash’s cracked one, and then go on to the school.

Things were still going off without a hitch.  Woweee.

When we showed up at Ash’s classroom, he was, of course, super excited.  So were most of the other kids.  (I tend to have that affect.)  Thankfully, so were the staff.  The kids at large had just been primed on how the day’s transition was going to go, and it was time to start the fun.  There would be Bowling For Gravestones, Halloween Bingo, and Pin The Nose On The Witch — with groups of kids rotating through the three activities — then a special snack, then changing into costumes for the parade.  I wish I could show you more of the photos, but there is only so much time I have to even slap Photoshop-automatic cartoons over faces, and only so many photos which remain pointful once I do.  Here are a selection, though…

Halloween Bingo.

Ash bowls for tombstones (they did this with a Koosh Ball). He ALMOST got one. It wasn't nearly as easy for him as solving the math problem they all had to do before taking their turn.

Kids wait their turn at Pin The Nose On The Witch. Another classmate has just placed their nose.

Ash "pins" his nose on the witch.

Ash didn’t really end up needing any more or less help than the other children, with these activities, so I was able to walk around taking pictures of all the kids, while Steffan helped set up the special snack and goody bags on each desk.  It was nice to see things like Ash talking briefly with an NT girl in his class while waiting their turns, when an aid wasn’t right next to him and holding his attention.

By the way, the following is taped to Ash’s desk.  He’s the only child in class with behavior reminders kept in front of him on that near-constant a basis.  Then again, he’s the only one that can read.

Cues taped onto Ash's desk.

Snack-time actually straddled the getting-into-costumes bit, since about half the kids couldn’t just slip their costumes over their clothes, and had to change, or get help changing, in bathroom stalls.  Steffan and I waited with Ash in the line outside the bathroom, trading off to either stick with him or help the girl or boy in need of assistance.  Ash tossed out compliments to assorted princesses and faeries  that passed by as he waited.  If they were particularly sparkly, he pointed out that his wings and dragon spikes were going to be shiny too.

Ash remembers, as I noted in a previous post, what all the staff members of his Kindergarten classroom had worn last year. He was quite intent on all of his 1st grade staff wearing costumes as well, and was going to be very disappointed in any that didn't. In an effort to reassure himself about this issue, he asked me on multiple occasions what costumes they were going to wear. I suggested that he ask them himself. Ash finally decided to do so.

Something that really impressed me (perhaps more than it should have had to) was that Ms.W-, the SpecEd teacher, remembered and kept in mind the note I had written her in Ash’s traveling notebook about a week before, in which I had described how things had gone the year before…  See, you can wear pretty much anything, and Ash won’t be unnerved.  If you have on a mask, prosthetics or even face paint that hides and/or alters the appearance of your face too much, however, it makes him very defensive and nervous at best, terrified at worst, and it doesn’t matter how you’re behaving.  We think it might be because he remembers too much about all the hospital time when he was a baby.  (He was also hypodermic-needle-phobic already as an infant, go figure.)  Work with him as we might, a down-side to Halloween is that there are masks aplenty, many of which are meant to be scary, and many of which are being worn by people who are having fun trying to play the part.  Well, before we could do the like ourselves or even remind her, Ms.W- walked Ash around the classroom to every single classmate that had on any kind of mask, and had them introduce themselves to him with their mask off, put their mask on and tell him what they were pretending to be, then take it off again.  A methodical, structured opportunity like this allowed him processing time to contextualize, comprehend, and tolerate accordingly, what he was seeing.  This REALLY helped him, and this year it carried over into the costume parade and seeing other schoolmates, and even to Trick-or-Treating.

And so it was that this innocent coloring scene did not scare the bejeebers out of my child.

 

Ash tentatively transfers some gel icing from the cookie to the tip of his tongue.

Ash talks with his friend M- (dressed as Batman), whose desk is next to his.

 

Ash didn’t eat much of the special snack.  The slightly grainy pumpkin pudding didn’t make it past the lightest touch on the outside of his lips.  The two M&M cookies were given to Steffan and I, after he decided he didn’t like M&M’s after all.  (He had once claimed to have eaten some after a counting activity at school.)  The wafer cookie posing as a tombstone in the pudding was more enticing as a curiosity about what R.I.P. stood for, than as an edible.  Of the decorative bits, he was not interested in the candies, but only in the spider and bat rings (once I had washed and dried them off for him).  He did, at least, drink a little bit of “brain punch”, if only because he didn’t see what it looked like before it made it into his cup.

 

AND THEN IT WAS TIME FOR THE PARADE…

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When my autistic child wants something

September 18, 2011 By 2 Comments

Although looking at text to read or write still increases the nausea I’m getting from (hopefully just the adjustment to) Cymbalta, I thought I’d try to pull myself out of the haze long enough to post a little something about something else.  Yesterday provided — amidst the struggles to get Ash to both put and keep on more layers than had thus far been needed, and a whole lot of spinning — two of those something else’s.

Both had to do with Ash WANTING things.

‘The Wanna’s’ are a moderately recent and still fairly rare thing, in Ash’s world.  As with so many other things, we must view them from the perspective of their context within the grand scheme of Ash’s development, and not within the context of how convenient they are.  (My mother once admitted to Steffan that she tried her best to delay my learning how to self-feed, because it would be messier than her feeding me — not a big shock, given her OCD.  Imagine, though, a child like Ash raised in such a way, where development, already challenged, is hindered instead of supported!  It is painful to think about.)  To be fair, Ash’s wanna’s haven’t even been all that inconvenient to us yet.  If we didn’t have financial, schedule, transportation and mobility issues, they probably wouldn’t be inconvenient at all.  His wanna’s are pretty reasonable, and have never crossed that fine line into the realm of the gimme’s.  I suppose he’s just not that kind of kid, and he hasn’t been raised in that kind of way?  (That’s a dangerous sort of thing to say, I suspect.)  Eniways, as soon as Ash jumped over that “wanna” inchstone, Steffan was braced for the other proverbial shoe (undoubtedly a steel-toed boot, right on the noggin’) dropping, but it has yet to do so.  I was reminded of that by the interaction which prompted this post…

See, after it occurred to Ash that there was a whole wide world of things he could want, it seemed reasonable enough to expect at least a trial period of regular fits over the fact that he didn’t — and wasn’t necessarily, in any immediate-gratification sort of way, going to — HAVE what he wanted.  Practically all children go through this, and never mind Autism.  How many pizza sales do you think come from a parental desire to not clean mashed cauliflower off of the ceiling, quite without circumstances like an obsession with a particular pizza place being complicated by the fact that said pizza is one of the only substantial and even moderately healthy things the child can as yet eat?  Really now.  Eniways, so while we maintained faith in our child’s potential to pleasantly surprise us, we also maintained a healthy sanity-safety-net of realistic expectations.  As it turned out, Ash’s Autism kicked in, in regards to all this, in a way that puts off the meltdowns a little longer.  See, the process by which a goal is reached is no less important….in fact, for him it’s often more important….than the actual end result.  This being the case, once it occurred to Ash that he could want things/activities/etc. that he did not necessarily have (had not necessarily even had before), he fixated on the need to control the means by which he would end up getting what he wanted.

When it comes to the rare object (like an inflatable walled trampoline to replace his mostly-dead one….like I said, he’s pretty reasonable) or the far more often requested grocery item (I’m still not used to that), Ash has considered the facts that 1) if you don’t have something and you want it, you need to get it 2) things that need to be gotten from outside the house tend to involve those things needing to be bought 3) when you buy things, you are going shopping —> and he has decided that, therefore, if he wants something and I do not have it in the house to give to him, he can bring the situation to a satisfying-enough status by telling me to put said item on, “The shopping list.”  He will usually want to watch me write it down, and will always read it to make sure I’ve gotten things noted down properly.  I need to keep track of where this running list is, because he will check to make sure that everything is on it that he has recommended to me at any given point in time, that has yet to be procured.  Of course he remembers.  In the process of most things on this running list….running long-distance, as it were….he has gotten to the point of recommending oh-so-helpfully that I remind Daddy to get some money so he can go shopping for them.  Yeah, there are a few things there that he doesn’t yet understand.  Thankfully, he is usually fairly patient.  So long as things are on the list…

Things aren’t quite as easy when what Ash wants isn’t an object, a grocery, or even an activity, but a specific occasion.  For example….ohhh….Halloween.  See that image up there?  That’s a bit of the dry-erase calender that is stuck on our freezer.  See “September” written there?  Boy oh boy, did that tick Ash off.  It’s not that he has anything against September, in and of itself.  (He LIKES school.)  The trouble is that September is not October, and he knows Halloween happens at the end of October.  What to do?!  Well hey, if we change what’s written on the calender when the month changes, maybe the month will change if we change what’s written on the calender!  I needed to lift him up so he could erase the word “September” and write “October” there BY HIMSELF, and then it would be time for Halloween.  Um….right?  Riiiiiiiiighhttt?!  Hmm….it didn’t work.  Well bugger.

Hey, I said the meltdowns were put off, not annihilated.

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