My nine-year-old, lovingly referred to as “M.” on this blog, recently took a liking to art. The other day, we sat together with a pile of paper and he drew for awhile, then I gave him suggestions and he drew some more.
Here are some of his pictures:
This one looks like an angry dude in a doorway.
Ahh, happy people. With many ears. Seven ears, to be exact.
Happy person, two ears, lots of birds flying around.
This one looks like a surfer to me. Shout out to Steve, the sweetest surfer on WordPress!
Finally, my favorite picture of the day. I asked M. to draw Kiri dog:
That’s her drinking water. I love the smile and her tail.
Since my littlest artist, M. has autism he doesn’t say much, and I find his drawings interesting. A window into his mind. I wonder why he made a surfer-looking dude. It’s not something he’s exposed to. Also, all those ears on that one guy! What’s that about? And angry guy in the doorway? I wonder if he meant that to be his brother.
His art teacher called us recently and asked if she could put one of his masterpieces in an art show. Of course we said yes. Here’s a picture of his art:
The teacher had asked M. to make stripes with acrylics, and then gave him some items to add texture. M. used a fork through his stripes, and some sort of tire. To me, his picture looks like a boat at sea, with the sun in the upper left corner. We named it “Sunset at Sea.” It was pretty cool to see his artwork hanging on the wall of the gallery.
Also, I think there’s a uniqueness to the picture that a typically-developing nine-year-old couldn’t, or wouldn’t be able to express. The painting is messy, but it’s an ordered mess. M. wasn’t worried about being perfect or staying in the lines. The painting is pure emotion, yet not “scribble-scrabble.” The stripes and texture are present, but there is a lot of feeling coming through, too. I wonder if a typical kid in art class would, or could tap into their emotions to let loose like M. did.
That’s all I have. Just thought I’d share and be the bragging parent for the night!
My eight-year-old son, M., has autism. For an autistic kid, M. is very in tune with other people’s feelings. He shows a great amount of empathy. He gets very upset when others are upset.
For example, when our house gets loud or we’re arguing with M.’s older brother JC, M. gets very unsettled. He starts to growl. “GRRR,” he says. If we ignore him and get even louder, he growls even louder. When we notice M. is growling at us, we stop and realize how ridiculous we sound yelling at each other, and usually we start to laugh.
Whenever M. thinks we are upset with him, or hears the slightest change of tone in our voice, he says, “Happy my teeth” and looks at our faces. We figured out early on that he wants us to smile at him to prove we are happy. He watches our faces and doesn’t let us off the hook until we actually show him teeth in the form of a smile. It’s really sweet. If we don’t smile right away, he says it again. “Happy my teeth.” The way he says it is super cute– like, “Happy my teef.”
On occasion though, M. wants us to be happy before we are ready to be happy. Like when he dumps the Legos on the floor. A floor covered in those pointy little overpriced Blocks from Hell does not make me happy (As an irrelevantly relevant fact, wouldn’t that be a good way for the CIA to torture detainees? Screw sleep deprivation- here, walk over this floor of Legos with bare feet!).
Still, once M. hears our tone change, he’ll start with his “happy my teef” routine. Here’s a typical “conversation”:
JC (yelling upstairs from basement): MAAAAA, M. dumped all my Legos onto the floor!
Me (screaming into basement): PICK UP THE LEGOS!
JC: He’s not doingggggg it!
(Mom (me) walks down the stairs into the basement and gasps in horror! The Legos are spread like a layer of hot coals, the dog is chewing a couple of limited edition mini-figures, and M. is sitting in the middle of the pile making snow angels, Legos flying in all directions.)
JC: Oh my God! M.! Clean up the Legos!
M: Happy my teef!
Me (with furrowed brow and Mom Voice): No. No happy my teeth! My teeth are not happy.
M: Happy my teef! HAPPY MY TEEF!
Me: You CAN’T dump the Legos all the time. Clean them up, NOW.
JC: YEAH.
M: HAPPY MY TEEF! HAPPY MY TEEF!
(Now M. has approached me, his face inches from mine, holding my cheeks until I show him I’m happy.)
Me: FINE. Happy my teeth (I fake smile).
It’s usually around this point where I stop being upset. The kid is just so friggin’ cute. He has these big, brown puppy dog eyes and awkward-kid-stage oversized teeth, kissable cheeks, and goofy hair that points in different directions. He faces all these challenges in his life and all he ever asks for is for everyone to be happy. And he’s there in front of me staring at me, looking into my eyes. Do I want him to see my angry face or my happy teeth?
So I smile. “Happy my teeth,” I say. M., finally satisfied with my response, moves onto the next thing and I go get the broom and sweep up the Legos.
I’m thinking that we should try M.’s technique with the cranky people in our lives. Next time someone starts to yell at you, try saying “GRRRRR” in response. When someone starts to spew negativity, stick your face in theirs and repeat “Happy my teeth!” over and over until they show you a smile. Maybe it will work!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the popular Elf on a Shelf bonanza that happens every Christmas, let me briefly explain. Some genius came up with the idea to make a toy Elf that comes to your house Thanksgiving night and makes himself at home. This Elf supposedly watches the kids and then flies back to the North Pole every night to rat the kids out to Santa. In the morning, the Elf is back in the house in a new spot, and the kids get to search for him. In theory, the Elf should deter the kids from misbehaving, since he reports back to Santa every night.
To me, the Elf seemed labor-intensive for a parent such as myself, who’s admittedly somewhat grinch-like. I tried to avoid the Elf. After all, the kids’ teachers had Elves at school which seemed to keep them satisfied. Grandma, on the other hand, thought differently, and bought the kids an Elf a few years back (Thanks, Grandma . . .).
Grandma and JC named the Elf “Eugene Peppermint” and happily shoved it at me. “Look what I got,” JC said.
“Oh wonderful! You’ll have an Elf at Grandma’s!” I replied.
“No! He’s coming to live with us,” JC insisted.
“Lovely . . .,” said Grinch Mom (me), as I gave Grandma dirty looks.
Eugene Peppermint. The Bane of My Existence.
For the past couple of years, Eugene is a Christmas highlight for JC. He talks about him all year and gets super excited when it’s time for Eugene to come back to our house from the North Pole (a.k.a. my underwear drawer). Now that he’s older, he’s very serious about the Elf Rules, of which I’m not entirely sure. I think there’s something about not being allowed to touch the Elf because of magic? Maybe you have to rub peppermint on him if someone touches him? We aren’t allowed to touch him though. There are probably other things we are or aren’t supposed to be doing. I dunno.
The Elf kind of stresses me out. Every night from Thanksgiving to Christmas I have to think of a place to put this thing. I live in a townhouse, people. There aren’t many places for an Elf to hang that are unreachable by the little, devious hands of JC’s little brother, M. (also known as “The Tornado” and “The Destroyer”). If M. gets his hand on Eugene, the magic is over.
Since Thanksgiving, Eugene has been on the top of our fridge, hanging from the light fixture in the dining room, and swinging from a branch on our not-yet-decorated tree. Every morning JC runs down the stairs looking for Eugene. “Where is he?”
Well, on Day One, I was pretty good. I set up Eugene and wrote JC a note in “Elf handwriting.” Ahh, I thought. This is kind of nice to do for the kid. Yay, Christmas!
Then on Day Two, I forgot about Eugene until I heard JC’s footsteps coming down the stairs in the morning. Luckily, that townhouse I mentioned has 3 stories, and JC sleeps on the top floor. I had about 30 seconds to move the Elf, but still, I did it.
Last night, however, I forgot to move Eugene. He sat in the Christmas tree behind us while Joe and I watched Sunday night’s The Walking Dead. It was (finally) a good episode and we were freaked out and zombie-fied and went to sleep without a thought for Eugene hanging on our tree. Nor did I remember this morning that I hadn’t moved Eugene from the Christmas tree until JC asked where he was. When JC discovered that Eugene hadn’t moved– that he hadn’t gone to the North Pole overnight to tell Santa how great JC behaved the day before– JC was very disappointed. I did what any good mom would do . . . I blamed dad.
JC: Where is he? Where is he?
Me: (Crap!) Umm, oh that silly Elf! He’s so mischievous he stayed in the tree!
JC: What? Did you leave the door open for him?
Me: (Brilliant!) Oh, you know what? Dad put the alarm on and Eugene couldn’t get out! That dad! He locked Eugene in!
JC: WHAT? HOW COME YOU LET DAD PUT THE ALARM ON!?!
Me: (Still my fault?) I didn’t see him put the alarm on!
I texted Joe: We forgot to move the damn elf. I told JC you put the alarm on and he couldn’t get out.
You’re welcome, honey!
Eugene Peppermint hanging in our tree. Day Two.
Anyway, this afternoon I came home from lunch, moved the Elf onto a (wait until you hear THIS originality . . .) SHELF, and left a note in Elf Handwriting to JC blaming Joe for locking him into the house. Eugene asked JC to please remember to keep the door open.
Time ticks and I bring JC home after work and he runs in looking for Eugene. His brother and grandparents are at the house, the dog is excited, it’s a little chaotic to say the least. JC and Grandma find the Elf on the Shelf (literally) and JC is happy.
I’m not kidding you– no more than three minutes later, the Elf is gone. Missing. Nowhere to be found. Frantically, the grown ups search the house. “Ma, where’s the Elf?” I whisper to her, hoping she hears the urgency in my voice. “WHERE’S. THE. ELF.?” JC starts with his brattitude, freaking out and doing his fake hyperventilating cry, getting ready to wail as the whimpering begins.
What was I thinking at this point? Well, besides thinking I needed a drink, ear plugs, and/or a place to hide, I thought:Holy crap. For a number of reasons: (1) Holy crap, the dog ate the Elf and I’m going to have to bring her to the animal hospital and JC will hate her forever; (2) Holy crap, my parents are losing their minds and they moved the Elf and don’t know where they put it and I’m going to have to put them in a home; (3) Holy crap, M. picked up the Elf and threw it into the abyss (the hole created by placing bookcases next to each other in a corner (I’ll snap a picture) and I’ll never get it out; (4) Holy crap, where am I going to go to find a new Elf to replace Eugene before morning; (5) Holy crap, the damn Elf IS MAGICAL and FLEW AWAY . . . maybe to the North Pole to tell Santa what a crappy mom JC has.
The Great Abyss exists in the empty space created in the corner by the edges of these two bookcases. I’ve fished things out before, but I know that the hole holds many lost treasures, unreachable by the spaghetti scooper duct taped to the broom tool.
After about ten minutes of searching, Grandma spotted the Elf. On the fridge. My parents insisted they weren’t messing with me, so the only explanation is that M. grabbed the Elf, climbed onto the garbage can to the counter, and put Eugene on the fridge, then hopped off without anyone knowing. Which is concerning for a number of reasons, including that three adults didn’t notice the autistic kid climbing the counters.
That’s the only thing we can come up with to explain Eugene’s jump from the shelf to the fridge. Unless, he really IS magic.
Thanks for reading and have a nice night. I have to go move the stupid Elf.
After some careful thought, I decided that I would hand out coffee. You’d totally come visit if I left the porch light on and handed out coffee, right? Why coffee? Well, things are going to start getting crazy for a lot of us and I think we’ll all need a caffeine jolt. Here’s why:
As much as we all like to believe that the holiday season starts with Black Friday and Thanksgiving, we all know that actually it starts the day after Halloween. The stores will start putting out Christmas decorations and playing holiday tunes and we’ll all start planning for Santa and dusting off shelves on which to sit that stupid Elf. With this extended holiday season comes stress and fatigue. Wouldn’t a cup of coffee be nice?
November is National Novel Writing Month! Many of us will be barfing out 50,000 words in the 30-day month. Caffeine is a necessity! Especially if you are kicking off at midnight tonight. Good luck to all the participants. (Just hours away and I’m still not sure if I can swing it, although I really want to. I’ll let you know what I decide.)
If you’re out visiting all these blogs collecting “treats,” you’ll be tired and cranky and enjoying a steamy, hot cup of joe may help. You’ll feel like the energizer bunny as you go blog to blog. The more blogs you can cover, the more treats you’ll get. Drink up and hopalong!
So yes. Coffee. You’re welcome!
Here, we’ve established our own Halloween tradition of hosting my parents and whichever friends decide to show. Tonight we ordered pizza and Joe grilled hamburgers and hot dogs (the weather was quite mild- in the 60’s). My neighborhood is perfect for trick-or-treating so people come from other neighborhoods to walk our streets. Needless to say, we stock up with a lot of candy. My boys dressed up as army men, in camo and helmets. My older son was thrilled that I bought him an actual (empty) grenade from the Army/Navy store. My little one with autism had difficulty with boundaries– he won’t say “trick or treat” but tends to grab for handfuls of candy and likes to walk into people’s houses, but we survived. Even Kiri Kai, our puppy, handled the craziness well. So proud of all of them!
Kiri Kai (6 months old). I still find it hard to get a decent picture of her.
Back at home, Joe carved our pumpkin and JC collected the seeds. M enjoyed squishing the pumpkin gook– a nice sensory activity for him (albeit, messy). Afterwards I gave the boys a much needed bath, put them to bed, and now here I am. I thought about working, thought about writing, thought about reading, but instead indulged in a few minutes of Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I’m not sure why I picked that show except that I was too lazy to fire up Netflix and there wasn’t much on television that interested me. In the show, Kim was concerned about the paparazzi, especially in light of her pregnancy. The show did make them seem pretty aggressive in their pursuit of the very pregnant Kim, but I couldn’t muster up much pity.
Now I’ve moved onto Scandaland I’m typing this during commercials. As Fitz and Jake play basketball, I’m wondering how the President has so much free time. Phoebe from Friends, Lisa Kudrow, plays a Sarah Palin-type Congresswoman from Montana who wants to run for president. It’s nice to see Pheebs working in such a great role on such an awesome show.
Speaking of Presidents, I wonder if President Obama is flipping out over the IT problems with his health care website. What a bummer for him! Welcome to our world, Barry! Tech problems surely can ruin a day, right fellow working class drones?
So my mind wanders as it relaxes and lets the day go. As I sit here and think and write this post, I feel oddly at peace. All in all, I’ve had a pretty nice Halloween. I hope you all did too.
The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge is to show “Companionable.” You can see the post (and cute pictures of dogs) here.
Companionship
That’s JC and M. playing with the hose in our backyard. We had two kids so that they would have each other. Though they share the same blood, they are as different as day and night. They’re a yin and a yang. Peanut butter and jelly. Our greatest hope is that they will love each other despite their differences, that JC will care for and love M. and, along with his parents, be a champion for M. and his special needs.
This week my soon-to-be eight-year-old son M. performed in his school play.
About a month or two ago we started getting handouts with song lyrics and dates and scripts. A quick review of the script revealed a line highlighted in blue for M. to practice. Our M., who has autism, had a speaking part! He had to say the line that titles this post: “Yeah Blue, I’ve got two!” (Don’t ask. The play was called “Oceans in Motion,” or “Commotion in the Ocean,” or something like that and M.’s line was part of a conversation with a kid who played a whale perhaps? The details are sketchy.)
My first thought was Oh no! A speaking part to the autistic kid? Obviously that thought isn’t going to win me any Parent of the Year awards, that’s for sure. But something as simple as this speaking line, which the typical parents wouldn’t even think twice about, can cause stress for us autism parents. We try to help our kids fit in, and a speaking line at the play seems like the perfect way to make them stand out again– on a stage in front of every parent and grandparent and student in the school.
As the days and weeks went on, we started to practice. In the car, at bedtime, at random times during the day when that script handout would peek at us from the school folder or from our pile of paperwork on the dining room table. “What do you have to say for the play?” we’d ask. Sometimes M. would answer and sometimes he wouldn’t. Sometimes his older brother would answer instead. My husband and I must have said “Yeah Blue, I’ve got two” a hundred times in the past month or so. Almost every day M.’s school report noted, “Practiced for play today.” He’s never going to say it, I thought.
Then the big day came. Mom of the Year (me) dug up a blue shirt as instructed and even found M.’s LL Bean shorts with lobsters on them to fit in with the ocean theme. My husband took the day off and I took the morning off and we headed to the school for the play.
We sat and the curtain opened and there was M., standing on the risers with the rest of the class, smiling and looking into the audience fascinated and curious but happy.
The teachers had the good sense to give M. one of the opening sequence lines (before his attention started to wane), and he walked up to the microphone at the front of the stage with three other kids. The whale kid asked his question as my husband fired up the iPhone video camera, and then M. answered: “Yeah Blue, I’ve got two!”
We clapped and cheered for M. and I started to cry. I’m sure the other parents thought I was nuts but I couldn’t help it. Not only did M. say his line, he also danced and attempted the elaborate hand movements that went along with the ocean songs. After each song, while the rest of the students stood and listened to the audience clap, M. smiled into the audience and clapped with us, so happy and so pleased with himself and his classmates. At one point he stumbled off the riser and there was a collective gasp from the audience, but he climbed right back up unaffected.
M.’s performance was super cute. I couldn’t have been more proud.
I let myself off the hook for doubting him in the first place. Right or wrong, sometimes with M. expectations are low. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism to appreciate when he exceeds our expectations, instead of be disappointed that he’s not meeting them, if that makes sense. I remember talking with another autism mom awhile back and we joked about how the littlest thing our special kids did made us so happy– answering a question, commenting on something happening in real time, showing empathy or even simply reacting appropriately to a situation. She said that her son had told her that it was cloudy outside that morning and she practically threw a party she was so thrilled. I understood.
This week M. said, “Yeah Blue, I’ve got two” in front of a standing-room only crowd. It may not have been first place in the spelling bee or the starring role in the school musical, but to us and to his teachers (who cried with me), it was huge.
Disney has a policy in place for disabled patrons (along with up to six of their guests) to access rides from a “more convenient entrance” and avoid the long wait lines. Disney also offers a personal family tour guide and VIP passes for non-disabled (and presumably disabled) families for $310 to $380 per hour.
An article in the NY Post dated May 14 (link here) revealed that a group of wealthy, Manhattan moms have been hiring disabled people to pose as family members during trips to Disney so that their families can cut the lines.
Apparently a social anthropologist researching wealthy New York moms for a book discovered the practice. This “service” or “black-market Disney guides” as it is being referred to, is a bargain at $130/hour. The result of hiring one of these “guides” is that instead of waiting 2 1/2 hours for your kids to get on a ride the regular way, you wait two minutes and get on the ride via the disabled procedures.
Dream Tours Florida, the company allegedly involved, denied that their Disney guide (who suffers from an autoimmune disorder and requires a scooter to get around the park) uses her disability to bypass lines.
In a CNN follow-up article (link here), a spokesperson for Disney called taking advantage of the disabled guest policy “unacceptable,” and noted that Disney is looking into the situation and “will take appropriate steps to deter this type of activity.”
One of the wealthy moms who utilized the “black-market” service is quoted as saying: “This is how the 1 percent does Disney.”
Well, this is how the 99% responds– “Yick.” At least that’s how I respond. According to the articles, some people are okay with this practice, figuring that at least the wealthy are sharing their wealth and that this is a great way for disabled people to make money.
I think it’s sad and pathetic and yick.
For one thing, what is this practice teaching the one-percenters’ kids? To me, it teaches them that they can exploit the disabled (as long as they pay them) to satisfy their every whim. That standing in line is for the poor people. That patience may be a virtue, but it’s also a drag when rides are involved. That spending a thousand dollars a day to impose upon a privilege reserved for disabled people is a worthy investment.
How about the fact that these families could probably afford the legitimate Disney guide for the $310 per hour?
Here’s an idea! If these families are such supporters of accommodating the disabled, why not give that grand they spent on the disabled tour guide to a charity that supports the disabled and their rights, and wait on line like the rest of society?
Just because people have a disability, or because companies like Disney try to accommodate them, doesn’t mean we should exploit them in the name of “hey, at least they’re getting paid!” For me it’s an issue of money vs. morality. Does payment make something right? Doesn’t the payment become the tree in the forest? By that I mean maybe it’s not hurting anyone directly, but looking at the big picture, doesn’t this practice drag us down as a society?
Disney is a big thing. For them to even care one inkling about special needs patrons is a big thing. It sets an example to other big corporations. It helps parents of kids with special needs. It helps kids with special needs experience someplace magical. Some people argue that the fact of being at Disney actually changes these kids.
I have a child with special needs and I hope to go to Disney with him someday. A major factor in that decision is that Disney had the foresight, thoughtfulness, business sense, or whatever motivation to accommodate him in a helpful manner.
If the people who don’t need the service end up being the cause of Disney terminating the service or making it more difficult for those who can actually benefit from the service, I’m going to be pissed off. And someday in the future when these one-percenters’ kids try to pay my disabled kid to do their dirty work, I’m going to be pissed off even more.
To these one-percenter families: keep your money to yourself and use it for good, not to promote laziness and impatience and to set a bad example for your own kids.
[As an aside, I feel the need to point out that the crappy one-percenter moms are taking the hit for this. Why aren’t the crappy dads mentioned? Dads aren’t required to have morals? But that’s another post for another day.]
I just needed to vent. Thanks for reading and have a nice night.
For anyone who may think Mother’s Day is just another “Hallmark Holiday”; who grumbles about having to spend their precious Sunday with Mom; who mindlessly sputters, “Every day is Mother’s Day”; let me describe what’s happening in Jess’s house at midnight on May 10.
I am laying on one of two twin beds pushed together in M.’s room, wide awake typing this post on my iPhone because I left my iPad at work while rushing to get home to my M. who had two teeth pulled today.
Why two twin beds? Because M. isn’t a consistent sleeper. Yep, he’ll be eight next month. EIGHT. Eight years of wondering how much sleep I’ll be blessed with. Seven of those years I was up every night at some point or other. For four of those years I can honestly say I slept no more than four to five hours a night, sometimes in fifteen-minute increments.
But I digress… Where were we? Oh right, the twin beds. See, the “original plan” (you know the plan I mean… it’s the one when you are pregnant with number two where you assume numbers 1 and 2 will be BFFs and 2 will typically develop and, um, sleep) was for JC and M. to share a room. M. being a vampire blew that plan apart. JC now takes residence in another room with its own bed, leaving an extra twin–my twin–in M.’s room. Somewhere in year five or six, my mother in law came up with the idea to push the beds together so I could get some sleep, instead of me being crammed in one twin with M.
Judge if you must, but remember I am old, I have a full time job, and I need sleep. By Year Five of having Edward Cullen for a son (Twilight reference– Stephenie Meyers’s vampires don’t sleep), I would have sold my soul to the Devil for an extra hour of shut eye. Child psychology and expert opinions can go screw at 3 a.m. on a work night.
Digressing, I know. Back to M.
Yesterday’s note from M.’s teacher mentioned a “stomach bug.” Good thing M. didn’t catch that one!, I told myself.
Wrong! He caught it. Poor kid has been throwing up all night.
So I am on M.’s twin, on the plastic mattress cover, with a towel for a pillow and the annoying guardrail next to me, while M. sleeps restlessly next to me, alternating between shivering and sweating, on the last clean set of sheets (which are covered with towels that he somehow manages to miss while heaving).
The bathtub in his bathroom (yep, he has his own bathroom– our town home has 3.5 baths– which makes a great excuse for a cleaning lady) is full of germ-laden, festering laundry. Sheets, blankets, towels, clothes, pajamas. Should be a fun day tomorrow!
Still, as I lay here uncomfortable and overly tired, wondering if I will be fired from my job for calling out tomorrow and wondering how I will get my iPad for the weekend since I left it in my unlocked office, and wondering if I can reschedule everything we were supposed to do tomorrow, and dreading laundry, and wondering when JC will catch the bug, if I had one wish granted to me right now I would wish for M. to feel better. That is really all I want from life at this moment. The other stuff is just distraction.
Your Mom does a lot for you. Even if you don’t realize it. Even if you think she doesn’t do much now for you, at some point she did. At some point she stayed up all night watching you, her sick child, sleep to make sure you were okay. Maybe she even spent the next day doing craploads of laundry.
Wish your Mom a Happy Mother’s Day this weekend. And wish me luck as I battle The Stomach Bug of May 2013.
Being the only female in the house, I am The Minority. I’m the sole representative of All Things Female. Since I’m one of four people, I guess that makes me the twenty-five percenter. I AM THE 25%!
Being female is not the only category for which I am The Minority. “The 75%” have been pushing through a new agenda asserting their majority status and have bonded in the effort to convince me to join the ranks. Now, I’m a pretty easy-going mom and wife but I’m not sure I’m on board with this one.
My boys want a dog.
In years past when talk of pets arose amongst the troops, I either flat-out nixed it or listed the hundreds of reasons why it was a bad idea: We live in a townhouse. Since we’re all out of diapers, do we really want to introduce another waste management issue into our lives? What about the furniture? The shedding? The costs of vet care? Walking? Walking in the snow? Walking in the heat?
As pet owners know, having a pet is a huge responsibility. The kids are too young to take on the task, so the work will be up to me and my husband. In my head, having a dog is like having another baby– except you can drag a baby with you wherever you need to go and people are more willing to watch it.
Do I really want to take on an added responsibility? I have work and the boys and the house, and special needs issues with M. Remember these Legos? Apparently dogs eat Legos. Just ask Jane Doh! at ravenjanedoh. She posted a comment on my Lego post that her Boston Terrier eats Legos (which actually motivates her kids to clean them up). Also, after seven years (SEVEN YEARS- not a typo) M. is (mostly) sleeping through the night. What if Dog wants to be let out at 5:00 a.m. when I am finally able to sleep?
Still, for some reason, when the topic of a dog recently came up again, I considered it. Why the change of heart? you ask.
(1) My husband, a teacher, is home during the summer and is willing and able to train. If we get the dog at the start of the summer, he will have significant time at home to do the training before we need to leave it everyday for work.
(2) My husband promised we could get a female dog, which would boost the female/male ratio from 1/4 to 2/5 (We would be “the 40%”). I’m told she can be the daughter I never had and I can buy lots of pink stuff for her. Add to that my husband’s promise of “Girls’ Nights,” which he describes as Dog Daughter sitting on the couch next to me while I type on the laptop, with no boys allowed. Sounds like a fantasy! (He’s really pulling out the big guns with that to get me to agree to this!)
(3) Our townhouse is a decent size (four levels including a finished basement), and although our yard is tiny, it’s fenced in. If there were three feet of snow on the ground, we’d be able to let the dog out back without having to walk her. Which wouldn’t stop me from buying her a cute pink doggie sweater anyway.
(4) Our stuff isn’t new anymore. Our living room carpet is a mess and the couches are worn. The boys have been abusing our household for nine years now. As such, neither husband nor I are too concerned with possible puppy mishaps. It all needs to be replaced regardless.
(5) After debating whether to seek a breeder or adopt, we’ve decided on adopting. Saving an already-born animal seems like a nice thing to do, and I like to do nice things. Of course, an adopted dog will most likely come to us already named, which will disappoint my husband who has taken to calling our not-yet acquired puppy, “Khaleesi” due to his current geek-fest over Game of Thrones (GOT is another television series based on books (by George R.R. Martin) that my husband loved, like The Walking Dead, but I digress . . . ).
(6) The most convincing consideration for me: Autistic kids respond to animals, and M. loves dogs. See:
M.’s Dogs
That’s a picture of Valentine Dog, Remy, Slinky, Remy (we have lots of “Remy’s”), Christmas Dog, Pillow, and Lucky– just a small sampling of M.’s collection. How do I deny the kid, especially if a dog can help with his issues?
I’ve posted about M.’s autism here, and here. He has a hard time connecting with people outside of the family, but seems interested in animals. Every Sunday he has his therapeutic horseback riding lesson and loves the horses. He enjoys books about animals, television shows about animals, and of course, his dog collection. When he’s playing with his dogs, he talks to them, calls them by name, sits them in circles and kinda sorta “interacts” with them. Not that they interact back. Baby steps, right? Anyway, he seems to relate to the stuffed dogs. Whether or not that will translate to a real dog, I don’t know.
[On a side note, we looked into the possibility of getting a service dog specially trained to work with autistic kids; however, the least expensive one we saw during a quick online search was $9,900 which is a bit cost-prohibitive for us. Also, we’re not entirely sure that’s what M. needs.]
Right now we are in the early stages of researching pet adoption and breeds (we are interested in a well-trained pit bull- don’t believe the hype about them- they actually can be a great family dogs- see pic below). Well, Dog People of Blogtropolis. What do you think? Tell me how much you love your dogs, and that I should let majority rule on this one. Or tell me I’m nuts. HELP me! Because really, although I’m The Minority, I’m extremely powerful in this democracy. I totally have veto power that I’m not afraid to invoke!
Yesterday, April 2, was World Autism Awareness Day, a day where we “recommit to helping individuals on the autism spectrum reach their full potential,” according to President Obama in yesterday’s Presidential Proclamation.
I wasn’t sure what, if anything I wanted to say about World Autism Awareness Day as a parent of a special needs child. I feel confident that at this point, most people are aware of the existence of autism. Hopefully, they are aware of the rising number of kids diagnosed autistic and are concerned about the possibility that this is an epidemic that will have long-range effects on society as a whole. While I can site stats and facts about autism, there’s nothing I can say that can make you understand what it is like to have a special needs child, the good and the bad, if you don’t have one in your life.
For example, to parents with typically-developing babies who, say, didn’t sleep: You can try to explain to people how tired you are. You can tell them how you fell asleep stopped in your car at a red light, or how you can’t think straight, or list the times you were up the night before to console the baby. However, they will never fully understand the physical and emotional toll that sleep deprivation causes unless they’ve experienced it themselves. They’ll try to be sympathetic and some may even offer to help somehow. They are “aware” of the problem you are having, but they aren’t living it, so they’ll never understand. I don’t mean this as a slight to anyone. I think the most that friends can do is listen–and offering to help goes above and beyond. Our friends can’t live our lives for us, but their support helps. Awareness helps.
For World Autism Awareness Day, I would like to request more than awareness from those unfamiliar with the challenges of special needs families. I’d ask for your tolerance.
One morning as I stood in front of my townhouse in my busy neighborhood with M. waiting for his bus, a mom from the “regular” bus stop approached me and asked me why I had a bus stop in front of my house. She pointed to her home a few doors down from mine, about a block or two from her child’s bus stop, and asked why she wasn’t assigned a closer bus stop. I explained that my son has special needs and has to take a special bus. “Oh, I was wondering why you didn’t have to walk to the corner.”
The exchange with the nosy woman pushed my buttons. I wanted to scream at her– at all the normal parents at the normal bus stop with their normal kids getting on the normal bus. Don’t you realize that I’d give anything to have to walk to the corner and be able to put M. on your bus?
Although her tone was rude and she really should have minded her own business, she was just curious and nosy. I thought it was ironic though, that I was jealous watching those moms at the corner chatting while their kids played together everyday, while M. and I stood alone in front of my house; meanwhile, she was jealous that I didn’t have to walk to the corner. I wondered if the group on the normal bus stop had peeked at me and discussed my “special treatment” while I watched them from down the block.
Back to tolerance. I don’t know one parent of an autistic child who scams the system for special treatment. Do we fight for what is owed us under law? Yes. Do our kids get special considerations, such as a special, smaller, quieter bus equipped with an aide? Yes. We know our kids suck up some of your resources and we raise your school taxes. We’d rather not. Please be tolerant.
Do we enjoy when our child has a meltdown in public, at a restaurant or in the grocery store? Nope. But we need to get out and do things and we have to bring them. Also, we want them to learn how to behave in public and that takes practice. We know you are paying for a nice meal out and that back in “your day” kids didn’t act like ours. Don’t judge us. Trust me, we’re doing our best. It may not be perfect, but we try. Please be tolerant.
Sometimes we get an advantage, like skipping lines at the amusement park. Maybe this annoys you. Your kids aren’t exactly patient and it’s hot and you paid your admission too. Try to remember that we pay a price to be able to skip that ride line and have considerations such as door-to-door busing: endless therapy appointments, doctor appointments, school meetings, etc. etc. etc. It may sound crazy to you, but we’d rather be waiting on the long line. Please be tolerant.
We love our kids. Our kids are awesome in a different way than your kids. And we try. I don’t know any parent who doesn’t. Your understanding and patience and tolerance would make our day a bit easier. So on World Autism Awareness Day, I ask you to show tolerance for kids and their parents and remember that all kids are different, and some are autistic. In fact, according to President Obama, 1 in 88 children in America is autistic. Autism isn’t going away, unfortunately, and you will be seeing a lot more of us.
Waiting on a Word 
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