Taking the Scenic Route

For those wondering what the smilie deal is about, there are two discussions going on at MDC about an alternate autism smilie.  After submitting the last one I realized a rather obvious goof….”ASD” stands for the diagnosis “Autistic Spectrum Disorder“  Whoops! 

A couple of fun materialistic things.  One, we got a coffee table with some storage bins underneath.  Yeah!  I love it and it helps corral the clutter a bit.  The other is that I went to Kohls because they were having an 80% off sale.  I found a few pairs of comfortable pants for Zane for $6 (usually $16).  With his schedule so full we are running out of comfortable/playschool friendly pants before we are running out of week.  The other really cool thing I found was a set of my wedding china, 4 place settings.  I must have stood there for 20 minutes inspecting it because I couldn’t believe it was there, and at 50% off.  Major Score!  I almost want to go back and get another set.  We didn’t have enough to serve the extended family we usually have over on holidays.  However, I didn’t find any pants (just need something comfy and warmer for around the house…with pockets).

Zane’s bedtime is going smoother than I ever could have imagined even 6 months ago.  *knock on wood* He protests going to bed as he comes and gives me a hug and kiss, then Zach reads him 3-5 books, then kisses him goodnight, then leaves the room.  Zane falls asleep.  Wow.  It almost seems magical after all the drama bedtime has had over the years.  Zora, on the other hand, is not going to bed as easily. *cough*understatement*cough*. 

I might have found a babysitter.  It will be fairly expensive, but I am trying to apply for respite care to help cover it.  That is the hardest thing about having a nontypical child…it is super difficult to find somebody to watch them to get a few hours off together.  The young woman we might get is not only a SL student clinician at Zane’s school, but has been a nanny for special needs twins (one ASD, the other Deaf…that would be an interesting combo), and to top it off, grew up Mennonite.  lol.  Wasn’t expecting that…  I wouldn’t have disqualified a caretaker for religion, but it is a really nice bonus that I don’t have to be concerned about that aspect.  We talked for a while and it seems like it would be a really good match for us in general.

The light snowfall from a few days ago.  This isn’t the accumulation but we wanted a photo of how delicately it clung to things when there was no wind to blow it off.

quiet enough to actually see individual flakes.  usually the wind breaks them up around here.

An example of why this child is going to give me a heart attack.  I don’t know how he got up there (I was changing Zora and on the phone at the time), but he had a good balance.  I did help him down because I was afraid of what would happen.

Zane’s snowman from preschool

Zora helping daddy put together the coffee table.

Hey, who needs beds?  lol.

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And one more, please forgive my dry sense of humor….

SO, you think this one would be considered neutral? lol

Here is some discussion on the puzzle ribbon vs. the infinity symbol

and some more information on Neurodiversity 

We are actually pretty much in between these two camps, leaning a bit towards neurodiversity.  We are pro-therapy, and although we use a little ABA, I have a general distain for the Behaviorist school of Psychology, particularly if it is used in exclusion of anything else.  It has it’s good points, but I think in it’s purest forms it reduces humans to sets of behaviors without regard to the inner mind.  I generally don’t like a punishment/reward system to discpline because I think it sets people up people to be to externally motivated.  I think it can be used as a tool in limited situations though. 

I also lean towards the Neurodiversity because the foundation of that view is that autism is a genetic variation.  The pro-cure side is based on the premise that something is broken and needs to be fixed.  I don’t see Zane as broken in any way and won’t work with a therapist that approaches a person with that underlying attitude.  There is a difference between helping and fixing.

I really wish the puzzle symbolism didn’t have any conotation beyond awareness because I really like it.  Zane has always been big on puzzles and I think the design is rather cheerful.  It is also the most recognized autism awareness symbol, and I don’t really have serious objections to it since I am in the middle, and I do some biomedical therapies (like starting cod liver oil and vitamins, and I might try some of the diets at some point) and we do push Zane to use verbal communication instead of just non-verbal because he is capable of it and seems frustrated when he can’t get his point across.  However, I do back off when he needs me to because I don’t think it is fair to make him always be ‘on’.  Everybody needs down time to be with their own thoughts.

In a related, but different vein, some posts I found:

But what do we do?  Great essay on attitudes towards being different

Between the Lines  I identified with a lot of this.  Although Zane’s speech is now evolving, there are still times when we live together in a non-verbal world, but this was the main way we related in the not-to-distant past.  Very good read.

They aren’t animated or anything, but there was a discussion at MDC about an alternative to the puzzle ribbon, since that has a specific political meaning  (pro-cure autism) and not everybody sees autistic people as being broken or poisoned.  I tend to lean towards acceptance and making appropriate accomodations and therapy is aimed towards helping him cope with the world, not a pursuit to make him appear NT.  (I am still working on letting go of being affected by the looks and comments we get sometimes, but that is a process.  Some days I am great, some days I struggle with it, but that is about me being an imperfect human, not about what *should* be.)

I had already changed the symbol on the top of my blog from a puzzle piece to the infinity symbol, which goes along with the autie pride  side of the autism culture, and I just modified a bit more so it was clearly an infinity symbol (and not a sideways “8″) when it was reduced to the smaller size.  If somebody wants a different size and don’t know how to do that, or a variation of it, let me know and I can make it for you.