"It matters Not what someone is born but what they grow to be"*

The boy is going to be learning something today.
He is going to be learning that he is different. We never told him before. Not that we didn't want to, it just never came up as a topic of conversation. He knows he as Aspergers and he hates it.....yes he does hate his Aspergers. He hasn't grasped yet that his Aspergers is part of who he is. It is a piece of him; kind of like being an obnoxious goofball is a part of me (it's OK, I know it already so I am allowed to acknowledge it.) He has to make the Aspergers work for him and not him working for it.

After the debacle of final exams this semester he is not necessarily in a good place. His grades are still in the "B" range, His lack of effort with his finals was commented on and notated by his parents, counselors at school and teachers.
We are appalled.

The cuter half and I are not two people who go about wasting our time. Those of us who really know us know we are busy people, we have things to do, places to go and people we want to see and make plans with. Actually, we are pretty direct (no not really) and the cute one tells me I am as subtle as a blunt axe. So when the boy doesn't do what he is supposed to do, we all stay up much to late and then we go off and insist that he study.....As I mentioned to a family member, the grades weren't "fatal" but the thing of it is HE HAS TO WORK HARDER than most people. It's the facts unfortunately. He does have a lot to prove, that he is smart, that he is a good person, that he has to leave the Aspergers for the bedroom or the front door.

In fact, I have told the few gen friends when they come over here, he is different than when he is at school. At school he is supposedly much more uptight. At least that is what I hear. I don't know for certain and I have not a clue how things are really going. There are times when I wish I had a tape recorder or something in the lining of his backpack just to see what REALLY happens over there.

Most people see a kid like ours as a social and economic detriment. I realize that's harsh, but we hear people talking and we know by the looks what they are thinking. What, you people don't think we know? Yes we know, and we know that in our relative isolation we are doing the BEST that we can and the boy is learning new things all the time. Maybe not at the rate of the gens but darn well close enough.

Tonight is a classic example. The boy wanted to make dinner for cute one and I. We concurred and told him he could as long as he had all the ingredients and we didn't have to go shopping. We've already had our salad. We woke the boy (he was taking a nap)....and chorused, "We are hungry, when is dinner?" He woke up when he realized that HE was making dinner and we were holding him to it; he  is learning to use the mandolin (a piece of cooking equipment not the instrument) and baking fish.....and whatever else. We are doing to him as he has done by us. "I'm hungry can I have a snack?" "I'll do it, even though I have worked all day and shoveled snow."

Tonight, the boy is doing it all himself. Everything. Cute one is watching to make certain the boy doesn't burn down the house....and I am hiding in the office blogging....The hang up is that the boy is caught up with a recipe ("We don't have krispie cereal. What should I use?"). The boy's perfectionism is coming out and the boy doesn't believe he can do anything without a piece of paper or a picture. Kind of like Great Auntie's beer bread recipe that we all have memorized he is still not able to work without that piece of paper.

The boy has had about enough of us- or so he says. He is learning tonight; I pray what he grows to be is better than what he thinks he is right now.








*JK Rowling

Comments

  1. That discussion actually went better than I thought it would. We did set specific parameters about what would happen during the discussion and how we were going to handle it. He took it well.
    I am certain it will come up again but in the meantime at least it has given him food for thought.

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