The Month Before Cake

It figures that I would fail to blog on the final day of my blog-every-day month. Ah, well.

It is a shame, however, that I missed acknowledging the last day of Autism Awareness Month yesterday. Especially since I wanted to tell you that I finally convinced my husband to read "Look Me in the Eye" (he's a stubborn one) and he wrote a lovely blog post about it.

I hope you were all able to celebrate the month in some way - hopefully either by becoming better informed about autism yourself, or by educating someone else.

So yes, it's May 1st, and sure it's May Day, but at our house, it's most importantly the beginning of birthday-planning season. A household of Geminis, are we. My birthday is first, which is probably good since I require the most planning, and re-planning, and second-guessing of plans, etc. I wobble between wanting to plan a fabulous day of activities where I get to spend time with my family and friends and simply wanting to have a day where I don't have to do anything except possibly get a massage and read a book...or watch the Food Network. Yes, I wobble...but ultimately we all know I'm going to plan some kind of activity that will allow me to wear a party dress and eat dessert.

Added into my birthday-planning complexities is the fact that my boys' birthday is the day after mine. This might not sound like a big deal, but it is. I refuse to have my boys wake up at grandma's house the morning of their birthday, which means we either have to find a sitter to come here (and face waking up at 6:30 a.m. the day after my party), or we just have to celebrate a day earlier. Celebrating a day early isn't usually a huge deal, but of course, this year my birthday happens to fall on a Saturday...hence, my fantasy of planning a day of fun. Maybe if we start early, we can all be in bed by 9 p.m.

As for the boys' birthday, I'm still trying to sell my idea of them each inviting one friend for mini-golf and teppenyaki, but I suspect that they'll choose to have another traditional party with at least a dozen kids, which I suppose is alright given their social challenges.

I don't want to leave my husband out here. His birthday is exactly two weeks after the boys' birthday, which this year also happens to be Father's Day. You could say he gets screwed in this scenario, but the good news is that he tends to not want to do much for his birthday anyway. Naturally, I always plan something anyway. I could get into the added complexities of his birthday being on Father's Day, but it's really not all that important - we'll make it work. There will be dinners and cake and celebrations galore in June. Emphasis on cake.

Insight and Understanding

There have been times on this autism journey with Owen that I have wondered if we might not all have been better off had he never been diagnosed. He is generally so high functioning that his autistic traits usually appear more as quirks than anything and sometimes I wonder if this label that's he's been saddled with will do more harm than good. 

But then I read John Elder Robison's* blog today about the value of neuro-psychological testing and it reminded me that I am grateful to have a better understanding of my son -- and that he will grow up with a better understanding of himself -- and that it's not the label I hate, it's just the lack of understanding and support that goes with it. 

Obviously, that's changing and I hope that it will continue to change as Owen gets older. And I hope he can find inspiration in people like Mr. Robison so he can go forward knowing that being different can be amazing. 

*If you haven't yet read his book, "Look Me In the Eye: My Life with Asperger's," run out and buy it now. It not only provides insight into Asperger's, but it's just a really good story on its own. The guy toured with KISS!