Taking the Scenic Route

Kid’s Creativity: Zane at Camp SSTAR

27th July 2008

Kid’s Creativity: Zane at Camp SSTAR

Zane made a tie dye shirt his first day. I saw them making them in one of the news videos, it looks like they folded them up and then sprayed them with paint/dye of some kind.

When I picked him up, this is not the shirt he had. He brought home a shirt that said “Zach” on it and he wanted dh to put it on because it was “for daddy”. Zach decreed there would be no more using of his first name in front of the kids. lol. Zora already calls him “Zach” more times than she calls him “Daddy” and now this. (suddenly grandparents referring to each other as “mother” and “father” made a lot more sense). As it turns out, it wasn’t Zane’s shirt, it was another kid’s (named Zach) shirt. We took it back and retrieved the correct one.

the front

the back

He made the flower pot. Don’t know what the tokens are for, but they are important to him.

This was one of my favorite things he brought home. They are “emotion sculptures”. When I picked him up one of the counselors (actually, she was the OT that was the initial person to evaluate him for services years ago) excitedly told me that on the first sculpture he initially had a rather blank/frowny face, but after he finished it he looked at it really hard, then changed the mouth to be smiling. Very Cool!

I asked him what emotion/feeling they were and he told me this one is “Happy”

And a close up of the face he worked so hard on…

This one feels “nothing”. (which could mean, literally, nothing, or it could be that he just didn’t have the words to really describe it how he wanted to)

And this one feels “happy” again.

posted in Art, Autism, Autistic Life, Camp, Crafts, Zane | Comments Off

25th July 2008

Last Day of Camp SSTAR


Zane’s camp ended today. It was a really good week for him. (except that he seemed to have a stomach bug or something this morning, but he perked up this afternoon) At the award ceremony he got a certificate for “Good Listening and Gentleness”.

At the ceremony I discovered there was a second news story about the camp. Zane is in this one too. He is in the green shirt througout, so it was taken on Monday. (the only day he wore a green shirt)

A few pictures from the final awards ceremony and wrap up.

Don’t they look thrilled.


Suddenly, he seemed to perk up…wonder why. lol. (showing features of the website the older kids made)

And here is the little stinker that caused us to leave early. It was naptime and she was not handling things well. She also insisted on wearing the too small hat, despite the fact she had really cute hair today. (earlier in the week I wouldn’t have minded because her hair was a mess.)

posted in Autistic Life, Camp, In the News, Zane | 1 Comment

23rd July 2008

Lemonade from the Lemons

Well, what do you know, some good is coming out of the Savage comments. Our local CBS station did a story on Autism and the camp Zane is at. Zane even got some air time. When they start talking about “1 in 150 kids have autism…”, right after the older kid with autism talks a bit, look for the dark haired kid in the front row in the white/tie dye shirt and bright green crocs who is stimming like crazy. lol. That would be Zane.

Local Autism Camp Reacts to Comments (click below or on “Featured Video” next to the article to see the news video)

The sort of sad part about the whole comment uproar is that a big part of the reason they don’t bother me terribly much is because it is such a normal thing to hear. It isn’t even close to the most obnoxious thing I hear said. After all, it used to be the whole thing was blamed on “Refrigerator Mothers” and bad parenting. There has always been an attempt to blame the parents for it (especially moms), but anyone with an ounce of education knows that isn’t the case.

Essentially, after the initial anger, I sort of laughed because he was an “amateur” in making fun of us. I don’t think I could possibly count the times I overhear people nastily saying that I should spank Zane when he is having a meltdown, and feel like I live in dirty looks from passer-bys on many days. It is just a fact of life. Some days it does really get to me…I am human after all. Most of the time I have learned how not to care about it. Other’s opinions of the situation really don’t matter, because they can’t, because if I took it all in, I would never be able to cope.

Maybe I should write him. Apparently, according to him, we get all sorts of freebies with a diagnosis. Where are my freebies? lol Legally, yeah, we are supposed to get things like a free and appropriate education, but it is nowhere near free, and very rarely actually appropriate.

posted in Autistic Life, Camp, In the News, Zane | Comments Off

21st July 2008

Living in a haze of sickies, and some Amazing News!

I am sick. I started coughing two Wednesdays ago, and it looked like it was getting better by the end of the week. I am not sure if it was simply because I went out the night of the birthday party, or the glass of wine (or the combination), but within 24 hours of that party, I was sick as a dog. I wasn’t sleeping any more because the coughing was so bad. I hurt from coughing so hard. By Wednesday of last week, Zach took the morning off so that I could drag my butt to the dr. He gave me some heavy duty antibiotics. Here I am, 6 days since that appointment, and I am finally just starting to get some sleep. I am pretty much doing nothing but sleeping after not being able to for so long. I am really dragging. My voice is slowly starting to come back, but I am still pretty hoarse and trying to stick to whispering if I can.

In the middle of all that, we found out the travel dates for Zach to go to Germany. And, with some financial help from Zach’s dad and my mom volunteering to stay with the kids, I am going with him. Me. Zach and I both had to get passports because we had never traveled outside the country before. (technically, I went to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in high school with the youth group for a church conference, but most of the people there were Americans and no passports were involved, so it didn’t feel very international)

WooHoo!. Zach got his passport in days (might be because he has been through multiple security clearances for jobs, so it is probably documented) and I got mine a few days ago. I know that pictures on those things are notoriously bad, but I almost look like I am a different race. I look freakishly dark. Now, if I was a girl who liked to tan, it wouldn’t look so weird, but I am pasty, pasty white girl, so it looks really strange to me. You can hardly see it though through all of the security reflections though.

This week Zane started camp STARR at Heartsprings. He seemed to really enjoy it. I am going to have to watch for pictures to be posted on their site since I am not with him. The one advantage of being so tired is that I am not the least bit nervous about him being away for the morning and early afternoon. Besides the fact that his professional therapist is there, several of the student therapist and teachers he has had at the WSU SL Clinic are working there this week too. There are many people there that know him and it is a relief that he is able to just go enjoy himself without me being stressed about it.

posted in Autistic Life, Camp, Health, Travel | 2 Comments

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