autism is a journey: Trick or Treat at School

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Trick or Treat at School

We just returned from the safe trick or treat at school.
I decided to go at the last minute when Cal came outside in his Power Ranger costume as I was raking leaves.
We didn't emphasize we'd be going to the "school". Jackson loves being Spiderman, so he put on his costume and walked up to school!
Lucky for us, we had friends closer to the front of the line and Jackson did great...I'm very proud of him. He actually remembered doing this in the past (we've only been one other time because of how much he HATES going back up to school) and wanted to "go this way". Asking to go to the main corridor of the school. That was cool too! :)

2 comments:

tylerbritney said...: Awesome! I'm so glad the boys enjoyed the early Trick or Treating. Tyler's class will be dressing up on Halloween and having a little parade around school.; October 23, 2008 at 5:53 PM
Anonymous said...: Our daughter said she wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood... I mean seriously she'd been acting out the part for MONTHS... so of course the wife goes and get the fabric to make her a costume and what happens? "I wanna be a witch!" grr...; October 30, 2008 at 11:59 AM

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from "Metaphor-the puzzle piece symbol"

Ever had one of those "ah-ha" moments? I'm driving down the road today, pondering Jackson's recent successes--boyscout camp and football camp. It occurred to me that each experience gave me back a piece of Jackson. [I'm not doing a very good job explaining this...] When we learned about Jackson's diagnosis, so many dreams were snuffed out. We no longer thought about our son becoming an athlete, a scholar, or even a friend. We thought in much smaller terms:"how many words does he have?""did he learn a new sign""is he reaching out to us?""that's playing pretend, isn't it?"Our perspective as parents permanently changed. It's like we had this complete picture of our child and autism fractured it--into a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.Each day little by little, we get pieces of the puzzle back. It'll never be complete, never the same as we expected, but there will be parts that will come together.Like when he participated in the school music program, enjoyed boyscout camp, rode the roller coaster and attended football camp. Bit by bit, we get pieces of what we expected back.Of course, the flip side of this is all the joys we gain from Jackson that we never expected in spite of the autism, but that's another post my friends....