Ian has been taking his lunch to school every day for the last year and a half. We knew it was highly unlikely the cafeteria would ever serve something he wanted, and the complex process of getting a tray, choosing a milk (there is plain, chocolate, and strawberry), selecting an entree, picking a vegetable, selecting a fruit, paying with a PIN number (he has an account so he doesn't have to bring money to school), and remembering to pick up eating utensils was more choices than he could handle. And the situation is very fast-paced, which makes it even more difficult for him to make choices.
Every morning I have attempted to pack a healthy lunch of the things he is willing to eat: apple slices, peanut butter in a cup, pretzels, and bottled water or Pediasure. Lately, 99% of this has been returning home after school. We both seemed to be in a rut: Ian for not wanting to eat anything, and me for not being able to come up with something that would interest him.
Once in a great while, novelty is enough to get him interested in trying something new. I started wondering if an occasional purchased lunch would jump start his appetite. It would also give me a few extra minutes to help him with homework in the morning. On Tuesday I asked him, "Would you like to buy your lunch at school on Friday? They are having pizza!"
Ian thought about it for. . .oh, 1/100 of a second. . .and shouted, "Yeah! Cool!" He was just as excited about Ainsley and me joining him for lunch that day. While he brushed his teeth I ran to the computer and added funds to his school lunch account - not too much, just enough for him to try it a few times and maybe buy his milk every day for a few weeks. Sort of a trial period.
Friday got here terribly fast, but Ainsley and I made it to school at 10:15. A little early for lunch, don't you think? So do I, but the school sets the schedule, not me. Ian's classroom teacher and Special Ed teacher were wonderful to coordinate with each other and let me take Ian out of class a few minutes early. The Special Ed teacher walked with us to the cafeteria and explained how everything works, letting Ian make his choices and put them on his own tray. He had a blast.
By the time we were finished paying, the cafeteria was filling up quickly with the rest of his first grade classmates. We sat at the table reserved for visiting parents and their kids. Ainsley felt especially grown up, until she dropped her pizza down the front of her white t-shirt. She never really recovered after that. Ian, on the other hand, ate more than I have seen him consume at lunch in ages. He felt very special to have us there, and I think we both were proud of this victory.
When Ian was a baby and I held him in my arms, wondering what his future would be like, I did not imagine the difficulties we would be facing together. My rose-colored glasses only saw shining achievements far above what other children could accomplish. Now the exceptional academic successes seem far less important than his baby steps in everyday life and social skills most people take for granted. I wish I could take him to Staples and press the "easy" button to make all of the perplexing formalities make sense to him.
I swear, some days I feel like gluing a pad of Post-it notes to my forehead. I could put instructions for everything in life on those little pieces of paper and he could pull them off and stick them where he would remember them. But then Ainsley would take the Post-its because they are yellow (her favorite color) and move them, thus messing up the "system", and Ian would be left sitting on the floor pressing his fingers to his thumb and contemplating the sticky feeling left behind from the Post-its.
How the hell did I go from being proud that Ian bought his lunch in the cafeteria to talking about Post-its? It's time for a vacation...by myself.
2 comments:
I know that there are a lot of us out here reading, and we don't take the time to say it often enough so I wanted to do it now.
Thank you for sharing your story - the moments you can keep it all together, the moments when you feel like you're losing your mind, the joys, the sorrows, the victories, the losses, the courage to try again - the story that we all share but sometimes feel like no one else can understand.
Blogs like yours are so vitally important to our global aspie family. It can be too easy to become mired in the struggle some days, but when we can read about someone else facing some of the exact same challenges, it makes us feel stronger, more capable, and more able to survive the rough and appreciate the beauty.
Thank you. :)
Stephanie,
Thank you. . .from the bottom of my heart! (Geez, don't ever say that to an Aspie. Can you imagine what they would think?)
I sometimes feel like I am just rattling off and that the only people who read this stuff are my parents and my husband. If sharing our story helps someone else, then everything we are going through is worth the struggle.
Life is full of challenges. Dealing with Asperger's is just one of them. And like all challenges that we navigate through, this one will make us stronger because of the connections we make with other people. Thanks for being part of my world.
Carla
Post a Comment