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What a Difference a Year Makes

November 25, 2012 By

My son doesn’t do lineups very well, and therefore we tend to avoid them wherever possible. Some would argue – completely within the realms of reason – that lining up is an essential life skill that we should expose him to more than we do. But like most parents of special needs kids, my husband and I already have enough on our plate without seeking out something to add to it.

Every year, though, we get the perfect opportunity to help him practice the skill of lining up, at the annual children’s Christmas party put on by my employers. It takes place at an indoor amusement park, and the day includes unlimited rides, gifts for the kids, and a picture with Santa. Bearing in mind that I work for a company that has 5000 employees at Head Office alone, the children’s Christmas party gets a little crowded.

Which means lineups everywhere, especially at Santa’s hangout spot.

In our first year at the Christmas party, we almost skipped the Santa picture because the line was so long, and as much as we want George to practice the skill, we have to be reasonable about it. But James would have been so disappointed to miss Santa. We didn’t want George to have a meltdown that could give him permanent negative associations with this place, but we also didn’t want James to miss out on a typical childhood experience.

In the end, we didn’t have to choose. The volunteers were more than happy to let us skip the lineup and go straight to Santa, and they have done this for us ever since. This small but very significant act of kindness is something that makes this day truly special for us.

We still have to line up for the rides, and in years gone by this has created a bit of a problem for George, but the lineups have moved just fast enough to avoid any potential explosions.

Yesterday we had the best children’s Christmas party ever. As always, we were allowed to skip the Santa line and for the first time, everyone was looking directly at the camera for the picture. Our first stop after Santa was the train ride, and from there we went around the whole place and the kids went on every single ride. There were lineups at all of them, and in some cases the wait was quite lengthy.

But George showed a kind of maturity we have not seen before, and he coped remarkably well with the crowds and the waiting. The only time he showed any kind of anxiety was during the wait for the bumper cars, which made even me feel claustrophobic.

We all had a fantastic time, made even better by the new signs of growth in George.

Sometimes time really does make a difference.

 

Filed Under: autism, Christmas, Lineups, National Health Blog Post Month, Santa Claus, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Santa and Autism: A Special Brand of Magic

November 23, 2012 By

This morning I was faced with a minor dilemma, brought on by the fact that it was Pajamas and Stuffed Toy day at my son’s school. If it had been my younger son – the one who doesn’t have autism – it wouldn’t have been a problem. But since this is my older son we’re talking about, I had to make a choice. Do I encourage him to take part even though the idea of wearing pajamas instead of clothes to school could make him feel seriously disoriented and possibly distressed? Or do I let him just wear clothes even though that would mean yet another thing that sets him apart from the typical kids in his school?

See? Dilemma.

As an autism parent, I constantly have to make tradeoffs of this nature on behalf of my child. On the one hand, I want him to have as many “typical kid” experiences as possible, but on the other hand, I don’t want to cause him to be upset.

It always come down to the idea of choosing my battles, and by now I know that I should only pick the battles that really matter. And let’s face it – wearing pajamas to school does not exactly count as an essential life skill, especially when he’s part of a class of special ed kids who probably wouldn’t be into the whole pajama thing either.

And so I decided to let him exercise his preference in the only way he knows how. I would dress him in a clean pair of pajamas and then see what happened. And what happened was that he promptly crawled back into bed. It was only when he realized that he was actually going to school that he started to resist the pajamas idea. Within seconds the pajamas were coming off and George was rummaging around for clothes to wear.

Surprisingly, though, he did want to take a stuffed toy. I say “surprisingly” because George has never really been into stuffed toys. This is a kid who sleeps with about a dozen Mr. Potato Heads and a pineapple. But not only did he want a stuffed toy today, he wanted two. In an intriguing fusion of holidays, he selected an Easter bunny and a stuffed Santa.

I was sure he’d lose interest in the whole thing by the time the school bus showed up, but he went off to school with Santa and the bunny, and by all accounts he had a great day.

Friday is always Show & Tell day in George’s classroom, and from time to time we send him in with something and his teacher gets him to “participate”. In a dramatic break with tradition today, he independently – independently! –  joined the Show & Tell circle and proudly showed off his Santa.

This moment of progress proves to me that although Santa is not real, he is capable of producing magic.

(Photo credit: Kirsten Doyle)

 

Filed Under: autism, Choices, Easter Bunny, National Health Blog Post Month, Pajamas, parenting, Santa Claus, School, WEGO Health Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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Twitter Tuesday: #IStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen

December 20, 2011 By

Welcome to today’s edition of Twitter Tuesday! Before we get started: anyone who believes that it’s a fat dude in a red suit who delivers your Christmas presents every year, please leave the room. If you stay, you might just get the shock of your life.

OK, now that we only have those who believe that the whole Santa story was cooked up by someone who was drinking (because what other explanation is there, really?) today’s trending topic is about the man himself.

Many of us believed in Santa at some point during our younger years. Some of us grew out of the belief as we got older and realized that laws of physics would make it impossible for a man of his girth to fit down a chimney. Others had a jolt of realization after some specific incident. For me, I had my first clue when I noticed one year that Santa was wearing Grandpa’s boots.  When I blurted out something about it, the grown-ups quickly made up a story about how Grandpa had merely lent his boots to Santa. We all accepted it, without even questioning why Grandpa wasn’t present.

A couple of years later, we were living in Connecticut, and went to Times Square on Christmas Eve. There, I saw Santa Claus ringing his bell, and I went up to say hi. To my utter consternation – bear in mind that I was seven – Santa asked me for money. That was the deal-breaker for me, the moment of my tearful realization.

Today, the folks over in Twitterland are sharing their own experiences with the hashtag #IStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen. Here’s what some of them have to say:

#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen when i noticed i was circumcised (@ImHiRez)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I realised that a man who breaks into my home & eats my cookies has no right to judge whether I’m good or bad (@jdizzaymusic)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I knew I didn’t have a chimney (@_kingsasha)
#IStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I noticed he and my mother had similar penmanship. (@owlcity)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen OMG SANTA DOESNT EXIST?!?!? 🙁 (@kissingjonas)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen? This shouldn’t be trending. I am real. (@thesantaclaus)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I saw this trending :'( thanks for crushing my dreams twitter. (@jackw25)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I realised it was just Dumbledore in a Santa suit. (@_loony_lovegood)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I saw him ringing a bell in front of Target asking for spare change (@allancozart)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I realised that a man who breaks into my home & eats my cookies has no right to judge whether I’m good or bad (@anonupdate)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I didn’t find Justin Bieber under my Christmas tree. (@selgomezbieber)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen i walked in on him having an affair with the tooth fairy (@will_beckman)
#IStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen my parents started saying he was on a budget. (@valbadassaldua)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen i got a Sega Saturn and it said made in japan (@phantom_sparx)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen No One Ate My Milk & Cookies (; (@x3singerx3)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I analyzed the shit out of it… At 7 years old. (@thebestperson)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen when I recognized the paunch of my uncle. (@berepg80)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen i found the presents under piles of laundry when i was 8… #AwfulHidingSkillsMom @lexxjelmm21)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen When My Kindergarten BestFriend Told Me Mrs.Clause Hit Him With a Chu Chu Train (@allegiantme_)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen my teacher said he blow up in the sky cuz the reindeer were moving really fast ._. (@rhiforeverreal)
#iStoppedBelievingInSantaWhen I had a bar mitzvah (@not_owen_levy)

What’s your story? What was that moment at which you stopped believing in Santa?

Filed Under: Believing, Christmas, Hashtag, Santa Claus, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,
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Santa Pictures And The Autism Family: 10 Ways To Not Go Completely Insane

November 14, 2011 By
  1. A week ahead of time, start showing your autistic child pictures of Santa Claus, and tell him that this is the dude whose knee he will be sitting on in order to get a picture taken. Try your best not to be distracted by the neurotypical five-year-old sibling who is bouncing around like the Energizer Bunny on steroids yelling, “Ho ho ho! Hairy Christmas!”
  2. At T minus two days, have a dress rehearsal at your house. This is imperative if you want the autie to wear a suit and tie and he has a tendency to melt down if you try to get him to wear shirts that don’t have horizontal stripes. You’ll probably want to have another dress rehearsal the day before.
  3. The evening before, bath your kids and wash their hair. Do the autie first. If you do the hyperactive neurotypical child first, the autie will head for the hills the second he sees the shampoo bottle. Instead, let the hyperactive neurotypical child dive for cover, hide the shampoo until it’s time to use it, and have a reward system handy. I use gummy bears. Whenever the autie opens his mouth to scream, I just shove another gummy bear in. I have become a master at washing a screaming, flailing autistic child’s hair in less than ninety seconds.
  4. Try not to think of the fact that sometimes, ninety seconds feels more like ninety years.
  5. When you wake up on the morning of the Santa visit, call the photographers who are doing the pictures. Tell them that you have a child with autism, and that if he’s made to wait in line he will have such a bad meltdown that the entire building will crumble and the place will end up looking like an archaeological dig. Most people will accommodate you if they know ahead of time that your child has special needs.
  6. Bring changes of clothes for the kids. As soon as the picture has been taken, the autie will want to put on a shirt with horizontal stripes, and if one isn’t available there will be trouble.
  7. Right before you leave your house, call the photographers again and find out if all their equipment is working. Technology comes with its share of problems, and if you have wait around while they try to get their printer to connect wirelessly to their laptop, your frustrated kids will band together with all of the other frustrated kids who are there, and they will start a Lord Of The Flies kind of mutiny. Believe me, you don’t want to caught with a crowd of angry children. They will overpower you. They will tie the grown-ups to poles and dance around them holding spears and chanting.
  8. Don’t let the absence of spears fool you. Kids can be frighteningly resourceful, especially when they are ticked off and have among their number an autistic child who knows how to think outside the box.
  9. When you are granted entrance to Santa’s domain, don’t mess around. Say hi to Santa, get the picture, and leave. Don’t wait for the autie to make eye contact with the camera lens. You will be waiting until the cows come home.
  10. When it’s all over and you are sobbing in the bathroom from the stress of it all, remember that this experience was positive. As you look at the picture, don’t think about all of the planning and angst leading up to it. Reflect on the fact that you have succeeded in doing a typical family activity. You have brought immense joy to the hyperactive neurotypical child, who shouldn’t be deprived of the opportunity to sit on Santa’s knee. And you have taken another step toward teaching your autistic child some vital coping skills that will help him for the rest of his life. Know this, and feel good about what a great parent you are.
Filed Under: autism, Children, Christmas, Coping Skills, family, life, Santa Claus Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,