World of Autism

Lucas participates in Special Olympics through his school.  Last week was the Basketball Skills competition.

He enjoys hanging out with his classmates at the gym.

When it’s “Basketball Skills”, they don’t play an actual game.  But they DO have to shoot baskets, rotating positions and taking turns.  Here’s Lucas, getting into position (concentrate, concentrate…)

He shoots!  He scores! Go Lucas!

Changing places and taking turns.

Another basket for Lucas!

The Gold Medalist with his world-class coaches (who double as his teachers, his guardian angels and his friends!)

Way to go, Lucas!

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 ’Tis a fine day for the celebration of Saint Patrick, who brought the Faith to the Emerald Isle! 

Since Lucas and his brother were little, they’ve had green milk at breakfast on Saint Patrick’s Day: 

This was one of the first ways we got Lucas to start pouring his own milk.  I used to put just enough for his cereal into a small cream pitcher, the kind with a nice spout. 

He was so surprised by the green milk that he poured it with no problem.   Of course, once he showed he could do it, we had him do it every time he had cereal!

So it’s become a tradition here to have green milk at breakfast on Saint Patrick’s Day.  Slainte!

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snow, snow, Snow, SNOW, SNOW!¯

There’s about six inches of fluffy, white stuff on the ground.  It’s 5 below with the wind chill, and even the birds have taken refuge from the cold.

We really have to bundle up when Lucas walks his dog Dixie. 
Lucas is enjoying being out in the snow…poor little Dixie isn’t!

Off they go on the freshly plowed streets, “Trudging across the tundra, mile after mile…”

The travelers come home from their morning walk.  (About a quarter mile, and boy, was it cold!)

The nicest thing about taking a walk in the snow?
HOT COCOA when you get home!

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“Mom, I want…turkey fried chicken!” Lucas said.  From the way he paused after the “I want”, it was obvious he wasn’t sure what to say next.

 But turkey fried chicken?  What the heck was that?!  (We don’t even have “turkey fried turkey” in this house!)

After he repeated it a couple of times, we finally figured it out.  Lucas was asking for KENTUCKY Fried Chicken for dinner!

Needless to say, in our house, Kentucky Fried Chicken will now be known as “Turkey Fried Chicken”.

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Lucas just got around to writing his, “Thank you for the Christmas present” notes last week.

These days, Lucas types his thank you notes on the computer, and folds them into a note card size.  Then he stamps the front of the card, and signs his name on the inside.

I help him make them look special by letting him choose a border for the “note” section, and letting him choose from a couple of different “Thank You” stamps and ink colors.

These choices make it more fun for Lucas, and give him some control over the situation.

“But how does he know what to write?” you ask.  He doesn’t! 

So when it’s time to do thank you notes, (I give Lucas 2 or 3 days AND times to choose from, and then remind him so he’s prepared), here’s what happens:

• Lucas gets to write the notes over several days, writing 2 or 3 per day (this way each writing session isn’t overwhelming.)
• He chooses who to write to each day from a list I’ve made of who gave him what.
• Then he has to read what they gave him (with my help if he needs it).
• I try to get him to think of one more thing he can put in the note, asking him questions like, “What did you see in your new book?”, “What do you want to get with your money?”, or “Do you like your new DVD?”
• As we go through the process of who he wants to write to, what they gave him and something else about his gift, I’ll neatly print this information on a piece of paper, so Lucas has something to follow when he types his note.

Even when Lucas was very young (and completely non-verbal), he sent thank you notes.  Back then, I would write them for him.  Then with my hand over his to guide him, I would help Lucas stamp “Thank you” and also stamp a heart inside each note.

Then, according to what he had learned over time (typing skills to get around on the computer, writing his name, reading printed letters, etc.), I’d let him practice his new skills on the next set of thank you notes.

So if your child can hold a stamp, type an internet address, print or sign his name, consider helping them to write a thank you note next time they get a present.  It’s a great way to help them practice some skills, and the person who receives it gets a marvelous surprise!

 

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Every day, I try to find time to write something, and every day I run out of time!

But Christmas is tomorrow, and I find myself with ten whole minutes to share this photo of how Lucas helped to decorate our house this year:

He found some lights that we hadn’t used anywhere, and being Lucas, HAD to hang them somewhere!

It’s rather festive looking, isn’t it?

If you look closely, you can also see the stockings that Lucas hung from drawer pulls on our dining room furniture. 

I’m pretty sure that Santa will find them, and that he’ll love the lighting scheme!  And I’m very thankful to Lucas, for helping remind me not to get too wrapped up in the serious stuff, but to enjoy the simple things, like the colors of pretty lights hanging over a doorway.

“Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men of good will.”

Merry Christmas to all, and God bless us, every one!

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These last few weeks have been really unbelievable.  We’ve had a series of unplanned events that we all had to get through, and Lucas came through with flying colors!

 I mentioned that my uncle died on August 24.  We attended his funeral, and Lucas did pretty well.  Of course, we got caught in traffic on the way home, causing our normally 2 hour drive to stretch to 4 hours, which was hard for Lucas.

But then my aunt died on September 12.  She had been in the hospital since August 11, and I had been back and forth since then to visit her.  Lucas had to get used to Mom being gone on weekends, which threw him just a little (but not much).

But her death was truly difficult for us all, as she was so much more than just an aunt.  She was one of my best friends, and more like a grandmother than a great aunt to Lucas and Robert.  

Of course, this meant another funeral.  As we stood in the Church waiting to follow Aunt Fran’s casket in, I couldn’t stop crying.  Lucas leaned over and said to me, “Mom, I hate this, either.”  Bless his heart, he did his best to comfort me. 

The weeks after Aunt Fran’s funeral had me driving to her apartment to help clear it out on weekends.  But now that’s done, so I’m able to get back on track with writing, and putting our lives together without Aunt Fran.  She was so much a part of it, and it will take some time to get used to not having her around. 

I think that Lucas learned some things about sadness and death during these past two months, and I KNOW he’s tried hard to be good while I’ve dealt with all these things. 

But life goes on, so I’ll be sharing photos of the Special Olympics Soccer Skills event, probably in the next few days.

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My Uncle Frank passed away on August 24.  He was a great man and a wonderful artist.  He had worked at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and helped to inspire an appreciation of art AND of history in me and in others.   He’ll be missed by all of us.

Uncle Frank was my mom’s brother, and he had polio as a child.  He spent a year in the hospital when he was eleven years old.  Then when he was about seventeen, he spent another year in the hospital. 

From the age of eleven, Uncle Frank’s life was one of constant pain.  His back became misshapen, and he had to endure a series of amputations to his foot and leg, all traced back to polio.  This on top of spending 2 years of his life in the hospital, which I can’t even imagine.

Having known someone like this all my life, I wanted to share these things with everyone who has struggled over the “vaccine” issue. 

I don’t pretend to know if there’s a connection between vaccines and autism.  I can’t offer advice to anyone about it. 

But I can’t even begin to imagine how miserable life would be if I didn’t get Lucas vaccinated, if he was still diagnosed with autism, and if he got polio…

How could he deal with an extended stay in the hospital?

• He wouldn’t understand what was happening, and there would be no way to explain it to him.
• He would probably need to be strapped to the bed or medicated ALL THE TIME.
• He’d fight all hospitals and doctors for the rest of his life!

What if, like Uncle Frank, he had to spend ANOTHER year of his life in the hospital?

• See above, only this time he’d be bigger, stronger, more angry, more scared, and would fight harder to keep from going back.

He’d be in constant physical pain every day.

He’d either cause massive damage to himself as he banged his head, etc., in attempts to stop the pain, or would have to be medicated continuously to help ease the pain so that he WOULDN’T hurt himself.

What if he had to have ANYTHING amputated?

• He’d have to endure yet another hospital stay, and more pain.
• Then he’d need physical therapy to learn how to compensate for the amputated limb.
• There would be MORE frustration as he dealt with things like “phantom sensations” (for example, nerve endings at the site of the amputation itching, even while there was nothing there to scratch). 

I have no doubt that both he and I would lose our minds in a situation like that.

Polio is highly contagious; it can actually be caught from an infected person’s sneeze or cough.  And right now, there are about 12 million people in the U.S. who didn’t have the required medical checkups when they entered the country, because they didn’t come through correct channels.  We don’t know if any of them are carriers of polio or other diseases.

What would happen if I chose not to have my kids vaccinated, Lucas had autism anyway, and either of them caught polio?

I’d never forgive myself. 

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The other day, Lucas found an egg from a fallen bird’s nest while walking Dixie the dog.  It had a little crack in it, but was otherwise okay.  We put the egg out of Dixie’s path, but Lucas was very concerned that I tell his dad about it so that Dad wouldn’t let Dixie get to it on their noon walk.

Later that morning, I found Lucas sitting quietly in our living room, holding the egg .

He had gone outside and rescued it, bringing it inside and placing it carefully into a small nest that I had found a couple of years ago.

He spent the better part of the morning staring at that egg, hoping it would hatch, no doubt.

It was so cute, seeing him sitting there so quietly, just watching that egg to see if it would hatch a baby bird.

But since the egg was cracked, I knew it wouldn’t be hatching.

 So in an effort to gently detach Lucas from it, I explained that eggs can’t hatch unless they’re kept very warm by the mommy birds. 

Lucas may be autistic, but he’s not stupid!  He placed both the egg and its nest into a bowl under one of our living room lamps, which he then turned on.  “Keeping warm” was his response when I asked what he was doing.

Okay, how do I tell this kid that we can’t keep an egg inside, because eventually either the cat will get it or it will begin to stink? 

I came up with a brilliant idea, and explained to him that I was worried that the mommy bird might be trying to find the egg.   He agreed that we should take it outside, and placed it into a windowbox, where the mommy bird could find it but it would be safe from Dixie.

Whoever says these kids aren’t capable of empathy is dead wrong, because you can see the concern in Lucas’ face for that little egg!

Needless to say, for the rest of the day Lucas was outside every few minutes, checking on “his” egg. 

Early the next morning, I took care of the egg.  Of course, when Lucas awoke, he immediately went outside, where he discovered the egg missing.  I asked him what he thought happened, and he said “Mommy came back” in a very satisfied tone of voice.

It’s days like these that I LOVE being Lucas’ mom.

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What do you give a young man for his 18th birthday when he’s autistic?  A party is out because he has no friends.  He’ll never drive or date, so there’s no car stuff or special night out with his girlfriend.

 

Lucas loves the “Back to the Future” movies and everything that goes with them.  He has soundtracks, cartoons, posters, t-shirts, and several model versions of the DeLorean “Time Machine”.

 

So for his 18th birthday present, we took him to a DeLorean car show in Gettysburg, PA last weekend.  We spent three days with some great people (including some of the movie folks), hundreds of amazing cars, one very special car and a kid who couldn’t stop grinning…

 

Honestly, we had some major concerns about taking Lucas to this show.

Think about it:

• Taking Lucas into an unknown setting filled with hundreds of strangers.  (We had no way to prepare him for what to expect since we didn’t have a clue.)

• Lucas surrounded by many, many VERY EXPENSIVE CARS (many of them in perfect condition) and their owners.  (This one was too scary to even contemplate…I went on pure faith here.)

• Oh yeah, and what if the people from his favorite movies weren’t very nice?  (We didn’t want his heart broken by someone he really looked forward to meeting.)

But we needn’t have worried.  Lucas had no problems at all, because EVERYONE we met was kind, patient and caring toward him, helping him to feel accepted and comfortable in that strange environment.

 

 

We saw DeLoreans inside (I think someone said that there were 156 of them in this building.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We saw DeLoreans outside (everywhere we looked).

 

Some drove with their doors up, looking like they were ready to FLY!

 

We even saw one made out of BALLOONS!

 

Lucas loved reading some of the license plates, too, like this one from Maryland:

 

 

 

 

                                           Or this one from Illinois:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or this one from Delaware:

 

But of course, the best DeLorean was the Back to the Future TIME MACHINE!!  See the Flux Capacitor “fluxing”?!

 

We found the Back to the Future DeLorean in a room with Stephen Clark from BTTF.com.  Many times over the years, Stephen and bttf.com have helped us find the perfect gift for an autistic child who loves “Back to the Future”.  (Check out the miniature “flux capacitors” these two are wearing!)

 

Lucas found the “Plutonium” that powers the flux capacitor (it looked remarkably like popcorn…)

 

 

 

 

And he was beside himself with joy when he discovered the Hover Board sitting in the Time Machine!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That joy exploded into the thrill of a lifetime when he actually got to SIT IN THE TIME MACHINE!!  The car’s incredibly nice owners (Terry and Oliver Holler of “time-car.com“,) offered Lucas and others the chance to make their dreams come true!

 

Time Circuits on:

 

Could it get any better than that?  YES, when Lucas got to meet some of the people from the movies!

 

Claudia Wells starred as Michael J. Fox’s girlfriend Jennifer in the original Back to the Future movie.   She was so nice, I think Lucas fell in love…

 

Bob Gale (Writer/Producer of the Back to the Future movies).  He had some good stories to tell about making the movies, too.

 

James Tolkan was in all three Back to the Future movies and in Top Gun, too.  (Lucas reminded him that he was also in “Fresh Prince”!)  This photo doesn’t begin to show how friendly he was (I snapped it at EXACTLY the wrong moment), but as there were others waiting to meet him, we didn’t attempt a second one. 

 

Jeffrey Weissman appeared in Back to the Future 2 and 3 as Michael J. Fox’s dad.  He’s a fun entertainer who also made great balloon sculptures.

 

Last but far from least in Lucas’ book was Andrew Probert, who helped design the Time Machine and created the story boards for the movies.  Lucas is holding an autographed illustration of the Time Machine by Mr. Probert.

 

All these folks took part in a Q & A session during dinner on the last night of the car show.  Lucas was in his glory as Andrew Probert gave a slide presentation of various Back to the Future moments, including some ideas that weren’t used in the movie, and the designing of the Time Machine.  I never thought Lucas would willingly sit through a 4 hour dinner!

 

We also used this car show to help Lucas learn to save his allowance money up, so he could buy souvenirs when he got there.  

WOW, it worked great!  Lucas saved every bit of his allowance for 3 months (in addition to his birthday money), enabling him to buy some great things to remind him of this birthday trip. 

 

But I have a feeling that even without the souvenirs, he’ll never forget that magical weekend that gave him the chance to live a dream…

 

 

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