7.31.2014

Autism, Staycations, Patience, and Decompression

Image description: a beige-skinned
boy with brown hair, seen from behind,
at a distance, swimming in a pool
surrounded by a beige railing & deck
with trees and blue sky behind and above
Leo and I have had a lot of together time this week. It's a bit of a staycation. The rest of our immediate family is in Canada, ziplining over 500 ft chasms and watching firework festivals. My Dude and I stayed here because it's the last week of his summer school, and One Does Not Simply Miss ESY. Though we feel the absence of the rest of our crew, I'm exhausted and grateful for the break. I think Leo also appreciates this relative languidity.

We've spent most of our time chilling and appreciating the ease of being a duo. When Leo had a short sharp case of the barfs two days ago, we didn't have to worry about interrupting his sisters' or dad's schedule -- he stayed home from summer school, took up residence on the couch, and we watched his favorite videos as well as some Key & Peele. He asked to go swimming once he felt better, and once I was sure his liquid projectile phase was over, we honored his request to go out for lassis, naan, & saag paneer. He was pleased.

The two of us aren't just fans of downtime and decompressing -- we both need it, Leo more so. As autistic autism parent S.R. Salas writes,
"At some point each of us needs a break from something. For many Autistic people the need for breaks is more frequent and tends to last longer. What would be considered an uneventful day to non-Autistic people: going to school, going to work or whatever the daily routine is, can be extremely exhausting for us."

Non-distracted together time also makes it easier to let Leo do things at his own pace, without hurrying him. To wait and see what he will do, rather than rushing him or even prompting him (our boy does love and ask to be prompted; he is a social dude after all, and feeding us scripts for what he wants us to tell him is a stress-free, unpredictability-free way to converse with his people). I am grateful for this gift of pressure-free patience. It's important, as M.O. Kelter of Invisible Strings relates:
Too often with autism, the focus is placed on one question: ‘How do we make progress?’ And when the time is right, that can be okay…but it can also put an overwhelming amount of pressure on the autistic. Sometimes, the better question is, ‘What does this kid need?’ Sometimes, you gotta set the framework aside for a bit, protect that little heart. That’s always what you go back to.

Leo needs patience to make progress. Repetition, space, and patience. He needs our faith that he's paying attention. And our faith in the utility of repeated scripts, prompting, and demonstrations until he doesn't need them any more -- and, increasingly, he's suddenly doing the damn actions on his own. The other night I wasn't fast enough with his requested prompt to hand him the shampoo so he could wash his hair, so he just complete his entire shower routine -- including rinsing and toweling -- independently. He'd practiced enough. He knew what to do, he just hadn't let himself string it all together before then. It was time. He was amazing.

So, if you're a parent of an autistic child who loves being prompted or uses scripts, do your best to invest in patience. You never know when the skills being taught or modeled are going to root. Even if they never do, if the repetition and the prompting are soothing ends in themselves, the two of you have had that time together, and you're making your kid happy. If your kid is like Leo, that is. 

As long as I'm in an advice-giving mood, here's what I told Washington Post staff writer Mari-Jane Williams yesterday, when she asked for "advice for parents of children just diagnosed with autism, from those who’ve been there." I hope that positivity-oriented autism articles like this only become more common:
I wish — more than anything — I’d tried harder to understand my son instead of trying to ‘fix’ him. He was the same sweet, capable boy both before and after his autism diagnosis; the only change was my awareness of his needs. And he needs me to love him, respect him and champion him. He needs me to make sure he has time to play. He needs me to fight for appropriate communication and learning resources. He needs me to get him supports to navigate an autism-unfriendly world. Understanding instead of fighting Leo’s autism makes us both much happier people.
I'm still very tired from being rather inept when it comes to managing/living a busy life that sometimes includes intense conferencing, so I hope these thoughts makes sense. Love and listen to and have patience with your autistic kids and give them the space they need, essentially.

Additional input welcome.

I Like Smart Smut And I Cannot Lie

I do love intelligent smut. A smart smutty novel is one of my favorite ways to decompress (and mental decompressing is key right now, after the wonderful whirlwind that was BlogHer14).

Unfortunately, good smut can be hard to find. The trashy novels in my grandmother's basement blew my naive teenage mind, but in hindsight were indistinguishable Olden Tymes ravishment fantasies (a.k.a. rose-tinted rape), combined with breathless and statistically improbable odes to schlongs of unusual size.

Ew to that. Adult me wants well-written smut, ideally of a fantasy, sci-fi, or historical bent; with fascinating plots, populated by fascinating characters getting into fascinating situations -- and also having fascinating sex. And it needs to be sexy sex. Octavia Butler is a genius and probably my favorite storyteller, but her worlds are bleak, and that includes the sex.

So who does intelligent sexy sex, and does it right? 

At the moment, my favorite smart smut writer is Lia Silver, author of the Werewolf Marines ebook series. Its setting is contemporary, but, hey, werewolves. The writing is as compelling and streamlined as Ms. Butler's -- the first book, Laura's Wolf, even evokes Clay's Ark -- but Silver's sexy sex is sexy indeed. Even when it's condom-y sexy sex. I know! But yes. Laura's Wolf gets bonus points for its straight take on sensory issues and PTSD (the author is a therapist specializing in PTSD). Here's a summary from the Amazon page:
"Roy never wanted to be anything but a Marine. But on his last tour of duty, he was bitten by a werewolf. Next thing he knew, he was locked up in a secret underground laboratory. Despite the agony caused by his newly enhanced senses, he managed to escape his captors. Unable to return to the Marines, his entire life shattered, he hid out in the woods of Yosemite."
  

Though I am leery of overwrought alternative historical fantasy worlds, Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series is skillfully constructed and too much fun. If you appreciate quality smut as much as I do, and you also happen to be a geographile and Sherlock Holmes fan, you'll find volumes of rewarding distraction in the adventures of a beautiful, brilliant submissive living by her well-trained wits in a reimagined medieval France -- in which sex is essentially a sacrament. Ms. Carey is also a skilled namer. You wouldn't think that matters in the context of this review, but it does -- this is a new world with new characters and new place names and new gods, and few things jar me out of an author's world faster than unskilled character and place naming.


I reviewed Jennifer Ashley's The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie two years ago, and gave it kudos for featuring "An autistic character portrayed as not just brilliant but totally hot -- and in need of acceptance, not conformity (the word 'autistic' is not used as the Victorian time frame predates the label)." I'd never before seen the perennial "he just needs the right woman" theme incorporate autism acceptance -- woot to that. And who doesn't love a 19th century UK-Paris-set tale? Recommended.


And now, lucky us, Ms. Silver released a second Werewolf Marines book, Prisoner. Amazon summary:
"Echo was born when a secret laboratory tried to genetically engineer the perfect assassin. Two clones survived: Echo, the success, and Charlie, the failure. Stronger and faster than any normal human, Echo knows no life but killing, and has never loved or been loved by anyone but her frail sister. But that's about to change..."

I've not read Prisoner yet -- I've squirreled it away, to binge on during this upcoming weekend's flight to (speaking of travel and fantasy) Oaxaca. Where I am going with just my husband, to celebrate a rare alignment of our kids' sleepaway camps significant wedding anniversary. And I could draw some parallels between that trip and this post's theme, but I think you got that part already.

These four books are examples of what I think good, smart smut is. Feel free to suggest your own favorites. The lurkers will be grateful, as will I.

7.25.2014

Self-Pity Is for Suckers: My BlogHer14 10x10 Project Talk

Image description: Red-headed dork holding papers,
wearing a dress, speaking. In front of blue & purple BG.
Photo credit: Marla/@DvinMsM
This is the prepared text from my BlogHer 10x10 speech. Which went well, I think. I did go off script a bit but this is the core. 

Update: For extra punch, see the official LiveBlog of the entire opening keynote, and Liz Ditz's enhanced Storify version of my talk.


Hi. I’m Shannon, I’ve been blogging since 2003 at Squidalicious.com, since 2009 as a BlogHer Contributing editor, and since 2010 as an editor and contributor at Thinking Person’s Guide to autism. I’ve got three kids, they’re cute, all that.

My middle child, Leo, is 13, and has always been my dude. He's sassy, handsome, and still a snuggler, lucky me.

In 2003, when Leo was two, he was diagnosed with autism. This despite his pediatrician assuring me my cheerful, bubbly, affectionate son couldn't be autistic because he was cheerful, bubbly, and affectionate.

Since that doctor was not helpful, I turned to the Internet. And … the Internet told me my life was now officially going to suck. That Leo’s life was going to suck. That autism was nothing but suck.

To process this suckage, I started blogging. I titled my blog "The Adventures of Leelo the Soon-to-Be-Not-Autistic-boy and His Potty-Mouthed Mom,” because the Internet said I should want Leo to be not autistic. I should want Leo to be normal, whatever that is.

I let the Internet break me and see my Leo as broken. I embraced self-pity. I let it define me. I was not alone; at the time there were plenty of other prominent autism parent voices in the Blogosphere who were floundering right along with me. You want to talk about a pity party? We live blogged it.

But then the Blogosphere shifted. I started encountering parents who rejected the pity and the suckage. Some of them got in my face and told me I was a jerk for embracing self-pity, that I wasn't helping anyone with my Woe Is Me gospel. I wasn't ready for that. I'll admit it -- I recoiled, petulantly. And I blogged about it.

And then my Blogosphere shifted again. I started hearing from people who told me I needed to reject self-pity so I could get to work, because Leo and I had a tough road ahead and no one else was going to help us. I went to Catholic school, so I am always ready to get behind anything that smacks of martyrdom -- I blogged about that, too.

Then the Blogosphere shifted, yet again – and I found the people Leo and I needed. I found the autistic bloggers, who love, support, and accept my son – whether or not I ever manage to wipe that self-pity out of my eyes and see Leo clearly as the fabulous & unique person he is, and not as a pile of deficits. The blogosphere connected me with autistic people, parents, and professionals who told me that seeing autism as suckage was seeing my son as suckage. That he deserved better than a mom who saw him as broken and as breaking her life. And that is what I blog about now.

I can’t deny that autism comes with some suckage. Autistic bloggers don't deny it, so I can't either. But the hardest things about autism are hardest for Leo. Please believe me when I tell you it’s a much bigger deal to be the person who can't speak than the mother of the person who can't speak. And anyhow, being able to speak is not the same as having something to say. Communication takes so many forms, all of them valuable. The Blogosphere taught me that, too.

Rejecting self-pity keeps me focused on Leo, keeps him in my sights as an awesome and deserving human being. Who has a mom who now tries to believe in herself as much as she believes in him. Who now knows self-pity is for suckers who haven't invoked the full power of the Blogosphere.

I’m not saying people don’t have hard times. They do. I have, you have. But, damn, is it so much easier to get through those rough patches when your blogging connects with people who get it, and who care. And that aspect of blogging – the life-changing power of our beautifully networked hearts and brains – has only grown stronger over the past 10 years. Blogging formats may have diversified, but blogging itself still matters, so much.

The funny thing about me being here, talking to you, at this event, is that I’m not great at most Good Blogger practices, like strategically generating traffic and engagement. I suck at commenting. I’d slam my head in a door before I’d let anyone drag me into a conversation about branding. I don’t know how to blog about any thing other than my sucker of a self and my three kids and my own little bubble of things that matter to me.

And yet. Through being myself, blogging my truth, and making organic, real connections – I’m a published author. I’ve co-edited three books, including Thinking Person’s Guide to Autism. I’ve never stopped learning, and I've tried to give back by helping to build an ever-growing online community of 87,000 autism parents, autistic people, and autism professionals who flock together and learn from each other, daily. I’ve given interviews and talks on autism, iPads, blogging, and vaccines for all kinds of national and international news outlets and organizations, I recently guest-lectured at UCLA, and -- alongside many people in this room -- I stormed Capitol Hill for the UN Foundation and Shot@Life in support of global vaccines. It’s all kind of odd, really.

But a decade of blogging made it possible for a dweeb like me to do all that. It made it possible to find my people again and again and again, to read your stories, to gleefully message for hours with friends I’ve never met IRL, and to knit IRL friendships of choice rather than of proximity. It helped me learn to ride the wild life I’m living, and not obsess over some imaginary life that only suckers dwell on.

Don't be that sucker. And know that the people in this room and in the Blogosphere won't let you.

----

And here's the story about the dress I wore during the talk. Last summer, when Iz and I were in Ghana, we were invited by our Ghanaian hosts to a family wedding. Which was a huge honor. However, we only had our goofy Travelsmithy-style wardrobe available. But our hosts said: NO WORRIES and had their unbelievably talented seamstress make us custom dresses -- in 24 hours. We wore them to the wonderful wedding. However mine only fit perfectly when I was standing -- when I sat down in my wedding seat and turned to greet a new friend, my cleavage made the zipper on the back of my dress explode. My host, generously and ingeniously, gave me her kente sash to wear over my shoulder and down my back so no one else could see the back of my industrial strength and therefore extremely hideous bra. And then we went home and the seamstress fixed my zipper. And now it is my favorite dress that I wear for good luck whenever I can.

7.17.2014

I'm BlogHer14 Bound. Are You?

The BlogHer14 conference is in one week, in fabulous downtown San Jose. I am speaking there. Twice! As you might have guessed by all those banners to the left. Are you coming to the conference? If not, here is the agenda and how to register*. Please come. Because I am freaking out a bit.

Old-timey camaraderie at BlogHer '06:
SJ & Laura & my natural hair color.
I am not freaking about speaking, not so much. I speak all over the place all the time (plus I spoke at BlogHer '08, BlogHer '10, & BlogHer '11). Speaking is monologuing and that is easy; small talk, & conversations with people with whom I am not already on a fart joke basis, is hard. And there are just not that many fart joke friends coming to BlogHer this year. Jen Myers, my long-suffering social crutch, had the nerve to go out and get an office job, damn her. Jenijen will be working her cute little butt off as a BlogHer staffer (as opposed to BlogHer 2006, where she worked her cute little butt off as a conference volunteer). Beloved SJ of I, Asshole? Also not coming. So if you are coming and you know me and you like fart jokes, please say so.

I am excited about next week's conference though. Because, ha ha ha ha, the funny BlogHer people have me and the very impressive Danah Boyd warming up the crowd for The Bloggess's conference opening keynote. (Danah & I are participating in the very cool 10x10 project.) The Bloggess shares extensive tone cues with SJ & I, Asshole, and Danah professionally groks networked teens like my Iz, so even if people throw rotten fruit at me, I will be on stage with cool people. Here is more info on that event:

Best-selling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened and blogger extraordinaire -- aka The Bloggess -- opens our anniversary conference with her special, and wildly successful, brand of off-the-wall humor, as she launches her second book, Furiously Happy.

10x10 Project: Danah Boyd and Shannon Des Roches Rosa look back at what the blogosphere built and look ahead to where we’re going, covering 10 years in 10 minutes.
Then I'm speaking again the next day, at the Special Needs Caregiving mini-con, along with Kristina Chew and Jen Lee Reeves. This will be three (!) hours of intra- and inter-communities communing, and I hope many different voices will be there so we can all learn a lot from each other. That might seem snarky, especially if you are imagining that sentence read in my typical speaking voice, but I am sincere. Hope to speak at, and awkwardly converse with, many many folks there.

The most exciting part of the conference doesn't involve me at all, though. I am talking about the Closing Keynote: Meet Us at the Intersection of Race, Gender, Feminism and the Internet, which echoes what may be my favorite BlogHer session of all time: 2008's Mirrors: Ours, the Media's, Our Cultures', and Our Kids'. The link between the two sessions? Unsurprisingly, the incomparable Kelly Wickham, AKA Mocha Momma. Here's what the closing keynote is all about, and who will be speaking:
Our hope is to host a conversation where we can be real, we can get uncomfortable, we can walk a mile in other women's shoes, and—most of all—we can walk away feeling like we know how to be better and do better. Understand more and speak up more. Together, we can extinguish the flame-war-ridden Web and be a part of the powerful and boundary-breaking Web. Are we all in?
Speakers:
  • Feminista Jones, BlogHer's own Sex and Relationships editor, who has been at the center of some raging Internet debates. 
  • Kristen Howerton, regularly raising her voice on the intersection of race and gender and faith at Rage Against the Minivan. 
  • Natalia Oberti Noguera, working for change within the power structure as founder of the Pipeline Fellowship. 
  • Patrice Lee, a conservative woman of color who immigrated to the U.S. as a child and represents an oft-unheard perspective.
Looking forward to seeing you at BlogHer '14, folks. Right? 

----

*So sorry, students; your passes are already sold out.

7.14.2014

The Poppy Seeds

California poppies. Growing in my pavers.
[Image Description: Bright orange-yellow flowers
punctuating a small green bush, with long green
seed pods poking out at intervals, all growing in the
seam between dark gray patio paver blocks]
If you're a "life's little pleasures" sort like me, then perhaps you'll get why one of my favorite early summer activities is gathering California poppy seeds. 

Our poppies reseed themselves all over our yard (and between our pavers) without our help, of course, but it's tremendous, satisfying fun to pluck the just-ready, slightly dried pods and have them pop open in one's hands (or in a mason jar) and feel/see a shower of the tiny black seeds, knowing each one is a potential color explosion for the following spring.

I gathered many, many of the pods this summer. I also discovered that if you take still-green, not-quite-ready pods and put them in one of those big mason jars with the slightly narrowed tops and leave them in the sun to dry, they will pop open on their own. More seeds for everyone!

The place I'd left my growing seed collection and soon-to-pop pods was on our back yard patio table. After a couple of weeks, the seeds in the jar were one inch deep. I always appreciate measurable progress, and was pleased.

And then, one day, I walked outside and found Leo dumping all the seeds on the table. He looked at my face and could tell by my expression that I was shocked and upset -- because he immediately started saying "It's not okay!" which, is essentially, him prompting me to say what he thinks I'm going to tell him when he's doing something I don't want him to do.

But before I actually did say anything, I looked at what he was doing: he was rolling the seeds between his hands and the table top. He had not just found but created a deeply enjoyable sensory experience. He had no idea what the poppy seeds meant to me -- I'm not chatty about things that are precious to me, not IRL -- and he certainly meant no harm. Our house and yard are filled with tactile balls and tactile bins and the like -- what made the poppy seeds, so handily placed on the table we all use all day long, different from any other of the sensory options littering our none-too-tidy house?

What made it different was my pained expression. Which he instantly recognized as related to his actions, even if he had no idea what he'd done to make me make such a face.

So I took a beat, told him he hadn't done anything wrong, and told him to enjoy himself. He regathered and had a fabulous stretch of fun, rolling and thumping and exploring the many sensory options the poppy seeds made possible, and which was not an experience he'd previously had.

Recovered poppy seeds
[Image Description: a circular collection of
tiny blackish-brown spherical seeds, in a
bright orange bowl, seen from above.]
And when he was done, and had left the area, I was able to go back and gather up plenty of poppy seeds off the table and the ground. As you can see. Not the half-cup's worth I'd had before, but it's also not as though California poppy seeds are difficult to find or expensive to purchase in our area. And maybe I'll invite Leo to help me gather next year's seeds.

One Empathetic Dude
[Image Description: Young man with beige
skin, & curly short brown hair,
looking up & laughing, as water pours down
the glass panes over & behind him.]
This could have been a disaster -- me yelling, Leo getting yelled at for something he couldn't possibly have predicted. But it wasn't. It turned out fine for both of us.

What made the difference was that I took the time to see things from Leo's perspective. This perspective-taking is, as I mentioned last week, so critical with our autistic kids and with autistic people and with others in general (though, admittedly, I am struggling with empathetic perspective taking re: Leo's teen sister Iz). It only took a moment and a deep breath to realize that Leo hadn't done anything wrong, to regroup and recognize that my son had no context to understand how I'd react to his actions. It only took a moment.

Please don't forget to take that moment.

7.10.2014

Join Me in Busting Vaccine-Autism Myths

Update 7/12: Here is the full transcript of my talk, with links to the Storify Twitter Chat and an audio recording of the entire event.

In less than 24 hours, I'll be the primary discussant in a Voices for Vaccines Conference Call and Twitter Chat about vaccines and autism. We'll be busting those vaccine-autism myths of course, but will also discuss how to be a vaccine advocate without inadvertently steamrolling autistic people like my son.

Parents should be afraid of deadly diseases, not autism. Autistic people have always been here (and they deserve to be vaccinated, too). But because of media-generated misinformation and outright hoaxes, some people still believe, wrongly, that autism is a vaccine injury -- despite landslides of evidence to the contrary. We need to fine-tune our advocacy efforts to reach such folks using facts, understanding, and compassion. I know those efforts can work, because they worked with me.

The conference call is at 9 AM Pacific/noon Eastern tomorrow, July 11th. It's free, but you do have to register. I'll be talking for about 25 minutes, then we'll do a Q&A. You can also join the conversation on Twitter at #VFVcall. Here's the event info:
To register for this conference call, you must email info@voicesforvaccines.org.

Like many people, you may not know much about autism, and may not know what to say to someone who wants to talk about autism in a conversation about immunization. You might worry that you will say something to offend or hurt autistic people and their families -- but you don't have to feel that way.

Please join us on Friday, July 11 at noon EDT (9 am Pacific) for a very important discussion with Shannon Des Roches Rosa. She will share what she has learned from autistic people and their families, including what they have taught her about neurodiversity and what they want you to know about autism.

Shannon Des Roches Rosa is an author and an outspoken advocate for neurodiversity who writes at her Squidalicious blog, is a contributing editor at BlogHer, and is a co-founder and senior editor of The Thinking Person's Guide to Autism. She has been published widely online and in print.
If you can't make the call, you can still educate yourself about autism and vaccines, with the articles on my Vaccines and Autism Pinterest page (and that should tell you how invested I am -- I made a damn Pinterest page).

Hope to hear from/chat with you tomorrow!

One healthy, fully vaccinated autistic dude.
[Image description: young man with beige skin and short curly brown hair,
wearing a turquoise tee and red shorts*, standing in front of
a low light gray cinder block wall upon which "life is good" is graffitied.]

7.09.2014

The Bloody Shirt

Routine FTW [Image Description:
Close up of young man with beige skin
& curly short brown hair, looking pensive.]
We just returned from a San Diego vacation -- essentially Camp Grandma. These visits are generally golden times, especially during the summer when we spend large parts of our days as ocean-dwelling dolphins. My mother kindly lets our crew invade her close-enough-to-the-beach-to-walk home several times each year, so we've established routines like daily morning walks to the three round trip miles Best Coffee in San Diego, where Leo's parents can get caffeinated and Leo himself can get a scone.

On our very first day, moments after this happy yellow shirt shot was taken, Leo tripped over a bump in the path. It was an accident, no one's fault. But Leo scraped his knee, elbow, and especially his palm -- the latter badly.

He was upset. And that, my friends, is a mild understatement. There was blood everywhere, and no matter how many times I cleaned his palm (I carry wipes and foaming wound cleanser everywhere, who doesn't), the blood kept coming for a good eternal five minutes. And kept covering his shirt as he kept wiping it off. And then covering my shirt as I tried to comfort him. We were halfway to the coffee shop.

And this is where I did my best to consider the matter from his perspective: He did not want to go back home, he wanted his damn scone. He did not want to change his shirt; he was so upset by his wounds that any additional stressors such as a clothing change (which I also always carry with us) were more than he could handle. Routine is routine, and disrupting routines is bad. So, once he felt able to continue on, we did. Bloody garb and all.

At the cafe, the (always kind and accepting) staff asked us if we needed anything besides caffeine and scones. We said we didn't, and they took us at our word, and we had a very pleasant breakfast. Then we walked home.

When we arrived back, my husband asked me how the walk was. I said it was rough, because it was. Leo and I were both sobbing, at the height of it.

Image description: Young man with beige skin and curly
brown hair, wearing a blue rashie shirt, sitting on the
beach and being enveloped by a crashing wave, happily.
But, upset as I was, Leo was more upset. And he was at my mercy, essentially, when it came to recognizing the actions that would de-escalate his stress (keeping his shirt on, sticking with the original café plan). I had to put my social apprehensions aside and accept that if the café-goers were dismayed because our clothes were bloody, so be it. Out of my control. My responsibility was to Leo. And it all worked out.

We spent that afternoon at the beach. Leo found the waves an excellent distraction from his injuries, though he did ask for kisses from time to time. And a friendly young sea lion paid us a visit, coming right out of the waves onto the beach as though to say "My dudes! How's it going?" The kids were delighted.

Image description: A young dark-brown
sea lion on a beach, next to brown rocks
and facing low ocean waves.
The rest of the day was uneventful. We had a lovely dinner of the grilled grunions Leo's dad and older sister had procured the night before, and I showed my kids how to pull the little fishies' heads and spines right out of their bodies, Predator-style. Mali was both intrigued and repulsed, and informed me that "You'd better hope a giant grunion never decides to eat you." Point taken.

Image description: A white bowl of long silvery-blue grunion
(fish), next to a white ramekin of yellow olive oil and a
green silicone basting brush.
Why am I telling you all this? Well, a friend who is both a Facebook Friend and an IRL Friend -- and who consequently gets to see all those friends-only FB photos of my kids doing all the mundane things I find mesmerizing but which would bore you into nodding off onto your device screen -- recently commented to me that I make autism seem like a lifestyle choice. She did not mean this as a slight.

But we do occasionally get comments on Thinking Person's Guide to Autism Facebook (which, honestly, is where I spend most of my online time these days, moderating the forum and posting curated material) accusing the moderators of making autism seem like it's all sunshine and lollipops. This is bullshit, of course. Autistic people would never claim their lives are without challenges, so I can't say that for Leo either. But even when times are rough, there are choices parents can make -- based on doing our best to understand what our autistic kids needs, as opposed to what we ourselves prefer -- that lead to much happier outcomes for everyone. And that's why I'm bothering telling you so.

And, since BlogHer 14 and its 10x10 project are coming up, I think it's important to note how I would have written about this incident ten years ago. I would have been sad for my poor sweet dude, but would also have hauled his little butt home, despite his protests, and forced him to change his clothes. And then I would have blogged about how hard it all was for me.

Learn from me, don't be me. At least, not 10-years-ago-me.