Sunday Solar System

Sundays can be a real challenge for Sam. We attend church for 3 hrs. That is hard enough for adults let alone a kid who is on the autism spectrum and bothered by noise, crowds and who knows what depending on the moment.

The first meeting (sacrament & talks) is with everyone and is supposed to only last 1 hr 10 min. The remaining time he spends with the kids (primary) where half is spent in a class setting with kids his own age and the other half is spent with kids ages 3 - 8 learning songs and doing fun things as they learn more lessons about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I always ask what he would like to bring with him, that is quiet, to keep his hands busy for the first hour. Lately his response has been "I don't know, I will tell you when I get there". Sigh! Today on the way to church he found a roll of masking tape in my basket. It never left his hands. The end result was a solar system across the back of the bench in front of us. I had no clue that our 2nd grader knew the order of the planets, including asteroid belt, kuiper belt (and knows that Pluto is actually part of this) and then for this masking tape masterpiece he added stars at the furthest outer area. I helped hang some planets and he would correct me if I put it in the wrong spot. Some may think it was not the best thing to be doing during such a meeting. But hey, I was happy that he sat with us the entire time without having to "take a break". Thank goodness that cell phones have cameras now. Not the best pictures and they overlap some but I had to capture the impromptu project. Thanks Nick for taking the pics.

Left: Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter
Center: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto
Right: Uranus, Neptune, Pluto/Kuiper belt, Stars

Autism Awareness Month

So I have so many things I want to blog about but I guess this one will trump the others for the time being. Hopefully a blog of some spring break activities will come...if I can make the time.

So I posted several things on Facebook today which makes some of this duplication. A year ago we knew relatively little about Autism. We knew some and weren't totally unaware. However it really wasn't where we expected Sam to fit in. Honestly we had observed some odd behavior for a long time. He had even been observed at the daycare to try and figure out why he had biting issues. The only thing that came of it was that he loved using his entire body for play, would lay his body over a table for things, etc. If I knew then what I knew now about sensory issues! I remember pulling out the play dough one day, having to leave the kitchen for a minute and coming back to find he had another full-body experience with it. Play dough was everywhere, in the clothes hair, floor and anywhere it could stick. WOW I wasn't going to try that again!

Finally in Kindergarten his teacher knew he would benefit from Occupational Therapy. Yeah, someone who wanted to pursue what she observed rather than brushing it off. Now a year later we still have plenty to learn but feel like we have such a better picture of autism. We understand Sam better and even after 19 years of marriage, I'm beginning to find validity in many things that explain behavior I have long ago accepted in Nick. I'm convinced that if he were put through the battery of evaluations that he would be on the spectrum.

April is Autism Awareness Month. I feel motivated to share in part what we have learned. Autism Speaks hosts Autism Awareness day on April 2nd. There are many groups who bring awareness to autism. Its hard for me to comprehend the estimated statistic that one in 110 children are on the autism spectrum. The question in my mind is, have we simply gotten better at recognizing it or is there really an increase in rate of occurrence?

I decided that I don't have enough filling my time (that is a joke) and that it would be fun to post a tidbit about autism daily on Facebook. Not sure I will go so far as to post daily on the blog. However I will post the notes I'm including on Facebook with resources we have found to be helpful. That will come in a later blog. Below I have included just a few of the many symbols people have chosen to represent autism or efforts to increase awareness or promote research. I hope you will learn something about autism this month that you didn't know before. I learn things all the time that are fascinating.