This blog was initially set up as a means of communicating with my son's team. Since then, I've heard from other parents with similar stories. If you are living with challenges or journeying alongside someone who is, you are not alone. There are many of us. I'm a single adoptive Mom (http://richesofsimplicity.blogspot.com/) of a young man who lives with many abilities and many diagnoses. We have journeyed together through many challenges and a few adventures over the years as my son has tried to find space in this world that makes him feel more comfortable, an attempt made especially difficult when living with Attachment Disorder, PDD-NOS (Autism), Developmental Coordination Disorder, ADHD, prenatal substance exposure, etc. Some of the strongest elements used in this journey have been music, visual arts, therapeutic parenting, team-connection, boundary-setting, boundary-setting, boundary-setting, communication skills, community-building, continual lifeskills training, and elements of Theraplay. (Click here for some written resources.) On this journey, there is laughter and tears and growth and hope. The greatest of these is hope.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

T is for Tuesday Evening


It's another beautiful Autumn day. As soon as Chef came home from school, we went for a short walk to pick up some eggs. We chatted on the way there and back. Chef said he's going to look at hair samples through a microscope in science, and that he's very glad the school has Microsoft 2010. He likes his art teacher. We continued a previous conversation about plans for Friday; I have an afternoon and an evening performance, both out of town. Chef always comes to the place where we're performing in the evening, so we've been chatting about what might and might not work as far as transportation. If he doesn't come with me during the day, he won't be able to be there for the evening and I don't have a care provider for him who can keep him as late as needed. He doesn't want to miss anything fun that might be happening at school (Excellent!! A far far cry from just a few years back when he did anything and everything possible not to go to school!) but it looks like that's what's going to have to happen. I told him we could look at it as a volunteer event for him; if he returns to playing his pennywhistle or decides to participate in performing at some point (he says he wants to sing and has been working on a specific song), then he will earn some of the money I receive for the overall performance. "Volunteering" at performances once in awhile beforehand gives him the opportunity to see what it's like to perform in different environments and he's great with seniors and seniors love him, so Friday should be a positive life experience for him, aside from missing school. We also made our supper plans. Chef has decided that gravy is awesome, so asked about gravy and potatoes with supper. We decided he'd get the potatoes going on the stove and I'll do up homemade chicken patties with gravy and apples. Once he had the potatoes going, Chef and a young neighbourhood friend picked dandelion leaves and roots for us to freeze for using in winter (http://health.msn.com/nutrition/slideshow.aspx?cp-documentid=100256169&imageindex=13). I had to chuckle because I told Chef that it was really important to get roots but we needed lots of leaves as well. When I checked a few minutes later, the report was that they'd given up on roots because they were too difficult. "No problem," I said. "If you manage to get any roots I'll pay you for them but just focus on the leaves otherwise." A few minutes later, Chef came inside and said they had a bunch of roots ;-)

We had supper, watched a bit of a video that Chef had put in then Chef started dishes. A few minutes later, I remembered he hadn't had a rest after school so he had a rest then came down to finish dishes. He was almost finished almost an hour later, but when I checked the dishes I discovered that only two had actually been cleaned. The rest had received the ol' "wet 'n wipe" treatment. I wasn't about to have Chef continue on into the evening doing dishes (for both our sakes!) but he knows that he doesn't have free time til dishes are done so it was off for a quiet early evening in his room at 8pm. Around 8:10 I heard snoring.

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