December Gratitude
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we had gone for Hannah to one of the more time consuming pit stops of waiting purgatory…an Arizona MVD office. The skittles and kindle were packed, an appointment was made…and we were still in there for about half an hour with at least 60 of our fellow Arizonans. Tony did amazing all things considered with only two attempts to walk out of the building before we were done. I thought that was enough to be grateful for.
After we came home, I noticed Hannah chopping up potatoes and frying them. She’s done that recently, so I didn’t think anything of it…until she placed a plate gingerly next to her brother as she praised him for how well he had done and showered him with words of appreciation. Literally it is the most beautiful thing I have witnessed this past month, and it will be a treasured moment every remaining second of my life. There aren’t really words to express what it means to me as a mother to see the love my two children have for each other. But I am especially grateful that Hannah went out of her way to shower her brother with kindness and encouragement.
A Brief Note:
I am exhausted. In just about every way a person can be. Right now, as I look at both the scheduling vacancies and challenges caused by the removal of 20 hours of ABA from our therapy schedule, I am wanting to take some time off of writing to deconstruct the proverbial box of our therapeutic circumstances if you will. With some of the more serious public safety challenges looking rather extinguished, I’m trying to figure out what I want to prioritize and in what manner so that I can focus on the work needed to be done for a school transition, get a little bit of self-care time in, and increase time for our family can start doing more outings together that are just us so that things are slightly more balanced in our lives. From the very beginning I have felt like there’s never been enough of me to go around. Holidays are always tricky, but until Emily starts picking up some of our son’s habilitation hours after Christmas, it’s kind of just me doing a whole lot of everything for the time being. And so I’m definitely taking the next month off so that I can find a couple hours a week to enjoy a holiday activity without increasing my stress level by worrying about when I’ll fit in writing a post.
One Tiny Bit of Reading To Consider
Autism Treatment Shifts Away from ‘Fixing’ the Condition, by Claudia Wallis writing for Scientific American.
I write a lot about the therapy we are doing with Tony. But if you look at what we are actually doing, I am focused strictly on safety skills or other areas of tolerance and functionality necessary to access certain services within the community. I have a child who has significant functional deficits in certain areas, so I could never support the idea that therapies aren’t necessary for some individuals on the spectrum. I think, however, it is important for everyone to remember that we are all humans with certain strengths and weaknesses. As this article mentions, “society gains from having different kinds of brains contribute to our world.” And yet, it far too often, in my opinion, can be seen that even Autistics who are successful by society’s often more narrow standards in terms of schooling, career, marriage, and other relationships can still find themselves being infantilized by some just for the potential of carrying that diagnostic label. We all struggle with things, whether we are neurotypical or not. I think it would be a beautiful thing to see a world where we focus on meeting the needs of each individual -regardless of what might be the source- more than hunting down the labels and stigmatizing.
