9/15/08

This weekend was the annual Duffey Adams 5K to benefit the Judson Center. This is a relatively small event with all proceeds going to the Judson center and their Autism Connection program. I ran very well at 25:30 for an average of 8:14 per mile. I was pretty proud of my self, even won a gold medal for my age group. Although I was happy with the results, the event was so much bigger than my running success, maybe that's why I could never seem to catch my breathe during the race, so many emotions. I think about all of the people at the event that deserved gold medals.

#1) Do you wanna know the difference between a mom with at typically developing child and a mom with a child on the spectrum? All you have to do is watch them. When most moms are in conversation with another adult and their child interrupts, the mom will either A) ignore the child until they are done with their conversation B) ask their child to wait patiently until mommy is done talking or C) yell at their child for interrupting. Do you want to know how a mother of a child with autism will respond? There was a huge inflatable set up at the race. Mind you it was pouring out but the kids were having fun playing and jumping around and sliding down the slide into the wet/muddy grass. Most adults were hovered under the outdoor tent area. Anyway, this one boy, maybe 10ish? kept running from the inflatable to his mom each time he went down the slide. He wanted to tell her about his experience, whether it be that he can' t put his shoes and socks on because his feet are wet and muddy or that he went down the slide really fast or to see if she could come play with him, he just wanted to share it all with her. I watched the interaction 3 separate times and each time the mom was talking to another adult. Do you want to know what that mom did when her son ran up to her? She stopped whatever she was doing and gave him all of her attention, gave him huge smiles and in fact said "I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" each time. I'm sure there was probably a time in her life when her son didn't' say much of anything and she longed for the day he'd tell her about the slide and his wet muddy feet. It was such a wonderful exchange.. she was so genuinely excited for her son and he was so excited to share his experience with her. What a mom, she deserves a good medal!

#2) Stephanie Harlan deserves a gold medal. I blog about her often but I just find her story so inspiring and she not only helped her son but being the Director of the Judson center, she helps hundreds of other families. Stephanie would not accept autism as a lifelong diagnosis for her son. People like Stephanie continue to give parents like me hope.

#3) My favorite gold medalists would have to be Justin and Sam. Justin is Stephanie's son and Sam is the son of another Judson Center employee. If you went to the rally, you would have met Justin, he helped with the Top 10 reasons to support autism insurance. Steve hadn't met Justin so before the race I asked Stephanie if Justin was there and she directed me to the swings where Justin was playing with Sam. Steve and I walked over to the swings and stood about 10 feet away from the boys, who were probably around 11 years old. Anyway, we just watched them, laugh, play, and talk! I could not help but start to cry and I hugged Steve and just cried for a few minutes. Why? Because those boys beat autism, they have recovered. They no longer fit an autism diagnosis. They are typically developing little boys having the time of their lives. Has it been easy for them, heck no, I've given both of their stories before on the blog, they've worked tirelessly along with their parents to get to where they are. Hearing stories about kids who've recovered is one thing, seeing them with your own eyes just a few feet away from you, is indescribable. Thank you boys for your incredible inspiration and sorry about the crazy strangers who were staring at you!

#4) As for this weekend, my friend and co-worker Amelia who came out to race and brought a friend to the event, definitely deserves a gold medal. She's been tremendously supportive including going to an evaluation for Tyler with me as well as participating in the rally at the capital and being a part of our walk team for autism speaks in October. Thanks a million Amelia. Another big gold medal to Steve who came out to support his wife during a very cold and rainy Saturday morning and stood out in the rain to cheer me on. More importantly, he provided much needed emotional support for what was a very emotional day.

As for how the boys are doing right now? They both have cold, yes again, we had May and June off and it seems now we can't seem to get another healthy streak going. however, Tyler has been very very talkative and we really got him talking last night in the bathtub, we've been adding new routines to tubtime and it's goign well but also making it a bit harder for Tyler to get out of the tub which I think he's ready for the challenge. So last night he was pretty much yelling at me telilgn me, I'm sure trying to say he was not happy about the fact that mom would not turn the water back on, however, he never tried to injure himself, yeah. He yelled at me, I talked to him about him being mad and helped him learn the "mad" faces and tried to get him to say mad and then told him we'd go have milk and read books and he actually reached out for me to get him out of the tub. Ben is getting a night all about Ben this weekend so I'll write about that later in the week, but we are both excited to be able to spoil Ben a bit with attention from both parents.

In summary, please be understanding if we seem to be rude and not fully engaged in conversation with you, especially if our children are trying to interact with us. We need to reinforce Tyler's communication as much as possible and of course Ben is constanty competing for attention so any chance we get, we want to make sure he feels loved so there's just little room for adult conversation while the boys are awake, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Although I occasionally ask Ben to whisper cause his volume is distracting Tyler or even hurting his hears someitmes, I would never ask him to be quiet. Once you have a child that can't speak, it just doesn't seem right to ask the other one to be quiet when you are praying one will talk someday.