Puzzle Pieces Are Conversation Starters

I once started a blog post with “You may be an autism parent if”. It was a fun article and well received by my readers. One of my statements was: “You may be an autism parent if you have tee shirts and jewelry with puzzle pieces on them and your car sports an autism awareness bumper sticker”.  It’s true that over the years I have acquired several tee shirts that declare myself a part of the autism community. My favorite necklace has a puzzle piece charm and my son’s initial on it. Why do I do it? Why do I like to wear clothing and jewelry that identify me as someone whose life is touched by autism?   

When I walk out of my home wearing clothing or carrying a tote embellished with the Autism Speaks’ “light it up blue” slogan, I never know what kind of interactions might be initiated because of it. Likewise, when my keys are swinging from an autism awareness keychain, or I’m wearing a puzzle piece around my neck, I am sometimes stopped and asked about autism.

You should try it and see what kinds of people you meet! 

As you stop to get your coffee, a barista might ask you what “light it up blue” means, giving you the opportunity to talk to him or her about autism. We cannot have acceptance without awareness, and your shirt may help you to spread some awareness.

At the grocery store, a clerk may notice your tote and tell you her nephew was recently diagnosed with autism and her family is looking for services. You may be able to give her an idea about where to look or who to contact. All because of a tote bag with a puzzle piece on it.

In the waiting room of a doctors’ office, you could sit down across from the parent of a young child with autism. He comments on your light it up blue sweatshirt and tells you their story. You might compare services and be able to give him the name of the doctor you like best in the area and the therapies you’ve found successful with your child. And you might learn something from him that you’d like to research for future reference yourself. Who knew that sweatshirt you bought would make a difference for you or for anyone else?

You may hand your keys to a mechanic the next time your oil needs changed. He will look down at the keychain and notice the puzzle pieces dangling there. He could ask you if you have a loved one with autism. He may ask if you’ve got a favorite book about autism that you could recommend. All because you spent a few dollars on a keychain and spread some awareness.

You may sit down next to a young mother tomorrow in a public place. She has many questions about her young son who is showing signs of a developmental delay, but she’s been afraid to seek answers. She could notice the puzzle piece charm dangling from your necklace and ask you if you know someone with autism. By sharing your story, the young mother will be encouraged.

There may be ripple effects from using autism awareness merchandise that you never even know about. The next time you walk out the door, wear something that identifies you as a part of the autism community. Let others know that you love someone with autism and you’re willing to talk about it. Don't have a shirt, a tote, or a keyring? Take a look here: Shop Autism Speaks

This is my second in a series of blog posts for the Autism Speaks Store. My first can be found here: "If you give a mom an Autism Speaks gift card"

Autism parents have a lot in common

My son Tate is fifteen. Tate has autism. He was about two and a half years old when he was diagnosed. Parenting a child with autism is challenging at times, but also very rewarding. We have had a lot of interesting experiences over the years and gotten to know a lot of others who are also a part of the autism community. So many of our stories and experiences are similar. I recently decided to illustrate some of the most common and repeated scenarios I have heard about from others in the autism community and/or experienced myself. They are in no particular order.

If you can relate let me know. I will be adding to these so tell me what kinds of things happen to you the most: annoying things, rewarding things, kindnesses shown, and the ways you’ve had to educate others. I would love to hear from you. Contact me on my Facebook Page called Quirks and Chaos. The comments are temporarily turned off here.

We are all in this together!  -Lisa

You might also like this post: You may be an autism parent if...

The Air Freshener Incident

I normally go into Walmart on my own, solo, unaccompanied, without kids, unattached, unaided and alone (but not lonely), intentionally unassisted, in order to do my shopping without incident. “What kind of incident?” you ask. That’s right. Not all of you have spent time with my Sydney.

Sydney is truly a unique young lady who marches to the beat of her own drum. Sydney has no filter. If she thinks it, she says it. If she sees it, she touches it. If she likes it, she needs to own it. In a nutshell, there is rarely a dull moment when Sydney is around. She keeps things interesting. 

Sometimes when I take Sydney places, “things” happen. Things happen that should only happen in sitcoms to fictional families, or in silly children’s books, never in reality. The author Barbara Parks wrote a series of books about a little girl named Junie B Jones that my older kids and I enjoyed very much. Sometimes I wonder if Junie B came to life, and is living in my home. Only I call her Sydney P.  

My kids were out of school today for a teacher workday. And I needed a few things from Walmart. Against my better judgment, and because my list was very short, I took Sydney with me into Walmart. Milk is one of those things that cannot wait and we were out. So I threw caution to the wind, and drove to Walmart. I rationalized that Sydney and I could get in and out of the store quickly and I gave her a pep talk in the car before we entered the store. I was determined there would be no drama, and I would not give Sydney the opportunity to disrupt my mission.

Three minutes in, as we turned down an aisle to grab a cleaning product on my list, Sydney caught sight of the air fresheners. She became hyper-focused on those and stopped to look at them, hands on hips.

Knowing that she had to talk fast, because I was not slowing down, she loudly told me that we had an urgent need in our home for an air freshener. I looked back over my shoulder and told her to catch up, and that air fresheners were not on my list today.

Now, Sydney does not speak quietly, nor does she understand the concept of being discrete. We were not alone in the aisle, and Sydney’s claim that our home was in need of an air freshener drew the attention of at least four people. In order to make her case, and guarantee that an air freshener make it into our cart, Sydney began to describe the smell that she was sure enveloped our home. The people in the aisle all looked at me. They were not even pretending to look at anything on the shelves.

I asked Sydney again to move away from the air fresheners, assuring her (mostly for the benefit of the people listening) that we do not have the unseemly odors in our home that she was describing. But Sydney did not take a step. Instead she bent down to examine the different fragrances more closely. I walked back toward her and quietly told her that we needed to move on.

“Mom. Why are you whispering?” she said. “We need to talk about the smell I keep smelling in my room! Last night I couldn’t even sleep. It was so awful. I’m pretty sure an air freshener would really help.”

It just so happens that I go into Sydney’s room several times each day. I had been in her room that very morning to put away laundry. There was no odor. There is no odor. And I told her as much while she was bent down inspecting all the Glade, Renuzit, and Febreeze containers. She wasn’t listening, but I could see out of my peripheral vision that everyone else in the aisle was leaning in and had heard it all. And the crowd had grown slightly. I briefly wondered if one of those folks might even offer to buy an air freshener for the poor little girl whose mom had her living in a room with a stench.

“Mom. Do you know how these things work? I don’t even see how you open them. Do you have to take all the paper off to smell them?”

I tried again. “Sydney. There is NO smell in your room. We don’t need an air freshener.”

So, she changed tactics. “Mom. You know that smell when we make a fire outside to roast hotdogs and the wood is burning? I smell THAT smell in my room sometimes too.”

And as one more person walked into the congested aisle, I reached down and picked up an air freshener, tossed it into the cart, and hurried away, chin held high.

That air freshener is on Sydney’s dresser this evening and she comes into the living room every few minutes to tell me how wonderful her room smells.

If only those folks at Walmart could hear THAT.

If only I had waited and gone to Walmart tomorrow. We could have lived without milk for twenty-four hours. 

If this story made you giggle and you want more be sure and find us on Facebook at Quirks and Chaos. 

The above is just one of hundreds of stories I could tell. Here are two I have illustrated:

   

If you liked this post, you might like to read another. Saturday morning with Sydney

SaveSave
SaveSave

Sometimes Moms Like to Remember: Shopping Trips

It has occurred to me a few times lately upon seeing large families out doing their shopping, what I must have looked like when I took five, six or seven kids with me to a store.  There were curious stares and often comments like, “Are they all yours?” and “You certainly have your hands full.”  Coming from a fairly large family myself (I am one of six children), and having planned to have at least five or six children, our “crowd” just did not look that large to me.  They were spaced about two to three years apart and each baby was welcomed whole-heartedly. I really loved being surrounded by my kids. So sometimes when I see a young mother pushing a cart with a baby seat and a toddler in the cart and two or three (or more) children trailing along behind, I get a little nostalgic. Sometimes a mom likes to remember...

These days when I go to buy groceries, I do not have a shopping cart full of diapers, baby food, animal crackers, or jars of peanut butter or jelly.  I don’t have to make dozens of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each week anymore. We used to go through a jar of grape jam every week.  And that reminds me: One of my favorite stories to tell is about a time when my second child was four or five years old.  It was a Thursday.  I know that because I always did my grocery shopping on Thursday mornings back then. We were at the grocery store and she loved to “help.” The truth is I probably needed her help because I was most likely VERY pregnant, making it hard to bend over, or pushing a cart with one hand and holding a baby with the other.  My babies never made it all the way through a shopping trip without wailing to be held and who can think straight with a hysterical baby right in front of their face?  Not me. So, I became very good at pushing a cart with one hand.  Back to that Thursday morning, so long ago… grape jam still came in glass jars and it was on the bottom shelf. My little helper followed my directions and picked up a jar of jam but dropped it on that very hard floor. The result was a purple, sticky mess with lots of glass pieces scattered around it. I found a clerk who made the customary announcement, “Cleanup on aisle five.” Soon, a young man with a broom and a mop came to the rescue.  I apologized profusely and he was very forgiving.  Fast forward to one week later.  My little darling again picked up a jar of jam, and that slippery jar ended up just like the one from the Thursday before. So, I found a clerk, heard the intercom call for a cleanup on aisle five, and we waited on the nice young man with the broom and the mop.  I was embarrassed and very apologetic as I had been the week before.  The man looked at the mess then looked at me. He spoke two sentences to me. He said, “Could you start coming in on Tuesdays?  That’s my day off.” It wasn’t long after that and jam started coming in plastic containers.  And now you know the reason for that! Ha. Sometimes a mother has to laugh off life's embarrassing little moments.

I have a lot of funny shopping stories.  Once, when we got to our shopping destination, I had a toddler fall out of the van. Head first.  I had an infant in a car seat balanced on my left hip and only one hand free and a split second to prevent my child from landing in the parking lot on her face.  I grabbed her by the ankle as she tumbled out and I jerked up.  And there I stood… with a baby seat on my left hip and a little girl (in a dress) dangling upside down from my right hand above a hot parking lot. THAT was a hard situation to resolve.  Sometimes a mom really does need more than two hands. 

Once Isaac was born, we almost never made it through a trip to any store without at least one person stopping us to ooh and aah over his beautiful eyes. Isaac has light blue eyes with a dark blue ring around the outside. Women often wanted to admire his eyes.  (They still do.) Around age three, Isaac had taken all of it he could handle. If a lady approached him he’d hide his face. If someone commented on his eyes, he would cry. Those poor ladies felt so badly for terrorizing a preschooler! I considered putting a paper bag over the kid’s head to hide those gorgeous eyes for a few years there. Sometimes mothers have to take drastic measures.

One of the stories I have told the most over the years is about the time my oldest son had a major meltdown in a fabric store. He was about four or five and at the time wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. He had a gun belt, a toy rifle, a cowboy hat, and a spring horse he called, “Trigger.”  He loved to watch “Davy Crocket” and other movies in which the hero fought savages. We live near a town that is both the home of a state university and a small Indian University. The dramatic meltdown occurred when we were in a fabric store and a couple of men walked by. The men were very tan with brown eyes and long black hair, obviously Native American. My boy became hysterical, screaming, and scrambling to hide behind me.  He was shrieking, “Hide! They will kill us! They will get their bows and arrows and kill us!”  Luckily, the men found it amusing and were not offended as I offered them my excuses and regrets. Being a mother is sometimes very humbling. 

I normally blog about autism and this post would not be complete without memories of shopping with a young Tate. When Tate was around eighteen months old he had some very unusual behaviors. I did not yet know that these behaviors meant there was an autism diagnosis in his future. I only knew that he was unique and very sensitive to many things that he should have been able to tolerate and he was very aware of some things that he should not have known at all. It was one of the most curious things I had ever experienced but when we shopped we could NOT walk down the aisle that contained cookies or we paid for it. Keep in mind he was the sixth child. I had experienced tantrums in stores before. I had experienced scared children before. I had experienced children who were in pain before. If Tate caught sight of a package of cookies or if he HEARD the word cookie then he went from docile to inconsolable and frantic. There was no way around it.  I tried my best to do my shopping without Tate along for quite a while.  It is very hard to avoid all signs of cookies when you are in a grocery store.  Another thing Tate did in the stores began about age two.  He could “read” the product names by singing their jingles to me or quoting their commercial to me as we wandered through the store.  When we saw the Charmin toilet tissue he would say, “Less is more.”  When we walked past the cereals he rattled off jingles and advertising slogans one after another. I could hold up a tub of margarine and he could tell me if it was Blue Bonnet or Parkay. He was not exactly reading but he had all the products matched to their commercials. He could memorize commercials, picture books, songs, or movie dialogue after just hearing it a couple of times IF he was interested in it.  He still can but only IF it is something that appeals to him.  He cannot/will not memorize math facts quickly, the name of states, or anything useful that we would like for him to retain.  It is maddening the way his brain works! Mothers sometimes have to accept what they cannot change.

I have so many precious memories of my little ones. My kids continue to bring me joy as they grow but I will always miss them as babies too.  Things were often a blur when I had so many little ones all at once but I am able to remember many of the special things they did and I tried to write some of them down in their baby books too.  I have many more memories to share in the future. If you are a mother, jot down the embarrassing moments, the things that make you smile and the things that are unique about your child.  Someday you will be very glad you did it because sometimes Moms like to remember.