I've been doing errands with my mom today. First we returned movies to Redbox. Then we went to Phillips Toy Mart. I got a yo-yo. It's a Power Brain XP. It's mix of the Brain and Power Brain yo-yos. It has a switch on it that will change it from Auto to Off. Auto will make it automatically come back up and Off you have to manually make it come back up. I am trying to learn tricks with it. Although I can't because I can't get it to come back up in the tricks. I can't even do Around the World where you make it spin around and come back in your hand. I got a DVD to show me how. I also got a Unstoppa... OK. I can't tell you. That's a secret. If we ever play golf together, you'll find out.
Then we went to Target where I got a Chameleon Gamecube controller. There's an empty spot to the left of the Z button on regular Gamecube controllers, but on this controller they have a blank button in that empty spot. And below right of the blank button it says •TURBO. What does it do? I've never seen this button. What I am thinking is a rapid thing for Z or maybe it speeds up something. It's a mystery. By the way, I just kissed my controller. I love it.
The drunk octopus twins want to fight you in Target.
Then we went to Costco. This is the gas pump. It looked like a face so I wanted to take a picture of it.
At Costco I got Legends of Bikini Bottom and my mom got me a hot dog for lunch. I was looking at the DVDs and I couldn't find my mom anywhere that she said she would be. I didn't get lost. I just couldn't find mom. I got upset and kind of sad. But I found her and we made a deal that if we ever get separated I should find someone that works at the place and tell them that I lost my mom. Or we should always agree to meet at the books in Costco if it's there.
I have decided that I want to take piano lessons. (Editor's note: Truman has asked me to type that he is now playing the piano from high notes to low notes to punctuate this statement.) It looks fun. I think I might be good at music.
My mom got me a new Spongebob weighted blanket. It's supposed to be more comfortable because it's weighted. It's for autism. We heard about it from a website. It's a weight and not a squeeze like I saw in Temple Grandin.Temple Grandin was a girl with autism who made herself a squeeze machine that was supposed to squeeze you like a hug. That works for me too, sometimes. It makes me feel calmer. My blanket makes me feel nice too.
This is a blog post about things that I think are interesting, etc.
1. I noticed today that they have a Moby Dick movie, book and an amusement park ride. (I also have the book and have seen the amusement park ride but haven't done it, and the Moby Dick amusement park ride is at Beech Bend. The old book was 50 cents).
This is the movie poster for Moby Dick.
This is the amusement park ride.
This is my book. I think it's the kid version because whoever gave it to me said that it was part of these books that were kid versions of these books.
2. Back in the old days bubblegum was 1 cent.
3. The universe began with a Big Bang. Before the Big Bang there was just emptiness and space. Not outer space, but space as in "I don't have much space." (I really don't. My mom is sitting in the chair with me.)
4. I would like to look up on the internet who the first person on earth was. I don't know where they would have come from. I think it was a man. What do you think? No, wait! It has to be a woman. Otherwise there would be no more people but that one man because he can't make babies. Only women can.
"So this kid with Asperger's goes to an amusement park..."
While it does feel like the setup for a joke, it's a real something that we do every year. If you know the checklist of symptoms associated with high functioning autism, then you'll the understand that our trip yesterday to Beech Bend pushed the boundaries of endurance for such a person. In fact, we knowingly coaxed, tickled, irritated, antagonized and by late afternoon, had flat out violated the boundaries. For example, people with Asperger's may:
1. Not pick up on social cues and may lack inborn social skills such as read others' body language, start and maintain a conversation or take turns talking.
The best social experiment in the whole world is this: Put a kid with Asperger's in the place where waiting in line is of the ultimate importance, and you'll see pack mentality, social justice, and all kinds of other things come leaping out of the human psyche like monkeys. You've never seen people -kids, and even grown ass adults - lose their minds so quickly over someone who just refuses to acknowledge that a line even exists much less that he has to follow the rules of it. And if he's addressed about it by one of them, he probably won't even pretend to know that he's being spoken to. I would think it was funny if I wasn't so busy apologizing to the pack.
2. Dislike any change in routine.
Hey! Let's all get up at the crack of dawn, get on the road smashed in a car, spend our day doing things that are completely unnatural in the real world, eat all the things that we say we can't usually eat, and after we've hopped you up on overstimulation, then pile back in the car, wet, dirty, hot, tired for the return trip way past bedtime.
3. Appear to lack empathy.
See that sweet, cherubic, round-faced 4-year-old holding his mom's hand? The one with the smile, who is so excited about riding the shiny kiddie motorcycles that go around and around that have real horns that honk? He's going to cry in a minute when my kid pries his fingers from the handlebars and pushes him off of the green one because, well, it's the green one that he's ridden 22 times today, and he cannot ride another color. He will have a completely blank expression and seem un-empathetic, but only I will be able to see the oh-so-subtle expression that says that he knows what he's doing, and he's sorry, little boy, he really is, but it's the green one.
4. Be unable to recognize subtle differences in speech tone, pitch and accent the alter the meanings of others' speech.
I'm talking to you, Mr. Jumping Jumbos Ride Operator, who understandably tried to get his attention with a sharp tone when he tried to open the gate while the ride was (still very much) in motion. It doesn't work to yell unless you REALLY YELL. Makes me glad he hasn't taken a shine to roller coasters.
5. Have a formal style of speaking that is advanced for his her age
6. Be preoccupied with few or only one interest.
Those two go out to you, people of Kentucky, as you encountered him doing anything at any time in the Arcade. Go ahead and add numbers 1, 3 and 4 to that as well.
7. Avoid eye contact.
8. Have unusual facial expressions or postures.
9. Talk a lot, usually about a favorite subject. One-sided conversations are common, internal thoughts are often verbalized.
Those 3 are for you, Ms. Crazy Bus Operator, when he asked you about the control panel (without looking at you, of course as in number 7) and how it worked and then proceeded to explain in a quite lengthy way how that pertained to something in a video game (number 6), while holding his finger in the air like he was the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz after he'd just received a brain (number 8), and while a line of children and parents waited in the hot sun behind him. (Please see item 1 for how he got to the front of the line, and items 4 and 3, in that order, for his reaction to their reactions.)
10. Have heightened sensitivity and become overstimulated by loud noises, lights, etc.
By 5pm I am pretty sure that most employees and patrons of Beech Bend knew who Truman was, not just because of all of the above, but because by 5pm, he had had just about all the bells and lights and excitement he could stand and lost control of all impulses and any control that still remained. He doesn't shy away from stimulating things for the most part, but instead falls head over heels into being crazed by them, kind of like a passenger on Ken Kesey's Magic Bus Trip: He looks normal, until you realize that there's a person there who has drank orange juice laced with LSD and who is seeing and thinking things that aren't part of your own reality.
But by 5pm, everyone in the park also knew who he was because he's just so damn interesting and funny and so much unlike most other kids. He had won over the kiddie ride area with his "Crazy Bus" song (including the poor Crazy Bus operator from number 9). He's incredibly difficult, but he can have more fun with more exuberance and more abandon than anyone I know.
And so we weather this trip every year, and the 8 full hours it takes him to warm up to riding anything just so we can have the one hour where he has more fun than anyone else ever had in the history of all fun having, and so that we get to be around it, too and some of that fun can rub off on our adult selves.
Yesterday we went to an amusement park and it was awesome and fun. I went on Jumping Jumbos for the first time.
My day started with Jalopy Junction with mom. Then I went to the pool, I went on the lazy river that goes through the wave pool and also the regular pool that has this rope thing that goes across that you climb on with a pad that makes it easier. There was also the Super Slide 2000 and bumper cars with dad. Me and dad both controlled it. I accelerated and he steered. Then we did Crazy Bus and The Whip and an Arcade and I did their prop cycle where you have to pedal on this flying thing to save Solitaire, this land, because some dude touched something making Solitaire fly up into the air and you have to, well, you know. I told you already. Put it back on the ground. And then I did a motorcycle thing where you have to drive a motorcycle to the end, but Sonic was there carved into a mountain. Details: In Jumping Jumbos you have a lever that when you pull it back the Jumping Jumbo will go up. Super Slide 2000: no details. In Bumper Cars you have a steering wheel and a pedal (of course). I also went on this Western Train with Theresa, and whenever we went over the bridge, I told her to ring the bell.
Everything I didn't blog I wouldn't do except the Dragon Coaster which I think I will do next time. I am scared of roller coasters except for the Dragon Coaster, which I am only about 10% scared of.
Also, did The Crazy Bus and made my own Crazy Bus version of The Wheels on the Bus song, which you can see here. I forgot a part when I was filming it, which should be "turns its axles and gears."
I went with Theresa and dad and mom and Sophie and Maeve (although I didn't ride anything with her) and Ben (though I didn't ride anything with him either), and Mary (though I didn't ride anything with her) and Wendy and Brian (though I didn't ride anything with them).
Tomorrow we will go to Beech Bend and Splash Lagoon water park! I've only bend to Beech Bend (get it? it's a pun) once, and I really liked it. There was some ride I forgot what it's called, I think it starts with a V, and it does this thing where on the turns it goes really fast. I want to try to ride that. I like the Crazy Bus that spins around and also changes which way it spins.
There are some rides that I'm afraid to get on. It's actually hard to explain all of them.
Sometimes it feels like a science experiment, this summer with Truman thing.
I'm not just hanging out with him anymore, or trying to keep him occupied during this downtime or helping him to figure himself during summer. I've become an observer of Truman at the level of Jane Goodall and her chimps.
I am beginning to see that there are patterns in the behaviors, that I've never seen before. We have always called him Princess and the Pea, because he is so dang sensitive. He's highly sensitive to sensations. He's always the guy who gets sick first and he's sick way more than the rest of us. In fact, we can usually tell at least a day or two before he gets sick because his behavior goes completely off kilter. He's emotional and anxious and easily scared. Schedule changes and transitions are hell.
But I have noticed this: Once we settled in for the first week of summer and got into a groove, he did wonderfully. Once we did Encore Camp, while he had fun, it completely threw him for a behavioral loop. Suddenly nights were hard and mornings were harder, just like school, and there were meltdowns in the day, which I'm not seeing at all in normal summer days. This weekend post-camp was a little hard, but now that we're back on summer schedule, he's really come back to a good place. Even today - heat, water, wasp sting and all - was no problem, and he hung with the whole day, having fun just like the rest of the kids, until the sting took him down.
I mean, I know he's sensitive, but he could be just really more sensitive than I thought to changes in routine and respond not-so-well behaviorally to things that make him at least slightly anxious. Could it be that it causes behavioral disturbances that I've either not seen or ignored up to now? It makes me wonder much more about diet and other environmental factors or unknown sensitivities and allergies that we either haven't looked into or wanted to wholeheartedly change because it seems such an enormous pain in the ass. I'm thinking now it all might be worth a look.
He continues to charm and amuse in the moments when I don't want to scream and run from the house in frustration.
Today I got stung by a wasp. I was at the playground at the river and it just stung me for no absolute reason. So I have a big fear of bees and wasps (which is why I'll never buy Spongebob: Revenge of the Flying Dutchman for GameCube because it has bees and wasps in it because one thing is where you have to get all the bees out of Sandy's tree dome) so this is like my worst fear come true. My real first time where I got stung by a bee was at Dad's RC plane place where there was a sweat bee on my arm and I thought it was a bug so I shooed it off and it stung me and it went away. That did not hurt. This hurt.
I cried when it stung me. 1,000,000%. This person looked at it and then took me to my friend's mom and then my mom came. It still hurts. And this is why I am never going outside again. Only if it's a long time out of nature will I go outside.
Before that I had a fun day. I was at the river and the playground and the splash pad with my friends. We were going on inner tubes riding down the river. If only the rapids would go faster! It was fun. But I'm still not going in grass outside again.
There is this thing called a haiku that I read about in my Who Knew book, and I also saw it in a Target ad where they had Haiku-pons. They are three line Japanese poems. In the book it says that most professional poets stay away from haiku so one of them won't be posted on the web for other people to laugh at. But I am not a professional poet.
These are haiku for my dad for father's day.
My dad likes guitars
And Dr. Pepper -s too
He likes RC things.
Dad looks different
He is a boy and wears braids
and a cowboy hat
I like his golf cart
He pushes me on the bed
It makes me laugh loud
Happy Father's Day
I love you very much, dad
Day Father's Happy!
At the intersection of 9-year-old Asperger's Street and 44-year-old I Just Need To Get Some of My Own Stuff Done Way, sometimes in the summer the traffic light goes out and everyone gets very confused as to how to proceed.
I mean, forget about work. There's no work. You'll have given that up for the summer to be done only in snatched early morning moments.
And forget about self-care of any kind, like exercise, which you will have relegated to nights so that your work-at-home spouse doesn't have to worry about trying to stay at home with Mr. I-Could-Care-Less-That-You-Are-Video-Conferencing-With-The-Company-Owner-And-I-Need-You-To-Listen-To-Me-Talk-About-Something-Right-NOW around, but which also leaves you in a weird dinner lurch of eating things out of cans and bags at 9pm.
And forget about phone calls; short phone calls to confirm things or long phone calls with friends or, God forbid, phone calls that you have to return to students and potential students with questions unless you want to try to duck into a closet while you make them which only will incite yelling and door pounding from the outside (in fact, you'll have stopped answering the phone except in the most necessary of circumstances and only when you know you have a better place than the closet to hide).
Forget about house cleaning on any large scale; it can only be done in snatches, so the laundry piles up clean, but unfolded, and the bathroom is like a truck stop men's room, and you haven't found your other flip-flop in a week.
Forget about errands unless you would like for them to take 4 times longer than usual and you want to feel like you might kill someone by the time you get to Costco.
Forget about summer "sleeping in" (whatever that means) because he wakes at 6 no matter what time he goes to bed, and doesn't just sit quietly in his room but runs loudly through the house banging doors and turning the volume up on the TV to his own intolerably loud comfort level. I know that you already forgot about sleeping in the middle of the night, because he will have already woken up twice and needed to urgently tell you something or will have tried to get in bed with you 3 times or will have demanded food.
Forget about sending him out on his own to play with friends, because a. he won't go unless you do and b. if he does it will end in frustration - yours, theirs, his.
And forget your own hobbies. I mean, I'm laughing right now that you thought you would be able to spend time on any of your own pursuits. I hope you like to play golf, because that's your new hobby.
Forget outdoor movies, fireworks, dances at Centennial Park on Saturday nights, camping, evening barbecues with friends, canoeing, neighborhood spotlight tag or any other thing particular to taking advantage of the extended summertime sunlight hours because his medication will have worn off and at some point, there will be an Issue. I can't tell you what or when, but I can tell you that it will happen, and that you will regret your attempt at keeping him out past sunset.
But you'll keep plugging. Like Lorenz and his ducklings, you were the first duck he saw and imprinted upon, and he picked you to be the guide in this life and the safe place to come back to. And though you can't do any of the above stuff without frustration yourself, you are trying to teach him to be able to do it. The goal is that eventually one day he is able to do all of those things without the problems... and without you. And so you'll keep playing golf, hiding in the closet and wearing incredibly wrinkled clothes for the sake of one day having a brilliant kid who can get along in the world and hopefully care for you in your old age since he will probably benignly rule us all like Bill Gates.
A couple of days ago Truman was looking at one of his Garfield books in the backseat, and he noticed that John, Garfield's owner, has speech balloons, but that Garfield only has thought balloons. Anything Garfield "says" is really just him thinking the words and not actually saying them. But in one of the panels, it seems that John answers Garfield's thoughts... kind of like he knew what Garfield was thinking.
So I get the question from the back seat, "How'd he do that? Can John read minds?"
"Well, you know how when you really know someone and you can tell what they are thinking? You know, like me. Can't you tell sometimes just because you live with me and know me so well what is going on in my head a little? Like maybe you could guess what I was thinking?"
"No."
And it was one of those Oprah patented a-ha! moments. How many therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and nurse practitioners and other professionals have we seen over the course of his lifetime who have talked to us about autism, and specifically, Asperger's and its symptoms? How many books have I read on the topic? How much in general have I thought about his lack of reading people emotionally and not fully understood that he just can't do it naturally? And if I, the person who spends practically every waking moment with him, sometimes a lot of should-be-sleeping moments with him, and knows him better than anyone else in the whole world can't wrap my head fully around his inability to read people, how in the world can a teacher, another adult of any sort, other kids, or anyone who isn't fully immersed in Truman-land really get it?
Recently, he saw me at my computer and said, "Are you mad?" When I said no, that I was just thinking and asked why he thought I was angry, he said, "Well, you weren't talking, and your mouth was doing that thing where it turns down and your eyebrows were doing that thing where they point down in the middle. That usually means you're mad, though I haven't heard your voice go up, which is funny that when you're mad your eyebrows and your mouth go down but your voice goes up."
Up to this point, he wouldn't have been able to put those things together: Down mouth + down eyebrows + up voice = angry. That he can analyze the situation based on a list of things to look for in a mood, is a big step, and another good reminder for me that he can't just glance at me and without thinking, get a sense that I'm angry or thinking, or happy or nervous or whatever the case may be. He has to know the checklist of what to look for in each of those individual situations, be in a space himself where he's able to focus, and not be completely overtaken by something in his head. For all those things to be in alignment is rare as it is, so that he could have a moment to be able to detect a mood or a situation with his analytical checklist is almost unheard of. Mostly he spends his time in Truman-land.
You just... forget. He looks like a duck, he acts like a duck, he quacks like a duck, but he doesn't understand the nuanced social interactions, facial expressions, tone of voice or any of the other little things that make ducks duck-like. And he certainly doesn't understand the unspoken things that go on between us ducks. It must be weird to paddle around as a gosling in a duck world. Though maybe it's not, and he expects that everyone mostly feels the way he does and goes around in their own individual bubbles. Which I think is more than likely the case.
And so I cut you a break, world. I cut you a break for forgetting or even not understanding fully or at all what kind of guy you're dealing with. And I cut you a break for being frustrated with him because it's not very often that he'll take the time to return the favor of trying to figure you out. It's so deeply in there for us ducks to unconsciously scan each other for all the small things that tell us about another duck so that we can interact with them most effectively that we just expect that same thing to be happening for others, and for them to be perceiving us and understanding our unspoken clues. It's so deeply in there that I know all of it about my own gosling, and I still forget.
Truman had a big ol' breakdown at Encore Camp today that basically boiled down to not being able to contain his emotions.
He has a chore chart at home, and in order to earn screen time, he has to complete 5 of 6 items, all really simple stuff. And yesterday, he didn't do any of it, even with reminding, so today, no screens. It made the day start off badly, and apparently it carried over to Encore where, by noon, I got The Call.
He's so damn complicated. Not having screens and unable to express frustration, it builds, it peaks when another frustrating thing occurs, and then there's a meltdown. Unfortunately it takes a full teacher's time to deal with the meltdown, and that time today was about an hour. He was only better after he spoke to me on the phone. (They also found him a Dick's flyer.)
It still took me until just now to sort out why a meltdown, why such frustration at such a small thing (I wasn't aware that the frustration was carrying over from screen loss). He let me interview him (see below) because he didn't want to talk directly to me about it, but he would talk if he could just read my questions.
The interesting thing is that as soon as the source is tapped and he feels understood, he's fine. We sorted out the source of his sad, made cookies and now he's playing croquet with his friends in the yard (OK, really they're hobbling around on the croquet mallets like they're crutches, but whatever).
Truman: Today I got frustrated because we were doing this thing where we found things in the sand with little paintbrushes. But they're supposed to be using a shovel and a big paintbrush. Actually just a shovel. The big paintbrush would just be for dusting off what they find. Like an archaeologist. The little paintbrushes weren't working, but other people were finding things and I wasn't. I started missing you and wanted to go home. Then I started crying.
Mom: Then what happened?
Truman: I can't remember.
Mom: Do you remember crying for a long time today?
Truman: Yes. And that other time there.
Mom: What thing made you feel better when you got frustrated?
Truman: Talking to you on the phone.
Mom: What makes you feel better when you talk to me?
Truman: I just like to talk to you.
Mom: What things do you think would make you feel better if I wasn't there?
Truman: Screens.
Mom: That's not really an option all the time.
Truman: You do portable ones. I see people using their iPhones there.
Mom: Well, there are other things to make you feel better, too. What can you think of? Do you remember the list you made last week about what makes you happy? What about any of those things? They aren't screens.
Truman: My Garfield books.
Mom: We should say thank you to the people who gave those to you.
Truman: Thanks, I really like them. I've read them every day.
Mom: Do you remember that time when you were sad, and you made the lamp in my room look sad instead of just telling me that you were sad?
Truman: That was a long time ago.
Mom: Does it make it easier to say you are sad when you can tell me that way?
Truman: Yes.
Mom: Is it easier than talking?
Truman: Yes.
Mom: How do you think it makes other people feel when you get really frustrated like that?
Truman: I don't know.
Mom: You know, it makes me sad sometimes when you are frustrated and you won't talk to me and tell me how I can help you. What can we do to work on that?
I was talking to a fellow parent last night who has a kid who is not officially diagnosed but who presents in many spectrum areas. She's outwardly quite normal. But she has always struggled in school not academically, but socially and behaviorally and has lots of autism quirks. They had her tested through MNPS, but because the public school system has its own definition and parameters for what constitutes autism that doesn't follow the one that the medical world uses, the DSM, this kid is perpetually stuck in a no-man's land of those who have plenty of problems and symptoms, but no help. She's unable to get an IEP, and so the expectations for this child are no different than for any other typical child. She performs well in school because she's razor sharp and crazy smart, but she's miserable, has no friends, and is riddled with anxieties at the age of ten years old. Her parents have bitten the money bullet and have had to send her to private school where, within a couple of days, anxieties lessened. There were lots of kids there like herself, and her education plan was individualized without there having to be a legal documented plan put into place.
What's your recourse as a parent if you have a kiddo that's miserable in public school because they aren't receiving the support they need? Not much. If the school says that they don't fall within the definition of what they consider a real need, then tough luck. And what do you do if you aren't a parent that's able financially to send your kid to a small private school? How many kids like this are there out there, completely stuck in a middle zone of undiagnosed and struggling? Or even (like my own) diagnosed through Vanderbilt with the gold standard of autism testing through the Simons Simplex project, but unable to simply add the diagnosis to his record and IEP because he has to go through MNPS's own battery of testing to get their diagnosis before any IEP will be considered. As it stands we have to just go with an IEP that covers his very severe ADHD (which will quickly take any kind of productivity out of a classroom), and if we add autism, we could lose his gifted learner status, which would take away the classroom modifications available to him for that. Goodness forbid I should ask for a classroom aide. There's no way to win, really.
One time I turned a lengthy report from Vanderbilt Child Development (who monitors his medication and has done 2 full evaluations on Truman) to the school just thinking that it would be helpful to have in his record. I mean, to my (very naive at the time) way of thinking, the more information you have on a kiddo the easier it would be to teach them and the better chance a teacher would have in running her classroom smoothly. But I got a message back through the teacher from the MNPS psychologist that said, "What exactly does the parent want us to do with this information?"I get it that it has lots to do with money and budgets, but I didn't realize that it had to do with plain old obtuseness.
Truman is incredibly lucky in that he goes to a school that performs well, is safe and full of enthusiasm, help, motivated teachers, and more other fabulous things that I could list all day. But it does all of this in spite of the fact that it's an MNPS school. I went to public school, I strongly support the schools that my kids go to both with money and time, and it makes me sad to know that if I just happened to have my kid in another school (and he's not even zoned for the one he goes to - another topic for another day) he might not be nearly as happy and successful as he is in school.
Some can, but most can't afford private school for their ASD kiddo. Many also can't afford private testing, evaluation, and therapies. Homeschooling is an option for some, but is a luxury many can't afford. Hell, MNPS just fired its para-pros recently even. And so, with those individual options limited, and schools very limited on what they can officially do for children suspected of being on the spectrum, the child certainly suffers, the parent suffers for his or her child and the teacher and classroom environment suffers.
I say all of this as I watch him bloom in summer. I'm lucky in that he's in a place where blooms year-round. But blooming takes cultivation, and if you block the paths to cultivation, not many parts of the school system grow. It's 1 in 88 now, MNPS, and the odds narrow every year. Might be worth a evaluative glance at your very needy system, and it certainly deserves a better response than "What exactly does the parent want us to do with this information?"
Yesterday went to go to mini-golf. We went to Grand Old Golf. What I like about mini-golf is the things in it that the balls go down except for the windmills because that's been used like a million times. We didn't see it at Grand Old Golf, but maybe that's because we did the Old Mill Stream course and not the Original Course. I think the Original Course would have a windmill.
They have a Go Kart track at Grand Ol' Golf. I thought about doing it, but I noticed the track wasn't just a circle. My mom said it was probably a figure 8. But I said, it couldn't be a figure 8 track, because there was no bridge. If it was a figure 8 track with no bridge, the cars would eventually crash. That has been used one time in some Cars toy, but it was supposed to make them crash. It was supposed to, but it never did.
When we were there we saw a messed up sewer. It caught my eye because it was bent. Actually the saying should be it caught my eyes. See? I made it plural. It was just an interesting thing to see so we took a picture.
I have a question. What is "tropical flavor?"
Also I have a joke: What do you call a cow that cuts your grass. A Lawnmoo-er.
Today I learned a new thing (it's not exactly new because I did it a long time ago). It's where you use these mallets to hit balls through these things called wickets. It's a game called croquet. My dad gave it to me and I read the instruction book and set up one of the courses from it. I played it this afternoon by myself. I learned the rules and everything. Here's a video of me showing you a croquet tip.
"The way to make yourself feel better when you are upset is to find out what made you sad and fix it somehow. Of course that doesn't work in all sad situations." - Truman
I finally got The Call from camp yesterday.
I have gotten The Call many times over T's life. I have gotten it from teachers, babysitters, camp counselors, school employees and just about any other adult in an overseeing position that he has encountered. I have come to expect The Call, and to be surprised when it doesn't come. No news is good news, but sometimes no news means that they have decided to just get through the week the best they can and not resolve whatever The Problem is. Sometimes that means that Truman just gets left to the side and ignored, or worse, gets in trouble.
My heart always grabs a little when I get The Call. You never know what the attitude on the other end will be. It could be that the person is accusatory; that somehow his behavior is my fault. Sometimes it's exasperated and at the end of its rope. Sometimes its friendly and open to suggestions, but ultimately would just like me to come and pick him up. The worst one is when I don't get The Call at all. When I hear at the end of the day about unresolved problems, or isolation, or punishments; where he's just shuffled with the crowd on to the next activity, sometimes miserable and confused, because it's easier than trying to solve the issue.
And I get it most times. I mean, initial assessments, especially if you don't know him, can really be deceiving. He always starts strong because he's excited and anxious. He looks completely typical. He talks like a kid-physicist. And the adult thinks, what trouble could this kid be? I've seen it all. And then I get The Call.
When I got The Call yesterday from Encore Camp, I settled back into my chair to see how this one would go. And I couldn't be more excited to say that I am now in love with all Encore teachers and would like to marry all of them in an unprecedented platonic group marriage. Truman had a truly Truman meltdown yesterday, full of sound and fury, and all about a topic that would seem to signify nothing to the average observer. But these people got him.
If he likes anything, he likes a good tabloid-size newspaper. Flyers, circulars, glossy ads, free newspapers - they all call to him for whatever reason, and we end up with millions in our house. And yesterday they were doing a project that involved digging through newspapers and advertisements. He found a Dick's flyer. And if you've been following along, you'll know that Dick's has played an important role in his summer. Dick's is the Holy Land from whence golf shoes come and where Spongebob golfballs are available and they give out Dick's reward cards that hold the prospect of discounts and points accruement (he has 5 of them so that they are readily available in any spot he might need one). And this Dick's flyer had golf things on it. GOLF THINGS ON IT. So if you've been following along, you'll be able to feel the Truman-ness of the situation when one sweet unsuspecting boy used the Dick's flyer for his own project. The world ended as we know it.
You are saying to yourself right now, good gosh it was just a flyer. Get over it and move on, kid. Or, for the love of goodness, it's just a meltdown. All kids have them. But when the kid's problem is in expressing and processing emotion, these scenes add up. They become a ball of unprocessed ickiness that will culminate in other, weirder, hard to untangle difficulties. I know. I've spent the time untangling before.
The Call I got informed me of the meltdown, but it was just to inform me. It was friendly. It asked me if there was anything they should know, but mostly told me that they were on the case. The poor sweet kid who took the flyer tried his best to find another one. But Truman sat in the director's office - not because he was in trouble, but so he could have some help pulling himself together. Which he did eventually with help. And when he came out yesterday, he was energized. Empowered. I saw 2 teachers hug him and speak privately to him, and even one fist bump, before he came out to my car.
When he got in he asked me if I had heard what happened (and since I always get The Call, and always seem to know when then these things happen, in his mind it would be perfectly normal that he would step into the car with me already knowing). When I said yes, he burst into chatter about what a great day it had been. He had overcome a meltdown without me, he found some comfort in some adults that understood him, he had peers that were more like him and were helpful. He even spent a few minutes waxing poetic (see pic caption above) about how you get over bumps in the emotional road. It's analytical waxing, but really, if you think about it, emotions are just so emotional. It would be quite a relief to me if I had the clarity to look at my emotions in such a rational way afterwards. We celebrated with a round of putting at the golf course.
You take that stuff for granted when you have a typical kid. They do get over it. They do process it. They do get the rules and the social hierarchy and what to do when something happens. So I get it when an adult expects this of a kid who looks like any other kid and can talk knowledgeably about things like binocular parallax. Who expects a meltdown over a Dick's flyer? Not many. And even less know what to do when it happens. But when they do, boy is it a thing of beauty to a mama.
Trains. I like trains because of Thomas, but when I lost my interest in Thomas when I got big, I did not lose my interest in trains.
Mazes
Snuggling on the couch with mom. I want to do it right now.
Pretzels
Adventure Science Center except I'm scared of the human body part (get it? as in, a part of your body?)
Money
Frisbee. They made these pies called Frisbees. And then these people said something about that it was fun to throw. And some dude made another version of it. I don't know what it was called. And some more people helped him put some more stuff to it and also renamed it a Frisbee. I learned that at school.
Warm water in baths and showers
Snoopy
Codes
Writing backwards
Math (except for math facts)
Spanish and other languages - because it's like a hard secret code that you have to remember
Cameras, which came from the Latin word for "room" and camera obscura which is the Latin word for "darkened room." If you poke a hole into a darkened room, light will shine through and make a reflection off of something. And I think that's kind of how projectors work, too.
Jokes. Here are two: Why did the dinosaur cross the road? To eat the chickens on the other side. What do you call a dinosaur with no eye? A Doyouthinkhesaurus.
Truman starts Encore Summer Camp today. Two weeks of Arts and Sciences at Robertson Academy, 8:30-3:30.
I have tried all kinds of camps for him since he was little, and I always leave feeling like I have done something wrong. With even the camps that claim to be the most open and accepting, I have yet to find one that isn't just a big bunch of talk. I could spend a day writing his idiosyncrasies down on the camp information sheet (and really I couldn't even do that because you are only given about 4 lines to let the staff know of a lifetime of behavioral items for which they should be prepared) but at the end of the day, he will come home with half completed crafts (if at all) while others walk out with carefully braided lanyards and tie-dyed camp shirts, because no one had the time or the energy to fully engage him. After all, it is much easier to deal with a kid who is compliant and easily jumps in to group activities rather than one who has to be coaxed and facilitated (see the 4 lines of explanation I was given on the camp information sheet above). I know. I have one of each and yep, the easy one is easier.
It's always a hope that something magical will happen and that this will be the camp that has a magical counselor that figures him out and gets him to participate. But I have yet to find that one. I very quickly gave up on any kind of typical outdoor camp long ago, and now we go for the more cerebral ones like this one and Camp Invention if we do anything at all. And since we have yet to find anything that works for him, we tend to just do nothing. He was OK with watching Maeve go and do her own fun camp experiences while he stayed home until just recently, but he's become quite aware that Maeve goes, and he does not.
I spent some time looking into camps at an fair for kids with autism that was held at Vanderbilt back in the early spring. I was hoping to find camp opportunities there - true opportunities - for kids like T., but nothing. Mostly it just had vendors like the Y who said how wonderfully accepting and accommodating they are in their camps, but we have been there and done that, and I cannot receive another stink eye from another 17 year old YMCA counselor at the end of the day or receive another phone call asking me to come and get him because they aren't sure what to do with him without absolutely blowing a brain fuse.
One day, when we have an extra $750 lying around, we will do one of these Vanderbilt camps. Game design. For real game design. Are you kidding me? Forget the tie-dye BS and the chigger bites, this is the kind of camp where my kid gives the counselor a run for his money, but finally it would be in a good way, I think.
My mom got a book in the mail today. We don't know the person it is from and we don't know why they sent it to us. But I am really interested in it. It's called Who Knew? Things You Didn't Know About Things You Know Well. The book says that you forget 80% of things you learn in the day so if I read this entire book, the next day I'll forget 80% of it. Did you know that this has video game stuff in it? The name Atari was chosen so that consumers would think that the northern California-based company was Japanese. Whoever sent it, I don't know if it was for me, but thank you. I like it.
Thursday we went to the Tennessee State Museum with friends. It was very fun. I made a trap house. You can see the video of that at the bottom of this post. After we got home, I played with friends outside. I am more of an inside person because I like video games, so this was different for me. I had fun doing it. My friends are nice to me.
Yesterday we hit golf balls, which was good. We have a video of the machine where you get golf balls. Then I learned to tie my shoes so I could put on my golf shoes. Though I can't do it perfectly because they keep getting untied. If you don't know how to tie your shoes you can look at my video at the bottom.
I also got some golf balls in the mail this week. They are from a friend of my dad's. They are cool. The best one is the American flag golf ball. I would show them all to you but I put them in my golf bag already. If you are not Mr. Millis who sent me the golf balls, don't read this: So, thank you for the golf balls. I like golf balls a lot. I have a collection.
That's the kind of picture that you think is cute. It's so sweet that all these boys, ages 6-9, are all still in the innocent zone of being able to spontaneously group hug when they are excited to be all going somewhere together.
But to me, it means that too, but also something wholly different. It means that my kid, who has never had a true group of friends (or at least one that he wasn't using as a background or sounding board for his obsession du jour) actually has a group of little boy buddies.
And on top of it all, these are our neighbors. They live just a few houses away, and we have all summer to spend with them! Right this second, as I speak, he is outside somewhere in our neighborhood with them, playing something with them that does not involve a screen. They are sweet kids, accepting and fun but without being so boyish as to turn off Mr. Tech Club Chess Playing Self-Proclaimed Nerd, but boyish enough to encourage riding Big Wheels down a just-dangerous-enough-to-make-me-nervous hill. But I will peek through my fingers as he does it and forbid myself to forbid reckless Big Wheel driving. For the love of all that's holy, he's outside! And playing with friends!
I don't know what's caused the turn. I do know that it started with summer, and with this blog, but I don't know what particular factor it is. If I had to guess at something, I'm thinking that just the last 10 days have been a really huge confidence booster for him: He has interesting things to say that people read and respond to! He can hit a golf ball! He can go a full day without a video game and not die a thousand deaths! He can learn a new skill and concentrate at will! He can try new foods and experiences and live through it! It must be quite a rush. I just want to find the magical formula that makes all the courage stick.
Today we went to hit some golf balls, and as we entered the front gate, I caught his eye in the rearview mirror, and he was just sitting in the backseat smiling to himself. I asked him what he was smiling about, and he said, "Golf." How'd you like to be so dang excited about something so simple and live so completely in the moment that you sit and beam just because you are on your way to do something that you really love? Note to self...
And he took great pride in showing his sister how to hold the club and swing. I mean, who DOESN'T like to be better than your big sister at something, right? We stopped to talk to someone in the pro shop and he walked right up to the man and held out his hand, looked him in the eye, shook it and said, "My name's Truman. T-R-U-M-A-N." (I don't think that I've ever said that he had to spell his name when shaking hands with someone, but whatever.) This whole social hand shaking thing is something we've been practicing, and this is the first time that he has initiated it on his own. And you could tell he was very proud of himself.
We went to the Tennessee State Museum yesterday afternoon with a bunch of other kids. (Yes, he's kissing his friend in the picture. But as I told the friend, hey, it's better kissing than hitting). And it was super fun, but it was the kind of thing for him that is usually a complete overload for him and will cause him to melt down later just because. And, yes, as soon as we got home there was a meltdown, and Truman and I had to go home to chill while the other kids got into slip n slide mode. He immediately went into screen-need, his ultimate safety net. If he can hide in video game land, it's safe, it's predictable, it's controllable and it allows his mind to go into an auto-pilot that I assume is pretty comforting when you have a really active and jittery mind.
But I wouldn't let him. And here's the good thing: After a few minutes of not being able to pull himself together, he (he not me) had the grand idea of getting a snack and drink and just sitting quietly in his room. For real. This has never happened in the history of Truman happenings. And then most most most importantly, he recognized that it made him feel better. Voila! Brain connection made, information stored for retrieval at a later date. Feel crabby and overstimulated? Snack, drink, rest.
