Oh goodness. My friend, Lizbeth guided me to Adventures in Extreme Parenthood, where its owner, Sunday, started “Special Needs Ryan Gosling Fridays”. She made my day and is accepting submissions to create your own. Here’s my Ryan.

Today’s latest ice breaker at the park. Ellie said to an eight-year-old girl, “Hi. I like to eat flies.”

The word “playground” or “park” used to throw Ellie into full meltdown mode because that meant other children would be there. Today, Ellie enjoys the playground. The only time she melts down now, is when she is trapped between a kid waiting to go down a slide or ladder and another kid coming up behind her. No one is moving and she can’t take it.

Much to the chagrin of the other little urchins, I haul my wide load up to wherever she’s stuck (which, by the way, is never close to the ground…it’s always a three or four-story slide with climbing structures not meant for my beefy hock meat) and help her work it out. Once she’s unstuck, she’s good to go. Back in the day, that meant she was D.O.N.E. It’s so nice to see her enjoying things typical kids enjoy.

A couple of days ago, swinging by herself just clicked. She got those little legs pumping along with the rhythm of pulling on the chains and there was no stopping her. It’s the first time I had the personal experience of seeing what swinging does for a kid on the spectrum. There was a group of about eight to ten heathen children all around her. Screaming. Bumping into her. Getting in front of her. Things that she would choose to move away from in most other instances (can’t say as I blame her…heathen children and their dead beat, magazine-flippin’, cell phone chattering parents shouldn’t be allowed at the park…just sayin’).

This girl was so relaxed, centered, and calm, none of that phased her in the least. She just got back on course. After about thirty minutes, I took a seat on a bench behind her. Ellie was SO calm that she didn’t even notice that the entire length of her little butt crack was sticking out. She nearly swung right out of her capris, a situation made worse by not having much for the capris to cling to in the first place. She clearly gets this from her father’s side of the family. I would know if my crack even considered making an appearance AND my hips provide plenty of wealth for my pants to hold onto. Again, just sayin’.

So um, yeah. I’ve been in a bit of an anti autism awareness funk/delusion/cone of silence for a bit. It’s really not unlike any of the other projects in my life. I start off like a cannon with things and then fizzle out like a whisltley burnt out firework. Here are examples from the picture slide show that plays in my head. C’mon in, just try to avoid stepping on anything that looks important.

THOUGHT PROCESS NUMBER ONE:
I’m going to create a color palette for the house and make canvases for each room based on a theme so there is some unity and cohesiveness. First, I will scour the internet for ideas, carefully organizing the 372 bookmarks based on the order me likey, then by future fabrics, furniture, curtains, rugs, and pinterest projects that will follow. I will get samples from the paint store and create hand sketches of each room with the desired colors and pin them to a poster board to see it all come together.

ACTUAL RESULT:
I painted two rooms with colors I liked. They really match nothing else in the house. There were no sketches. There was no poster board. I do, however, have one unfinished canvas hanging in the bedroom…going on three years now.

THOUGHT PROCESS NUMBER TWO (I said number two):
I’m going to start an etsy site. Certainly there is a call for crocheted tricycle cozies with entire outfits to match their loving riders. Tomorrow, I will crochet my demos, photograph them professionally, and get my site up and running. This will be a great way to make some extra money.

ACTUAL RESULT:
I took three scarves I made to a local shop to see if they were interested in selling them. That was a month ago. I really should go back and pick those up.

Autism Awareness was no different for me last year. With Ellie’s diagnosis fresh under our belts, I was ready to charge into this at full speed. I lit my house blue. I made blue puzzle pieces for the windows and a wreath for the door. I wrote to the President to light the White House blue and inundated my fb page with blue. I got a team together for the Autism Speaks Walk. I designed team tshirts, wrote and visited local businesses for support, and wrote thank you notes.

This year, blue, puzzle pieces, and walking won’t be happening for us. I’m not into it – kinda just not in the mood. This is the year I’m going to try my hand at gardening. I think tomorrow I will till an area in the back yard and start preparing the soil. Raised beds are nice. I think maybe I’ll get some lumber and put those together this weekend. I’ve always wanted to try upside down tomatoes. Oh, then maybe I could start canning. Homemade salsa would be fun to start with and then I could…

The acronym “IEP” immediately makes me clench. And, with very good reason. The hoops my fellow blogging (I don’t mean that word to sound naughty, but it just does) Moms jump through, backwards, with aerial stunts, while on fire to get the services they need for their kids is unbelievable. As a result, I go into my IEP meetings (all two of them) with extra layers of antiperspirant and spackle in my crack to prevent the clenching.

Truth be told, we managed to have the luck of the Irish with us when we moved to St. Louis and got into the school district we did. During Ellie’s kindergarten transition IEP, there was a lot of talk about pulling out and pushing in. Not gonna lie, it made Ben and me raise an eyebrow. They really should rethink their terminology for those parents like us for whom Beavis and Butthead was created. Nonetheless, the new special education teacher is amazing and we are putting her in our will (I wonder what she’ll get with that $5).

Thanks to Ellie’s preschool teacher and staff, she met all five of her goals from her first IEP. They rock. Ellie is the first student her preschool teacher has had that will be in gen ed 100% of the time. Every time I hear “100%” a leprechaun gets gold, or a fairy gets wings, or an angel kisses a freckle or something like that. This is great because the more modeling she can get from her kindergarten cohorts the better (even if it means saying “butt” a lot) . Her special ed teacher will “push in” twice a week for thirty minutes to help Ellie with social skills. She will also provide Ellie with plenty of breaks. There will be a place in her kindergarten room to go to for some quiet time and to decompress and help with sensory issues. The teachers will provide visual schedules and cues for her to help her with transitions. We will reconvene after the first three weeks to see if this strategy is working or if we need to modify anything.

Prior to school, there will be opportunities to take her up to the building as often as needed, a trial bus trip will be provided, and parent volunteers set up social gatherings so the kids can meet and get to know one another. I’m wildly optimistic and also realistic. This will be a big change and with big changes come some new behaviors. But, to feel like I have a team of people looking out for us is a great way to start.