A Trio of "Tissue" Moments

Last Saturday, Dominic had a session with his private speech therapist. We had not seen her since January, due to circumstances beyond our control. I wasn't quite sure how he would do, given it had been so long since he had seen her. He definitely didn't have very good eye contact with her, but during the session he did say, "I love you, mommy!" Okay, tissue moment #1 (for both her and I).

Getting Dominic potty trained was definitely one of the biggest parenting challenges I have ever faced. Even though he is heading towards being 11 years old, we still have to "prompt" him to use the toilet every 2-3 hours. I'm ecstatic that he will go "on command," but in the back of my mind, I know he needs to be able to recognize that "feeling" of needing to go. Well, in the past week, he has told me three separate times that he had to go! Yep, tissue moment #2.

Dominic has been to a barber shop a grand total of two times in his entire life. We decided many years ago, that I would be his personal "hairstylist." I have a business degree, not a cosmetology degree, so the haircut is not always even or thinned out enough, but I do a halfway decent job. When Dominic was smaller, I would put him in his removable booster seat and strap him in. As he has gotten older, we have "graduated" to sitting on the floor. Believe me, there have always been tears, sniffling, whining, running away (sometimes all four) involved. No matter how many times I reassured Dominic that I wasn't going to hurt him, it didn't matter. I don't use an electric trimmer, so I know it's not a noise issue. Today, since he had a scheduled day off from school, I told him that he would be getting a haircut - it was even put on the "schedule" that I write for him everyday. I had a "light bulb" moment back a few haircuts ago. I used that old parenting "trick" of "first this, then that." The "that" in this case, being a meal from Burger King. We rarely eat out, so for him, it is a very special treat. I don't normally like to reward Dominic with food, but since I only cut his hair about every 8-10 weeks and I usually have a good coupon, it makes sense. We didn't get around to the haircut until about 12:15 this afternoon. He did absolutely amazing and in no time at all, we were done. Dominic was very patient and after I brushed some of the excess hair off of him, I told him to go put on his shoes. We drove down to the Burger King and got in the drive-through line. I ordered him some nuggets and fries and then as we were pulling forward to pay, he said, "thank you mommy for cutting my hair!" He has never, ever told me that before! Tissue moment #3. Good grief, do you think maybe I need to start carrying around a BOX of tissues in my purse?!?!?

A Book Every Autism Mom Should Read

When Dominic was diagnosed with Autism at 2 1/2, I went to our local library and took out every book I could find about Autism. Sometimes I would bring back 20 books. This was 2006, so a lot of the information was very "dated." I guess I was looking for a book that would tell me what I should do next, like a "manual." Autism doesn't quite work that way! The saying is, " if you know one person with Autism, you know one person with Autism." Every mom to an individual with Autism follows their own "path." I think as moms, we judge ourselves much harder than anyone else does. I was 41 when I had Dominic. Did he get the diagnosis of Autism because I was an older mom? because I drank a lot of pop? I could sit and think about that every minute of every day. I am pretty integrated into the Autism community around Lansing and have told more than one person that it took me about two weeks to come to terms with Dominic's diagnosis. It is so incredib...

Mainstreaming and Inclusion

The hubby and I were discussing the other day how special education students were treated back when he and I were in school. He remarked to me that in his time, they were "hidden away" from the rest of the students. When I was in elementary school, I can remember seeing the kids in those classrooms pass by us in the hallway. I don't ever recall seeing them in the lunchroom or playground. I'm so glad that times have changed. Even though Dominic is in a "self-contained" special education classroom, he does get to go to the art, gym and music classrooms. He also gets to eat lunch in the school cafeteria. He loves hot lunch on Thursday - pizza!! Given Dominic's abilities, he is able to be "mainstreamed" into the general education classroom for small amounts of time. Every moment he is able to do that gives me so much hope for his future. I absolutely love what Dominic's current teacher is doing. He has started a peer-to-peer progra...

It's a "Group" Effort

Since going to the local barbershop is still not allowed where we live, it fell upon us to figure out the best way to shave Dominic's beard and mustache. Typically, Dominic goes to our local barbershop to get his haircut and his barber (Vince) also takes about 30 seconds to shave the beard and mustache. This August, it will be five years that Dominic has been going to Vince. That in itself is a huge milestone as anyone with a child/adult with sensory sensitivities knows. Anyways, earlier in the week my hubby, Lauren and I had all noticed that Dominic's facial hair definitely needed some assistance. I mentioned to Lauren that I needed to find a "social story" about getting a shave. Before I had a chance to find one, she took it upon herself to find one and print it out, it had both an electric shaver and shaving cream/razor stories! That meant so much to me, because she didn't have to do that, she wanted to! I showed the social story to Dominic and sai...

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