Family | Stay Quirky, my friends

Room to Grow

Posted on April 19 by stayquirkymyfriends

As my son follows me around the kitchen, immediately fixing items that I move out of place, and as he monitors and resets all of our other shared spaces after we use them, I daydream about the new house we are planning. I am hoping this move, which will give our son more space and more control over that space, will calm his nerves. And mine.

My son’s new “apartment,” which will be connected to our house, will be a pretty sweet set-up. In a lot of ways, I’ve thought more about his house than ours, so it’s possible my husband and I will be living in a cardboard box next to our son’s home, I don’t know.

A Sweet Treat

Posted on April 2 by stayquirkymyfriends

We were shocked by how fast he moved.

As soon as he leapt off the couch, we knew exactly what he was doing.

Really, we shouldn’t have been surprised. But my husband and I have these little moments every once in awhile, when we look at each other and go, “OK, yep, he gets it.”

This is what I mean by “strong receptive language.” It’s just hard to accurately describe the nuances of that on an intake form.

Sure, this young man has trouble with complex verbal instructions and sometimes has difficulty completing tasks that make no sense to him.

But given the right motivation and goals that are meaningful to him, and he gets it.

So much more than anyone gives him credit for.

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Earlier in the day, I had taken him to a local bakery to pick up some cupcakes for a birthday dessert for myself :). He picked out a cookie for helping out, but he had to wait until after dinner for the cupcakes. Read More

A Space of His Own

Posted on March 9 by stayquirkymyfriends

We’ve known for a while that our autistic son is going to continue to live with us for the near future, and very likely the far future, too. There aren’t many other options (whether it’s a group home or a shared/assisted apartment) that we feel comfortable with for a high-needs, semi-verbal individual such as he is.

But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t need his space. And, it definitely doesn’t mean that we don’t need ours.

So, for the last year or so, we’ve been strategizing and scheming and dreaming about how we can all live together, sanely, moving forward. Read More

How a Clothespin Might Save My Sanity

Posted on January 9 by stayquirkymyfriends

This little thing here? This cheap wooden contraption that hates the electric clothes dryer for making it obsolete? Well, it’s useful again, at least around here.

I hope I’m not jinxing our experiment to say out loud that it’s working.

See, my son “fixes” everything around us. When he’s been on a two-week break home from school, this behavior is even more apparent. We live in the house, use things, move stuff around, and he follows behind us putting everything back in place and keeping things in order the way that he likes them. Read More