I am officially a league member of Suburbia Roller Derby. I think my first game will be next month. I'm proud of the work I've put in so far, and I'm looking forward to becoming a better player. And I'm grateful to Stu for taking care of Ryan while I'm at practice, and for getting past his... um... initially intense reservations... about the whole derby thing.

I tried out for the league as an escape from autism, and as an outlet for my related anger, but it's become much more than that. I love the sport, I love my teammates, but mostly I love the sense of accomplishment I get from learning the game skill by skill.

I have fewer hang-ups about my appearance, because I now think of my body in terms of what it can do: how fast can it skate, how easily can it control my speed, how low can it squat, how hard can it hit.

I have more self-confidence than ever before.

My endurance - both physical and mental - has increased exponentially.

And I'm living much more in the moment, which makes me more relaxed about the future.

So now, in honor of my tendency to make involuntary kung-fu noises whenever I make contact, you may call me:

Ouching Tiger.
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I put my kid on the short bus every day.

I know he has challenges that require extra attention in school; I worked with our school district to make sure those supports were put in place for him. I've met his teachers and therapists and read their progress reports. I know there are enough kids with similar challenges that there's a class just for them - and not just one class, but several classes in every school district in the country, manned by teachers and aides and therapists who have dedicated their careers to helping them catch up with their typically-developing peers.

I know all that - my kid is in special ed.

But knowing isn't the same as seeing.

Progress reports and IEPs don't tell you about the screaming. The constant, high-pitched shrieking of a non-verbal six-year-old in diapers as she objects to the demands placed on her in the only way she knows how.

Progress reports don't describe how the other children in the class keep working on their writing and math exercises, diligently ignoring the screaming.

Progress reports don't do justice to how hard my baby works all day to master things that come so easily to typical kids.

Sitting in on a morning's activities - circle time, writing time, gym class, math time, speech therapy - I was in awe of how much energy my kid expends to stay on task. And that he does it. The teachers sometimes have to use their hands as blinders or put Ryan in a weighted vest or prompt him seven times to make it happen, but Ryan can write the sentences he's supposed to write, figure out what number is missing from the pattern, identify the picture of a bar of soap and its purpose and place it in the appropriate room in the picture of a house. But because of his communication and social deficits, it is perfectly appropriate for him to be in the same tiny class as the shrieking child and a loving, sweet five-year-old who only recently learned to utter one-word sentences, like "Eat."


I kissed Ryan goodbye in the lunchroom and went off to cry in my car. Why does it have to be so damn hard for him? For all these kids? Why is he still struggling to answer yes/no questions properly after over a year of attention to this in speech therapy? How long will it take before he consistently calls his kindergarten teacher by her name and not by the name of his last preschool teacher?

And does he know he's in special ed? Does he know the kids at the other tables in the lunchroom are having spontaneous conversations with each other, and that it comes perfectly naturally to them? Does he know how hard he's working, and that despite his amazing successes he's still miles behind the typical kindergarteners?

Does he know how proud I am of him?
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The other day Ryan and I took a walk around the neighborhood, inventing new ways to play with the month's bounty of snow. Armed with my long-handled ice scraper, Ryan busied himself with breaking through the thick layer of ice on top of the snow. He was clearly the happiest child in town. A grandmotherly lady passing us smiled at Ryan, and sighed, "They grow up way too fast."

Maybe typical kids grow up too fast, but autism has allowed me to watch my baby grow up in slow motion. Each developmental stage seems to stretch for weeks or months longer than expected, letting Ryan's childhood linger.

In moments of frustration, I often wish the process would hurry itself up. How many more years will I have to remind Ryan to pull up his underwear first and then his pants? How much longer will he insist on spitting his food on the floor? Will he ever learn to answer yes/no questions, or to ask why? When will he make an effort to assert his independence so he can feel like a big kid? Will he ever make friends or ask for playdates?

On better days, I am grateful for the slo-mo childhood. I'm totally fine with the fact that Ryan doesn't know about talking back. I'm glad he's not yet like that four-year-old we saw today who insisted she was old enough to walk through a busy parking lot without holding hands or having her mother hold on to her jacket sleeve. I have no problem knowing Ryan has never wasted a gallon of milk in an attempt to make himself a snack. He has never tattled on another kid, requested some impossible-to-find gift, or told someone that he hated them.

Watching this slow growth makes me appreciate each tiny step as it comes. I notice the subtle changes in Ryan's artwork. Just before we had Ryan evaluated and diagnosed, his typical preschool classmates (age 2 1/2) could all draw faces with the features in the right places, while Ryan had no idea where to put the mouth. By age 4, he could position all the face elements perfectly, and even draw a reasonably-recognizable person. And now at 5, he can do some representational drawing (if pressed to do so):

Here we see a tree growing in the grass. In the tree there is a yellow bird and a nest with three blue eggs.

Even though Ryan's development has been relatively glacial, on good days I'd still say he's still growing up way too fast.
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Monday was perfect:  an absolutely tantrum-free day.

Ryan's first ever tantrum-free day.

I knew it was going to be an unusual day because when he climbed into our bed at his usual 6:15am, he crawled under the covers and went to sleep (and let me sleep) for half an hour.  Every other morning, he jumps on top of me, orders me to turn on the light and open the curtains, and plays with Stu's alarm clock.

Many of Ryan's tantrums follow a pattern: predictable trigger, escalating anxiety, slamming himself into a wall, whining like a monkey, insisting he has hurt himself and needs 100 kisses to fix it. 

On Monday, we didn't do any of this.

Monday morning, he played happily with his toys.  When I told him it was time to get dressed, he got dressed.  When I asked him to try going to the bathroom, he walked there - he didn't collapse in a heap and do the backstroke down the hall until prompted to do otherwise.

When I announced it was time to head down to the school bus, Ryan put on his coat and walked out the door.  I didn't have to drag him down the hall or order him off the floor in front of the elevator.  And when he got on the bus, he didn't launch himself headfirst up the steps.

After school, he did not whine and beg to play on the computer.  Instead, he helped me with errands around town.  We giggled and sang and chased each other down the sidewalk.

And at bedtime, brushing his teeth did not require my tricking him into going to the sink or scraping him off the bathmat.  We just...brushed his teeth.

He stayed calm and self-induced-injury-free all day.  He was huggy and sweet and cooperative.

It was perfect.

We may never have another day as perfect as that one, but now I know Ryan is capable of holding himself together for an entire day, and this gives me tremendous hope.
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Planning activities with Ryan can be a challenge because it's hard to predict how receptive to participation he'll be on any given day.  I've come to anticipate either magic or disaster, but nothing in between.

The Halloween season is filled with opportunities for fantastic adventures and/or utter failures.  We experienced the full range.

Halloween weekend, my mother suggested we take Ryan to a corn maze at a small teaching farm.  Warily, I agreed, knowing Ryan would either love running through the corn, or he would freak out and demand freedom and we'd have to figure out the shortest route out of the corn field.

I'm pleased to report, the day could not have gone better.

Our first stop at the farm was a petting zoo, in which kids could pet and feed pigs, goats, sheep, llamas... Well, they could feed the animals as long as their parents were willing to spend $1 per lettuce leaf;  I was not willing to do that terribly long.

Goats are not easily amused.  I am.

The biggest hit of the day was the mice.  Ryan was totally focused.  I think he would have played with them all afternoon if we had let him.  I'll let the video speak for itself:
Stu and I have since brought Ryan to a pet store to let him visit some mice, but we've decided to hold off on any pet purchases until we've sold our apartment.  Somehow, Stu thinks the sight and smell of rodents would be a turn-off to potential buyers.


In the corn maze, Ryan was delighted.  The maze featured nine numbered mailboxes, each of which contained a piece of a map of the maze.  Ryan loved running through the maze looking for numbers, and taping together the little map sections.  Truly, I can't imagine that day going any better.


The next day was Halloween.  Ryan had given me zero indication of what sort of costume he wanted to wear, so he wound up like this:

Stu and I have debated whether Ryan was a Pizza Monster or a slice of pizza being eaten by a monster.  In any case, he was gluten free.

Ryan was reluctant to leave the house to go trick or treating; he kept asking to watch cartoons.  Once we dragged him outside, he was happy to run down the sidewalks and look at decorations in the dark, but he gave no indication of noticing any costumes or caring about what people put in his plastic pumpkin.  When we got home, he dutifully dumped out his candy on the floor and ate one piece, but the haul has gone largely unnoticed since then.  He does, however, like to hide random toys in the pumpkin.


Another annual fall tradition around here is The Great Jack o' Lantern Blaze near Sleepy Hollow.  Every year, thousands of hand-carved pumpkins are lit and arranged in a dazzling display at an historic mansion.  There are full-size dinosaurs made of pumpkins, a sea of pumpkins carved with pictures of fish, a plot of undead pumpkin people rising from their graves.  Quite spectacular.

Ryan cared for about 2 or 3 minutes.  Then he spent the rest of our tour of the pumpkins sitting on Stu's shoulders, asking to go home and reciting scripts from computer games.  This was far preferable to last year's experience, which involved dragging a crying, whining Ryan past the sights in a cold wind, but it still wasn't a great time.


And I have nothing to say about my building's annual Halloween party, because Ryan walked in the door, turned around, and walked right out.  But since we knew to go into the situation with no expectation of success, we were not disappointed or surprised.  The highs of one day balance the lows of the next.
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