It’s been a while since perhaps I’ve talked about the Monster’s life at his new school.
Some things never change – the Monster is still catching the bus every morning, and coming back on it just fine most days. (I pick him up from school on Wednesdays.) But it’s the difference between his old school and the new one that’s striking. Continue reading
It’s rare that I’m unaware that the Monster is different from other children.
I’m somewhat accustomed to the matter, and his Autism is a fact of my life. I’ve spent a lot of time coming to grips with the fact that this is our “normal”, and that, as I say to the wife, there’s even less purpose than normal of trying to compare him to other children. My wife’s the one who tends to get a bit more upset when there are kids his age who are doing things he can’t… or when there’s the kvelling by her friends about what their child’s doing, when the Monster’s still barely verbal and can’t really read.
But that’s not always. Continue reading
I was gone for most of the weekend at one of my bonspiels, so as usual, the kids at least seemed to give some show of having missed me while I was gone. (Now, we all know that they really don’t care, one way or the other, when I’m gone, since they love Mommy more and I’m the disciplinarian. But it’s nice that they pretend. 😉 ) But I returned yesterday evening, and while the wife and I were preparing food in the kitchen, the Monster came wandering in. Continue reading
The Monster might be seven right now, but there’s one truism about children – eventually, they grow up.
In some ways, we’ve already started to provide for the Monster as he gets older, which is to say that we have a college fund set up for him, and we’ve done some looking at places that he could eventually go to college if he’s ready for it at that stage. But let’s all be very honest about a fact of life for children like the Monster – there are very, very few places that one can think of finding employment for them, if they’re not mainstreamed. Continue reading