January 31, 2016

Robert had a rough week at his program. Maybe because he was not feeling great.  Maybe antibiotic irritated his stomach. Maybe he was just bored with the task he had to complete. But of course, the biggest problem is that he cannot tell what is bothering him.  Instead his  OCD like behavior is spiking.

For two days during last week, he kept asking obsessively his job coaches to write in his notebook.  Since the instructors  write in his notebook just before Robert leaves for home I assume that Robert just wanted to go home.  He believed that by writing in his notebook, the instructors would accelerate the flow of time. So he kept asking over and over, “Notebook, notebook, notebook.”

It would be so much better if he could say, “I feel sick.”,”I want to go home.”, or even “I am bored.” ,”I need a break.” “I’m tired”.  but he doesn’t say that.  He says, “Notebook, notebook, notebook.”

Unfortunately, his frustration with the slow-moving time is all too easy to see and impossible to be soothed.

December 6, 2015 – January 24, 2016

I worry about Robert’s future. I worry every day. I teach Robert hoping that whatever he learns now, would make his future a little easier, nicer, and safer. But, of course his future also depends on the people who will have more or less contact with him in the years to come. Their approaches to  Robert, their empathy or lack of it, the images they form of Robert – all of that can either help Robert or it can destroy him.

Winter 2010

Robert was brought home on his school bus 30 minutes earlier than usually. Moreover, he was accompanied by his special ed teacher and the vice principal of the high school.  I rushed outside and anxiously asked what had happened. The answer was short and snappy, “He just wanted too many popsicles.”

-“Was he aggressive?” I asked already anticipating the dreaded answer.

I learned, that  he  grabbed the teacher’s arm

That is all what I learned. Nothing else.

I tried to  understand the circumstances in which the aggression happened. I called the teacher. I called the principal.  I called the special ed director. Nobody wanted to elucidate me on any details that led to this behaviors.

Since I didn’t learn events that lead to Robert’s aggressive behaviors I didn’t know how to react and what to tell Robert. He couldn’t tell me.  After all, Robert never explains himself.  To the contrary, it is I who helps him understand his actions and their consequences. But to do so, I would have to know all the details and those were concealed from me at that time. So I didn’t do anything, but sent Robert to school that day and the day after. I kept sending Robert to school for a few more weeks.  I knew he was in distress, but I didn’t know what was the reason for it.  One day in March, I was called to pick Robert from school.  When I saw him, he was walking with his teacher in a very busy hallway. He was hitting his own face with the full force over and over.  He seemed terribly unhappy.  He was crying either from pain or from being lost and misunderstood. Nobody would want to see a child in such a state. Nobody.

I removed Robert from this classroom. At home he quickly recovered.

After more than two years, I learned the circumstances of Robert’s behavior.

As he and other children were waiting in the classroom for the school bus, Robert was given a popsicle.  He consumed one and kept asking for another one. Maybe he got up from his chair.  The teacher told him to sit and Robert returned to his chair and sat down continuing waiting for the bus.  The teacher, however, went back to the freezer, took out one more popsicle and approached Robert’s chair. Waving popsicle in front of his eyes kept mocking Robert, “Popsicle, popsicle, you want another popsicle? ”

That is when Robert tried to grab the popsicle.  As I understand it now, Robert followed the teacher grabbing her arm as she tried to put popsicle back in the freezer.

No, I don’t condone Robert’s behavior at all. Not at all.  Had I known about it then, I would have taken a few steps to make Robert understand the ramifications of such actions and I would try to prevent similar behavior to be exhibited in the future.

Five Years Forward

Fall 2015

Robert came home from his Day Program.  In his notebook I found a long description of what had happened that day.  While walking through hallway during his lunch break, Robert noticed fish crackers in one of the rooms he walked by.  He loves those crackers, but he cannot eat them, as they cause, for unexplainable reason,  severe stomach pain a few hours later.  Still, he grabbed a bag of those crackers.  The instructor quickly took it back but Robert tried to retrieve it again. In an effort to do so, he grabbed and pinched the arm of instructor. He didn’t get the crackers, so he tried to get them another way. He stole 25 cents from the instructor’s purse and ran to the wending machine to purchase the crackers. It didn’t work, of course.  The bag of crackers cost more than what he stole.  I also learned from this note that later, Robert calmed down considerably and followed the rest of the day’s routine.

As I said, I didn’t condone Robert’s behavior. I thought about it. We talked about it. With my help, Robert wrote a long note to his instructors to tell them that he was sorry, that he understood what he did wrong. We went to his Day Program together with bunch of flowers.  Robert seemed very concerned as he read the long letter.  I had to give the instructor the copy of a letter, as Robert’s pronunciation was such that only a few words could be understood. The instructor who listened patiently seemed slightly embarrassed.  “Oh no”, she said when Robert finished, ” We were just feeling sorry for Robert because of his distress and confusion.”

I felt my heart melting.

Robert exhibited almost the same behavior in both situations and yet the reactions were so very different.

Those reactions were what caused Robert to fail in one setting and succeed  in the second.

He couldn’t trust his teacher in 2010.  But for Robert being in a setting in which he couldn’t trust anybody, meant losing the ground under his feet. He became lost, bewildered, and utterly miserable.

Although now, he still has and causes some problems (mainly because of his OCD like behaviors) he does trust the adults who surround him in his Day Program and he comes home not only happy but, well,  pleased with himself.

January 20, 2016

When Robert was very little, I used to kiss his hand whenever he cried.  One day as he was sitting in a circle in his special needs private preschool, the girl, sitting next to him, began crying. Robert, five years old at that time, took her hand and kissed it. The girl was so surprised (shocked?) that she stopped crying.

When Robert was six or seven years old,  he was visiting the first grade classroom for an hour or two of weekly inclusion.  Despite the fact that Robert was accompanied by the teacher from his special needs program, the main classroom teacher treated him as if he were her responsibility the same way the other children were. (This is not as natural teacher behavior as it should be. Many main classroom teachers believe that when the student has an assigned aid, the teachers are relieved of any responsibility for such a child and thus rarely address him or her directly.)  That fact was not lost on Robert, who adored her and showed it in the only way he could:  He hugged her.  The teacher, one year short of retirement, couldn’t help noticing the paradox.  Robert, the little boy with autism, was the only child who hugged her in her many years of work.

For many years, Robert had a habit of kissing me (and at least one more favorite person) in the Eskimo style, by rubbing his nose on mine.   I suspected that besides demonstrating the need for closeness, Robert was also trying to sense my emotions or get some kind of reassurance whenever he felt a little uneasy. This kind of affection, had never bothered me until I was made aware that both the behavior and my acceptance of it were considered to be  highly inappropriate display of emotions.  At least two people – one working for a state agency, one working for … ARC found it offensive and/or suspicious. I reacted with bewilderment and the lingering uneasy feeling. Nonetheless,  I had never tried to stop Robert from expressing his need for closeness in this specific way.  By the time, Robert turned 18, this behavior disappeared.

When Robert was 15 years old and joined the special need classroom in public high school, he was the youngest student there.  One day, I was told that one of the girls, kissed Robert.  There was nothing I would have wanted more than Robert being liked and kissed, but I was petrified.  I was really petrified. I was afraid that if Robert return the affection or kiss someone who didn’t wish to be kissed he might get into very serious trouble.

A few years forward, Robert was presented with The Relationship Circles, Level 1, Social Boundaries program,   I don’t think Robert understood much from this presentation. Maybe he was too young and  because of his poor social exposure he couldn’t relate what he was told to his past experiences. The program presented issues related to appropriate and inappropriate forms of contacts with others depending on their closeness to the individual in the center. The program aimed to teach how to respond to OTHER people behaviors when it is correct and when it is not.

The program didn’t, however, offer any clues to a person with developmental disability of how to appropriately initiate closer relationship with someone he or she might like.

January 19, 2016

Today, I made another observation about genesis of Robert’s errors while adding integers with the help of a pnumber line.

As long as Robert could mentally add or subtract absolute values of the numbers, he didn’t make any mistakes in his calculations.

He correctly answer problems such as -12+(-15), -20+7, 8+(-10)

However, he hesitated and/or kept guessing the answer to such operations as: -19+31, -17+ (-38). The level of difficulties required to mentally subtract 31-19 or add 17+38 compounded with the need to decide on the sign, resulted in confusion.

I believe that such puzzlement cannot be addressed through more practice with the number line alone.  I think, it is time for Robert to grasp the fact  that when the numbers have opposite signs he is subtracting them (well, their absolute values) and when they have the same signs he is adding them (yes, yes, their absolute values).

Still, I am reluctant for practical purpose of teaching Robert mechanics of adding integers to involve the term “absolute value” in this context. This is a phrase which sacrifices simplicity for the sake of mathematical correctness. That creates additional difficulties for someone whose language is still in the early stages of development and every additional word baffles instead of elucidating.

January 18, 2016

For a few months now, Robert and I have been occupied with adding integers.  He was busy counting steps forward or backward depending on the sign of the number while I was searching for ways to help Robert generalize the skill to those numbers that didn’t fit on the line with its twenty five units starting with negative 12 and ending with 12.

Although I presented Robert with formulas for three cases of adding integers:  (both negative, one negative and one positive when the negative one has larger absolute value, and one negative and one positive when the positive one has larger absolute value), I had doubts that Robert can remember and properly apply the rules expressed through overly long sentences.

So I tried something else.  Instead of placing numbers from -12 to 12 on the number line I placed tens starting with -120 and ending with 120. As long as I asked Robert to add -30+20 or -40+(-50) Robert, counting by tens. moved appropriately one way or another.

I hoped that if Robert knows that -30+20=-10 then he might notice that -30+ 17= -13 or that -27+20=-7.

But Robert didn’t notice.

I had to divide each segment into 10 smaller ones – millimeter long at best, so Robert could keep counting.

So he still relied on mechanically counting and not on doing the proper operations in his head.

Now, I just draw a line with a zero in its center. Above this line I drew a few arrows to the right with plus signs above them and a few arrows to the left with a minus drawn above them.

Below I write a few problems starting with the same number.

-7+8=   -7+(-8)=  -7+4=   -7+7=

Robert has to point to the place where -7 could be (just any place to the left of zero) and then move backward or forward and come with an answer.

He cannot count by one as there is nothing to be counted on the number line, he has to do all those operations in his head deciding by himself if the answer is moving past zero in one or another direction or if it moves farther away from zero.  Thus, he has to add or subtract absolute values and decide on which side of zero the answer is placed.

We do just a few operations like that every day.  Robert still has problems with going in the right directions.  When, however, he chooses the correct direction he quickly comes with the proper answer.

The fact that Robert chooses too often the arrow with the wrong direction is  a result of the habit, he has never conquered in general (he manages it in some specific situations but not in all).  Robert answers too quickly before applying all the information he gets. To be blunt – Robert answers without thinking.

If I slow him down, stopping him from automatic answer, his performance improves. That means just covering the problem for a second, asking him to repeat the operation from his memory.

Why is it so important for me to have Robert dto those operations correctly?  Of course, I want Robert to know more and understand more.   But what motivates me mostly is my wish that Robert learns to generalize skills – from the numbers he can see on number line to numbers he can see only  in his mind.

January 16, 2016

One of the reasons I have difficulties writing lately is the lack of clarity of what else I can do to help Robert be prepared for life without us, his parents.

It seems that he needs to learn so much more than what he knows or does now.  I also realized that he can learn very little outside of our home. yes, he is surrounded by nice people at his programs.  Yes, he seems happy whenever he attends any of the programs ran by three different agencies and two other organizations. I love his happiness.  But the happiness without gaining knowledge, skills, and understanding is short lived.  It is a fool’s gold.

Robert in his own way, understand that too. That is why he is not protesting our daily learning routine. He does want to learn.  He wants to understand more. He wants to do new things.

The problem is that I don’t know what what else I can or/and should teach him.  There is so much, he still has to learn and I have so little opportunities to help him.

During the holiday season, with his sister visiting, I let Robert spend as much time with her as they both were able to tolerate and/or enjoy. Walking with Amanda and her friends was an important experience.  Following Amanda’s directions while making origami with her and her friends was priceless. I didn’t study with Robert at all. We only played a few board games and did puzzles together.

After the holidays, we went back to daily routine. Robert seemed relived by return of “normalcy.

We continue with learning about human body.  We continue with talking in sentences, asking questions, and explaining.  We returned to the same series of books Functional Routines but we stepped up from the basic to the intermediate level of text and questions.

We still practice with Apraxia cards.

Robert practices counting – just to make sure he didn’t forget the algorithms.

But then , I realize that Robert should learn other things as well.  So last two day we began again going together to grocery stores. I ask Robert to find a few items while I wait around cash registers.  Yesterday, Robert found three gallons of water and a bottle of his favorite Arizona Ice Tea.  He tried to find All detergent, but couldn’t as the store ran out of it.

Today, he just went to buy three boxes of tissues , then he returned to cash register, placed them on the belt and with my help used his ATM card (still uneasy about his pin).  With slight prompts,  he also took $10 to have it for his Friday’s lunch.

At home, he set the espresso machine, but was reluctant to make frosted milk, as he couldn’t figure out how close he should keep milk to the stem pipe.

It seems we did a lot, but Robert needs so much more.

December 13, 2015

It is getting harder and harder to keep writing.  It is even more difficult to return to this blog after a long break.  Each day brings new experiences but not necessary new knowledge.  Each day evokes new feelings but since they are often contradictory it is hard to write about them.

Robert and I are still studying together.  But not every day.  Sadly, I get more tired lately.  We had guests staying over.  I had some health issues.  There were other problems. Very little suffices to throw me off the track.  Because it was I who skipped our learning hours.  Robert seemed almost relieved when after two weeks we restarted learning together.

Of course, I strongly believe that even when we didn’t study,Robert was still learning.  He was observing our guests.  There is a lot one can learn through observation of other people.  Except, Robert won’t tell what he learned. If nothing else, Robert learned to share his house with others. Robert learned to dine with guests, even though he didn’t touch Thanksgiving turkey replacing it with chicken cutlets.  He was sitting with everybody and, what more surprising, even looking at his relatives from time to time. It was clear that he felt a part of our company. However,  his participation was not very long.  After less than half an hour, Robert left the table only to return for the dessert.  Ice cream cake to be precise.

I consider it my big failure not to teach Robert to eat wider range of food.  And so the Thanksgiving table with turkey and all the trimmings didn’t offer anything to Robert palate. He eats potatoes, but only baked potatoes with cheese, not mashed, not roasted.  He eats salad but only plain arugula, not lettuce with tomatoes and dressing.  He eats cooked vegetables but only eggplant or poblano, not beets, not squash, or hunter stew.

Had he been attracted to more dishes covering our Thanksgiving table, he might stay with guests much longer. Being a part of a friendly company is an invaluable experience.

Comparing with learning opportunities of rather chaotic Thanksgiving weekend, our formal studies were rather dull and uneventful.

We practiced vocabulary related to election – ballot, candidate, voting.

We practiced, without much improvement, adding integers using number line with positive and negative numbers.

We read about digestive, circulatory, and respiratory systems.

We played Trouble.

November 4, 2015

When Robert was in his third year of so called “Transition Program” I asked his speech therapist for notes from the therapy sessions. The only page I received was divided by horizontal and vertical lines with a few check-marks in some of the boxes.   None of the column, none of the rows had titles. There was not ONE word written on this page. Just lines and check-marks for something only therapist knew for what.

That event seemed to best express my opinion of the speech therapy provided to my son by most of the therapists. They might had known what they were doing, but nobody else did. And nobody else knew what effect if any the speech therapy had on my son.

They were, however, exceptions.

1. The first therapist sent to my home from Private School was able in first 15 minutes of her session to make Robert say the first word clearly, “pop” for popsicle. I was in awe for the ease with which she managed to achieve that. She just held a colorful tempting popsicle in her hand and lt Robert licked it every time he tried to say “pop”. she rewarded him for “p” and for “pa” and of course for “pop”.  Sadly, however, she was there only once to do short evaluation and give suggestions to the teacher.  After all, the school espoused so called, consultative model. The therapist came to asses Robert’s needs.  She gave suggestions to the teacher and never saw Robert again. In a few months, she found a better paying job in public schools. So the teacher was stuck with Robert knowing just one word – pop-.  For the next 3-5 months, she was practicing with Robert just this one word – every day, hundred times a day. It caused more damage than good and it made me a huge opponents of the consultative model.
2. One of the reason, I took Robert out of the very good (because, yes, it was good)  private school was to give Robert an opportunity to work directly with speech therapist. The best things about therapists in two different collaborative program (one for a whole year and one just for three summers ) was that they DID NOT give me blank paper with information.  They shared with me what they were doing in their respective classrooms. One of them gave me a lot of ideas to help Robert retrieve concepts from his own mind.  She showed me how to use words associations to increase the complexity of a language. The other one worked on Robert’s clarity of speech EVERY day Robert was in the summer program. And it made a difference, although a lot was lost when Robert returned to his regular program. The therapist in the Collaborative was also familiar with asisstive technology and showed me how to program and use one helpful device.  Sadly,Robert was asked to leave this program.  He took the device with him, but none of the three speech therapists he encountered in public school was willing to learn how to use it.  I made three copies of the manuals, I came to demonstrate how Robert could use the programs I designed for him, but I don’t believe anybody at school helped Robert to use this device there.  Robert kept taking the Dynavox to school every day and kept bringing it home. We used it at home until, the school asked to keep it only at school.  That didn’t make any sense, but since it was a school property I didn’t protest. Finally, the speech therapist got a training  from assistive technology specialist.  Unfortunately, from the whole day of demonstrating the only thing the speech therapist gained was how to use the device to help Robert write what he tried to say. He could do that with pen and paper, he could do that on his IPAD with $2 APPS.  Just before vacation the Dynavox was returned to me broken beyond repair.
3. The simplest and the most natural speech intervention was happening on Saturdays during 4 hour long program at Bridge Center.  The speech therapist was there not for therapy sessions, but to demonstrate how verbal tools could be used to work with others. How words could help with group projects – painting the fence, stitching the quilt, cooking, baking and setting the table for the Thanksgiving feast for parents. For Robert just following simple directions, for instance to find something in the top drawer, or on the bottom shelf, was a great language exercise.it was priceless to have Robert ask -even with one word- for something he needed to complete his activity.  It has to be said that this speech therapist was a VOLUNTEER. I suggested to use this model in Robert’s transition classroom. This has never happened. When other children were doing interesting project that would require listening, following directions, and efforts to communicate, Robert and two other boys (who also could greatly benefit from the project) were pulled out and tortured during artificial, senseless speech therapy.
4. Knowing that the school speech therapy was a little apprehensive of Robert, not being familiar with children with similar needs, I brought a few speech therapist’s workbooks I had been used with Robert. I was glad that the speech therapist accepted them.  It seemed that she started successful work with Robert. I was much less pleased, when almost 6 months later I found out that she was still doing the same exercises with Robert and another student.  That other student although very bright took a long time to answer.  Robert meantime was bored and anxious. With every session he was less and less cooperative and of course he was the one who was blamed for his impatience and lost interest. Meantime, at home we managed to work on a few other curricula – having to do with talking in sentences and asking questions.
5. The things that I found the most damaging to Robert was the fact that the speech therapists so easily and quickly could reject any new idea by simply stating, “He is not ready for this yet.”  The sad truth is, that they never were ready to explore new approaches.
6. The second thing that affected Robert’s speech negatively was the fact, that the therapist always tried to group children with completely different needs but similar level of severity together.  That is why, the speech therapy was a torture for everybody. Between the  utterance of one word by one student and another word by another student minutes passed.  The question had been forgotten. It was hard to observe and probably even harder to participate.  It had to be hard for the students and even harder for the speech pathologist.

But it could be as easy and as simple as cooking together, making a poster together or…singing a song.

A few weeks ago, we started singing together. At first, Robert was reluctant. He kept saying/singing only some of the words and protested, “No, no, no” every time I reached for another song.  Two songs per evening sufficed.

We started with Are You Sleeping and moved to other songs. Still, every other day we began with Are You Sleeping as that tune helps robert get on track.

Only recently, I realize how important is singing for Robert.  While singing, Robert is practicing spacing syllables, slowing down, and increasing the volume. He is being familiarized with the concept of rhythm and, to some degree, with  higher and lower tunes. He also begins to accentuate some of the notes improving the prosody of his scrambled, squeezed articulation. He often holds the toy phone next to his ear to hear himself better. I have the feeling that he is enjoying himself a lot specially since the day when dad joined us to sing along.

Today, we practiced, For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow, Jingle Bell, and Oh, Susanna.

It was such a pleasant family evening.

Still,  I had to wonder why  nobody in Robert’s school days had ever tried singing with Robert. Nobody but one pre-med student at Bridge Center during a few times he was there. He had an open mind and was actively looking for ways to enrich lives of children attending the program. He wasn’t doing that for long, however, as he got into medical school the following season.

I still feel some residual anger and sadness when I think about all lost opportunities.  Nonetheless, today Robert sang, “Oh, Su-sn-na, Oh, don’t you cry for me”  pretty clearly so no more venting or weeping.

October 13, 2015

The last few weeks have been pretty chaotic.  That means I was not able to make sense of hundreds of small and large events. Doubts, fears, and shaky hopes for Robert’s future resulted in litany of questions and only very few answers.

What am I doing wrong?

What are the things that might be most useful for Robert in the future?  Can I still teach them? Is it too late?

How to prepare Robert for being with other people?

What caused Robert to behave this way ?

Could I prepare Robert  to handle similar situation better?

Can I help him avoid falling in similar traps in the future?

How to teach Robert what is friendship?

How to find friends FOR HIM?

How to help HIM find friends?

How to help him make right decisions?

Questions and more questions. Confusion mixed with anxiety and guilt.

But then there are two evening hours of clarity. Two hours when Robert and I study together and everything seems to return to the right places. It is not about grasping concept of positive and negative numbers.  It is not about  classifying organs by their systems.  It is not about reading maps or stories. It is learning about each other that is the most important part of our daily lessons. When we study together I  know what Robert is thinking and he knows what is in my mind.  With Robert’s difficulties expressing himself, the daily study hour is the time when we are understanding each other best.

Still, the next morning all the questions return with the same intensity and the same urgency.

October 26, 2015

I tried to organize the posts on this blog.  I was overwhelmed by their number – 350+ and by the range of barely touched topics.  Although they are all about Robert, they hardly seem connected to each other.  Like sand they slip through my fingers. I feel unable to mold them into already established  forms or divide them among drawers of specific categories.

As I try to write about today, I face the same conundrum – writing about events based on the shapeless residues they leave.

As we walk together on the ocean beach, we leave our footprints on top of each others.  Other people leave footprints on top of ours and the waves even everything out leaving only vague memory of the shapes that were.

Memory of Thursday’s Evening.

Robert went with two of his friends and Bridget, his instructor, to the reward ceremony at the Food Pantry he volunteers once a week by carrying boxes of food from the pantry to the cars of the clients. I felt great and…terrified. It was something entirely new for Robert. I wasn’t sure how he would react, how he would tolerate this new situation.  So, we came to pick him up half an hour early. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him sitting at the table and watching raffle with a calm, blissful smile on his face. As he got up and walked with us to the door, I asked him if he wanted to go home or stay.  “Stay, stay”, he said.  Then he noticed that his dad already left the building so he went after him. But he was not happy on the way home.  He made some partially cooing  partially growling noises. Maybe because he wanted to stay till the end. He felt important, rewarded and happy.  We took him out worrying too much.  But then, maybe he wasn’t feeling too good, after eating something he was not used to.  So maybe we were right to pick him up early. But then, maybe not….

Memory of Friday’s Evening

I drove Robert to House of Possibilities for Halloween Party. He went there a couple of time before but always with Pam.  I thought that I would stay with him but Christine, who was running the program stated that it was not necessary.  I could stay and observe or I could just come later to pick him up. I left.  I did some shopping and then came back and waited in my car. I heard a loud scream.  I rushed to the building afraid that Robert was screaming. He wasn’t.  He seemed perfectly content when he came to the door.  I was told, that after I left, he kept saying, “Mom, mom, mom” But after a while he became relaxed and partially participated, partially watched others.  Again, did I came too early not letting Robert becoming more integrated with the group?

Memory of Saturday’s Afternoon

I dropped Robert at Charles River for a four-hour program that included a trip to a restaurant and a farm.  He attended those programs four times before. So, I wasn’t too anxious. Besides, I couldn’t come early to pick him up, as the van was returning at 4 PM.  Well, my husband and I came 15 minutes earlier and walked around.  Robert seemed happy.  Laura, who was in charge of the outing, told me that in the restaurant, Robert noticed that his hamburger didn’t have cheese, so he asked rather loudly, “Cheese, cheese, cheese.”  He got his cheese.   At home, he was rather anxious with his OCD like behaviors spiking.  He wanted dad to have socks on his feet.  He wanted me to take my socks off.  He wanted other things as well for reasons he couldn’t articulate. It was difficult evening.  I wondered if faced with so many new places and activities, he wanted to bring the world under his control and keep everything in place. maybe he just wanted to be out with his peers again and his displeasure of being home was transformed into quest for power?

Memory of Sunday

In the morning, Robert went for his regular lesson of horseback riding. For most of the lesson he was in control of the horse. He was regaining his confidence.  Although, in the past he lead the horse by himself following directions of the trainer, at some point he felt more secure when the trainer or her assistant held the rope. I watched Robert steering the horse to the right and to the left between colorful cones. when the horse stopped, Robert  tried to move the horse by weak kick.  He had to repeat that a few times, before the horse felt it and moved on. On the way home we bought crispy chicken sandwich, his new favorite food, at McDonald.   Around 1PM we drove to the Carlson Orchards to pick Fuji apples. Robert seemed content and helped carrying the heavy bag of fruit. All the way home, he kept reminding me to make him eggplant with cheese and tomato sauce.  We only had a half of the aubergine, but that was not the problem for Robert. What he likes best it the sauce mixed with many herbs and an egg and improved by eggplant’s “seasoning”.  We studied together for an hour, then he took a bath and went to sleep but not before he emptied the dishwasher  by placing the dishes in all the right places. Well, the washing  cycle wasn’t really completed, but I didn’t tell Robert that.

One day events replace other days happenings. I still feel anxious not fully sure that  Robert is prepared for all the new situations.  I find, however, so many wonderful people taking upon themselves the responsibility of leading Robert through new places and new situations that my worries are subsiding replaced by hope.