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Autism, literacy, Halloween and hilarity

May 8, 2012 By 1 Comment

This is the Scarecrow costume design sketch that Ash did on the Magnadoodle. By the way, those aren't extra arms, that's straw sticking out.

There’s a tradition within the delightful (especially for anyone who grew up on Calvin & Hobbes and/or was a sometimes “challengingly” bright child and/or has ever worked in a school) comic strip Frazz, by Jeff Mallett.   The tradition of which I speak is that one of the main and recurring characters of the strip — a young boy named Caulfield (yes, CAULFIELD) — plans his Halloween costume each year around a literary figure, which the staff of his school are challenged to be literate enough, themselves, to guess.

Well, Ash isn’t quite there yet, but he is planning on ending his two-year Halloween run as a dragon — it’s shocking, I know! — and dressing up next Halloween as The Scarecrow, from The Wizard of Oz….which was a book we got him last Christmas and which he read shortly thereafter.  (We got the classic version of the movie from the library for him, on the heels of that.)  Perhaps I should provide a little more context for this phenomenon-of-sorts that leads to the bit with the hilarity.  See, we got the book because a like-new copy found at a thrift store for the price of spare change, was too good to pass up, and we thought, well, if Ash wasn’t ready for it then, he would be soon.  Not only was he ready, but he ate it up.  I got to prove to his teachers that he had reading comprehension skills they never would otherwise have had reason to believe he had, by having him do his reading log on the book, and having him answer questions like what The Cowardly Lion did that was brave.  He loved the story, he loved the characters, and he was engaged by their personalities and their plight….we had to “pretend” our way through him interacting with all of them, multiple times, after he was done with the book.  The Scarecrow, in particular, attracted his interest.  In fact, that character completely changed Ash’s perspective on face paint, which previously distressed him to even look at, let alone consider having ON any part of him.  I’m not sure what it was about the way that character’s makeup was done, but after seeing the movie (after seeing the illustration on the cover of his copy of the book), he was very enthusiastic about wanting to try having face-paint on him.  He even followed through with the professed intention, when Easter came, as a way of starting to get used to the sensation.

Scarecrow, Scarecrow, Scarecrow.  He insisted (and has yet to change his mind, despite things like a more recent love affair with the How To Train Your Dragon series of books) that he wanted to be Scarecrow for next Halloween.  I, “Need to make sure that he has the floppy hat with the point,” and that I, “Paint [his] face yellow-that-turns-into-[his]-neck with the brown mouth and brown triangle nose and black eyebrows” — (actually, he wants to try putting on some of this face paint himself) — and, “Make him the blue shirt with the rope belt, and the brown pants, and [he] needs boots for all that walking on the road,” and oh yes, “A crow so that [he] can pretend to try to scare it, and be silly.”  I must also be sure to not forget to make him some fake straw out of yarn, so that it can, “Stick out of [his] feet and hands and shirt and brains.”  Just in case he wasn’t clear enough, he drew me a costume design sketch on his Magnadoodle.  Early on when he was first going on with me about this idea, I asked him why Scarecrow was his favorite character.  He told me, “Scarecrow is my favorite because he keeps wanting more brains so he can get smarter and help his friends.”  Allrighty then.  I’ll take this as another one of those times when he shows remarkable empathy for a character, shows self-awareness through what he casually relates to and admires.

It doesn’t end there, though.  Oh no, he’s got it allllllll worked out.  Although I keep trying to damage-control the fact that it’s hard enough for his Daddy to get off work on Halloween, and the chances are next-to-nill-would-be-generous that the entire, semi-extended family will not only go trick-or-treating with us, but also dress in costumes of his choosing….that’s just what he thinks should and hopes will happen.

Already once before, Ash told me about what character from the story, he has assigned to what family member.  Today, he brought it all up again, and I got him to provide explanations for why he chose each match.

  • He should be The Scarecrow, “Because he likes him best because he wants brains to be smarter.”  (Yes, of course we talked again about how Scarecrow, just like him, was very smart….he just had to find the right ways to show people that.)
  • I should be the Wicked Witch of the West, “Because then [I] could pretend [I was] riding on a broom, which would be fun and wouldn’t hurt [my] leg so much.”  Also, he thinks, “It would be funny for [me] to pretend to be evil and chase [him].”
  • Daddy should be the Tin Woodman, “Because he is kind.”  (That should get extra, delighted attention from those readers of mine who know the long- and much-used nickname I gave Steffan 15 years ago, and the derivative linguistic meaning thereof.  But if you do….shush, it doesn’t belong here, as it has been used in too many other places.)
  • Uncle S- should be the Cowardly Lion, “Because of the mane.”  It would seem — no surprise here — that Ash does not agree with his uncle about the notion that all men should have hair as short as possible.  For reasons I won’t get into here, I went from finding it very amusing that Ash picked that character for this uncle (who is probably the most concerned with issues tinging on machismo, of anyone in the family), to finding it rather satisfying that Ash would just love to see him with a big ol’ mane of hair.
  • Auntie L- should be Glinda, “Because then she can have kids being her Munchkins.”  Oooh, that’s another loaded one, even if he’s just vying for a cousin again.
  • Uncle A- should be The Great And Terrible Oz, “Because he would dress us as a giant, green head on a throne.”  Well….yup.  If anyone in the family was going to think it sounded like a perfectly enjoyable idea to dress up as a giant green head on a throne, it would be A-.  Ash nailed that one.
  • Last but not least, “Grandma should be Dorothy and Grandpa should be Toto because they live together and are companions just like Dorothy and Toto are.”

Oh boy.  When I’m not fretting over how to even get all three of us dressed to Ash’s satisfaction, I’m still cracking up over all that.  To be honest, this was also one of the only things I had to post that didn’t involve editing and uploading a ton of photos. ;-P

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A first experience dying Easter eggs

April 12, 2012 By 2 Comments

About a week before Easter, we had a couple of “narrow escapes” on behalf of the fact that Ash felt the need to “check” the eggs in the fridge, “To see if they were ready to be dyed for Easter yet.”  Obviously, he was going to have his first experience dying Easter Eggs this year, and that was that.  Naturally, this became a complicated thing for me, as much because I’m me, as because he’s him.  I didn’t have time to seek out a non-perishable alternative that could be decorated in the same way (yes, I know there are many ways to decorate eggs, but he wanted to try DYING them), the smell of hard-boiled eggs has always been an immediate and severe gag trigger for me, and I also really, really, reaaaaalllllllllly was hoping to be able to keep Ash’s first-ever Easter Eggs, too.  So, I taught myself how to blow-out eggs, and practiced until I was confident that I could do it without breaking them.  (In the end, with the help of a thumbtack to make the holes and a nasal bulb for the blowing, I could have an egg sitting on our drying rack in about 2 minutes.)  Since Ash would want to share the activity with us, Steffan and I could dye the eggs that had already been blown out — since we are more capable of handling them without breaking them — and Ash would dye the at-least-significantly-less-fragile raw eggs, and I’d blow them out afterwards.  It’s not as if we wouldn’t be right there on hand to help anyway, so that would be good enough when it came to any potential mishaps with the raw eggs.

The evening before Easter, Ash got his chance…

I showed Ash more or less how these things work, and then he gave it a go by himself.

I had actually put him in one of his plentiful white undershirts, intentionally, just to find out how much dye ended up on it. Can you believe that it remained completely white?!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, so we were a little surprised that we didn't have any broken raw egg emergencies.

A watched egg never dyes?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waiting for eggs to get to the color you want, is haaarrrrrddddd!

After a little while, Ash no longer had the motor control to handle things by himself, so he "helped" me follow his instructions when it came to what to do with the eggs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were Ash's eggs, drying a bit after their first round of being colored. Note that he decided to make them all various shades of blue, green, and purple.

This was the first egg that was almost completely done.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following are the eggs that Ash made this year — with a little motor help, but no artistic guidance — his first-ever dyed Easter Eggs.  Are they not GORGEOUS?!  I am so glad I planned things so that they could become keepsakes.  At this point I just have to find my spray-shellac, give them a few coats, and then use bead caps over the ends to protect the holes from being snagged and chipping further.  They did lose some of their vibrancy because of having to be blown-out AFTER being dyed, unfortunately.  It wasn’t being cleaned/rinsed that did it, it was stray egg that got on the shell while being blown.  You know how being “egged” is horrible for cars, houses, etc?  Well, that’s because egg is pretty darn good at stripping surface coloring.  :-P   I’d forgotten about that.  Next year, perhaps I’ll experiment with shellacking the dried, dyed eggs BEFORE blowing them out.

Blue/Green/Purple Egg -- View 1

Blue/Green/Purple Egg -- View 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue/Green/Purple Egg -- View 3

Blue Marbly Egg -- View 1

Blue Marbly Egg -- View 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue Marbly Egg -- View 3

This one was a really rich, mossy, loamy, forest-shadows green, before it faded.

 

This one had a kind of turquoise/green/yellow ombre fade thing going.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one reminded me of a piece of turquoise.

This one....was just sort of Robin's-Egg-Blue. Ash had run out of spoons for involved dye jobs, so a blue egg was good enough for him!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning after Easter, Ash told me that he’d dreamed about dying eggs.  I guess this tradition is a keeper.  ;-)

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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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St. Patrick’s Day, 2012

March 17, 2012 By 2 Comments

Ash watches, through the conveniently located bubbles, as his bath water turns green.

Last Thursday, Steffan put out this little, “stone-cast” style statue of St.Patrick that he’d found at a thrift shop a while back.  He asked Ash if he knew who it was.  Nope.  He asked Ash if he could recognize what the man was holding.  Nope.  He told him to think about how it would be green, if it wasn’t a statue.  (It is a shamrock.)  Nope.  It relates to the holiday that’s coming up on Saturday….

“Ohhhhh!” said Ash, “It’s a statue of a LEPRECHAUN!”

Nope. ;-)

Steffan then went on to try some clarification.  He told Ash that it was Saint Patrick, the man that the holiday was named after.  They looked up “saint” in Ash’s dictionary, but he was still a bit confused, so Steffan paraphrased things into a Saint being someone who loves other people, and God, above and beyond the level most people do.  Of course, the history lesson gets a bit more complicated, care of the fact that what St.Patrick is most famous for, directly relates to how he most certainly didn’t love ALL people.  Y’know, like the “snakes”….aka those pesky, Nature-worshiping Druids. *ahem*  Eniways, as he was unsure how to go about the next chapter in that lesson-book, as it were, Steffan left things there for the time being.

Naturally, that backfired in an amusing way.

Just so you know, “Saint Francis was a saint because he loved all the animals and was really nice to them.” (We have a small, St.Francis birdbath in the yard.)  Also….“Saint Patrick was a saint because he loved all the leprechauns.”

Can you tell that Ash is a bit leprechaun-obsessed, this year?

Last night he told me that today we’d need to look for rainbows, because he had to catch a leprechaun so that it could tell him where to find the pot of gold.  What did he plan to do with the gold?  Was he going to use it to buy something?  No, he thought maybe he was going to keep all of it, because it was shiny.  (What?  MY little dragon?!)  I told him that in most of the Lore, leprechauns don’t exactly appreciate being trapped by people who want to take their gold, and tend to use magic tricks to get away and teach the humans a lesson.  Did he think it was a good idea to get in trouble the day before his friend’s birthday party, because he wanted to take something from someone else and keep it all for himself?  “Welllll you’re right,” he conceded, “I guess I’ll give one of the gold to A- for her birthday then, and the leprechaun will see that I am nice.”

Mmmmyeah, we’ll work on it.

Today’s non-stop adventures — which began a bit before 7am and after I’d had only two hours of sleep (possibly because those were the first two hours in which Ash actually slept quietly, himself, or possibly because at that point my body simply didn’t care what I thought my Mommy duties were) — have had several holiday-themed things scattered through them.  A bath in green water….care of one yellow and then one blue color fizz tab (a Christmas present previously featured here)….was the extra incentive for staying still through a hair trim.  Ash got to wear a new shirt I made him last night.  (He asked me to surprise him with a special shirt, the way I had for Valentine’s Day.  Thank goodness for DollarTree t-shirt selections, and iron-on printer paper!)  A couple of hours later, the shirt needed to go into the laundry as the result of Ash’s sudden and overwhelming urge to do a bouncy dance while in the middle of drinking (occasionally, I miss the days when he hadn’t yet graduated from AutoSeal cups, to standard ones)….but he accepted the temporary substitution of a far more boring, green t-shirt, given the fact that the stripy green shirt he’d picked out himself recently was in the laundry since he wore it to school yesterday, and his green sweater (which was another thrift store find and originally grey, but mommy sees 100% cotton and thinks, “Dye!”) was being saved for later.  I also had to promise to wash today’s special t-shirt, tonight, so he could go back to wearing it tomorrow, when he went to his friend’s party.

This is the graphic I put together, for his shirt.

Let’s see….oh, there was also listening to some Celtic music of a few styles, dancing along with (our old VHS of this performance of) Riverdance, innumerable rainbow-checks, multiple confirmations that, yes, he was doing a VERY GOOD JOB today, and was definitely earning his Leprechaun Fizz treat tonight, so far…

There was a holiday-prompted inchstone, too!  For the very first time ever….and not for lack of opportunities….Ash pushed through his sensory issues on behalf of his interest, and had his face painted!  (Really, it was the first time he had his SKIN painted.  He’s had the option of having something done on his hand before, if he didn’t want it on his face.)  He wanted a shamrock on his cheek, and he wanted it to be a four-leaf lucky one, and he wanted it to be green, and he wanted it to sparkle, and he didn’t just want it to be a sticker, either.  Alllllllllrightythen.

Ash shows off his shamrock.

I didn’t have any face paints anyway because he’s only recently changed his outlook on them, so I took a toothpick (he warned me to be careful and gentle, because it looked sharp, and then accepted that, since he’d called my attention to the issue, there’d be no problem) and used it to draw the shape on him with green glitter nail-polish.  Then I colored it in with DollarTree green eyeshadow, put a little clear nail-polish topcoat over it, used the hair dryer on low to dry things, and….there you had it.  An improvised job, but it made him happy.  He did an excellent job standing still and not touching it.  Actually, it stayed on his cheek until he asked me to remove it, at bedtime!

Later, we'd make corned beef. At this moment, it seemed we had a little ham. ;-)

Of course, once the special shirt I’d made him had to be swapped for a plain green shirt, he had the extra face-painting-incentive of needing to replace the lucky shamrock….after all, he was aiming to catch a leprechaun!  I mean, he’d been talking for a while about how I was going to paint a shamrock on his cheek, but now he really had to go through with it.  Blessedly, he also kept up his enthusiasm for this latest bit of magic, all day, without ending up upset that it came to naught.

I guess next year I need to be one of those parents that rig something for this holiday, too.  Maybe I’ll find a pretty, prismatic suncatcher, and have him help me hang it so that the little rainbows it makes on the wall, will lure a leprechaun over.  Then, when Ash isn’t looking, I can leave little glittery green footprints and an “accidentally dropped” gold coin.  Hmmm….yes, that could work.

Ok, not QUITE Irish. A lot closer than most of the Irish-for-a-day in the USA, though. I thought about putting something more like this on his shirt, but then I had flashbacks to the years when complete strangers, wherever we went, would quite regularly try to grab Ash without permission -- or even warning -- to hug and kiss him. Sometimes one would try to glomp him AS I'd be whipping him away from someone else. Of course, HE didn't mind one bit, but I had several reasons to be a bit concerned by the societal expectation that any child of a certain caliber of cuteness, is now public property.

Any way, that’s the sort of way that the day went.  There were some things we didn’t end up doing, but what we did do, worked out well.  We managed to do all of the things (excepting ACTUALLY catching a real leprechaun) that Ash really, really wanted to do, so that’s the big thing.  This was the first year that he was involved in celebrating St.Paddy’s at all, beyond some school crafts, and holidays are always….a process.

The climax of the planned day was to, after Steffan got home from work, all change into our green sweaters, and take a family photo for the holiday.  Ash apparently agrees that only one decent photo of all three of us together, a year, isn’t really enough.  Plus, he’s been really into the idea of matching, lately.  Well, we got the photo, though unfortunately it kind of sucks.  I mean, it WOULD be a really cute photo of us, I think, except for the fact that, even after using my Photoshop-fu, it’s still a crappy photo.  The lighting just wasn’t good enough by the time Steffan got home….apparently it was just bright enough that the flash didn’t feel a need to go off, but too dim to get anything but a super grainy shot in which you can’t even TELL we’re all wearing green.  Boo.  (So yes, if you’re one of my many friends getting brand new DSLRs and even pocket-variety digital cameras, lately, I am happy and excited for you, but also jealous.)

We're all wearing green sweaters. I have a Celtic-knotwork St.Brighid necklace on. As is holding his new, shamrock-printed, green mug full of frothy "Leprechaun Fizz"....just take my word for it.

Ash was going to be disappointed that you can’t clearly see us all matching in our green sweaters, but there was nothing for it.  Even if I fiddled with the color awkwardly, the fact that all three are SWEATERS would not be clear.  (Note: Yup…. “Mommy, I think the photo was a little messed up or something.  Can you fix it?”)  At least his mug of “Leprechaun Fizz” distracted him, at the time.  Oohhhhhh that Leprechaun Fizz!!  He might not have been talking about it for as long as he talked about wanting the photo, or with as much drama as he talked about catching leprechauns, but he might actually have brought it up the most often of all.  Leprechaun Fizz was made during Speech Therapy, on Thursday.  The kids had to talk about what they did to make it, what happened, what they thought of it, etc., of course.  Ash never STOPPED talking about it.  Ever since coming home from school on Thursday, all of his actions and choices revolved around — or tried to revolve around — earning some Leprechaun Fizz at home, on Saturday.  (Thankfully, I got a reply from his ST on Friday, after asking what flavor of green ice cream was used, and if Ash actually did drink his all up as he claimed….because if all he did was take one sip, it wasn’t really worth us buying the stuff to make it.)  We cracked up when we read the sheet that came home, on which Ash wrote answers to questions related to the activity, and his response to the question of whether or not he liked the drink, was, “O yes!”  Heheh…well, thankfully, Ash did earn his Leprechaun Fizz — which, by the way, is made with lime sherbert and Sprite-type soda.

Fizz and frothy foam are lots of fun, but after finding out that it was hard to drink straight from the mug without getting bubbles all over his face, he opted to go for the tactic they used in Speech, which was drinking through straws. We had to find him a green and white one to keep with the theme, though.

Ash definitely loves the stuff.  He could only handle just so much at once because he has a tiny tummy, but he couldn’t resist continually running back into the kitchen for another slurp.  Oh, and I do mean running….for certain understandings of running which include running, jumping, climbing, flipping, spinning, rolling, somersaulting, ricocheting, twirling, bouncing, randomly breaking out into dance moves, and even stopping to catch his breath in a fashion that suggests you might get a huge static shock if you get within a yard of him.

Granted, that’s not unusual for him, let alone already-excited him, but this was his usual with….added flare.  He doesn’t usually have that much sugar in a go.  I’m just glad the recipe didn’t call for something caffeinated.  Dear lord, if there is something this child doesn’t need, it’s caffeine.

Eniways….that, with the addition of our traditional corned beef and seasoned fries, was pretty much how St.Paddy’s went down.  Steffan and I had Strangely Sobers (using the rare splurge of the happily-discounted-for-the-holiday “Dublin Mudslide” ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s, along with some vanilla cream soda) because we’d rather have that than Leprechaun Fizz — although we did drink ours from green glasses, too.  And, in the end, it was finally time to take off all the green, say an extra prayer for and because of those who think that drunk driving on March 17th is the celebration of a holiday, and not the same dangerous, selfish, arrogant stupidity that it would be on any other day of the year, and get some sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Of course, that wasn’t that simple, either.

“Mommy, when Saint Patrick’s Day is over, will it be my friend A-’s birthday party?”

“Yes, sweetie….this year, A-’s birthday party is going to be on March 18th, which is the day after Saint Patrick’s Day….and also tomorrow. That’s why we need to let our exciting holiday end, now, and why we need to calm down, so we can get enough rest to make good choices and have a wonderfully exciting day tomorrow with your friends, too.”

“And then after A-’s birthday, it is going to be Daddy’s birthday! And after Daddy’s birthday, it will be YOUR AND MINE BIRTHDAYS!!!!”

“Well, not after only one sleep, but yes, those are the birthdays that come next on our calender. Let’s wait and think about those on another day, though, ok? It’s going to be hard to calm down and sleep if we have too many exciting thoughts at once.”

“But I think maybe I can DREAM about our birthdays!”

Ahhh well.  Tomorrow is indeed another day.  We’ll see how it goes…!

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Who are you, and what have you done with my child?

January 15, 2012 By 5 Comments

This morning, Ash woke up (and he woke up dry, mind you!), went to the bathroom, went back to his bedroom and got himself completely dressed (except for closing the snap on his jeans, which is still really hard for him), and went downstairs to the living room….all without so much as calling for our attention.

We heard him in action, between the bells on his door and the baby monitor we still use.  We just waited to see what would happen.

Did that REALLY just happen?!

Half a month ago, he would still sit in bed, overflowing his Pull-Up, while calling our names between rounds of singing or scripting to himself.

Well, I guess this will distract me from the transitional change-over from him calling me Mommy to him calling me Mama.

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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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Looking back on 2011′s Christmas season (Part 2)

December 31, 2011 By 1 Comment

Part 1 took us as far as the annual family portrait, which actually happened at the end of November.  Things only picked up speed in December!  (Unfortunately, we also picked up things like the flu and strep throat, but that’s another matter.)

For a start, early in the month Ash’s 1st grade class took a very exciting field trip to see a professional dance-theater production of a Rudolph-centered story.  I was a bit nervous about this, all priming and preparation (and there was plenty) aside, because it would be Ash’s first time as an audience member in a theater, and I wouldn’t even be able to be there.  (Steffan wasn’t able to get his work schedule to accommodate us going along as chaperones, this time.)  I wasn’t worried about a dance performance being able to hold his interest….not after he watched tapes of Riverdance and Feet of Flames until they literally started disintegrating (and the arrogant skeeziness of Michael Flatley in the latter, started disintegrating my brain)….it was more the issue of him being able to stay still enough, and quiet enough, especially when the material would be so thrilling to him.  Over the years, Ash has gotten better (overall) at containing, restraining, and redirecting many things.  His excitement is rarely one of them.

Ash made this cute little pine cone tree for us. It came home wrapped and everything, and went under our tree with the other presents. His SpecEd teacher reported that he was super excited to give it to us. After he did, he told me I needed to water it, because it was brown.

Blessedly, things turned out splendidly.  Ash did a fabulous job!  Apparently he did spend a fair amount of time laughing uproarously in delight, but no one minded….in fact, the SpecEd teacher (who sat next to him, by an escape aisle) reported that the GenEd teacher, who was sitting in front of him, kept turning around to watch HIM, because his infectious joy was even more fun than the show.  Ash couldn’t stop talking about the experience, from the moment the show ended until, oh, a few days later.  His favorite part?  It was when Rudolph flew through the air.  It was also when he got to meet Santa.  It was also when Frosty started a snowball fight, and threw a snowball at him.  (In truth, Frosty threw one snowball to each of the first three rows.  The snowball headed towards the 3rd row, where Ash was, was close enough to pointed at him that Ms.W-, the SpecEd teacher, felt justified in lunging for it to catch it for him — although usually when he tells stories about it, he just says that Frosty threw it at/to him, and he caught it.  Ash being Ash, he felt the thing to do was try to throw it back at/to Frosty, so there it went….but, thankfully, it was passed back to him from the people rows ahead that had gotten unexpectedly bonked from behind.  The “snowball”, a small, stuffing-filled, white satin ball-ish shape, made a perfect fidget for the rest of the show, too.  It is now among his prized possessions.)  I have a feeling that Ash is going to ask if he can go see the show next year, too.

Of course, school was full of holiday-themed activities, all month.  They read holiday-themed books in Library.  They sang holiday-themed songs in Music.  They did holiday-themed crafts in Art, and sometimes in OT, too.  On FunFridays they learned about Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa.  One day when recess was rained out, they watched a Frosty the Snowman movie.  (His favorite part of that was, “When you could see Frosty’s eyes appeared!”  Yup, that’s my eye-contact-obsessed atypical-autist!)  During the last week, they had a special unit on Christmas around the world.  Oh yes, school kept his fire stoked, all December long.

We were on countdown, and it was time for another “first”, to go along with Ash’s first letter to Santa.  This year, we introduced the Advent Calender.

Ash looks for the right numbered "window" on his first Advent Calender.

We were hoping to find one of the ones made entirely from painted wood, with a Christmas tree on top that has little pegs on it, and below, numbered, drawers or cabinets with tiny wooden ornaments to hang on them.  I think Ash would really like that type.  No such luck, though.  In the meantime, he enjoyed the colorful cardboard one we found, filled with cheap chocolate.

There are far worse things than being hand-fed a chocolate by your son every day. What? It was HIS idea.

Ritualized waiting only did so much to combat Ash’s “lifelong struggle” with impatience.  He’d been waiting for Christmas for months….it hardly seemed fair that he had to wait for much of another one.  I mean, he was being a nice-list boy noooooww.

There was only one thing to do.  When someone starts doing something for him, it often prompts him to move forward with trying to do it himself.  He would pretend to be Santa, and see if it kicked the big guy into gear a little sooner.

The tree looked too empty. Something had to be done about that.

Well, it's not like anyone was going to blame him.

"Ho Ho Ho! Meeerrry Chrissstmaaas!"

I needed to say, "Hi, Santa!" just to keep things clear.

"Hi, Ash's Mommy! I'll see you soon! You'd better be good!"

"Now, let's see here what could be here in Sant....my sack? Oh! I think it's presents!"

You think it's safe. You go to bed. And then, from the darkness, a giggle creeps. He's come for your cookies, pretty much just because he knows you'll have a hard time holding it against him.

You don’t think things actually stopped THERE, do you?  No no no, of course not.  Check out Part 3…

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Looking back on 2011′s Christmas season (Part 1)

December 31, 2011 By 2 Comments

Well, I finally got up my winter-holiday photo retrospective, so it’s time to tackle this year’s descent into the holiDAZE.  (This descent wasn’t nearly fast enough, so far as Ash was concerned.)  I mean, sure, I got up an inclusive greeting, a Chanukah card and a Christmas card — even a video of Ash reading you a story for Christmas Eve — but that leaves a lot of the good stuff unaccounted for.  I can’t very well show you this year’s special new ornament, but not show you any of the other fun surrounding the tree!

2011 brought us a couple of new Christmas traditions, early on.  Ash added two new movies (and a lot of associated sweetness) to his repertoire: The Polar Express….which lead to his first-ever letter to Santa, shown in that post….and The Muppet Christmas Carol.  Excess excitement on those accounts was vented off in the early Christmas present of a replacement bouncer, care of the charity in the name of @katestclair‘s son Kyle.  (They could use a lot more prayers, right now!  You can find out more about them at Three Little Saints).

*boing*boing*boing*

Since last year Ash had helped us trim the Christmas tree for the first time, we knew we’d have to plan for it this year.  Like everything else,, that was more involved than some might expect.  Ash’s Uncle A- would be taking our annual family photo for us again, and those were always taken in front of our tree.  A-, however, works an irregular schedule, much like Steffan does, which means coordinating their schedules, along with Ash’s school schedule, can be tricky — we have to aim for the earliest time slot when all three are free (I am almost always “free”), so as to have the maximum number left of the few remaining chances to attempt the photo shoot, should the first one not work out for whatever reason.  This year, the first chance for the photo would be on the Monday after Thanksgiving, after Ash was out of school and finished with his “3 Steps” and all that.  That meant Steffan and I would have to get the tree up and lit on Friday night after Ash was in bed (Did you catch the Ask Ash! about his favorite color of Christmas Tree light?), give him Saturday to adjust to it being there again, and then try to have him decorate it on Sunday.

Thankfully, it worked out.

This year Ash put things on the tree more or less in the order he found them in the bowl. The snowflakes -- an addition this year -- came first, and went along the bottom of the tree, "Because snow falls down."

I adore how Ash placed these two ornaments on the tree.

I can’t remember now if it was an Ask Ash! question or just a spontaneous one of my own, but I asked Ash what his favorite ornament of those on the tree this year, was.  He told me, “My favorite ornament is the shiny red heart, because the heart stands for love, and shiny red is pretty with you.”  I swear to God, this kid…

Placing ornaments is only a slightly easier process for Ash this year than last, thanks to the previous experience, but he still goes slowly and carefully.

Ahhh, the sparkly blue butterfly! There must always be such things. :-)

We have several Santa ornaments that are non-fragile enough to be placed by Ash. Naturally, he tells us everything he knows about Santa, while putting them up.

The instrument-shaped ornaments still get "played" before going on the tree.

Funny story relating to Ash using his imagination to interact with Christmas Tree ornaments…  Two or three years ago, I think it was, an ornament placed at the bottom of the tree was a little rocking horse ornament that one of Ash’s great-aunts had made for his first Christmas.  This caught his attention at one point, and, knowing full well that rocking horses are meant to be ridden, Ash attempted to do so.  All things considered, this involved tucking the ornament between his thighs, holding it in place with his hands, and rocking back and forth as he stood there amidst the edges of the branches.  Ash’s grandma, who was here at the time, posed a question that none of us could blame her for.  “Um….why is my grandson humping the Christmas Tree?”  I remembered the placement of the ornament and put it together with what I know of my son, to immediately provide a nonchalant answer.  My mother-in-law felt better.  Steffan was still busy laughing hysterically.

These miniature, gold-wrapped "gift" ornaments came off of a miniature, live Christmas tree that a friend once sent me while I was in college. Ash, who feels that shiny paper automatically doubles the appeal of any present, heartily approves.

Because his silly face amuses me, that's why. Actually, he was in the middle of tweeting, since he'd picked up one of the foam cardinals that we use as ornaments. They originally came from one of the kids I used to teach, who had decided to make and give them to me instead of using them for a particular craft as originally intended.

Ash works hard, trimming the tree, and taking cues to make sure the ornaments weren't all in one spot. He was a little annoyed that there wasn't any snow outside, though.

This is how the tree looked when Ash was finished.

Hooray! "Now we're ready for Christmas!"

Later that night, we fill in some blanks. Here, the tree is ALMOST as done as it was going to get this year. I think we aught to hunt Christmas clearance and see if we can find a tiny green tree for Ash's room, so he can have his own with all white and blue lights and a star on top, like he wants.

Next on the itinerary, obviously, was getting that annual family Christmas photo taken.  This is usually one of the only if not the only photo of all three of us together, that ends up being taken over the course of a year, and it’s usually the only good one of all three of us together.  Oh yes, I am very intent on this photo happening, even if it has to happen with some help from my mad Photoshop-fu skillz.

This is why we take a lot of shots.

The adventure didn’t end there.  Check out (the forthcoming) Part 2…

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My autistic son considers his own future

December 9, 2011 By 2 Comments

Ash’s future….now that’s a loaded topic.  Forget living day to day.  Most of the time we live hour by hour, minute my minute….some days, living second by second isn’t at all an exaggeration.  With the depth of his sensory issues, let alone how they and the manifestations of his Autism are affected by even things as uncontrollable as the sky, even Ash can’t know what he’s going to be capable of, or not capable of — for better or worse — from one moment to the next.  That makes our parental job of actually PLANNING, just a touch more interesting.  Do you know what I’m usually doing until 3 or 4am?  Preparing for the morning that will be starting in 3-4 hours, and the 10 possible ways it is most likely to go, based on how the last few preceding hours of Ash’s awake time went.  Maybe he will be capable of startling eloquence.  Maybe he won’t be able to do more than make squeaky shrieking sounds and keep repeating whatever single word or short phrase his head has most recently become “stuck” on trying to process.  (Right now “forget” and “understand” are the words used, and misused, ad nauseum.)  Maybe he’ll be able to pick his own clothes and completely dress himself.  Maybe getting him dressed in the morning will resemble a “Moving People” skit from Whose Line Is It Anyway?  Perhaps he’ll be whining for help with everything, or desperately insistent on doing everything all by himself, regardless of how the preceding set of options fall.  Maybe he’ll maintain his sweetness, his gentleness and his infectious happiness regardless of what challenges the day and his brain throw at him.  Maybe he’ll be consumed by a burning frustration at feeling like he just can’t seem to get out of bed the “right” way, and before he’s made it out of his bedroom, he’ll already be unwittingly acting out scenes from horror movies he’s never seen.  Even the simplest of things ‘going smoothly’ usually takes preemptive excesses of psychological and environmental manipulation on my part, and if that’s required to get Ash through needing to wear galoshes TO school tomorrow but sneakers once AT school, how in hell can I plan for, oh, say, puberty?

All that is without getting into the “big” questions, like whether or not Ash will ever be able to have a romantic relationship (kindergarten crushes….literally….aside), perhaps even raise children some day.  Will he even be able to live independently, or should we keep working on getting out of medical debt and repairing our credit so we can buy a duplex townhouse and try to live forever, because the news — and what never makes it into the news — makes it too terrifying to even contemplate having to rely on anyone else for his responsible care?

Beyond all that, what does Ash want for his own future?  Regardless of neurological circumstances, one can only take just so seriously the claim of any six year old boy to his Mommy that she shouldn’t worry, for he will stay together with her forever and ever.

Brief tangent here…  When I was a little — and not so little — girl, and was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always, “Happy.”  Oh, if asked more specifically about career aspirations I could easily enough spout out one goal or another, but that was never my default and truly honest answer, if the question was more open-ended.  And, while it would have been foolish to get into explaining and expounding, my notion of what Happiness was likely to entail involved the defiantly optimistic ideal of having Love….love from others that I could believe in, and love for others that I didn’t have to second-guess.  Friendship, yes.  Romance.  Parenthood.  As my mother always said, I always made things more complicated.  ::wry smile::

While my dreams of what I wanted for myself in life were crafted from the harsh awareness of things I knew I most certainly did not want, Ash appears to take after me when it comes to the goals his mind instinctively leans towards, and yet….and all those who know Steffan and I will tell you it’s not so daring for me to claim it….Ash’s inspiration is, you might say, far more direct.  With his common failure to fit into stereotypes of Autism, Ash often enough expresses not just an expectation to, not just an interest in, but the desire to end up married and a parent.  “I’m too little to get married, but I need to grow up and get older so I can have a wedding,” Ash once said.  Why, so he can dance his pants off?  No.  “Because that means I’m supposed to found my love-match like you and Daddy.”  Nope, he doesn’t take for granted that it always happens.  After confirming that so-&-so and so-&-so are husband-and-wife or husband-and-husband (the combinations he personally knows), he’ll usually follow it up by asking me if the couple are, “Love-matches like you and Daddy and I.”  So, when he grows up, he can find his love-match and get married.  “And then I think I can be a Daddy, too.”  Oh, yes?  “Daddy, you are Mommy’s big love, and Mommy, you are Daddy’s big love too.  And I am your little love.  And we are all love-matches together in our family.  And so when I get bigger I can have a love-match and then it will be my big love and I will be big so I can be a Daddy so I will have a little love.”

□ Does the patient evince an interest in other people?  √

□ Does the patient develop emotional relationships?  √

□ Does the patient try to express his feelings?  √

□ Does the patient…

Yeah, screw that.  My child is autistic and he is totally into the idea of forming relationships with other people of distinct strengths and types.  Maybe that’ll change as he ages, as it might with any other child, but that’s the thing….“As it might be with any other child.”

In fact, he’s been expressing hopeful intentions of growing up to be a husband and father for longer than many of his typical peers have been telling people that they want to be a princess / astronaut / dinosaur rider / doctor / etc., and Ash is certainly no more ignorant of examples of jobs, fantastical or otherwise, than he is of examples of relationships.  Until now, however, he has never been able to answer the clichéd question of what he wants to be/do when he grows up.  If someone tried asking him, they generally got a somewhat blank stare and a reflexive so-long-as-I-smile-at-them-and-they-smile-back-it-will-all-be-good smile.  If they kept pressing and providing cues, he might get as far as telling them he’d be [one year older], or that he’d still be [his name or one of his nicknames].

You caught the, “Until now,” up there, though, right?  Mmm hmmm!  That’s right, Ash has, for the first time, considered, concluded, and expressed a desire to have a particular sort of job when he grows up!

“Mommy, when I grow up I can be a zoologist like Jarod Miller, because I love learning about animals and then I can always see them.”

You know what?  Aside from him needing to learn how to control his excited jitters and managing to move less erratically, I see no reason why he couldn’t rock at it.

 

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