November already?

I totally forgot that it is November. I'm so behind in everything. This crazy transition to teenager for my boy including all of the school challenges that are coming with it, changing to working at least some of the time, my grandma and all her issues, Tony starting school, and all of the kid activities are turning me into a real flake. My calendar is so full that I can't keep up. Now the Holidays are coming and I am not ready.

Let me back up a bit.

Micah is having a hard time with becoming a teenager.  I know, who doesn't?  Still, do you remember Junior High? Think about doing it with the social abilities of a 4 year old. I know sometimes it felt like you were limited in your social skills, and believe me, I recognize that every 13 year old is, but not on this scale. It was frustrating dealing with hormones and all the crap that comes with it, but for my boy it is just as frustrating as it was before he could talk.  If you have heard me speak of those dark days, you know that it is getting bad if I can compare it to that.

I have already had to fight the school some because of the problems that he has been having.  They already tried to suspend him once, but their mistakes caused me to push back and he didn't get sent home. IEPs are killing me.  I have to have a solution that doesn't seem to exist.
At this point I am beginning to wonder if all of my hard work with him through the years is going to prove worthless. All the headaches and stress and he may still end up in jail because he can't control himself.

I'm tired of fighting a losing battle.

In the middle of all this I have started the process to become a substitute teacher for the kid's school district. At this point it's just a matter of paperwork being finished on their end. My biggest fear in all of this is that I will succeed and love it but not be able to continue because I will need to be more available for Micah.

My next issue is my grandma. Honestly, my mom is shouldering most of that, but I still have to help her out. My grandma is currently in an assisted living facility for rehab after breaking her leg and having a mild heart attack. This whole incident has caused her to need to move from her current apartment which is difficult for her to get around in to a more appropriate apartment for her needs. I found a place for her, but with her still being in the rehab facility, she hasn't been able to take care of paperwork and all that is necessary for that. Then once that is taken care of, we will be moving her and all her stuff...that will be an adventure.

Tony starting school just means that I have to take on more things alone for a while. He's doing online classes, so he's still there, but he needs time to focus, so there are times when I will just have to handle stuff alone.

Kid activities may be the hard part as far as consuming my time. Cheer, choir, and softball are the current contenders for time, but it will soon be cheer, softball, baseball, and a play, along with any of the runs that Micah wants to do and anything else that the kids may come up with. Band isn't taking up my time yet, but concerts are coming soon, I'm sure.

Let's throw in Thanksgiving and Christmas, because I will have loads of time. I don't even know what these holidays are going to look like yet because I have been distracted. We just recently found out that my grandma will still be in rehab for Thanksgiving, so I will not have her and likely not my mom either to help/worry about. I usually cook with my mom because it's easier to do that with Micah's diet, but that probably won't be an option this year.

Last Christmas I had a horrible time because of school and stuff, so I just gave most people gift cards and slid through the season pretty depressed. We did have a beautiful day and week after alone with just Tony and the kids and I, but everything else felt completely forced. I am beginning to wonder if we shouldn't just hide like that for these holidays so we can regroup a bit. Still, Tony has school, so it won't be the same.

I really need to stop complaining. I'm worn out, but it's pretty easy to find things to be thankful for in all of this. I know that there are people around me who love me, and I just have to call and they will be there to rescue me. It's hard to be the one who always has to be rescued, but it's nice to still have those people who are willing to help even though I have called them way too often.

It's times like this that I wish that the stupid saying of "God won't give you more than you can handle" was true. The problem is that I am living proof that He does. He constantly gives me things that I can't handle so that I will rely on Him. Believe me, I would have given up long ago if He wasn't trustworthy enough to hand it all over to Him. I can't do any of this stuff, really. To juggle it all alone would be stupid. He is far better at handling this stuff than I am.

Teenagers and Autism Stuff

It's hard to be a parent of a teenager with autism.

That's an understatement.

This morning I took my son to his first period class almost 2 months into his 8th grade experience by literally carrying him on my shoulder. I put his backpack on my back and he kicked and screamed the entire way to class. All of this was because we were out of bananas and I wouldn't take him to go get one instead of taking him to school.

That's what my life is like lately. If I don't keep him to his routine, all hell breaks loose. I know his teacher didn't appreciate the fact that I didn't give her a calm, collected boy this morning. I still had to stand my ground and make him go to school even if he didn't have the banana. Why? Life isn't about the missing banana. Is he hungry? No. He had both (yes, first and second) breakfasts. I packed his elevensies. He wasn't starving. I refuse to feel like a failure as a mother because my son didn't get a stupid banana in the morning.

My son's morning routine is pretty simple. He wakes up as my girls are headed out the door. He has his first breakfast, which can vary greatly depending on what we have in the house, colors in his room for a few minutes, and then gets his second breakfast when his first alarm goes off. This breakfast is usually toast or a waffle as it is one of those "on the run" type things because the next alarm will be going off again in 5 minutes. At that alarm he changes clothes and brushes his teeth and washes his face. The next alarm goes off and he puts on deodorant and shoes (no, I have never been able to get him to put on his deodorant before putting on his shirt, but he wears it, so I won't complain). The next alarm he is putting together anything that he missed along the way or putting stuff in his backpack for the day, all to get in the car before the last alarm. He knows that if he does not get into the car before the last alarm, I will not stop at 7-11.

The drive to school is simple. We stop at 7-11 if he is on time and he purchases a juice and a banana. They have come to know Micah at the 7-11 on our route, so sometimes I just send him in with cash, and other times I walk in with him.

This morning Micah was having a rough time getting with the program and didn't get out the door before the last alarm. I just don't have the time to stop if he is late, so generally I get him out the door when he misses his last alarm by grabbing him a juice and a banana on the way out the door. It doesn't always work for him, but he will generally calm down quickly if I do this. Today I had no bananas.

The last time this happened, security had to come drag my boy to class. The big problem was that that day, the security guard told him that if he went with him, he would take him to 7-11. NEVER LIE TO MY SON! Today the security guards can come all they want, but Micah won't have it. They cannot be trusted in his eyes. Thanks newbie. You've now ruined this for everyone.

So, this morning I took my almost 13 year old boy over my shoulder, with his backpack on my back, and carried him to class. Sure he had to be calmed down and he wasn't going to have a good day after that, but giving in this time would make every time after that harder. How do I know this? I've done it for almost 13 years. I know my kid. He has to know that going to school isn't optional. The only way that I can show him that is to make sure that he is there every day. He has to know that being late for school because you don't have a banana isn't an option. Today I had to show him that by carrying him to class.

Am I unreasonable? Probably. I know that there are many people out there who would criticize my actions today. Oh, well. I didn't see another option that had consequences that I was willing to live with.

As I walked away I saw Micah and his aid come out of class and do some of his deep breathing techniques. He wasn't mad at her, he was mad at me. She at least isn't dumb enough to tell him that she will take him to 7-11. She may have promised him a banana, but honestly, I'm okay with that. If that fixes the problem, okay. Micah still has to comply with the rules every time or they are useless.

It's harder to deal with these meltdowns the older and bigger he gets. I know that picking him up and throwing him over my shoulder isn't always going to be an option, I've been told that since he was 4. Still, there are days like today when it's just necessary. I'm just thankful that I know how to prevent these things so that they don't happen every day like they used to. His morning routine fixed this. Routines help him make sense of the world. When things are the same, he is a much calmer guy. Still, life doesn't always stick to the routine.

Saturday I go to take a test so that I can become a substitute teacher. I'm scared. Not because of the test, I'm not worried about that in the least. It's the substitute thing. If I do this, the routine has to change. Micah will have to get up earlier in the morning. We will have to figure out a new routine that may possibly include a bus. This is unbelievably scary.

Still, I need this. I need the ability to make some money to pay for the education that I just finished. I need to get out and do something other than fight the battles with and for my kids. I love my kids and I love being at home for them. Being a full time mom is just hard. I need something a little easier. Yes, easier. I need easy once in a while. It's scary to let go, but I just have to.

Well, I'll stop now. I gotta get to the store and buy some more bananas.

Ten Years

Date: April 4, 2004

With my boy on my hip, I took a big breath and opened the door. Inside were the dark tan waiting room chairs, brown wood paneled walls, a basket of toys in the corner, and a counter with a paper on it to sign in. I walked to the counter, wrote my boy's name on the sheet, and sat down by the toys.

I put my boy on the floor facing the toys. At two and a half, that should have been what would entertain him while we waited to hear his name called in my opinion at the time. Instead he laid his head down and began looking at the labels on the bottom of the chairs.

I sat watching him, knowing we were a little early for our appointment. I thought of the discussions that I had had recently with several trusted friends. I had known that something was different about my boy for a while, and at least someone agreed with me because we had speech therapists at our house twice a week. One of my friends pointed out some characteristics that made her think of the "a" word. I had been told that it probably wasn't that a couple of times by his pediatrician and one of the speech therapists working with him. Other friends told me that boys are just slower to speak than girls, a fact proven true in my house, since my 8 month old girl was picking up quite a bit from her brother's therapy and was speaking far more than he was...and far more than any other 8 month old I had ever encountered. These friends told me that there wasn't anything wrong and I should just wait for him to grow out of this phase.

Another boy came in the room, right around my boy's age and he walked up to the toys and began to play. The other mom was talking with the receptionist, apparently disagreeing about the outcome of her son's lack of diagnosis.  I wanted to scream at her. Her son was fine! He was playing and talking to the toys. He turned to me and looked at me straight in the eye and said "catch?" I would kill for that kind of interaction with my son!

Thankfully, before I said or did something in my anger, I heard my boy's na

me being called. My son didn't look away from the labels he was so facinated with, so I picked him up and took him to the lady who called his name.

We were taken to another room with more toys and waited to be seen. Apparently someone had to calm down the angry mom in the waiting room. My boy walked up to the toy cars, took them out one by one, and lined them up in a straight line like a parking lot. I talked to him the entire time as the speech therapists had told me to. Having recently given up on eye contact, I just described what he was doing and that it looked like a parking lot to me.

 

When he had taken out all the cars, he laid down on his back and stared at the ceiling, flapping his hand in front of his face.

This was the scene where the psycologist walked in. She smiled at me and introduced herself. She explained what she was going to do and how and what each of the tests were as if I had any idea about what any of it meant. Over the course of the next several years, these words would become another language that I would learn, but at this point it could have been Chinese and I wouldn't have known the difference. 

The rest of that visit is a blur to me. She observed, asked a ton of questions,  tried to speak with my boy, and in the end walked away to input some things into a computer. It took several minutes,  but she cam back with a paper that said "diagnosis: autism." It said a bunch of other things that I would later learn and know meant that he was fairly severe, but I didn't understand nor care about all that yet.

 

I had a weird feeling of relief then, which later I would feel guilty about. Still, for me this was validation.  I was not crazy, something was different about my kid. Everyone who told me that I was just paranoid was wrong and I had proof. I smiled at the psychologist and walked out of the room with my head held high. I wasn't crazy.

I went home, picked up my baby girl with far more confidence than I had had her entire life. I fed her knowing that I wasn't a failure as a parent.

When Tony read the paper,  his reaction was so very different. He cried. I was in a whole different place, but I still understood. He was thinking that his son would not grow up playing baseball and video games with him. He didn't know if he would ever have a real conversation with his son. There was so much grief and uncertainty in him. It was the death of a dream for his boy.

We know now that my boy plays baseball on an awesome challenger team and has for many years, but back then it wasn't something that we could have known. We know now that my boy is crazy about graphic novels and video games, draws out what he is thinking so you can get a glimpse if you try, and likes to write poetry best because it is richer to him than normal prose.

We know that he loves winning, and running is just one of those amazing things that he is able to do for long periods of time tirelessly, so he loves a good 5k (and would love to do a marathon, but I'm not ready for that yet).

 We know now that we can converse with him, but he really only feels it necessary to speak to people if he is arguing or wants something. He is stubborn and opinionated, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the "a" word. It's a family trait and comes by it honestly.

 We know now that he enjoys vlogging, but he doesn't want to do it every day as originally planned.  He just doesn't want to talk that much, and vlogging takes a lot of unnecessary speech.

We also know now that somewhere in the middle of everything that we taught him he fell in love with Jesus and has a real relationship with Him. This goes beyond our understanding, but we are limited like that. 

Autism has played a role in our lives, but my son does not feel that the word defines him anymore.  If you ask him, he will tell you, "I don’t have autism, I have awesomeism." He told me once that autism is what people can't do. Awesomeism is all the things that he can do better than people who, in his opinion talk too much. He once quoted to me from James (a book of the Bible he dearly loves) "Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." God is still working on him for the third part, but he has the first two down.