A picture is worth a thousand words

This picture represents so many issues surrounding being the parent of a child on the spectrum. Notice the ridiculous number of giant hair bows in our possession. When she was a baby, I had grand aspirations of raising this ballerina/princess/hair bow-dress-tight-tu tu wearing Diva. She was going to Juilliard. I invested much in this plan and purchased every hair bow in existence, long before she had any hair, in addition to lots and lots of dresses and pink feathery stuff.

In reality, C has far too many sensory issues to allow any sort of hair styling and if she had something in her hair it would drive her and all of those around her to distraction. So we just have a drawer full of hair bows and every year at Christmas she wears one for about 20 seconds after threats of Santa not showing up. She can't handle ballet because she can't pay attendtion or sit still, not to mention she is completely floppy with very poor motor skills, and I got really tired of the 'looks' from those perfect moms and their perfect ballerinas. And dresses, not unless you want the world to be well acquainted with her undies. However, it is not so bad to have a kid who doesn't need dresses, bows, uggs, earrings or tu tus. This isn't what I planned on for us, but what the hey, Juilliard is expensive...

Another intesting part of parenting a kid on the spectrum is that life is a chess match. You always must be anticipating what will set they off, what situations they can handle and engineering every aspect of life to ensure she can manage not to fall apart. This particular photo is the result of her being sent to her room for an hour after I engineered faultily. I desperately want her to have friends, fit in, go on play dates. All the things NT (neurotypical) families take for granted. She was asked on a playdate by a nice girl whose mom doesn't seem to mind haning with the aspie (believe me, we have been dumped many a time when parents realize we have issues). Against my better judgment, in a rash decision I allowed her go on an open ended playdate. Huge mistake. A child on the spectrum needs constant structure. They have to know what is coming next. Her behavior was deplorable, and as a result she had an extended vaca in her room, resulting in the 'look'. At least the hair bows got used, right?

The picture represents what I planned on and what I got. You don't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you just might find... I don't want this blog to be me riding on my daughter. Any success she has puts us over the moon. She works so hard to do things that come naturally to most children. She has taught me so much and given me new perspective on life. Now does anybody need some hair bows?