...leaps and bounds, dinos and dares...

 Leaps and bounds, folks...leaps and bounds!

But a handful of hours ago...one turned page prior...Henri conquered 'the jump'. Two feet in the air...aloft...

After months of trying and failing...after months of frustration and consternation...after months of my staring at 'the goalpost' and watching it move ever backwards.

Until, it didn't. Until he didn't...or rather...did...did jump. By himself. For himself. At a time...in a place...by a manner of his own choosing.

A handful of hours later...and that page is done...

and another lay empty, waiting for the story of today.

(There are hours yet to come...the day only halfway through...)

And the page is already full!

Because today, I followed his lead (a bit) and decided to use his 'tools for success' to 'up the ante': I took those dinosaur puzzles that he'd jumped over to such awe and delight, and placed them atop one of the balance beams we'd tried so unsuccessfully to master.

Why not? Why not believe in magic? Why not hope that a handful of dino puzzles might just be the missing ingredient in the spell?

~~~

And, oh!

Friends...

He leapt!

I led him to the obstacle, and he...well, he sparkled....glee and anticipation and the enticement of challenge....

He sparkled...and chirruped a little battle cry...and he leapt!

Up and over...two feet in the air...weightless flight...and then landed on the other side.

A grin...from ear to ear and far beyond.

My shriek...applause...and laughter.

And then he turned right round and did it over and over and over again...each time with more abandon. A master of magic!

~~~

And then...

He looked at me with a glimmer in his eye...and took the puzzles off, laying each one carefully in a row, next to the balance beam.

A brief pause...to kneel down, raowring as he tapped on each dino with outstretched finger. Then he backed up...crouched down, pushed off...

Up! Up! And over!

I let out my breath in relief that he'd made it across without stumbling, or landing wrong, or crashing into the table.

Again and again he jumped...right over those magical dinos of bravery.

~~~

And then...

He stopped. Clapped for himself and chortled at me.

Straightened the balance beam.

Stepped carefully onto the end...and walked across it.

Oh, the pride on that little face!

The laughter bubbling up as he walked, back and forth...balancing...dinos below, at the ready to catch him in misstep.

~~~

The page is full. Perhaps the chapter is as well.

Leaps and bounds...

Dinos and dares...

And a magical little boy who mastered them all!

...leap of faith...

 For my future self, who will want the memory tied to a specific time:

Today, he jumped.

Both feet in the air.

Up, and over.

(On his own timeline, of his own accord, over an impediment of his own making.)

He'd set out his dino puzzles...all in a row...blocking off the doorway.

He trilled out a little lilting call for attention and, sure of the audience, jumped up and over. A self-congratulatory clap... then quick look up for praise.

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

~~~

For months now, I've been 'failing' in my pt/ot efforts. The gains, impossible to see. I'd given up, a month ago...packing away the equipment "for a summer break" and revising the schedule to exclude those hopping and balancing and jumping drills.

And today? Today he jumped!

Today, it all came together for him.

By him.

Today he reminded me of the lesson I first learned from his big brother: all the pieces will settle where they are intended to, when they are intended to.

Have faith...stay the course...

Teach...and then let go...

And he'll jump when he's ready!

...one sip left

 Mornings-with-toddler are hard to define outside of weather pattern terms.
Maelstrom
Tornado
Squall

Henri's approach to being awoken is much like that of a wild animal startled awake.

There's the immediate attack of flailing limbs, ferocious sounds and gnashing teeth...

followed by the retreat into fetal position...

and a half-hour or so of hangry, breakfast-acquiring rage...

before he settles back down into darling mode and is ready for a good curl up and cuddle session.

While the storm-of-the-morning rages about, I'm more single-minded of purpose.  Shaking off the cobwebs and carefully (middle age has surely set in with its daily assessments of what hurts now) stretching out the tangle that co-sleeping has made of my limbs...before embarking on the caffeine crawl.

There was a time...some three-plus years ago now (coincidentally, just about as long as Henri's been earthside!) when I was an up-and-at-em kind of a gal.  Up before both sunrise and son-rise to get the coffee brewing, table set, three-course breakfast whipped up.

Co-sleeping, and extended nursing, has bested me.

Sleep comes in half-hour drifts...few and far between.

And I rise, grimly and grumpily, amidst the tiny terror's yowls and roars, to lumber into the kitchen for my lifeline...one mug of the good stuff.

One mug.

One cup.

My allowance...

my allowed caffeine consumption, as Henri staunchly refuses to even consider the idea of weaning.

Yawn.

The storm rages on.  Alternately kicking up and dying down as brother and Papa tiptoe about, trying to avoid being caught in the eye.

The morning is theirs.

I've decreed it.

I take to the kitchen table, with phone and computer...my office space...for the duration of one, singular cup of coffee.  One scalding sip setting the stage for a flurry...a frenzy...of activity as fingers fly across the keyboard and I settle accounts, whip up responses, source quotes and statistics and case numbers and district policies.

Emails sent, I pause for a sip.

Dive into the text stream.

Sip...reply...sip...delete...

A moment to stare at the bank balance...*blink blink*...still zeroes...

Gulp.

Sip again...dive back in...

Calendar updated.  Books logged.

Windows opened...a dizzying array of tabs for to-dos.

Sip.

And...pause...

One final sip left.

I stop.

The coffee...barely a tablespoon left...gone cold and grainy.

The household, I realize, has settled down to a dull roar.

Papa's left for the day.  Little one and big one are tangled on the sofa in front of the television...breakfast half-eaten...the rest decorating faces and furniture in equal part. 

The cat has fled for her next 4-hour nap.

The kitchen is in shambles.

The living room a flood-zone.

The storm has run its course.

I've one sip left, and the freedom it affords.  

The table...my "office".

This mug...my "closed door policy".

One little sip and my half-hour of self-imposed solitary runs out.

One little sip...barely that...and "I" become "Mami" for the next 23.5 hours...

I want...somewhere deep down and rebellious...to push the mug away...to set it back and settle back, and see how long I might be able to stretch out these moments before the mantle of responsibility is super-glued back on to my aching shoulders.

I want to just wait...sit back in my chair and close my eyes and drift...

But there's the commercial jingle...the closing bell...my time is up...

One final, desperate gulp I don't even taste...

and the storm-chaser is back on the clock.

...with two spoons...

Mondays, of late, feel like 'weekend recovery' days.
It's a strange twist on what once was.
Part 'return to schedule and, therefore, to function' and part ' restore order after the invasion'. 

Henri's Papa has a big presence and a tendency to overwhelm.  He's brash and impetuous and loud.  Weekends spent with him 'present in quantity' can feel disruptive to our system and to our systems.

(I wonder if other parents feel this when their mostly-absent partner is suddenly around for longer stretches of time.)

His presence, and his parenting, knock us off balance.  The schedule collapses...the adherence to guidelines and timelines disappears.

There's a sense of urgency around time with him.
A need to 'fit it all in', whether it's outings or chores or household projects or...

Weekends are rushed and chaotic...unraveled and exhausting...

...and when Monday dawns, it's time to reset.

Back to the planner and the clock.  Back to 3 square meals plus snacks.  Back to nursing windows, and nap-times.  Back to homeschooling and mami-led learning.  Back to the 'work in progress'.

Back we go, like automatons, on Monday mornings.

And back we slide into whatever unmanaged mess we left of things the week prior.

Mondays are weekend recovery days.

My eldest and I, diving into the deep end and trying to wrangle the work and the chores and the toddler and the life...back into something recognizable and manageable.

Mondays are work...hard work and long hours and hopeless prayers for a nap-time respite that never comes because the schedule was too mangled by the weekend...

Mondays feel endless.

And by the time evening rolls around, and Henri's Papa arrives home from his own Monday...we're all running on empty and snarling at one another.

Mondays are the recovery, from which we sometimes need to recover.

So last night, my eldest and I took ourselves out to dinner...alone...

(We've made routine of that...once a month...a dinner for two...the original team...)

Nothing fancy. My strawberry salad altogether unfancy...full of those damnable chunks of iceberg lettuce (the heart?) that I cut out at home, and sporting 4 limp slices of strawberry.

But, much like us...perfectly imperfect and imperfectly perfect.

No toddler with his incessant, oppressive need to be the center.

No interruptions or need to pause the natural flow of conversation, in order to explain some insider joke or the historical reference point in the story of us.

Just us.  The originals.

The single mom and single son.

Just us, and the ease of our bond, and the picking up of conversations we'd left off of...

This time is precious to me.

It's a rarity...an endangered species...

It's at risk of being infringed upon...of being rolled over...of being swallowed up...

We sat in our booth, picking over food and picking at conversation threads.

We...consumed...

We...communed...

We...recovered...

Just enough so that when it came time to pay the bill and head back out into the dark, we'd fed ourselves just enough to 'get back to it'.

I love these dinners.  These brief hours where he and I are the way we were.  These falling-backs and leaping-forwards of conversation with a boy turned young man...dreamer turned developer...

I love our ease with one another.  I worked so hard at making it.

I love our friendship.  I built it on purpose.

We laughed over town politics and toddler tempers...oft indistinguishable from one another!

We dreamt a little about future plans and brainstormed workshop ideas.

We unburdened ourselves of those annoyances and grievances and listened to the clarity of the other's perspective...gaining insight and relief.

And when I thought we were done...plates cleared away and settled into silence...

He ordered dessert.

With two spoons.

And borrowed a few minutes more for us both...

...12 (in days gone by)...

 In Days Gone By:
14.October.2018

"Mami?", he asked me, in the car on the way home from church.

"Mami, why are you so good at conversing?"

"Am I?", I replied.

"Yes. You know how to keep a conversation going. How to stop the awkward parts."

I thought to myself, silently.

We'd left church as usual, after a quick chat with the minister. She's marvelous, by the way. Marvelous at remembering specifics about every one of her parishioners and making each of us feel special and valued. During our chat, she had thanked him for the online-convo they'd had, with me as stenographer, last week in our church's facebook page for "The Chronicles of Narnia" reading club event. She expressed that she'd really enjoyed all he had to share. He nodded his head, eyes down, standing next to me as rigid as usual. I jumped in, saying for him "He enjoyed it too. Johannes is really quite good at expressing himself via the written word, though sometimes his fingers can't keep up with his thoughts."

Further on in the conversation, our minister had the lightbulb moment...she said "Oh, so auditory processing disorder?" Again, I replied for him (his translator of sorts!) and said yes, and explained his difficulties with communication, both outgoing and receptive, and how finding the right medium (writing and sometimes dictating) has finally allowed him to share his intellect, personality, creativity, etc...

So...fast forward...back to the car...and the question.

I replied as best I could that I had not always been such.

In fact, for much of my life, I had a crippling shyness-a crippling insecurity.

But that had changed with his diagnosis and not only the new role I had to assume as his advocate-his translator, but also as my world closed in on me because his needed to be smaller.

He didn't want the how....the technique, or the outline, or the plan....he didn't want a script to run with. He simply wanted the why.

And I knew, in that moment, that the logic of him...the super-computer of a brain that he has, was looking for a reason to expand past his own limitations.

What he wanted was a measureable, scientific reason to try to push past his disability.

I told him "Conversation, and the connection that comes from words exchanged (even with strangers in passing) is what allows us to live in an expanded world where other people and their experiences and opinions can spark new challenges and ideas in us. It allows our world to be so much bigger than our own individual interest."

And he answered "I guess that's the same reason why you write, huh?"

...11 (in days gone by)...

In Days Gone By:
22.October.2016

Some stats first:

• I'm 5'8" minus my beloved heels, and 120 lbs. on the nose according to the bathroom scale.
• Weighing in at 137, and a whopping 6'2" is my little man, J-Bug.
• I can lift those 137 lbs. for about a minute, and do so every morning when doing his joint compressions.
• His shoulders are now so broad that I can no longer reach across him to do X-hugs, which for years were the best way to give him instant proprioceptive relief.
• My 120 lbs. can still pull his 137lbs.
• But don't provide enough resistance to push those same 137 lbs.

Ok, got all that?

Last night was an eye-opener, panic-inducer, heart-breaker.

We'd gone to Target (gotta check the toy aisle for new Transformers on the regular!), followed by the grocery store. At some point along the way, this Mami totally missed the early warning signs (because it's been so long!) of an autism-meltdown. (go ahead and google that...we're not talking toddler tantrums. Think danger to self and others)

Now, in years past, this gal would have been on top of that, right? First sign and we're out...nope, erase that...I could spot those potential triggers a mile away and would grab and dash. Usual Target scene: Leanna carrying J-Bug in a dead lift, legs over one arm, head hanging off the other...kicking the cart with her feet. Good times, folks, good times.

Fast forward several years...Wonder-Bug has adapted his sensory therapies to real world situations, and learned to block out many of his triggers. And I, apparently, started blocking them as well.

So here I was, blissfully ignorant and getting frustrated with his non-responsiveness in the grocers. But-still-not tuning in to my autism radar apparently.

Instead, we headed next to the burger place in town. The crowded, loud burger place in town where I placed our orders while he sat at a table, head down on his arms.

Satisfied that my g-free, grass fed, mushroom-avocado dinner was being prepared medium rare, I filled our soda cup and headed to the table...

Where...

Finally...

I noticed that something was...

Well, something was shaking, quaking, quivering...something, my someone...was so tensed up that his shakes resembled a seizure. Completely uncontrollable.

Ding Ding, we have a winner! Finally something for me to notice, right?

Quick dash to the register..."we're heading outside", then a struggle lift from the chair and drag to the door. Outside into the dark patio. (Where the rockstar staff delivered our food!).

Ears covered    FAIL

Head squeezed    FAIL

X-hug FAIL

Lift and rock FAIL

Full body squeeze FAIL

We came directly home, half-eaten dinners tossed, and I was able to calm him with soft favourites and steamrollers (literally now he lays across the bed while I roll across him).

An hour later, he snapped back into b-mode (better mode).

A morning later, I'm still a nervous wreck.

--------------

Yes, he's brilliant. Handsome and charming. Witty to boot. Yes, he's an awesome scholar and artist and cellist.

Yes, I post a lot about the 'wins'.

But, make no mistake...autism is not easy or pretty, or a carefully selected series of smiling photos. That's part of it, sure, yes... But it's also this...

A mother rendered useless by nature's joke on size.

Onlookers staring, whispering and catcalling when a young(ish looking) woman has a (man sized) boy draped across her body on a patio bench in the dark.

A thrown away shirt, since in his panic and struggle he tore the side seam of my t-shirt wide open.

And this morning's whimpery wake up when his whole body hurts because of last night's shaking.

...on giving in rather than giving up...

"Ugh...I give up!", said my eldest this afternoon, whilst trying unsuccessfully to wrangle his little brother into lunchtime submission.
"No, you don't!", said I in response...somewhat harshly, mostly garbled...mouthful of salad.

It was a matter of one bite.  One singular bite of leftover hamburger, positively drenched in ketchup.  One bite, and an overwhelmed three-year-old, and the forkful he found absolutely impossible...impassible...for his little mouth.

Because...you see...there was a drip...
A drip of ketchup hanging from the bottom of the fork.
And Henri?
Does NOT tolerate anything on the bottom-side of a fork.

This is part of the current regime.  The current monarchy of three-dom.

It's etched in stone (at least, for now...), right up there with no squeezy hugs unless he initiates, and no cherries in the fruit platters.

And, because I am taking the time to write about it here, it will become part of the story in years to come...The Who and The How of Henri...

But for today, stone-script aside, it's just another thing to add to the already lengthy list of Henri's foibles and one which, in the moment, feels like a bit of 'abuse of staff' to those of us who serve his every whim.

I motioned at the bottom of the fork, where the ketchup hung down.  Not quite a drip...certainly not a tear-drop shape of crimson...but just...an upside down bump.  I pantomimed scraping it off on the plate, and watched as he did so.

The bite, proffered again...rejected again...this time with the hitching breath of imminent tears.

Several suggestions later (not a one of them a success), the remainder was finally eaten...by my eldest.

Because by then...by the long stretch of inaction and delayed action...the problem had swallowed the whole bite up.

And both my boys were now on strike.

"I give up."

"No."

~~~

How often we are tempted to Just Give Up.

To sink into that pit of hopeless failure and the inaction that follows.

To stop expending energy on a problem that seems unsolvable.

It gets you nowhere...giving up.

You just...stop...you stay...you settle...

And the problem?

It's still there.

And now you're part of it.

Giving in, though...that's something altogether different.

If giving up is putting the fork down and never again picking it up, then giving in is putting the fork down and getting a spoon...or chopsticks...or a cartoon-faced toothpick.

Giving in is recognizing that there's a problem...not with the person, but with the method.

Giving in is allowing for Henri's particular sensory needs to not only be recognized, but to be valued in terms of how we guide him toward success while respecting the boundaries his body and mind have set for the task.

Henri loves a good hamburger.  And by good...I mean a cheeseburger.

A cheeseburger with a perfect ratio of pickle to bite, and the just-right-amount of ketchup per morsel.

He wasn't upset because he didn't want the next bite.

He was upset because he did want it...desperately...but he couldn't eat it as it was...

He was upset because he needed his big brother to see the problem and fix the problem, before the problem swallowed the whole bite up.

~~~

There are things I see now, that my eldest has yet to notice.  Things that are familiar to me, because I've lived through some version of them before...with him...

Raising him...raising the autistic essence of him...was a long drawn-out lesson on giving in and never giving up.  Raising him was, and remains, the daily (moment by moment, rather) practice of giving in to his specific needs in order to guide him toward success.  It is the accepting of his parameters, and adjusting my lessons accordingly.

And so it is with Henri.

I give in, knowing his need for a clean fork-bottom...

I give in, and wait to relish the moments when he squeezes me round the neck...

I give in, and remove the cherries...

Giving in is the gift I give him...letting his needs and his preferences hold space...hold value.

Letting him hold space and value.

Letting him give in to eating the burger without giving up.