28. I Forgot

Behind me, J is doing is homework.  It's 6:45am and when I went to look in his binder from school, I noticed he hadn't finished his spelling packet, which is due today, and he hadn't even touched his math worksheet.  He also had a packet from last Friday of missed work that he hadn't touched.  

When I asked him why he hadn't done his work, he said,  "I didn't see it!" and threw his hands over his head, almost knocking over his bowl of cereal.  

I didn't see it.  

I have heard that phrase so many times.  And it truly baffles me.  The spelling packets are always the exact same exercises, in the exact same order, every single week.  4 pages (2 front and back).  Unchanging.  So the idea that one week he doesn't see a page that is always there makes me want to call "bullshit" on it.  The same with the math.  His math worksheets are front and back and labeled with the days, so that he gets his weekly homework at one time, but doesn't have to complete it until whatever day is written across the top.  Again, it never changes.

This is where our fun world of autism really makes me stop and go "hmmmm."  Because as much as this probably screams AUTISM to many people, to me I don't buy it.  For someone who thrives on structure and consistency and rules, this homework should have been perfect for him.  Structured.  Consistent.  Straightforward.  No guesswork.  And yet he can't complete it on time.

Because he didn't see it.

It's times like this that I truly struggle with autism.  J gets so many concessions for having autism, so much is bent and conformed to help him through the day.  I think because of all that we end up doing for him, when he just doesn't do his homework I get overly annoyed.  I didn't yell or anything, but I made him sit down and finish it before the bus.  I told him he doesn't get his pebbles for having a good morning and that he won't be able to play on his new tablet after school because he has to complete the entirety of the work he missed last Friday.

When he said he finished his homework last night, I believed him and I didn't double-check.  It's exhausting double checking every aspect of the kids' lives.  Chores.  Homework.  Bedrooms.  Even smell checks after showers!  Because we have two older boys who love to take soap-less showers (which is nasty, you're a boy, CLEAN YOURSELF PLEASE).  So sometimes when I hear "I'm done with my homework" I take it for what it is, and don't check.  If I had to check every single thing, I would never sit down and probably never sleep.

Things aren't all bad, though.  J has had several practices for Academic Bowl, which he has seemed to really enjoy.  He watches Jeopardy now that I record for him on TV and sometimes he gets the questions correct (which he really likes when he can answer before the contestant on the show).  He's had a couple of golf lessons as well, which he is enjoying.  I don't know if the golf will even go anywhere, but it is nice for him to be able to be exposed to something fun.  He likes it.  Even if he just stays on this level and does a few more lessons on this level, I am fine with that.  Right now, it's not overly expensive and lets him experience something new.  He will never be an athlete, but I do think sometimes that bothers him, that he can't throw or kick or run as well as the other kids.

J also won a tablet from school!  He read the most minutes in the school Read-a-Thon!  It's a great prize, although one that we have had to set many rules around because he does tend to get obsessed with things.  He will focus on one thing and continually ask to do that one thing.  Whether it's drawing or reading or playing his DS.  That becomes the focus and he can't function doing anything else.  So we are very careful with the things we let him do and try to break up the monotony of whatever it is he has become obsessed with.  So now, the tablet is something that he has to pay pebbles in order to play on (unless it is to Skype with family members only) and I don't let him play on it every day.  Which as much as that last part frustrates him, it also calms him.  I've been in the world where he obsesses so much over something that he becomes unable to function unless he is drawing or reading or playing his DS.  It's a scary world.  And denying him those things or lessening the time he is able to do them, does seem to really help overall.

In other news, I took Little Iron Man to open studio at the local art studio last week.  It's actually nice spending time with the kids one on one without the other one around.  I think it helps them to feel special and he was in a really good mood the entire time we were there.  He loves art, but he's not quite as good as J, so he never wants to draw or paint when J is around.  He's starting to get really good at sports, throwing balls especially.  He's still scared of catching because he doesn't want to get hurt by a ball, but I really think if we can convince him to actually play a team sport that he would thrive.  And then he'd have his own niche to really excel at and help set him apart from J.  They're just so close in age that often there is a bit of competitiveness that cannot be avoided.  But when it was just me and him painting, he definitely had fun.

He wanted to paint Halloween pictures, and wanted me to join in on the fun.

23. The Meltdown

J had his first major breakdown since camp today.  He took the green outside trashcan to the end of the driveway since the garbage is collected Wednesday mornings.  He somehow tipped the can over and half the trash bags spilled out, amongst other items.

The first thing he did was start to cry, which honestly neither surprised me or bothered me.  I knew it would be a painful process getting all the trash back into the bin, so I went upstairs to put Tiny down for a nap before coming back outside.  Stormtrooper had righted the can so that it was standing again, which was great.  The can was still full of trash and would have been difficult for J to put back upright, especially while crying.

Stormy and Iron Man went to fix the ramp up to our shed while I stayed at the end of the driveway to deal with the trash.  We live on a cul-de-sac so at least while J had his tantrum we didn't have to worry about cars or any passersby.

I told him he would not be able to go inside until all the trash was picked up.  He didn't want to do it. There were flies around the garbage, and J's biggest fear is anything regarding bugs and insects.  He was hysterical, tears and snotty nose, screaming and flailing.  I kept my calm and did just what the therapist said - to have him complete the task through to the end without giving into the tantrum.  

I mentally divided up everything on the ground and pulled out my cell phone.  I set the timer for one minute and told J which pieces to pick up and gave him one minute to do it.  At first he refused, he kept his feet firmly planted on the ground, and screamed.  The first thing he picked up was a small box, which he tried to throw into the trash can, but he missed and it fell back on the ground.  At that point a fly flew right by his ear and he took off running around the cul-de-sac, screaming.  Not crying or yelling.  But screaming in fear, a sound you would expect to hear from someone in agony.

Two of our neighbors came out of their respective houses and watched.  I ignored them and waited for J to stop running.  Then I made him come stand back next to me.  I put him in a time-out outside, which was more to stop the overstimulation and calm him down.  He faced the side of the house, hands by his sides, eyes closed, and I told him to breathe.  He stood there for a few minutes, and once he stopped shaking and crying, we went back down to the bottom of the driveway to continue to pick up the trash.

We were down at the cul-de-sac for about an hour.  There were four kitchen-sized trash bags, one small box, three Starbucks cups, and a couple of envelopes from discarded mail.  That's all that fell out and yet it still took that long.

I tried to find the words to convey how this meltdown was, but words cannot describe the extent of tho particular tantrum.  Crying and screaming, of course, but if you were not there, screaming is not an adequate word.  I stayed calm and talked him through picking up all the pieces off the ground, held him next to me as protection when he was flailing his arm, trying to shoo away phantom flies.  Time sort of stopped in my brain when it was all happening.  I knew our neighbors were probably wondering what on earth was happening at our house, but it was more important to help J through this.

Afterwards, my husband and I joked that one day our neighbors may call the police if they hear another meltdown like that.  It's no telling what they think is going on.  Unfortunately, it wasn't much of a joke and is actually a small fear in the back of my mind.  When people first see J, they see someone who looks normal and perhaps even speaks normally.  They don't see the autism until later, which in this case may be more of a curse than a blessing.

Also afterwards, I didn't allow myself to calm down, I just refocused on the family chores that we were doing when the meltdown began.  Once all three boys were in bed, Stormy and I watched television and then went up to bed.  I kept thinking about it and playing the image of J running around the cul-de-sac while screaming as though on repeat.  Sometimes these things are have huge effects on me, sometimes it takes its toll on me mentally.  It's so hard to stay strong all the time because autism isn't something that goes away.  When J has a good day, it doesn't mean he had a day without autism symptoms, it just means he had a day where those symptoms weren't overwhelming, a day without tantrums.  But even the good days have small bouts of stress.  It's a never-ending thing.

While J had his meltdown, Stormtrooper took the opportunity to have a conversation with Iron Man about autism.  He pointed out that J's meltdown and tears were directly linked to his autism.  

"Does that look like fun?  Does that look normal?"

Of course he said no, and Stormtrooper explained that just because J got to go to summer camp for kids with autism doesn't mean that autism is fun.  J wasn't having fun, he was scared and upset and sad and angry.  He was such a mix bag of emotions that he was nearly impossible to calm down.  Iron Man forgets about those times when he says things like, "I wish I had autism."  Stormy said it seemed to click a little more with him that having autism isn't something to want, isn't something to be jealous of.  For a little kid, I can understand the frustration where your brother gets a lot of attention because of his antics, where he gets to go to summer camp, and gets to get special line-jumper passes at Universal Studios and Disney World.  However, I do find it disappointing that he has difficulty separation the so-called "perks" from the obvious hardships and downsides to having autism.  I think the understanding will grow the older he gets, but it will be something we continue to work on with him.

We were supposed to go to our autism group get-together, but we had to cancel because of the meltdown.  I'm sure that they understood since all of their children also have autism, however it is still one of those realities that not all parents understand.  I've had friends who don't understand, friends who hear the phrase, "We're going to be late because J is having a tantrum," and wonder why I let my nine-year-old be such a brat.  God forbid we have to cancel something.  It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.  Thankfully we do have a close-knit group of friends and family who understand about J and don't question his bad days, they accept them as a part of our reality.

Maybe one day I will find the correct words to fully describe how terrible this particular meltdown was, but I am glad that it's over.  Hopefully our next tantrum will wait a while.  I don't know if I can handle any more tears.

20. Top-Secret Vacation Day Three/Four

The boys, especially J, were super crabby after being out so late at the Magic Kingdom.  So we gave the boys a day off from parks.  They stayed at the hotel and the pool for almost the entire day.  They slept in late (J almost 'til 11am) and just relaxed.  Even swimming all day was less tiring than if they had gone to the parks.

We left the boys at the hotel in the afternoon/evening with my niece so that Stormy and I could go to Epcot and have some adult time.  We ate at a Mexican restaurant, rode some rides, and then headed back to Hollywood Studios once again for our fourth round of Star Tours and second of Tower of Terror.  We love our kids, but it was nice to be able to escape for the evening.  Even at home, we don't get to out on many date nights, so this was so nice for us.  We ended the night eating ice cream (Stormtrooper is obsessed with ice cream) and fell into bed and slept.

Monday we all woke up and went to breakfast and then headed to Universal Studios.  My husband got to geek out at Star Tours and Star Wars weekends, but Universal has the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and that is my thing.  I was so excited.  I loved it.  It was fantastic.  We rode the rides and got some treats from Honeyduke's.  The boys have both read the Harry Potter books and seen the movies, so they were excited about going, too.

J had one meltdown while there, but it was definitely nothing we were upset about.  My niece, husband, and I wanted to ride on the dragon ride, but J doesn't like roller coasters that do the "corkscrew" kind of turns.  And our other boy is just terrified of any rides (which we didn't even know until we went to Disney and he was scared to ride on everything that was on a track).  We weren't going to force either of them to ride something they were scared of, but we still told them they had to wait in line with us.  When we got to the front, I asked one of the employees if there was a place they could stand and wait because they didn't want to ride.  Jokingly, the guy said, "Oh, no, everyone in this line must ride the ride."

J burst into immediate tears and just buried his face right into the middle of my chest.  It took a few moments to get him to calm down, but he did, and he wiped the tears away and waited while we rode on the ride.

We rode water rides and got completely soaked.  The boys seemed to enjoy that.  I was skeptical about J enjoying it because if he gets uncomfortable he will complain for ages, but he seemed to like being wet!  My husband took the boys on some sort of spinning ride that was similar to the tea cups.  Since my husband nearly killed me on Saturday on the tea cups, I sat the ride out and let him torture the boys to sickness on it!

Universal was nice.  We also spent the day with one of my old friends from Starbucks who moved down to Orlando a few years back.  It was great to reconnect with him and his wife - and also get some inside scoop on working for Disney!  We hopped over to the other Universal park so that we could go on the Transformers ride.

I think the boys enjoyed Universal more than Disney because they were much more familiar with the movies and rides.  Some of the rides from Disney were still old-school characters, like Dumbo or Peter Pan, and that is not as relevant to them as Harry Potter, Spiderman, Jurassic Park, or Transformers.  Over all Universal was really amazing and I am so glad I got to see Hogwarts, and I am glad the boys were able to share in that experience.  They got to watch Stormy geek out over Star Wars, and me over Harry Potter.

We drove home on Tuesday, and we got to see Tiny after five nights away from him!  And now on to the rest of our summer!  Which looks like it is going to include a new swimming pool, clay camp for Iron Man, and autism sleep away camp for J.  So much of the summer has already passed and yet we have so much more left to experience!

19. Top-Secret Vacation Day Two

Our first day was really pretty successful, and looking back, I don't have any complaints about it.  It was a really long day; we got back to the hotel very late.  We were out for about fifteen hours that day.

On Saturday, we slept a little later.  Stormtrooper went to Hollywood Studios for the parade while my niece, the boys, and I ate breakfast and went to the pool for the next couple of hours.  The boys splashed around and enjoyed cooling off in the water.

Once Stormtrooper was done with the parade, he picked us up from the hotel and we went to Magic Kingdom.  Since we already had our disability pass, we were able to set-up our Fast Passes for the day.  The boys had a blast driving the cars in the speedway and we were able to try out the new seven dwarves ride.

This day I saw a lot of J's symptoms come out.  Once his medication wore off, his hyperactivity was in full force.  He was also very, very tired, but when he gets cranky, there's nothing to sway him away from it.  He reached a point where he stopped caring about the rides and wanted to spend his Disney gift card and go back to the hotel.  He was tired, we all were, but he became argumentative and very snappy.  I know he had fun, but towards the end, Stormy and I wanted to ride the Haunted Mansion one more time, and Iron Man wanted to ride Thunder Mountain, and J didn't want to do either.  My niece took the boys to Thunder Mountain, but J refused to get on so he had to wait until they were done, and my husband and I got to enjoy some kid-free time at the Haunted Mansion - which, coincidentally is both of our favorite ride.

My husband had one negative encounter that day.  He was talking in a group of Star Wars folks and it was mentioned about the new Seven Dwarves ride.  The Fast Pass was used-up for it, so if you wanted to ride, you had to wait in the line (which was 120 minutes when we were there!)  My husband said that we were going to ride and use our disability pass to bypass waiting in the actual line.  And someone said they did not think it was fair that we could just walk to the ride for free, no strings attached.

So let's revisit that for a moment.  With the disability pass, I walked up to the ride, and asked them to sign us up for a return time.  The return time is comparable to the actual wait time for the ride.  We didn't get to immediately cut the line.  We rode other rides and walked around until it was time for us to return to the Seven Dwarves.  It's not a free pass to cut lines, but also if you're a stranger, you don't know what other families go through.  You don't know how we deal day to day, our frustrations, worries, fears, or even our strengths.  So to make a blanket statement of how things are not "fair" is ridiculous.  When J's hyperactivity kicks in, he is so all over the place that waiting in line has the potential to be disastrous.  When we walked around the parks, he bumped into people and wandered (never far, because we kept a close eye on him).  I was very careful to continually check in on him when we were in a line or in a ride, to make sure he was okay because the last thing any of us wanted was a meltdown in the middle of the park.

I think Disney tries to make the experience the best it possibly can be for every family going.  From what I saw, they took disabilities, including food allergies, very seriously.  They seemed to try to take the worry away from parents over whether their children would have an enjoyable time.  For that, I was extremely appreciative.  To the man who wasn't compassionate at all, my husband replied with, "Oh we deserve to use the pass ... we pay for it every day living with a kid with ASD."  It can be very difficult having a child with special needs and when a place like Disney wants to help eliminate some of the stress, we welcome it with open arms.

On day two, we got to ride a lot of rides in the Magic Kingdom:  Astro Orbiter, Big Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear, Haunted Mansion, Tea Cups, Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Seven Dwarves Mine Train, Stitches Great Escape, Space Mountain, Speedway, and of course, the train that took us around the park as well as the Monorail.  That's a lot of rides for one day, and it's no wonder the boys got tired.  We were exhausted, too!  We got back to the hotel and finally fell asleep after midnight.  Such a long day, but so much fun.

17. Vacation Vacation

School's out for summer!

This is the first weekend of no-school.  We let the boys stay up way too late the last two nights, and we didn't have them do any chores.  All they did was play, play, and eat.  

On the last day of school, there was the awards ceremony to help celebrate the kids' accomplishments in school.  Little Iron Man got one for attendance, one for being a star student, and one for A/B Honor Roll.  He has his own struggles, mostly with impulse control.  Sometimes he acts out for attention, and he certainly misbehaves in school way more than he does at home.  He is extremely intelligent, and I think his behavior definitely affects his grades at times, but overall, he is a very good kid, and we are certainly proud of how well he has done.

At school, the kids have to take Accelerated Reader (AR) tests on the books they read.  J got an award for getting over 100 AR points, which apparently is difficult to do when you're in third grade.  However, I'm not exactly super proud of that award.  I'm pleased, of course, but each quarter, the kids were given an AR goal and they had to reach so many AR points each semester.  J would see how many points he would need, find ONE book that would give him those points, read the book, take the test, and then wouldn't take any more tests the rest of the semester.  It's a backwards way to be really lazy.  The books he chose weren't necessarily easy books, and he had to read and absorb the books so he could get all the points for the test.  He loves taking shortcuts.  Or maybe he's really a genius in hiding.  I don't know.

He also got a penmanship award for having the best cursive in his class.  He told me he knew he was going to get that one because it was just "so obvious" he had the best handwriting.  I've heard this is strange with kids with ASD, but J's talent is art, and for as clumsy and uncoordinated as he is with everything else, he can draw.  He can't tie his shoes, but he can draw very intricate things.

As far as honor roll goes, J got the A Honor Roll for getting all A's for the entire school year.  So far  he has never gotten a B.  When we had the conversation about his grades, he was not really sure what a B meant.  We briefly discussed grades and averages (which he understood better than I thought he would have) and I showed him his report card, which had his averages for each semester as well as his end-of-the-year average.  He was really disappointed in his Reading grade (a 95) and upset that in the third quarter he got a 99 in science, which was the only quarter he didn't get a 100.  I told him if his lowest grade is a 95, then we really have nothing to worry about.  He was pleased that the stamp on his report card said he got to graduate to the fourth grade.  

Third grade brought on a lot of ups and downs.  There were a lot of changes, but I feel that it was a great year of growth.  We found a new therapist that we like, J started going to the gifted program at school, we found a parent autism support group that was coupled with a  social-skills club for kids with autism, and because of all these different things he has greatly improved as a little person.  I have received a lot of comments from his teachers, family, and friends regarding his behavior, his improving social skills, and the way he integrates his new coping mechanisms.  

Hopefully we can continue to help him learn and grow this summer.  Therapy is the only thing that will continue; the rest will pick back up with the start of the new school year.  We are very excited to see where this summer takes us.  

Well, in FOUR DAYS it takes us to DISNEY WORLD, so the rest of the summer probably won't even be able to compare!

16. The Talk

I kept starting a blog post, writing a few words, and then deleting everything a few days later.  We've been so busy lately.  I did a Mother's Day project where I made cards for most of my friends who are moms, which means I handmade close to thirty cards.  Then I have been preparing for an arts project at the elementary school for the End of the Year Party, so I had to prep everything, which included cutting sheets of colored tissue paper into thousands of tiny squares.  Not hard work, but time consuming.  Since it's the end of the school year (only four days left!) I decided the kids would have a Beach Party.  They will make stained glass jellyfish for arts and crafts, eat pineapple, watermelon, and goldfish for snack, drink fruit punch, and listen to luau music.  After tomorrow, I can put that project under my belt, and then my focus will return to ensuring that everything is in alignment for our big trip to Disney World!

Summer brings other changes, including Autism Support Group being over until the start of the next school year in August.  I will honestly miss it, and I know J will miss going to his club.  The structure of the support group is wonderful; the ASD kids go to a class with other ASD kids and they're able to talk and learn about the struggles that having ASD can bring, the siblings can go to a childcare classroom, and the parents all gather for the support group.  It's wonderful.  It was nice to be surrounded by people who know.  Even the days I didn't speak much, it was comforting being around parents who were still talking about things I could relate to.  The parents of middle school and high school aged kids still had things to offer me as a parent of a third-grader: their experiences when their children were J's age and their experiences now that I may need to prepare myself for.

One of the issues that was brought up during our very last meeting was one we had experienced in our own house just last week.  I was shocked that other parents had gone through the exact same thing.  Our two older boys are getting older and beginning to be mildly curious about bodies, about girl bodies, about boy bodies, about bodies older than they are.  We found out one of them had Googled about bodies on his Nintendo DS, back before I had set any parental controls on it because I hadn't realized that Googling things was on it possible.  The other, we caught stark naked in the bathroom examining himself in the mirror.

None of this really bothered us as parents.  We  know our boys are growing older and are going to be curious about these things.  Stormy took one kid and I took the other, and we've explained that curiosity is normal, the feelings about girls (or hey, boys, we don't discriminate) is normal, but they can't Google what they're curious about because they're too young to understand how to filter through the results - and let's face it, Google can be a very dangerous place for a child who is curious about growing up.  We can go to the library and check out age-appropriate books if they're too embarrassed to ask us.  Anything that we need to do to keep them safe but informed.

Little Iron Man is neuro-typical, so he took the conversation well and just said okay and moved on.  J, on the other hand, is definitely going to be a more on-going process to make sure he understands.  I asked his therapist about it, because we didn't want to offer him information that he wasn't ready for, but it's obviously become something we need to start discussing.  She was very adamant that sex, puberty, and changes were something that we needed to talk about with J - with any child, but especially J.

Since J doesn't understand social constructs or the implications of his words and actions, it's especially important he understand the things he can/cannot do or say in social situations.  We've heard of other ASD kids getting in trouble for things that were innocent in nature for them, but other parents did not see it that way.  Quick examples are, a girl was curious about what boys looked like under their clothes, and asked the boy next door.  She was twelve, he was ten, and afterwards, all hell broke lose from the boy's parents.  Would it have happened if she had been a typical child?  I don't know.  I know that oftentimes parents of typical children are scared of what they don't know, uncomfortable about the differences between their child and one with ASD.  The other example is a sixteen-year-old boy was curious about this "sex thing" everyone was talking about, so he looked to the internet to find someone who would "show him" and he took the family car and drove fifty miles to meet-up with that person.  He didn't understand the implications of what he was doing, nor did he understand what would be happening when he did finally meet up with them.  He just wanted to know what "sex" meant.  (He was fine in the end, nothing bad happened to him, but it could have, very easily.)  Kids who are more neuro-typical understand why they're getting in trouble, why they can't do what they did.  Those two kids still haven't fully realized what their actions meant.  Nothing bad happened when I drove fifty miles, so why can't I do it again?  There's always this underlying logic with ASD kids; if it's logical to them, they cannot see anyone else's point.  The girl in the first example had never had a conversation about bodies, changes, or sex, so her actions were fueled entirely by curiosity and seeking to understand.  The boy had been talked to about those things, he wasn't a stranger to it, but again, he sought a greater understanding.  Which isn't by itself unnatural or bad, however it's the way he went about trying to quell that curiosity that was the problem.

The therapist said we have to talk to the kids in an age-appropriate way and slowly escalate the conversation as they get older.  We shouldn't over-talk the subject or they'll stop listening.  If we over-talk it they'll either get embarrassed because they're not ready for the conversation, or they'll tune us out, as kids often do if they feel lectured.  But it's important for them to know we are here, we're not scared of the subject, and we want them to be safe and happy.

It's been interesting figuring out the right verbiage to use, the right way to say it.  We never want our kids to feel ashamed of their bodies, of the private parts that make them distinctly male, which I think ends up being what happens to a lot of kids.  They get embarrassed or feel shame over their bodies, their curiosity, their feelings - both emotional and physical.  We all experience it in one way or another, some earlier than others, but it happens.  We can't be scared of our kids experiencing it as well.  If we want them to grow up into healthy adults with healthy relationships and/or marriages, then we have to help prepare them for that now.  If we get embarrassed about the subject or make them feel badly about it, then they may grow up associating shame and embarrassment regarding sex and their bodies.  That doesn't lead to healthy adults who have healthy relationships.

When we realized the boys were curious enough to Google certain things, albeit somewhat innocently, we weren't mad.  We didn't want them to associate anger with their curiosity.  We didn't want to scare them away from what they were feeling.  As parents, we want them to be healthy and safe - both of which can be hindered by Googling the wrong thing or finding something scary or illegal on the internet.

Little Iron Man will be more ready for the changes to come than J will; J is so immature because of his ASD in so many aspects that I can imagine that puberty will be far more confusing for him.  Or maybe they'll shock us and both will be equally lost or equally ready.  All I know is that I hope they both grow up to be well-adjusted and healthy adults, without shame or embarrassment.  I think that Iron Man will understand the implications of his words or actions more than J will.  I hope to get J to a place where he understands what is appropriate and inappropriate, even if he doesn't understand why, so that we can feel safe that even if he doesn't agree or understand something is inappropriate, he won't do it because he will know not to.

I should probably start getting some books to help facilitate the coming conversations that are going to happen over the next several years.  At least when I Google these things, I know how to filter through the results.

2. The Players

In my last post I wrote a short dictionary of acronyms and words we use daily in our house.  None of that means anything if there aren't any characters to apply them to.  Of course, by "characters" I mean my family.  So let's set up the scene and the players.

Stormtrooper

First I will start with Stormtrooper.  That's my husband under there.  He is the moneymaker for our family.  A geek. A good guy.  If he's not looking up or building Star Wars costumes or other cosplay, he is looking up or building something to do with cars.  He is honest ... maybe to a fault, but he makes me laugh.  We dated once and he broke up with me, and then realized his terrible mistake several years later, and now we're married.  No really, though, that's the truth.

J

J is the ASD boy.  He was diagnosed when he was seven, in April 2012.  Now he's nine and in third grade.  He loves to build Legos, but only if he looks at the instructions.  He has no trouble with 3D puzzles and is an amazing artist (so long as he has a picture to look at for reference).  He is beginning to deal with his differences, but isn't ready to admit he's different at all.  He cannot tie his shoes, he cannot sit still, and he is so literal he often doesn't understand jokes.  I once videoed time talking about the times he wakes up in the morning ... he didn't change topic for 3 minutes 54 seconds.  

Little Iron Man

Iron Man is the Middle Child, except he's not.  He's also nine, though technically younger than J, but so far he is neurotypical - meaning he is not on the Autism Spectrum.  Does that mean he's normal?  Ha!  No way.  He loves trains, Legos, and Iron Man - especially Iron Man.  And he loves to sing and dance.  He doesn't understand anything about ASD, and we try our best to treat him and J as equally as possible.  Which is actually impossible somedays.  Ah, but we try.  

Tiny Baby

Tiny is tiny.  He's now a year old, and he wears 9 month clothes (some of which are a little big).  He is loud and such a troublemaker.  He doesn't sleep through the night and sometimes skips his nap, yet he is still the happiest baby around.  He is very proud of himself for walking on his own.  He really likes ceiling fans and anything with wheels.  Also, he is obsessed with Cheerios and jumping in his bed.  This is my husband's favorite picture of him. 

Slytherin Mama

Now me.  If my husband is in love with Star Wars, then I am in love with Harry Potter.  I'd like to say I would be a Ravenclaw because I'm clever or Gryffindor because I'm brave.  I'm certainly not nice enough for Hufflepuff, so I think I'd end up being in Slytherin.  I do have a sense of self-preservation, and I like to succeed.  I work two days a week at a coffee shop and I make cards/invitations/party favors on the side.  Sometimes logos or PDFs.  I never wanted to be anything other than some sort of artist.  I never thought I wanted to be a SAHM.  But I am and I do love it.  Babies are pretty cool, even if sometimes they smell.

So now we enter the scene, where we live our day-to-day lives.  Most if it takes place in a medium-sized town on the outskirts of a larger metropolitan area.  We don't have a shopping mall, but we have every store we could possibly need.  There is a lot of Southern charm down here, where the people send thank-you cards for gifts, and give baked goods in return for favors.  We do say "y'all" and "fixin'" and "bless you" even if you don't sneeze.  And while the charm and the manners and family traditions are nice, it sometimes isn't as forward-thinking and accepting of ASD as I would like.  But I'm beginning to realize that is the world at large, and not just a struggle down here.