{"id":252,"date":"2013-05-12T12:27:20","date_gmt":"2013-05-12T12:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/?p=252"},"modified":"2013-05-12T12:27:20","modified_gmt":"2013-05-12T12:27:20","slug":"autism-one-year-later-and-here-we-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/2013\/05\/12\/autism-one-year-later-and-here-we-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Autism, one year later &#8211; and here we go!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s the one year anniversary of this blog &#8211; a Mother&#8217;s Day gift from the hubby, one of his finest.\u00a0 While more than a little embarrassing that haven&#8217;t posted for 3 months &#8211; I left life, births and deaths, travel and toil, distract me from\u00a0this\u00a0&#8220;non-productive&#8221;\u00a0 activity, ie. one I can&#8217;t bill to clients, and one that doesn&#8217;t clean or\u00a0grow my kids- I&#8217;m here today, in bliss despite the rainy weather.\u00a0 I&#8217;m here! and life is good &#8211; even better than a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>My boys are a year older, now age 19, and I&#8217;m proud to say they are most definitely more capable than last Mother&#8217;s Day, and still happy.\u00a0 Yes there are issues.\u00a0\u00a0 W.\u00a0 still disrobes, though far less frequently, and more than before is dressing himself in accordance with the rules that we don&#8217;t walk in the hall or out of the bathroom without pants.\u00a0 J.&#8217;s vocals still bedevil us and unfortunately his stimmy-ness sometimes spills over into scratching or rubbing himself til he bleeds or blisters.\u00a0 Neither boy reads or counts reliably, and our pace continues to be measured in baby steps.<\/p>\n<p>Yet a glance at the horizon -when I forget the date, and remember what tasks were like just a few months ago -says PROGRESS in bold letters.<\/p>\n<p>W&#8217;s spelling of his 9-letter last name (that could win a Scrabble game with all its unusual letters) at the bank last Friday was stronger than ever.\u00a0 Thank you V. our most wonderful skills trainer for helping him!<\/p>\n<p>J&#8217;s ability to double-tie his shoes nearly independently &#8211; excepting for Mom tightening the initial knot &#8211; means I can tell him to go get shoes, and it&#8217;s done.<\/p>\n<p>Both boys take delight in self-determination.\u00a0 W. is routinely choosing clothes, shoes and school lunch vs. homemade sandwich.\u00a0\u00a0 He even hits me upside the head &#8211; literally &#8211; like last night when he wants to get my attention for a\u00a0&#8216;treat.&#8217;\u00a0\u00a0 J. chooses his own clothes and many other points in his day.<\/p>\n<p>J. listens even better\u00a0 &#8211; no more\u00a0lost young man who&#8217;d marched all the way\u00a0to Wildcat C while we were still ascending Wildcat A.\u00a0 Yet, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago I heard a remarkable interview of the Vermont woman who received a full face transplant, and the daughter of the donor who made the choice to donate her mother&#8217;s face to a stranger.\u00a0 They spoke of mutually deciding to have a relationship, not knowing where it would take them, but in the spirit of journeys and openness to where they lead us, the recipient simply said &#8220;And here we go.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So that is my mantra today, as I try to stuff 10 pounds of flour into a 5-pound Mother&#8217;s Day, as I don&#8217;t know if we will find post-age 22 employment that&#8217;s meaningful and honoring, that I don&#8217;t know if the global business climate will allow me sustained employment to cover the many gaps in therapies and support.\u00a0\u00a0 As I try hard to take care of myself along with others.\u00a0\u00a0 As I work to live my dreams, while loving and honoring my obligations.<\/p>\n<p>Here we go, readers &#8211; here we go!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s the one year anniversary of this blog &#8211; a Mother&#8217;s Day gift from the hubby, one of his finest.\u00a0 While more than a little embarrassing that haven&#8217;t posted for 3 months &#8211; I left life, births and deaths, travel and toil, distract me from\u00a0this\u00a0&#8220;non-productive&#8221;\u00a0 activity, ie. one I can&#8217;t bill to clients, and one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twinmommeetsautism.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}