The Autism Retort Blog

One of the things I love about our neighborhood is all the kids on the street.  It’s reminiscent of when I was a kid and would run the neighborhood from morning till dusk, riding my bike or roller skating or playing a neighborhood game of hide and seek.

True things are a little different now.  My kids don’t really leave our street which limits the bike riding, but it’s a quiet street and they can run from house to house playing games or hanging out on swingsets.  However, I’ve never really been able to let Peanut run with the others without some sort of adult supervision.  Not being the outdoorsy type myself, this has posed some problems.  I prefer to get some things done while the kids are outside.

In the beginning this really wasn’t a problem.  Peanut was relatively happy hanging out inside with me while her sister went over to friends’ houses.  Last summer it got to be more of a problem, but at least we had the backyard she could play in.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t usually good enough, and for reasons I’ve yet to really understand, my backyard is not the backyard of choice for the neighborhood kids. 

As we entered spring this year, I started letting Peanut go into the front yard with Diva, her 8 (soon to be 9) year old sister and the other kids.  Usually I made the teen go out also just to supervise.  Gradually, however, we have started letting Peanut and Diva go out on their own.  In the beginning they had to stay in our yard and any friends who wanted to play had to come to our yard as well.  Usually they would only play outside for about 30 minutes.

Last night however, I threw caution to the wind and let the girls run the neighborhood as I have the older two girls since they were about Peanut’s age.  For a while they played down the street at a friend’s house.  At one point the whole group of kids came up to our house; Peanut in the midst of them all with a toy sword “getting” this kid or another.  As I watched I was happy to see she was just one of the kids.  She wasn’t treated differently.  She wasn’t limited because of her lack of speech.  She was accepted into the fold and was having a great time.  

The girls played outside for over an hour until it was time to come in to get ready for bed.  

It was a great day and I look forward to many more nights where Peanut gets to join the neighborhood friends for games and summer fun.

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Daniel earned his 100 stickers, so on Monday we went to Target and he got his "real Buzz" toy.




We are doing a lot of reorganizing and planning this week. There might be some great changes with therapy- more on that if/when it happens...

Lessons are going pretty good. I'm trying to reorganize myself there too.
Hopefully our fence will be up in 2-3 weeks.
We have to do some work in the yard before it happens. (cut branches, dismantle raised garden bed, CBYD, remove old fence, move dirt, move woodpile)
I can do everything...

BUT NOT ALL AT ONCE!

I'm feeling like I'm spreading myself thin everywhere and not doing that good a job on any one thing. I need to figure out what my priorities are and focus.

This will be short because my finger is hurting. It happens to be the index finger on my right (dominant) hand…perhaps the finger I use most…or at least I’m noticing how much I use it now that it’s hurting. You know how that goes. I think it is some sort of tendonitis or repetitive stress injury. I thought it was getting better but last night when I sat down with my laptop to do some writing it went something like this:

tap – ouch – tap tap tap – ouch – tap tap tap mouse – ouch!

So now I have it taped to the middle finger of my right hand so that I can still bend it but it has some support for whatever motions I’m attempting. I’m putting ice on it whenever I have time to try to reduce some inflammation.

I think it has given me a taste of empathy for our kids that struggle with fine motor control. Every little task I undertake requires extra thought and attention. My brain is tired from the effort…and today’s to do list looks even more daunting than usual.

Still I’m trying not to whine about it too much because it is, after all, just a taste. This too shall pass and it is one minor irritation. Our kids endure so much more, every day, and often for a lifetime.

So I’m going to go rest my finger, and my brain now, but with a good dose of perspective and respect for our kids.

 

I did also want to point you to this guest post that I wrote for Barbara Manatee’s blog My Sweet Life in recognition of Autism Awareness month. Drop by and visit her series in honor of this special month. Thanks!