some good things to read

I'm tired of being assaulted by controversy every time I read an article about autism. They are written by people that are just reporting a story and have no connection to anything or anyone with autism. We only see the sensationalism because that is what people want to read and those people being sensational make a lot of noise. Many more of us spend our days living with and loving an autistic person. I would not change my child for anything, even though he has been upset with me for the last hour because it isn't 10am yet and he can't play age of empire yet. Apparently he is packing his soldiers up and going to grandmas, the fact that he can convey this to me is fantastic, he is rather cross and we are having lots of little talks and back rubs but I can see it going until 10am when I turn on his computer.

I also know I will give in as soon as I have finished this because I hate to see him upset and even though he knows the 10am rule, he is still only 6 and 10am must seem like forever away.

So today the first day of the holidays and I am following blog posts and articles about autism by the autistic. I want Alec to be at peace with his autism when he is an adult and with information like this we can only get a better understanding

This one I love -

Autistics Need Acceptance, Not Cure An article critical of "autism awareness"

Don't mourn for us an article about the autistic child in our life, it may seem a little harshly written but I have come across people like he is talking about.

I admit I went through a grieving process after Alec's diagnosis but you can't do that for long because it was my job to make sure he got as much help as he needed, I am his advocate. I realised about a year ago that we could give him the tools to communicate and help make his body stronger but we could not expect him to understand our world, it is a different world, so what we have to do is make the effort to understand his world.

Aspergian pride advocates recognition and acceptance of the autistic community as an intelligent, competent minority group with many worthwhile qualities.

but they are depending on me

What a thing to hear from a six year old. Alec is sick today, he has been coming down with something for about 10 days now and it finally arrived today. He was meant to me man on roadside with palm frond in the school assembly passion play thingy.

When I said he couldn't go to school he cried and told me he couldn't let down his buddies they were depending on him and he would miss them, we dried the tears and then the alternatives started... maybe if I get another piece of material and put it over my mouth the germs wont be able to come out, isn't that the most gorgeous thing you have ever heard. We still took a photo, the poor thing looks so pale.

The last 2 weeks he has had a few issues at school with noise, he describes them as headaches. What we have arranged with the teachers is a quiet time place, I took in a bean bag and now he has some music to play with headphones while he takes some time out. Some days this has been up to 4 times. I'm hoping with the easter break he gets a good rest and beats this cold fluey thing he has. Hopefully we all recover, every member of the family has a temperature today.

play dates at our house

one of the hardest things to master for Alec is social situations. We have friends we have visited regularly over the last few years and over time he has set up his own set of coping mechanisms and rules, but things like play dates after school at our house are a disaster.

Firstly he gets amazingly over excited and over stimulated, he hasn't quiet got the whole guests get first choice thing down yet or that you don't watch tv when friends come to play, but I suppose if you are hiding under a blanket in front of the tv is a good a place as ever. Thankfully I had Riley here as back up. Alec did play a little but he was too unsure what to do, he has that desire of every six year old to impress his friends but this means very raised voices and everything being dragged out from everywhere, but that is play.

What is most frustrating is that he is usually fine when he goes for play dates to other peoples houses. I want to be able to help him with this, I want kids to want to come here to play after school, after all I do a pretty good afternoon tea.