What a beautiful evening at the Seattle Children’s ASTAR auction last night. Lets write a haiku about it:

beautiful dresses

laughter, hugs, talking with friends

crazy auctioneer

I ran into a group of ladies from Julian’s previous school. I knew that one of them, J, was on the Guild with my friend, but didn’t know that her son was also autistic. That caught me off guard. All of a sudden when I learned that, it’s like we saw each other…the struggles, the pain, the joys, the fear, all exchanged in a single look. I loved that a bunch of her friends were there to support her. I know that I so valued that my friends that were with me. J talked to me about how her son was also at View Ridge in their Developmental Preschool program but then left to go to the EEU. She told me how wonderful it is there and how much progress her son has made since joining. I had really resisted that path until hearing her strong convictions. I really had thought that O is so high functioning that he doesn’t need it. But, honestly, why not get him ALL of the help that he needs now? I will look into it this week.

The night was so beautiful, with beautiful people, lovely dresses to admire, handsome men decked out in fancy suits. Many, wonderful auction items. We actually ended up winning a great Husky Baseball basket full of great Purple and Gold goodies!  All of the kids were thrilled. J got a couple of signed baseballs and a bat, O got a hat and a pair of cute Husky boots.  I guess that E gets to lug around the fun basket that they all came in! Woo Hoo!

When one of the speakers, Kim, who is a mom of an autistic boy, named T, started talking about her journey with her son having autism, I lost it. As I had feared, I became that hysterically crying woman in the fancy dress. Great! But, as I glanced out, I could tell who the other moms of autistic children were because they were crying as hard as I was. They could feel Kim’s pain as they have felt a pain similar in similar situations…many many times. I could totally relate to her. And, quite honestly, until I heard her story, I thought that I was the only one who was dealing with these situations. I didn’t realize that this is the pain in autism. The fear of not knowing what autism really is, what it means for your child’s, for your family’s future. I feel like I’m in better company now and less lonely in this endeavor. I am understanding that there are a lot of us who are wearing similar shoes right now. Not sure which pair match our outfits…should we wear flats or pumps…shiny or dull…bright or subdued…or just plain for comfort?

Today I spent most of the day in a daze from yesterday. I can’t remember my eyes being so puffy. I haven’t cried so hard since the day we received O’s diagnosis. When we got home last night I just had to hold O. I went into his bed and just held his hand and stared at his beautiful little face. He is adorable. I love that little guy. I am truly happy to have been chosen to be his mom. I don’t know how the world works like that but I feel like we both chose each other.

In the past few days, I’ve spent some time re-reading some responses from friends and family members. As I have been struggling with E’s screaming and extra feisty behavior as well as the stage of pre-teenism that J is at, I often feel like I’m doing this all wrong. I considered finding a parenting mentor for this new role of being a parent of a child with autism. I thought about why. What is a mentor? I looked it up in the dictionary…mentor: a wise and trusted counselor or teacher; an influential senior sponsor or supporter. What qualities would I seek in a mentor? I then realized that I find mentorship in all of the relationships that I have.

After finally connecting on the phone with my dear friend, J, we spoke for nearly an hour. She has such perspective and I gained so much knowledge and a better understanding of what is important right now for me parenting a teen and being a parent in general. Of course, you wouldn’t know that if you saw me slamming doors and yelling at my family about 30 minutes ago! Nonetheless, the biggest take away I got from her was that it is okay to make parenting mistakes. The ability to say, ‘I reacted incorrectly in that situation, what you did is still not okay, but if I were given the opportunity to start over, here is what I would have said…’ Admitting fault is so disarming. I wish that my children would learn this. I wish that I had learned this lesson when I was younger. It’s time to start role modeling some better behaviors. After this afternoon, I feel like the only thing that I am teaching my kids is that when you get really pissed off it’s okay to yell and scream, stomp around, and slam doors. Probably not my finest parenting moment. Time to turn it around!!

There is a fabulous parenting mentor/counselor here in Seattle who gives the most wonderful, empowering free library lectures about parenting teens. I went to see her talk once, and Peter the next week. Her name is Lori Gradinger. Her website is here:

http://www.courageouscommunication.net/

I need to go again and regain that perspective that I had last spring when I first attended her seminar.  I felt closer to finding out my strengths of a parent of a teen then than I do now.

Tonight is the Seattle Children’s Autism Center/ASTAR fundraiser. I’m so thrilled to go. After these last few days, I feel a bit fragile and I hope that I don’t start to cry and make a big spectacle. Why do I have a vision of this happening when I’m all dressed up at a fancy, lovely event with some dear friends? Where else could it happen! Thanks to D & B for their extreme generosity of the invitation to join their table at this very important event.

What a wonderful day!  I’m not quite sure if we could have ordered a more beautiful, crisp fall day in Seattle.  There were so many people there.  More than I had expected.  So well organized, so many amazing speakers and events. And we had a beautiful walk through UW campus, which took me back about 18 years…  Thank you all who joined us today.  What a truly uplifting experience.  I am so thoroughly touched by everyone’s presence in Team O today.  You know who you are, thank you. Also, for all of our monetary and emotional supporters, we are so blown away from your amazing support.  It was so special to have my parents there today, decked out in their Team O orange t-shirt.  So special to have them with us on this journey and celebrating who we are. I just want them to promise to not cross montlake in traffic again.  That was a scary sight!

I was thinking of my biggest take aways today. I think that the overwhelming amount of love and support from our family and friends would be number one! After that was the amount of the variety of people who autism affects. Every kind of family. Yet, there seemed to be a huge familiar sense to their families to ours. Don’t know how to put that into words. There were quite a few kids on the other end of the autism spectrum, but not as many as there were kids like O who were high functioning.  My God, I still can’t believe how many kids there were like O there.  Wow. So many similar behaviors exhibited in those kids.  They all had a similar look to him. A kinda sweet, yet kinda vacated, yet kinda overstimulated look. Kinda like they are viewing the world through different colored glasses than we all are. I kinda get it now, more than I did when I woke up this morning, that’s for sure. I noticed the kids, but I couldn’t make connections yet. Not quite ready for that. One step at a time. I saw a couple of the moms and I saw the look on their faces, just like mine…a look of’ ‘is your whole like capitivated, enticed, and turned upside down by this thing we call autism?’ After I saw that same look, I couldn’t look any of them in the eye. It was too painful. Maybe this will be a good measure of my progress.  By next year at this time, I’ll be at a different space with this all.  I’m definitely on the right path and have such an amazing support system. We are so truly blessed.

One event that I look forward to participating in is this one:

http://www.tessera.org/conference.html

It seems like a very good conference for families living with autism.  Many different subjects matters are addressed.  I’m really interested in the whole functional medicine side of this. I am curious to learn more about this from our doctor.  Also, Krista’s dad, Jim, who joined us today, has an amazing amount of knowledge on the subject.  I’m so excited to explore this. I always know that when you have faith in something and believe in it, it has more power.  I believe! I’m ready to learn!

I was so proud of O today.  He was a bit mesmerized by all of us wearing Team O shirts with his image and name on them. He was kinda a mini celebrity. It was sweet to see E running around in the middle of the UW practice field, with his cute blue cast on. Julian did a great job of being a trooper. Probably missing a soccer game and having to wake up early to go on a walk for his brother was a super priority for him.  It was really sweet last night that he and his buddies wore Team O Tshirts to their CYO dance. I like how the girls were asking, ‘what’s Team  O?’ They were clearly thinking that the t-shirts were cool.  Julian casually responded, ‘Oh, that’s my brother’.  Super cool.

M commented that we all spoil O.  I am sitting with that and pondering that but I think that she is right.  I can’t not bend over backwards for him.  When he is rebelling and screaming I just want him to be quiet and be at peace with himself and the world around him.  I’ll give into a heck of alot more than I did with J.  We met with our fabulous Dr. C yesterday (have I said today how much we worship her!!).  She told us that O is deficient in Vitamin D, and he is apparently sensitive to cashews, so we are to steer away from them.  Our Dr. went to a functional medicine conference all of last week and came back with some great information that she is anxious to share with us.  She told me that she was half there for herself, and half there for me.  Okay…seriously…what kind of doctor in this modern world even thinks that, furthermore states that!  I LOVE HER!!!  When we are the office for Emil’s appointment, she took O to the potty.  Wow.  We are darned lucky.  I am so excited to hear what she has to share with us about some new thoughts, theories, and ideas about autism.  I felt the second that I met her that she holds one of the pieces of the puzzle to this autism thing in her hands.  We’re definitely on the right path.

So, yes, I am getting back on path and am SUPER excited for Saturday.  I had some t-shirts made for our team.  I don’t know how many will show, but we will definitely be carrying the thoughts and prayers of many of our family and friends who cannot be there with us right in our hearts.  This is the step that I talked about, this is the one where there is no coming back from.  This is it!  I am very excited for it.  We are all going to be awesome because we are inherently awesome.

Today E went to school.  Hallelujah.  That little guy is painfully adorable, but he has been ridiculously attached to me lately, maybe the last 2 months. And that is taking its toll.  He makes me feel claustrophobic the way that he pulls on me, screams at me and demands more than I can give of myself to him.  His screaming makes me want to scream.  In fact, often does.  Our poor neighbors.  I am seriously bewildered that no one has called CPS on us yet. The constant screaming that is coming out of one child, or parent’s, mouth at any given time is enough to warrant curiosity, or atleast some serious annoyance.  Thank you, dear neighbors for dealing with us.  You will be truly awarded somehow.  Maybe some cookies are coming your way.  Not from me. I can’t bake.  I can, but I don’t enjoy it so I won’t get any better.  Follow recipes are like following rules…boring!  You do it because you have to, but not because you want to.  Cooking is where it is at.  No rules, some parameters and go!!! Be creative!  I love it.  As a side note, I will not be a short order cook for anyone.  Maybe I should make one morning/week on the weekend a time when I could be a short order cook so that my family can get their fill of bossing me around. Somehow though, I think that they are satisfied with the food generated out of this kitchen. J is the best eater. To a fault. He has become a HUGE gourmet.  I know that it will end up being a plus for him in the long run, but sometimes, I just want him to be able to have cheerios for breakfast.  I wrote on the shopping list tonight for Peter to get ‘Natural Fruit Loops’.  Apparently, QFC didn’t have any so he got regular Fruit Loops, that actually contain NO real fruit, but heck, they do have that brilliant toucan on the front of the box.  You should have seen Julian’s eyes light up when he saw that box walking in the door.  He looked at it, at me, at it, and at me again. Like he couldn’t believe his good fortune.  Wow, if that is all it takes to get him to do something, I might be having to buy Fruit Loops at costco soon.  Please tell me that my life hasn’t come to this!  I don’t want to be THAT mom. O has me doing anything for him.  It seems that I make him ANYTHING that he wants for breakfast as long as he eats.  That kidlet get numerous amount of sweets during the day.  We all do spoil him.  He is so darned cute though. When that sweet, magical side of O has his eyes on you, you are completely at his mercy.  How could you not be.  His sweet is different than any person that I’ve ever encountered.  But, again, his angry side is unbearable and unfathomable. And completely unpredictable. Yes, he is so unbelievably sweet, but the bitter side is so unbelievably bitter.  I wouldn’t know what to compare it to. The sweet side is easy to c0mpare…walking down the street in Kyoto on a mid-spring day with the subtle scent of cherry blossoms in the air. There are even a few petals scattered here and there.  It is warm so the scent of the petals is everywhere, even where there aren’t any cherry blossoms in bloom. But, the later harsher winds of spring haven’t forced most of the petals to fall prematurely. There is a little shop on the second level of a large street that has only about 10 small tables.  The tables are so incredibly rustic. You wonder how many ladies have been sitting in the same seat over the generations. You order ‘kuzukiri’, the most perfect mix of cold and sweet with a hint of saltiness. That is the kind of sweet that O is when he is his sweetest. I guess that there are words to describe that sweetness. The bitter side I cannot describe yet. Hopefully it will change before the words to describe it come to mind. That is my hope and my prayer for today.

The good news is that the movie, ‘Beverly Hills Chihuahua’ is growing on me. It’s O’s Obsession O’the Day.  And Emil thinks it’s cute and says, ‘wah wah!’ The not so good news is that we’ll be camped out at home this week. O’s 2nd e.coli test came back positive!  So, we get to start over with testing until we get 2 negatives in a row.  And the other news is that Baby E broke his foot yesterday.  That is what it seems anyways.  Peter and I got home from the ER Sunday night at 11 with the little guy in a boot.  His eyes lit up when J and M greeted us at the door.  He’s not bearing any weight 0n it and is not happy to have it on.  We went to the orthopedic dr. at Children’s on Monday. They ended up casting it.  Its a lovely shade of blue.  A little baby cast. I am glad that they casted it even though E screamed for the entire time that they were trying to put it on.  30 minutes of the cast guy named Wayne wishing that we weren’t there.  Me wishing that we weren’t there. E screaming that he wished that he wasn’t there. It had to be put on though because O and E were trying to take the boot on and off when he had it on that first day. O ended up really hurting Emil, but he didn’t understand. He so didn’t mean to. O has such issues with not understanding how much pain he inflicts upon others.  He kicked me so hard in the stomach last week, I threw up. It’s hard not to get mad at him but he just doesn’t know.  But, then again, it’s important for him to see peoples reactions to his actions.  He only hits and kicks and bites me, Peter, J, M, and E.

I don’t know if it is because the autism walk is coming up this week or because I have received such amazing support and empathy from family and friends, but this past week it was difficult to cope.  I’m super gung ho about accepting autism into our life.  After all, it already lives with us.  I like my life right now. Alot. I kinda see it like, well, until this point we’ve gathered our thoughts, our minds, and our souls and everyone is holding hands, ready to go.  Now we actually have to take the leap that we’ve been talking about and preparing for. Okay, someone has to count 1,2,3, go!  I started to get weepy and super emotional this past week about being that person. What if we didn’t and just stayed the way we were/are?  That’s not real.  The fact is that I’m ready to jump but just acting anxious and kinda savoring the life before we are an autistic family. Is it the calm before the storm?  Is there going to be a storm? When I saw O today and how he was…I think, what storm?  He was so incredibly good today.  No breakdowns.  So sweet.  Really connected.  E was far more difficult with his new super feisty behavior.  My goodness.  My Mom and I were conversing about this tonight and her comment that, “none of your kids are easy” is soooooooo true! I love these little monkeys, but good grief, they are tough!  Difficult and hard.  Sweet and savory.  Kinda the perfect mix.  The ideal dish has the perfect amount of sweet and savory, hot and cold, crunchy and soft.  This period in our lives is temporary and I am confident that the feistiness in E, the all around difficultness in O, the talking back phase of J…it is making them who they are.  I am fiercely proud of that.  My goal as a parent is to make each one of them the very best that they can be.  No more, no less.  Why is this so hard?  Through all of this craziness of the past week, with O and E, it was really nuts, but I feel that we all pulled together to help each other out.  THAT is what family is about.

First of all, I have to say that I’m so sorry to those who were at Bellevue Botanical Gardens this morning.  My heavens, what a morning.  What a ruckus my children and I caused.  Mostly me.  I don’t know why, but I had little patience for dealing with my children this morning.  I apologize.  I don’t know why I had reached my limit much earlier in the day than I am used to. Good……ness!  I am still trying to comprehend what went wrong and when. How do I make it so that next time is better?  Because, yes indeed, I will encounter if not the same experience again, it will either be similar in intensity or more difficult.  E has been screaming and extremely clingy. O has been the same, but louder and more difficult to understand. Mostly, I think that it was my expectation of the morning to go well that was the problem.  I was so looking forward to let the kids run around on the big lawn there and get some gardening inspiration at the same time.  When we got there I realized that we only had the single stroller, not the double.  I was wrong in assuming that wasn’t going to be an issue.  I managed to make things smooth and got both of them into the single stroller and tried to make it a fun game.  It went okay until we decided that we wanted to get out and run around.  I couldn’t push the stroller on the grass.  The garden nazi in me wouldn’t permit it.  I think that I need to start getting over my rules and permissions.  The Catholic girl in me won’t allow it.  The Japanese girl in me is ashamed just thinking about it.  What a conundrum.  So, because I just couldn’t get over myself, I made the kids get out of the stroller to run around. When raising Julian when he was this age, he agreed to these kind of things. There were things that just were…that was just the way it was and he dealt with it.  Sometimes things were disappointing, but the Positive Discipline way of discipline and parenting style worked for him, and for me.  If I try that now it just completely backfires.  I could ask J, “would you like sausage or bacon for breakfast?”  He would always choose one of the two or three choices provided.  O always has said, “I don’t want sausage, bacon, or any breakfast meat for breakfast.  I only want homemade waffles with mini chocolate chips.”  There is no room for error or interpretation in that equation.  I have tried to play it up, joke around, switch things around, and I always end up making the homemade waffles with mini chocolate chips. Almost had a panic attack the other day when I thought that we only had regular chocolate chips, not mini chocolate chips!  Of course, this is just a metaphor for every single daily interaction that occurs in O’s world.  And, in case you didn’t know, Oliver lives in O’s world and we are all just mere pawns in that world.  So, back to the BBG.  I ended up leaving the place with two screaming, flailing children and myself in tears. Bugger.  That is so not what I wanted!  In the future, do I just go into an adventure assuming the worst?  That goes against my personality for always expecting and hoping for the best.  AND, doing whatever possible to make that situation the best that it can be.  Do I just need to be more flexible?  Yes, there is some truth in that.  I do need to be more flexible.

I signed up for the Autism Speaks walk today.  If you want join, please walk with me.  It is Saturday, October 3rd.  Here is the link:

http://www.walknowforautism.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=304949

I registered under Team Ollie.  More than anything I would just most appreciate your well wishes, but if you are wanted to join in presence, please join us, if you would like to join by sponsorship, that would be so much appreciated as well.

I don’t know about you, but I was the best parent EVER, before I became a parent.  As a single mom, it was a bit more difficult probably than most, but Julian was easier to raise thru the earlier years.  (who knows what will come next:)) Now I can only imagine that when people look at me as I am trying to corral my little ones that they must be appalled.  But, that is okay.  They don’t know.  They will never know. I was naive to think that way before.  I guess that life is just like that.  It all seems so easy until you get there.  It sure is far more exciting and rewarding than I had ever anticipated though. If there is one thing that I always resort to when I am struggling with who I am as a parent, I always wonder WHY this dear soul chose ME as their MOM.  There is something about me that they need.  There is something about them that I need.  I held each of my kids so tight today after today’s fiasco.  We may never be allowed back to Bellevue Botanical Gardens, but we for sure learned something about each other that we didn’t know before.  That is how it works, right…I definitely think so.