Ten random things that you may not know about me:

Number One:  I have written Bible class material that is being used in Churches of Christ all over the nation and in some foreign countries.  I’ve also been told some homeschoolers are using it.  I enjoy writing and wish I had a lot more time to commit to it.  I don’t get paid to do it but it helps me to feel like I am obeying the great commission in a small way.  I especially like writing for preschoolers but have written several series for elementary school ages.  The material is published by Hanna Publications and is all reproducible and inexpensive.  

Number Two: Before I knew Tate had autism, I was afraid of people with disabilities.  I would never have approached a person with a disability in hopes of having a conversation.  I would have walked out of my way to avoid a person with a disability.  Now, I often go out of my way to have interactions with people who have disabilities.  This is one of the reasons I believe God blessed me with Tate.  I had lived most of my life as a selfish person and I needed to change a lot of things. 

Number Three: I cannot recognize the faces of new people I meet until I have seen them several times.  Also, when I see people out of the environment that I usually see them in, I have a very hard time placing them.  Being a preacher’s wife, I meet a lot of new people so this handicap is huge.  I cringe at the thought of how many people I have snubbed over the years, especially the ones that visited our congregation one week and saw me in the grocery store the next.  It would seem to the ones that I have accidentally snubbed that I am a very rude person.  This inability to recognize people is very frustrating to me and to Shawn.  He often has to explain to me who someone is and how I should know them.  I have tried very hard to memorize a face when I meet a new person but I just cannot do it.  I can sometimes remember a person after only one meeting IF they have something very unusual about themselves (like their size, a different kind of haircut, a tattoo….)  So many people look just alike to me.  I can sometimes remember a person by their voice before I can recognize their face.  I know a lot of people claim to be "bad with faces" but the problem I have is much more than that.  Tate struggles with this also and I know it is a characteristic of autism.  I have several characteristics of autism, although not enough to have an ASD diagnosis.  Relatives of those with autism, often have many of the characteristics of autism.  

Number Four:  I am a visual thinker.  I think in pictures.  One of the first books I ever read about autism was written by Temple Grandin, and is called “Thinking In Pictures.”  Temple is an adult with autism.  She thinks in pictures and likens her thought process to a roll-o-dex or flashes of videotape.  I was reading her book and had an “ah ha moment” when I turned to Shawn and told him I thought everyone thought “in pictures.”  He had no idea what I was talking about.  I have asked many people since then.  Apparently, few people think in pictures.  Because I am a visual thinker and think it pictures, it is doubly hard for me to understand why I do NOT recognize people’s faces until I have seen them several times. 

Number Five:  I have trouble following directions unless they are written down.  This is related to being a visual thinker.  When someone is giving me multi-stepped directions, I stop listening after the first two steps because I know I won’t retain any of it at all if I try.  I figure if I tune out everything after the first couple of steps, then I will retain the first two steps at least, and get two steps closer to the goal before I have to ask for directions again.  I have a son with Attention Deficit Disorder and this is how he has to operate.  My poor kids didn’t stand a chance with genes like mine.  Ha!  

Number Six:  I love my kids and I love spending time with my kids, so-much-so that it is hard for me to let them go to school eight hours a day, nine months of the year.  THAT, you may already know.  THIS is what I found remarkable:  I did not have any problems letting my children leave home for college.  I practically celebrated their departure.  Well, until this past fall, when I had three leave at the same time and one hadn’t even been home for more than a few days all summer.

Number Seven: The hardest role I’ve ever played is not daughter, sister, wife, employee, friend, mother, or even preacher’s wife.  The hardest role I’ve ever played is that of a daughter-in-law.  No one could ask for a better mother-in-law and example than I have but being a daughter-in-law and sharing the same man with another woman has been a super-challenging thing for me.  I’m really, really bad at it.  REALLY bad at it.  I cannot think of anything I have ever prayed as much about, worked harder to get better at, or worried as much over.  So… I always figured that being a mother-in-law would be equally as challenging for me.  It is not.  It is very easy for me to share my son with his wife and I’ve come to love my daughter-in-law like she is my own daughter.  My son being gone for holidays does not make me the slightest bit jealous or sad.  I’m just happy about who he is with.  Period.  I did not think it would be this easy.

Number Eight:  Almost every time I use a sharp knife I injure myself so I don’t keep any sharp knives in the house.  People are always telling me that a dull knife is more dangerous, but I have never cut myself with a dull knife.  No one else likes my knives but I sure do!

Number Nine:  It is totally out of character for me to watch and enjoy scary movies, read scary books, or listen to scary stories.  However, my favorite show on television right now is “The Walking Dead.”  I wish there was a new episode on every night of the week.  I just love it and none of my family can believe it.  It is so unlike me.  Don’t worry.  I am very careful to make sure my little ones do not see it.

Number Ten:  I set a goal when I was about eight years old to someday own a pool.  My parents did not allow us to participate in public swimming due to modesty issues. We have raised our children with the same rules.  The only time I was ever able to swim was at Bible camp where girls and boys swam separately.  Two summers ago we bought a thirty-foot, aboveground pool.  Of all the physical possessions (material blessings) I have ever been able to enjoy, the pool is probably number one on my list.  I even enjoy cleaning it! 

It's everywhere. Do you recognize it?

Have you ever noticed when you buy a new car, suddenly you see that particular model and make all over the road?  Or, when you are thinking about getting a particular breed of dog, that breed is on leashes all over town?  It isn’t because people have suddenly gone out and gotten the same thing you are interested in, but it is because you are more “in-tune” to that particular thing and just noticing it more.  This is what happened to me when Tate was diagnosed with autism, and then again when I learned about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.  I didn’t even know what autism or FAS were, really. Then suddenly, I was surrounded by people on the autism spectrum and by people whose mothers (in my mind) had to have consumed alcohol while pregnant.  I saw, and continue to see, the quirks that are stereotypic of autism and FAS, all around me.  I can recall people from my childhood who had many of the same issues Tate has.  Children and adults I have known, in the past and present, are always under my scrutiny.  Half the world seems to have autism, or at least, some of the characteristics, and the other half have been affected by alcohol or drugs in the womb.  Of course I am exaggerating, but I do see it almost everywhere I go.  It is because I am so aware of all the quirks Tate and Sydney have, and for now, it is what I am most interested in.  Autism and FAS are my passion right now as I try to help these two precious children that have been entrusted to me. 

Think back to your school years.  Do you remember the awkward kid(s) who just didn’t fit in anywhere?  They didn’t know how to start a conversation.  They probably didn’t dress stylishly and maybe didn’t even comb their hair.  They might have been much more comfortable with adults than peers.  How about the kid who ALWAYS wanted to talk about “Star Wars” and nothing else?  You probably knew a kid with autism, aspergers, or at least some of the characteristics.

Shawn and I ate at a restaurant a couple weeks ago.  Sitting at a table next to us was an elderly couple with their two grown sons.  Both sons had autism.  Autism is easy for me to recognize now.  I saw the stereotypic stimming, the limited eye-contact, the poor social skills, and neither of the men seemed to feel the need to wipe their chins.  Their mother made sure the chins were wiped.  Tate wasn’t with us that night.  I wondered if the mother of those two boys would have looked over at our table and saw the same things in my son I was seeing in hers.  I wanted to go over to their table, pull up a chair and introduce myself, ask her some questions about her experiences, and meet another mother who could understand some of my feelings and experiences.

I found, getting a diagnosis of autism for my child was like becoming a member of a club, “the autism community,” some people call it.  We all have things in common.  We talk about autism (A LOT) and we are always comparing notes, looking for ways to help our kids be successful.  Some of the best friends I have, I have met through Tate and his therapies.  If I were asked to think of any benefits of having my child diagnosed with autism, I would have to start naming people.  I have been inspired, humbled, educated, and encouraged by many of the people we have met along the way; some of whom have had a much harder road to tread than I.

Years ago, when I first heard about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) I was a young mother of several typically developing children.  I believe I first heard about ADHD on a news program.  My children were well behaved and they responded well to discipline.  It is all I knew.  I had typically developing children.  I thought ADHD was a label being put on children to excuse their parents for never teaching them how to behave.  I believed there were a few of them with legitimate issues of some kind, but I just could not understand why the majority of these kids were not able to behave like typically developing children did.  I’m embarrassed that I ever had that opinion.  Not all these children have the same reason for their inability to sit still and concentrate and learn.  I don’t know if doctors are blaming ADHD on genetics or toxins or alien abductions (haha) but I have seen a lot of kids with ADHD since I began volunteering at the grade schools in the past few years.  Most of them are sweet kids, with great parents, and they try really hard to behave.  They just cannot sit still and they cannot stay focused on the tasks at hand.  Sydney’s ADHD probably came from her FAS, but not all kids with ADHD were exposed to any drugs or alcohol in the womb.   

I also used to think the world was over-medicated.  Now, I believe medication is a tool that should be used.  I’ve seen so many children the past few years in public school that would probably benefit from a prescription like Sydney’s.  She does not have the ability to sit and focus and she could not learn until she began medication.  Now she can sit and focus and learn.  The medication cannot cure her or even boost her IQ, but it can help her to focus long enough to learn what she can.  Kids like Sydney are not uneducable.  They just need help.  There is potential that cannot be tapped without the help of medications.

In this post and others, I have talked about Tate’s diagnosis and the doctors we saw initially.  The way autism is diagnosed is changing.  The labels given will soon be different.  In recent years a doctor gave a person a diagnosis of autism, aspergers syndrome, or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (pdd-nos).  A person with aspergers syndrome usually has social deficits and narrow interests, but above-average intelligence. A person with aspergers would not have had a language delay, while a person diagnosed with autism would have had a language delay or even be non-verbal, in addition to their other symptoms.  The diagnosis of pdd-nos is given when the doctor sees many of the symptoms of autism, but not enough to have the diagnosis of autism.  The doctor who diagnosed Tate on the spectrum, when Tate was two and a half, gave him the diagnosis of pdd-nos.  He called it a “high functioning autism.”  Because Tate had a large vocabulary and communicated well for a while and then regressed and lost his ability to communicate, the doctor also said Tate had “regressive autism.”  Because autism spectrum disorders all fall under a huge umbrella, there are categories and subcategories a person can be diagnosed with.  That will soon all be done away with.  I have been reading, beginning in May, 2013, the diagnosis of aspergers and pdd-nos will no longer be given.  To receive a diagnosis on the autism spectrum a person will now have to have a communication delay, and exhibit every other symptom of autism, thus doing away with the asperger diagnosis and pdd-nos.  A person on the spectrum will be autism level one, two or three.  Level one is a person who needs some support, level two will be a person who needs substantial support, and level three will be a person who requires very substantial support.  I believe Tate will be considered level two.  It will be interesting to see how this new way of diagnosing children will affect the help a child receives in school.  The label given to Tate does not change the amount of help he needs or who he is.  Autism spectrum disorder, Level 2 autism, pdd-nos, or special needs; the label is hardly important.  He’s my little boy and he needs help to learn and navigate throughout his day.