An Exclamation Point!

We are in the first week of summer vacation. This is always a very tough week for Daniel and I BOTH. He is transitioning to a completely different schedule (or lack thereof) and well, so am I. We'll start with me. I just went from exercising for myself almost daily with friends, to... not. I went from working and going into an office when I chose to, to... not. I went from quiet most of the day to....not. I now have to adjust to the constant chatter of Daniel and to Zachary wondering "what's next". I get sensory overloaded. I never used to know what that meant, but life with an autistic child has given me great incite to myself. I need the quiet. Lots of parents are going through the same thing I realize but don't have the label for it. It takes me a few weeks to not want to scream at everyone to stop talking. I said "want", I don't actually do it. As the non autistic person in this story, I have the strength (most of the time) to "keep it in my head".

Daniel struggles. I remember the days when it would take a good 3 weeks until he'd transition to the summer schedule. Just when I'd think I couldn't take it, he'd settle in. That time frame has shortened, but the days he struggles, he really struggles. We spent Monday and Tuesday this week with Daniel yelling for a minimum of 2 hours. Slamming doors. Just being angry. When I very very nicely gave him suggestions of things we could do together or he could do on his own. He yelled "I CAN'T TELL YOU TO SHUT UP"....well, I thought, I think you just did....

The weather was sketchy. When school went away, so did the sun. It was bordering on chilly and the sky was threatening rain. The pool was out. I have one child that you have to fight with to get him to do anything and another who spends 4 hours at a basketball camp and then wants to know what's next? Opposites. It's hard for me to balance. I always figure it out. But for some reason it always takes me a while.

Yesterday, Daniel, told me "I won't be angry today" and it was actually much much better. I don't know which came first, if he made a conscious effort to not be angry or if it was his way of telling me he was feeling a bit better. Either way. It made me happy and more importantly,he seemed to feel a less stressed.

This morning I saw a missed text from my neighbor. Her boys are Daniel's age and twins. They walked home with Daniel this year and have been pretty inclusive with Daniel. They are used to him and Daniel's constant scripting. The Sesame Street talk doesn't seem to faze them. In fact they have reported an amazement of Daniel's vast knowledge of every single character. Their mom called to tell me that the boys were having some kids over tonight to sit around the new fire pit, roast marshmallows, make s'mores and "hang out" with about 9 kids. They wanted to invite Daniel. There would be loud music, but they didn't think that would be a big deal, as they've seen him at the "activity nights" at school and at another neighbors garage dance party. He's good with it. The concern seemed to be it might be a long time for Daniel. The mom wanted to make sure Daniel was good around fire. He is. He LOVES a fire. It is very calming for him. In fact we converted our wood burning fireplace to gas this year so we could turn it on at will. He loves it.

The only other concern of the boys is that neither their mom nor myself be anywhere around them. They know I'm always lurking around in these situations. I have agreed to stay away. The only other concern is it will be a long evening, but they live across the street, I am pretty sure when he's "done" whether it's an hour or two, he will be thrilled to be included and the time will be well spent. I gave the thumbs up to mom, and she said she'd have one of the boys text Daniel an invite, since that's how everyone was invited. . . Yes you heard me. During my absence from blogging Daniel got a cell phone. The time had come. With him getting more independence I felt better that he could contact me if he needed to. I also wonder if he can connect to some of his peers this way. Let's face it a one sentence text with time to process the information has to be easier for Daniel than a face to face conversation. It's worth a try.

I went back to making my breakfast and sort of forgot about what was going on. I didn't expect a teenage boy to even be up at that hour, let alone to text Daniel quickly. As I was eating my eggs, Daniel came bursting through the door from the basement. He said very excitedly, and slightly out of breath, "I have to get dressed!!" I was somewhat confused, but noticed him clutching his cell phone in his hand. I asked him why he needed to get dressed and he just held out his phone to me. I asked if he had received a text and he said "yes". I took the phone and read it. It said, "Hey Daniel, this is _________ and I was wondering if you would like to come over at 7:30 for some s'mores and brownies" (they SO have Daniel figured out!)

I explained that it was at 7:30 tonight, and he was in fact, not late. He relaxed a bit and said to me "I want to go". I told him he should text him back and let him know. Daniel took his phone and typed out "I would like to come over tonight thank you" Then he looked up at me and very sweetly asked, "how do I put exclamation points on this?" I think that I melted. Right then and there. He wanted to express his excitement. I could tell he was excited, but I don't think many other people would have figured that out from how he looked. But in that one sentence, he wanted to show his enthusiasm. With an exclamation point. How. Cool. I showed him how to do it, and he sent it off. He was out on the trampoline later, while I was weeding. He said "I'm so happy I feel like dancing". His funk is gone. His anger has dissipated. With the invitation from two boys who thought to include him. They flipped his switch as we like to say. I'm sure they have no idea how much it meant to him. But for us, it was !

Weekend of Beauty

This weekend has been quite a monumental one for Daniel. It started on Friday night with the annual Silver Bells celebration in Lansing. I'm not sure how this celebration started but essentially it kicks off the holiday season. There was much debate between the adults in the group that I watched it with, but I believe it is the Friday before Thanksgiving every year.

It starts with a sort of Electric light parade. The floats are all covered in lights, not only is this beautiful but essential because it is getting dark here at 5:00 pm every day! Daniel has his favorites from year to year, the top of the list is the double sized city bus that looks like a caterpillar and the "Christmas train". Santa is riding on one of the floats. The excitment in Daniel's eyes it just priceless and he was singing Christmas carols at the tops of his lungs through most of the parade. When the parade is over they light the Christmas tree in front of the state capitol followed by fireworks over the capitol building. We go to our friends conference room in his office building to watch the fireworks which gives us a wonderful view of the show. Daniel, as always, was yelling "Magnifique! Bravo!" The 3 year old next to him was echoing every word, which was just adorable.

It has become a wonderful tradition to go just a few miles to our state capitol and kick off the season this way.

Saturday night Daniel was invited to a birthday party! It is his friend Emma who lives down the street. She and her family have just been wonderful to Daniel and our whole family. I feel so fortunate to have them in our lives. Emma turned 13 and had "a garage dance party". Daniel was walking around saying, "I'm so excited to go to Emma's garage dance party" over and over again! We weren't sure how Daniel would do at the party with the noise and 30 middle schoolers being crazy for 2 1/2 hours but he had an incredible time. It was from 7:30 until 10 pm. I was graciously invited to stay to keep an eye on Daniel and be there to help if he had a hard time with the noise.

When we arrived the kids were in the garage popping all of the balloons that were throughout the space. This sent Daniel back into the house (not only him there were other kids who felt the same way!) Once the balloons were all popped it was an "all clear". The lights went out, the disco balls went on along with the ipod attached to two huge speakers and the dancing began. I have to say it was a lot different than I remember the 7th grade parties I went too. I have memories of girls literally stuck to the wall on one side of the room and the boys on the other and never really moving the whole night long. Here, they were all intermingled, under the watchful eye of parents, enjoying themselves. Daniel, who has no inhibitions whatsoever, let's loose when it comes to dancing. He is the bumper sticker that says, "Dance like nobody's watching". I wish I had a just a small amount of that. To not care what anyone else thinks can be a good thing sometimes.

When Emma's dad turned on the lights at one point, Daniel responded how they all did, with a loud "awww, what are you doing!?" Apparently, at one point the kids were all in a circle with people taking their turns with solos in the middle, with cheers from their peers. Daniel took his turn in the middle of the circle to chants of "go Daniel, go Daniel". I, unfortunately, missed that part, although Todd was there to see it. And he hung in there! At about 9:40 I looked at him and could see how tired he was becoming. We went back into the house for a break. He looked at Elizabeth's gorgeous gingerbread house (that is a replica of her house) that is just amazing. He loved the gingerbread house so much and she loved that he appreciated her work! Here is a picture of him taking in the house.

It was truly a magical weekend for us, but especially for Daniel.

What's the difference?

Something as big as the movie outing doesn't come around every day for us. Oddly, this weekend, the very next night, Daniel was invited to a birthday party. Let me preface this by saying, this is not exactly a common thing. It is one of the sad facts about being "different". I've written several times that Daniel has the best peers. Kids who really care about him. But when it comes to hanging out or going to parties, it doesn't quite extend that far. Some parents get very worked up over this. I understand it though. I really do. When you can barely carry on a conversation, it makes it tough.

I have found in talking to other parents with kids on the spectrum, it seems we have a higher than average rate of parties. I would say Daniel averages one a year. Not an outstanding showing, but I've found lots of kids who have NEVER been invited to a party. Perspective. Now one a year sounds outstanding, doesn't it? As the kids have gotten older it seems that a lot of parties revolve around sleep overs . This makes it even more difficult and it makes sense that he wouldn't go. Although one year his friend *Jim* invited him to a sleepover. I brought him to the earlier party portion then left before the sleep over part started. We weren't the only ones to get out before the overnight craziness began. Believe me, if the earlier part of the party showed what was to come, I wouldn't have wanted him there.

This invitation was from a girl who has been in Daniel's corner since 1st grade. I'll call her *Mary*. That's the grade that he started school with these kids. She is a beautiful, "popular" girl that everyone loves. She has always been a champion for everyone. For years they were always in the same class together. Put that way as a set up, of course, knowing that she would always help him when needed. That's just the kind of girl she is. Her mother told me a story yesterday about a few boys who had been teasing a girl on line. One called her a name. Something very hurtful. *Mary* told them all off and said that if they didn't apologize and stop doing things like that, they wouldn't be allowed to come to her party. One of the boys wasn't there.

The party was held at our community center. During the first half they all got together and swam for an hour, then went up to the party room. There were 30 kids invited. I was fearful of the noise level getting Daniel very upset during this portion of the party. (Not to mention the adults) So I stuck around. I'm the only parent, of course, who still does this. No one seems to pay much attention to it though. They are all used to Daniel having someone with him. It is accepted as "normal". I think I feel more awkward about it than anyone else.

The tables were set up in a huge rectangle. As with most 11 and 12 year olds the room was divided boys on one side, girls on the other. Except for Daniel he was on the "girl's side" I don't think he was really paying attention, he just sat down, then it all filled in around him. *Mary* ended up right next to him. The dad of the party jokingly said, "what are all of you boys, except Daniel too scared to sit by the girls?" This got a nervous laugh out of some of them. Then as expected out of pubescent boys some of them started throwing grapes. Daniel got a bit upset by this, because, you know, you aren't supposed to throw food. Clear cut rules like this are very upsetting to him when being disobeyed. I was on the other side of the room, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. I was about to walk over to try and relax him, when I saw *Mary* lean over to Daniel and whisper something to him ever so quietly. I would bet I'm the only one in the room who even saw it. It was so sweet and thoughtful. Then she turned to the boys and said "stop throwing food NOW". I love this girl. The best part is, they stopped.

The kids hustled through their food and cake and ice cream, because the next portion was the "dance party". I wasn't aware of this part of the plan. She brought the ipod, the docking station, and a strobe light and a lighted ball that turns, sort of like a disco ball. The lights went out, the music turned on, "Louder", are the calls from the kids. I hold my breath and see what's going to happen next. "Louder, turn the music up", says another. I take in my breath a bit more. All of the girls sans one or two are in the middle of the room, giggling, dancing, and singing loudly to the music. Some of the boys are sort of circling the circle. Some are staying way back and watching. Daniel wanders over to the lights and for a few moments is captivated by the strobe effect. He wanders around, really not looking too different from the other boys his age. The sound doesn't seem to be bothering him, which is allowing me to start exhaling a bit. Then he walks over to the outside of the circle. I can see him watching them dance. Then. . . . he starts to dance. It was a bit goofy at times. But one of the BEST things about autism, is the joy of not caring what anyone thinks. I think we could all use a bit of that couldn't we? I whispered to the mom, "he is the definition of 'dance like nobody's watching'". She said, "he's got some moves". And there he was dancing with his peers. Completely and totally enjoying the music and the company. At that moment, not being any different from any other 12 year old in the room. It was beautiful.

After a while he came and sat down by me and said, "I'm kind of tired from all that dancing". The other parents were starting to show up, so we decided to go. He yelled out, "see ya later everybody", they all yelled "bye Daniel, we're so glad you came". He thanked *Mary* for inviting him, her parents too. Then we walked out into the cold cold night.

The whole way home I was smiling. I was also realizing that there may be a lot more dances in our future with me lurking in the shadows, making sure he doesn't go into sensory overload. Passing myself off as just a chaperone. The other parents there will also be making sure their kids are behaving as they should be, and keeping their eyes on them while they enjoy the dance. We'll both be watching them grow and mature. There really isn't much difference.