Bragging Rights

Its not too often that I get to play Proud Mama, though I do post acheivement news frequently. Usually I'm the Apologizing Mama, Humiliated Mama, or Retreating Mama.

Today was his school conference, which I was looking forward to mainly to hear the awesome tale of how this woman manages to survive 5+ hours a day with my son. Not that he isn't a charmer, he's just a handful of a charmer.

Like we expected, given the academic and creative improvements we've seen at home, he has met and surpassed almost all of his IEP goals. Academically, he is already working on kindergarten-level work. This is exciting for me because I had worried that some of his other behavioral issues and anxieties would cause him to be stubborn about progressing to new things.

But the best news of all? He will indeed be given a spot in the full-day kindergarten program up here near where we live, with the teacher we had hoped for, AND we won't have to pay for it! Praise the Lord!

While today I get to feel like the Proud Mama, I know that all these things had nothing to do with me. To God be the glory for working out all the details, big and small!

Snow?!

Wordless Wednesday

What you say?

That's our little guy's phrase of choice these days. He was such a trooper last night, I wanted to write about one precious moment that happened over three hours into our ordeal.

The doctor asked him, "Can you wiggle this finger?" pointing to his left pinky finger.

Without hesitation, he takes his right hand and, using his right index finger, wiggles his left pinky finger! I think it probably made the doctor's night, she cracked up so hard!

Broken CPU

We spent nearly four hours in emergency room last night. Our eldest crushed our youngest's finger in the bedroom door and less than 15 frenzied minutes later we were sitting, sitting, sitting, as one is likely to do in an emergency room. Much to his credit, our youngest took it all in stride, much better than the rest of us. Mama was crying, daddy was crying -- heck, we were all crying. Even our big guy. And that's where my mind has been stuck since those first screams pierced the air just after dinner last night.

One area that is always particularly troubling with our son is his lack of response to situations of high emotion. I recall, the evening before we were to meet with our pediatrician to discuss what we thought was an attachment disorder, skimming through a book and catching a paragraph concerning Asperger Syndrome, a form of high-functioning autism. It gave the example of a child on a playground who, after witnessing another child getting injured, continues to play. When the ambulance arrives, while the other children gather in concern, this child pays no heed. I remember calling my mom and telling her that THIS was my son. It was the very first time I ever considered the possibility of autism.

The door was completely closed when I arrived at my screaming son's side, his finger pinned in the hinge-side. I threw open the door, letting out a shriek as I saw the mangled finger, but also mindful of my eldest son, cowering in the corner just behind the door. It went without saying that he was the responsible party. This was not the first time the two had battled with a door between them, slammed in the heart-broken face of the littlest one. The warning of the injury that could result is definitely one of the more commonly heard in our house.

As with so many of his developmental milestones, it is only in recent months that I have EVER heard my son apologize with any sense of feeling. In fact, it is rare for him to show any emotion whatsoever in response to causing injury. Folks with autism really have to work hard to capture the emotion of a situation. He is usually so wrapped up in explaining his reasoning for his behavior that he completely misses the point. This night was not to be one of those rare occasions.

Following the rushed explanation as we tore out the driveway, his main concern was whether the events we had lined up for the evening would continue as planned. His father and I were not shocked by this line of thinking, we'd experienced it countless times before. The struggle for us comes in how to respond. In the hysteria of the moment, we usually -- and this circumstance was no different -- want to burn in his mind the gravity of the situation. It is so difficult not to berate him with "can't-you-see"s and "don't-you-understand-how"s. (Last night, thankfully, we did not.) He doesn't connect with that anyway. We think he experiences guilt, but we can't fathom how. And we don't think he understands it either. (Someday I will post my thoughts, a heart-wrenching mess though they may be, on the what it is like to approach subjects of a spiritual nature with my son. Right now there are no words, only Romans 8:26-27.)

So what do we do? We explain the cause and the effect of the behavior. We make sure he realizes his responsibility in the situation. And we just let him process. Because that's what he needs to do. It could take hours, sometimes it has taken a number of days. We are learning what to look for, what cues to pick up on. And its clear he is still working through this one.

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On a related note, an interesting read is the novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon, though it must be read with discernment. The most poignant piece for me is the autistic main character's explanation as to why he avoids/cuts short social interactions -- it is when that interaction ceases to be productive for his purposes that he considers it to be no longer of value, so he simply walks away. This one revelation has proven to be invaluable to me. Again, read this book at your own discretion.

A Life of Faith

"Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One Who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason -- a life of knowing Him Who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world.
The final stage of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles' wings, but is a life of day-in and day-out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much further down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test." - Oswald Chambers

*New post later today on Tuesday Adoption*

Oh, Mama!

He bounds out of the door before we are even halfway across the courtyard. Holding up a sheaf of papers, he calls out, "Daddy, look! Some of these are for you."

We've reached him by this point and can now see that the papers are a stack of drawings. He shuffles through them to show us one in particular. Proudly, he points out the details of two characters from his dad's latest book. My husband had shared the illustration for the cover of the book that morning, explaining who the characters were and what they were holding in the image. Our son had not only recreated the characters, but he wanted to share them with his dad.

Whilst our son was accomplishing said feat, his father and I were attending the transitional meeting I wrote of the other day. I had no idea what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised, again, at the options open to us.

We were most intrigued by the idea of full-day kindergarten, only accessible by lottery and a monthly fee in this area. (In other states, full-day kindergarten is the norm.) His current program is full-day and has worked out wonderfully. (As if you haven't heard!) The idea of him going into a half-day (2.5 hour) program wasn't that appealing. He just needs too much structure to his day. Too bad it would be left to a lottery to decide...or would it? Chatting with his teacher after the meeting, we were told that they are working with the district to get the extended-day SE students "grandfathered" into the full-day program! She agreed that it would be silly to put him in a half-day program and said they try hard to avoid that with this particular population. It would be awfully hard for him to get any services in just 2 hours! Hooray for the IEP! Now wouldn't it be terrific if the fee were to be waived because of his special needs too??

* "Oh, Mama!" is a quote from a book my son has been obsessed with lately. That particularly phrase, used in the story as an exclamation, intrigues him to the point that he brings me the book quite frequently, pointing to the phrase, and asking about its usage.

Sending Out Some Love

Congratulations to my two biggest blog fans, Ryan and Amy, on the birth of their little girl last night! Thanks, you two, for all the encouragement and prayers. And welcome to you, Anna Sophia! Praying for God's mercies and blessings for all of you....

Help for the Clueless

Or How I Learned to Quit Complaining and Love the School District

In case you have difficulty reading the text in the photo, it is a notice of an informational meeting designed to help parents with the transition from the wonderful Spec Ed preschool to mainstream kindergarten. I realize its not the most exciting thing in the world to average folk, but to this mommy, it is quite literally a God-send.