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I haven’t the energy to post more than to let you know that I’ll continue to be MIA for today and possibly tomorrow. I’ve got fluish symptoms, plus massive sinus pressure. I’m better today then yesterday, at the moment…but I predict a turn for the worse later…It sems to be coming in waves of achiness and pain. I’ll be back once I feel like my brain is semi functioning.
For the week of 11/02-11/08/08
Weekly Winners is the brainchild of the wonderfully Sarcastic Mom, Lotus
These are actually pictures from the two weeks previous, including my trip to Buffalo, and Halloween. Next week I’ll have the pictures from this past week and this coming week to catch up.
Brightest Leaf
Early Holiday
Changing Before Our Eyes
Running Through Color
Standout
Princesses
It’s a Nose!
Thinking
Enraptured
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“Well what does she have?”
“Autism.”
“Oh, she does NOT! I’ve SEEN autism, and that isn’t it.”
This conversation happened on my trip home. It was my grandmother, whom I adore dearly and I hold no ill will toward her for it…but it reminded me of the times the conversation has happened in other situations.
When being told of her diagnosis after 2 years of searching and waiting her (special needs) teacher said, “Really? Well, I’m surprised by that.” Other people look at her and then at me with the huge look of doubt and you can practically hear their thoughts – She looks fine to me.
It takes all of my effort to smile and nod and move on into different conversations. I have to remind myself that these people don’t see her day in and day out. They don’t see her meltdowns (she saves those for us), they don’t see the way disruption in her routine makes things wonky, they don’t see her when she gets off the bus after school so exhausted from working at her therapies in class that she crashes on the couch for two hours.
They see a girl without the typical red flags, that makes eye contact, that smiles (at us) and hides from strangers, that talks and laughs once she’s familiar with the situation.
They expect what the propoganda shows, children ‘locked within themselves’. They expect behaviors and habits they see on news reports and fundraising sites. They expect an autistic version of ‘normal’.
They don’t know the years of therapy she’s been to help her become verbal. They haven’t watched her for 4 years like us, like her doctors. They don’t know that just 6 months ago she COULDN’T express her needs and wants. That six months ago the only calming activity when she got overstimulated was DPPT. That she does have moments where she fits into what they expect to see.
And I am grateful that they can see the child they do now. Thankful for Early Intervention, thankful for Developmental Preschool – that those two services have helped her become what she is today…and I am frustrated that people can’t see beyond the stereotype, that they don’t see that the spectrum is wide, and we happen to be on the higher-functioning end.
Look beyond the label, look beyond the stereotype…see the child and accept her for what she is. And if you’re going to take the time to ask the question, take the time to see the years it may have taken to reach that diagnosis…to see the months of therapy and what they’ve done to help the child…not look and judge because it’s not ‘typical’.
I apologize for not being up yesterday. I’m having issues with my webhost which I hope to resolve soon…if not I’ll be shopping for a new webhost.
I love where I live. It’s a small(er) suburb, the county seat, my neighborhood itself is an enclosed street hidden away so there’s not through traffic – no traffic at all practically – but connected to a main road. The town is small enough that the school district has one school for each level (K-3, 4-6, middle, high), so my son will know all the kids all the way through to graduation…and I know the schools.
But I’ve always joked about it being ‘hickville’ (and adjacent to Hicksburg, Hickfield, and Hicksboro). We ARE 2 minutes from rural lands in every direction but one. We do have a fair amount of rednecks that live close, and all of us around here are “simple” folk that live quietly, simply – definitely don’t live ‘large’. Modest homes and families, good friendships and a sense of community.
Yesterday I got the proof that sealed the deal that despite all of this…it is still HICKville.Â
Where else but Hickville can you walk out on your back deck and get the view of your neighbor having just returned from hunting…cleaning the deer in his driveway? Antlers lying in the yard…deer lying on a platform designed for the task attached to the back of an SUV.Â
I just laughed and stepped back inside…thinking to myself that I needed no further proof…Hickville it is.
I don’t know who told Riley she could do this…because it certainly wasn’t me. For the past couple of years despite being a ‘big girl’ walking around…she’s been so consumed in her own little non-verbal world…and so far behind in weight that she’s still seemed so tiny…so much my baby…
So I’d look back at pictures like these and think – that’s not so long ago:
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Suddenly in the past few weeks she’s been blossoming…in good ways and bad. My tiny non-verbal, non-eating little baby-girl has begun to refuse her liquid meals in favor of REAL food. She’s talking and turning out to be one heck of a spoiled-brat-bullying-big-sister. She’s got attitude…she plays…she eats and eats…she displays her intelligence in surprising ways.
She still has her quirks, she still hesitates in crowds and at school. She still has her ‘Riley-isms’…but there’s a new part to her…one that is a big girl. One that has shown up suddenly, one that has me watching her in wonder…wondering where my baby girl went…and how we ended up with this in her wake:
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An all-growed-up big girl…one that can express her needs and wants…and does so with aplomb.
In case you missed the news-flash…I was in Buffalo for six days with my kids – and no hubby. Gro-gram (my grandmother) kindly housed us at her place. She had two spare sleeping places – the couch (with a pull-out bed, but who needs that?), and the spare room fully equipped with a full size bed.
Brandon had the luxury of sleeping on the couch. The two girls and I got the spare room with the full size bed. Two toddlers, one of whom still normally sleeps in a crib…and me.  It ended up sort of like this:
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Riley…she was Stretch McGee…lying flat on her back on one of the pillows, long limbs flailed about the bed like she owned it…snoring away (such a sweet snore).
Angel was Snuggle Bug. She’d curl up her tiny little body next to Riley as they slept…and every morning I’d wake to find her twisted in the bed, snuggled against me.
I was left to cope with the remaining little bit of free space. The girls had taken the pillows, so I absconded with one of the little square pillows from the couch w/o much stuffing. One foot hanging off the end of the bed, sometimes both. I got kicked by Riley a few times…I swear the child is only 40″ long…but you put her in bed and she stretches out to twice that size.Â
Needless to say I didn’t get much sleep…but amazingly the sleep I did get was rather sound…especially in the morning when Angel would curl up against me…her little head tucked under my chin…and for an hour while we slept like that…nothing was uncomfortable about that bed.