Success!

In the words a favorite musician, “There will be droughts & days inundated”…but I’ve got nights like this to keep me going. My son had a great time at Homecoming. He went to dinner (we sat across the room with another set of parents who chose to stay at the restaurant since they were carting a group to the dance), danced (with a group? kids these days…), and came home with a balloon after one hour(like it was a trip to Cookie Cutters).

Let’s see…I spent about 14 hours as his personal stylist to make sure he was appropriately dressed (not to mention the twelve years – and thousands of dollars – carting him to various professionals to help him acquire the skills. I hope I age gracefully, because my extreme makeover money is long gone!) I went through about 12 diet cokes (my drug of choice) trying to keep a caffeine buzz going in case I had to stay up all night consoling him. All the sacrifices were worth it! I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’m so proud of him!!

-the cheese will try to exfoliate regularly (or is that how you get grated cheese?)

One small step on your toes…one giant leap for my kid!

Today is a day that I NEVER thought would happen. I’ve been buzzing around town, getting my 14 y.o. Aspie son ready for Homecoming. This is a kid who’s motto thus far in life has been “People are a modern inconvenience to me” – which is actually a quote from an un-dxed Aspie childhood neighbor of mine, but my son has heard me say it so often that he’s adopted it as his own.

This year, he’s joined a club (we told him that joining one club was the only way we’d continue to support his video game habitwas mandatory) & actually started talking to the kids in the club – even outside of club meetings. YAHOO! This is the kid whose social worker wrote a goal for him as a fifth grader to make one friend. (Not the best goal in the IEP sense, but you have to admit that her heart was in the right place.)

He’s asked to go to extra-curricular activities on his own (meeting up with some of his friends) – which is huge. In the past there was no reward great enough to entice him into going to a dance or game. We’d offer video games, cash, bonds, plushy costumes resembling his favorite Neopets in his size (which by the way…the places you have to go to find those…ewwww), etc. Nothing worked.

(Magnet available at this site – get two, they’re small!)

Tonight may be a total bust for my son. He may call for us to pick him up after ten minutes of the dance. He may cry while he’s there (I hope not – we’ve done a lot of preparation to make it go as smoothly as possible). But just the fact that he showed interest & tried is a triumph for him in my mind.

I know that we all have those “milestone events” in our heads when we think about our kids’ lives – the first day of Kindergarten, eighth grade graduation, prom, etc. I had honestly rewritten the script to exclude anything resembling a dance. Now I am thinking that even though his experience will be different from the other kids’, at least he’ll have one.  Maybe I’ll still have to settle for a wedding on Second Life, maybe he’ll live in my basement until he’s forty, maybe he’ll always secretly wish he could dress as a Faerie Kacheek…but at least he’s opening up to some of the possibilities that involve more interaction. I’m very proud of him! And who knows…maybe he’ll find another person who thinks faerie kacheeks are very attractive.

-the cheese is happier than the day she accidentally doubled her dose