My eldest has Asperger's Syndrome. He is 17 years old and most of the time, he's a great kid. When the meds are off or he's nervous or anxious it can be hell. Matt struggles with adolescence. Emotionally, he knows he still feels like a 12 year old - there have been many times Matt has told me he still wishes he were 10 because things were a lot easier then. I often reply, "me, too", but mostly we just try to talk about how getting older can be a good thing. Hormonally, he's definitely 17, but bless his heart, he knows there is a pretty significant gap between what his body wants to do and what his emotional self can handle. Example - he has been friends with a girl at school since they were kids. This girl has started to reach out to Matt, a card here, a phone call there. Boy was that interesting - 2 1/2 hour conversation - I haven't had a 2 1/2 hour conversation with him in his whole LIFE - he is challenged in "expressive speech". I wonder if they want to take the relationship beyond platonic friends; I've asked him, and his response was, "Mom, it would be great, but I'm not ready - my head isn't old enough to date". I thought that was pretty mature for a kid that still won't watch anything beyond Cartoon Network.

Matt plays street hockey with the Special Olympics. Hockey and skiing are the two things that can get him outside and active. He loves it. Last weekend, he went with the team to play in a tournament at the Jersey Shore. He got to room with his buddies, hang out and watch movies, all the things that these kids don't always find easy to do. During that weekend, he showed such maturity - he called home to check in, called after his games to tell me how they did (they made the finals!). He called the next day to let me know they took the silver - and he was okay with not winning. When I picked him up on Sunday, he showed me the medals with such pride and we talked in the car about how some of the kids didn't deal well with the loss, and how proud he was that he doesn't do that anymore. That meant more to me than winning a gold medal.

Today, I received a note from one of the parents telling me how responsible and polite he was the entire weekend - that he really was a lovely young man. This is a kid who will probably need assistance his entire life - receiving something like this was just as pleasurable as hearing that he'd be valedictorian of his class. It makes me have hope that making the transition will be more positive that we thought possible.

Here's my young man at Hemingway's house in Key West:



I mentioned that I would update my previous entry with my daughter's dress for the dance - doesn't she look beautiful?:

What a week.....

I was in sales training all week, which translates into sales people throwing slightly poisonous darts at the poor marketing saps (e.g. me) trying to spell our strategy. It was a loooooong week, but somehow I survived - although there was a lot of direct conversations and a little tough love along the way. Now, it's Friday night. My daughter had her 8th grade dance tonight and I'm sitting here typing while she's curled up and sound asleep next to me on the couch. We bought her dress earlier this week and I have to give the girl credit, when she decides to dress up, she has a great sense of style. I'll post pictures of her later. The most interesting part of this story was that she came home from school looking quite sad. It seems the boy who had asked her to the dance (now that means they'll meet at the dance and stand next to each other, it's not the traditional dance date) had a family emergency and had to leave school early. As he picked up his books, he apologized and told her he wouldn't be able to go. My daughter kept a stiff upper lip, but she was sad about it.

After pep talks and a long shower, which always makes everything a little better, she looked beautiful and was ready to go. When it was over, I picked her up and she came out beaming....well after the dance was under way, the young man showed up, family issue under control and found my daughter (who was managing to have a really good time) in time just to dance with her. Nothing like a happy movie ending to make a lousy week seem so much better.

Oh...the Christmas tree storage epilogue:



There is nothing better than duct tape.