Cha-cha-cha-changes . . .

For more than a month I've contemplated revamping this blog.  I was so tired of the old look of it . . . so mid-aughts in its design.  But I feared the changes that might come from a simple click to upgrade to the new google blog tools.  Spurred on by work on another blog that I've put together for a work project, I took the plunge into the newer blogger templates.

The verdict: Some of the old text has gone wonky, with a curious mix of fonts.  And some pictures have inexplicably moved around, leaving dangling text.  And I've lost all my affiliation information -- with Wellsphere and AutismHub -- as well as my Thinking Blogger meme.  Over the next weeks I'll try to clean up some of these infelicities, and recuperate my lost sidebars.

But I'm quite happy for the change, and I hope you readers will be as well.  I will look forward to posting tomorrow about what our sweet girl has been doing with her summer!

On a Briefly Empty Nest, or Wings Spread

Back when I was a college student -- a long, long time ago in the faraway land of Southern California -- I had to drive quite a long way to the campus where I was studying. And during those long commutes in my ancient VW, I would listen to the AM radio. I heard a lot of music that I might not otherwise have chosen: Top-Ten-type-tunes by bands like Fleetwood Mac, songs like Landslide, with a chorus that goes like this:

I've been afraid of changing

'Cause I built my life around you.

But time makes you bolder

Children get older

And I'm getting older too.

And so when I heard that tune on my Pandora Internet "Roche Sisters" radio station, I was taken back in time. And then I landed back in the the present . . . or rather the very recent past.

Last week the sweet girl went on a field trip. An overnight field trip. Well, not just an overnight field trip, but a three-days and two-nights field trip. On her own. With her classmates. Without me. Without her dad. Without us.

It was something else. Something entirely new for us. Two days without the sweet girl. We were sort of sad. The apartment felt empty without her bouncing in at 3 pm from her bus and trudging off at 7:30 in the morning, or handing over the TV remote at 8:30 in the evening with her routine announcement: "You can watch your show now -- I'm going to take a shower."

Last year when she had a field trip like this, we surreptitiously shadowed her. The school knew. And she knew. But her classmates didn't know. We called it Operation Secret Parents.

But this year, with just a little trepidation, she was ready to go it alone. In fact, I think she was readier than I was. But off she went, with her suitcase, sleeping bag, and backpack.

In the middle of the trip we got just one email, from school, saying she was having a fabulous time.

When I picked her up at school on Friday, she gathered together her stuff -- suitcase, sleeping bag, backpack -- turned around to her classmates, and said, with perfect preteen inflection: "Uh, later guys."

Several called out, "Bye, M___. Have a great weekend, M____."

She hasn't said too much about the trip. They picked apples and made apple cider. They went on a long, long hike all the way to a waterfall. And among her favorite things: this bird expert, who showed the kids a falcon and an owl. She told me he even brought a dead mouse, and fed it to the owl.

"Was that gross?" I asked.

"No," she exclaimed, "It was so cool. And there was a snake man, too. He had a huge yellow snake. It was so big that two people had to carry it in. It was shedding. And we got to pet it! Its skin was so dry."

So things do change. Skins are shed, wings are spread. And she's definitely grown bolder . . . even if I've only grown older.

The more things change . . .

You know the saying about the more things change the more they stay, well, you know, the same. Somehow it sounds wiser in the French: Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme chose.

But whether it's my English cliche or the sweet girl's father's French cliche, it's still a cliche: true enough most of the time for neurotypicals that it was elevated to cliche status, but not quite so true for the sweet girl.

For her, the more things change, the more they changed.

And one assumption holds:

Change is bad.

September arrived and she went back to school.

Same school, different grade.

Same principal, different teachers.

Same gym teacher, but different gym location.

The changes were hard enough — especially having gym inside instead of at the beautiful outdoor park by the river.

And then there was the same old problem: everyone, everywhere, always always talking talking talking.

And so the September back-to-school was filled with tears. A lot of tears. Not quite so many as last year, but still plenty. Tears at home. Tears at school.

And the question that she asked last year — "Why can't kids just stay at home and learn?" — was asked again, with new and more accurate language: "Why can't I be home-schooled?"

When I told the sweet girl that home schooling isn't the answer, she asked if I would talk to her teachers to ask them to not talk so much.

And so I did. I met with the team. In the second week of school. And most of them were wonderful, but one was not so much wonderful, and she wanted to know, "Well if the language demands are too much now, how is she going to get along next year, and the year after, and in high school where the language just gets harder and harder?"

This was a deep breathing moment for me.

"Great question," I said, "And I'd be happy to make a meeting with you to talk about that when we have an hour or more to think about it, but right now we only have 45 minutes together to come up with strategies for a girl who is weeping because the language demands and the transition back to school are hard for her. I'd like to focus this meeting on strategies for this week and next week."

So it's back to school time. And here we go again: back to defending our girl's right to reasonable accommodations and a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting.

Back to pre-teaching and post-teaching every night and every morning to coach her on new language.

Back to trying to figure out how to get over the social hurdles that continue to trip her up.

Back to the same routine of trying to conform.

It always strikes me as ironic that autistic people are labeled as inflexible when they are expected to adapt in an inflexible, even rigid, educational system. Who/what is inflexible here?

Sometimes I feel I need a change, a real change, not something that is just the same old same old.

I want a good school for my girl. Maybe I even want to start a good school for my girl, and other kids like her.

That would be a change. A real change.

More Good Times, No Excuses Allowed

Lately at Autism's Edges I've been ruminating on how one thing leads to another in ways that we can't ever expect, let alone predict. You start out headed one direction and you wind up somewhere altogether different, and oftentimes infinitely more interesting than anything you could have imagined on your own.

Examples of this one-thing-leads-to-another principle permeate our lives . . . most recently the gift of Pokémon statuette led to a fabulous play date for Sweet M and me. An autism conference two years ago and a reading group friend lead to my current teaching job. And the weekend before last a trip to the grocery store lead to a late afternoon kayak ride with the sweet girl on the Hudson River.

Take the trip to the grocery store on the first weekend of August. It was a beautiful day — warm, not hot — as the heatwave of July had given way to a pleasant 78 degrees with a cloudless sky. The sweet girl and I set out to go to the grocery store . . . we didn't have anything at home that would work for dinner . . . but when we got to the cross street that leads to the Hudson River, I said, "Oh, let's just go have a look at the river. It's a beautiful day . . . let's check it out."

So we walked along Prince Street as it turns into Charleton and then wended our way up to the Houston Street crossing of the Westside Highway. We rounded the bend of Pier 40 recreation area and walked along a nearly deserted dock where an enormous Norwegian cruise ship was headed down the river and out to sea.

When we circled back around the dock, we came across a landing, filled with kayaks and people kayaking. I thought, wow, someday we should do that -- that looks fun. I thought about Jim and Charlie and their fabulous kayaking adventures along the Hudson and Jersey's waterways.

I said, "Hey M, do you want to go kayaking sometime?"

"Yeah, sure," she exclaimed.

"Great, we'll do that sometime."

As we got closer I could see that there was no line. And the people on the river seemed to be having a lot of fun.

But I didn't have my wallet with me. I'd walked out of the house with just a single twenty to pick up some dinner, so I figured we wouldn't be able to afford the rental.

I asked the woman working at the landing how much it would be for half-an-hour and she said "Nothing -- it's free."

"Free?!" I exclaimed, "Free in NYC?!?"

Yes, the volunteer confirmed that it was free. Free thanks to the Downtown New York City Boathouse.

"But we don't have any sunscreen on," I said, equivocating.

"Oh, no problem—we have loads of sunscreen," the volunteer said, pointing to a gallon jug with a pump nozzle on it.

"What about life jackets?"

"Oh, we have those, too," she said, pointing to a long rack of life vests.

So I put away my excuses, along with my twenty dollar bill and my cell phone, which I stored in a locker — yes, they had lockers and locks, too.

And the sweet girl and I headed out on our very first kayaking adventure.

Man-o-man it was fun. Super fun. And free. Inspired by Jim and Charlie and out of the blue sky and depths of the river.

The Greatest Problem in the World

I have the greatest — as in absolutely best — problem in the world.

Sweet M wants a dog.

The same sweet girl who just a few years ago screamed in terror at the sight of any dog now wants a dog of her own.

Do any of you remember the days when we had to cross the street when we came across someone walking a dog? I sure do. But those days seem to be far, far behind us now. And it's not even been five years.

The canine-phobia is gone.

Now, when she sees a dog, first she'll ask the dog owner if it's okay to pet their little guy. She's learned to let the dog sniff her hand, then she gives them a little scratch behind the ears.

Sometimes she goes for the baby talk as she pets the little ones — "Who's a cutey wootey?" I'm supposed to be discouraging the baby talk, but I'm so stunned by her shift, that I just haven't been able to step up on that front.

So I have greatest, absolutely best, problem in the world: how to keep up with her success. How to manage our lives so I can to rise to support her progress.

We are in a tiny apartment. I have allergies. And Fathersvox has sworn that he will never take any dog for a walk under any circumstances.

It's all a bit of a problem. And I'm thrilled to have it.

Does anyone have any teeny-tiny hypo-allergenic dog breeds to recommend?