Celebration for Wiping!

**Disclaimer.  This post is happy but clearly about issues of toileting.  If you are sensitive to talking about that kind of thing or if you are having lunch right now, you might want to skip this one.

Somebody say "hallelujah!"  Can I get an "amen"?  Gimme a hand clap!  Let's all whoop out loud for today my son took a poo and wiped himself all without any help from anyone.

I woke up this morning to his big boy body sneaking into our bed on my side.   A few minutes later, my husband went to the bathroom and discovered that Josh had already been there.

"Oh boy!"  Alex declared.  "Looks like someone had a poo."

This is bad news because for the past two years, Josh has been able to get himself to the bathroom to do his business but was not very amenable to wiping.  Therefore, if he went in the middle of the night, he would simply pull his pants up after pooping and go back to bed.  The result was usually not pretty.

"Is there toilet paper in the toilet?"  I asked.

"Yep, right on top."

I got up and took a look for myself, not completely believing that my husband had looked very carefully.

"Hmmm."  I thought.  "But how good of a job could he have done?"

I pulled the happy snuggler out of my bed and checked.  Actually, he had done a very good job.

Then it dawned on me.  Josh had gotten out of bed, taken himself for a nice morning poo, AND HAD WIPED --- all by himself! Today was the day!!

And there was no poo in his hair or on his clothes or on the walls.  There was no pee on the floor.  All of the toilet paper had made it into the toilet.  It had all been done correctly.  I'm not completely sure about the hand washing but I decided not to go crazy with my expectations.

Yes, he's almost fourteen but this is a day that I never thought would come.

We've been in potty training Josh for almost twelve years.  He started sitting on the little training potty at age 2.  Every step seemed to take a zillion times longer than for a typically developing child.  I remember putting night time diapers on him at age 9, worried that we would stop being able to find diapers in his size wondering, "What will we do when he is an adult?"

Josh just never seemed all that motivated.  There was no desire to be a "big boy" and to be like other kids.  He was fine just to go in his pants or bed.  He was happy to have us wipe him.

He's had accidents in every possible conceivable place: in the car, at the grocery store, at the bagel shop, in other people's homes, at church, and in the great outdoors.  He even went through a season when he would pee on electronics like DVD players, portable stereos and TVs.  Ah, what adventures we've had.  I've had moments of panic in so many different contexts as I've raised my little blessing.

How many hours have we spent working on this area?  With hope against hope, we kept trying.  We had to teach him by rote, by just doing certain things over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.  We taught him to wipe peanut butter off of his arm, then his leg just to teach him how to wipe and clean something.  We had him fold exactly 8 squares of toilet paper again and again because Josh preferred to get either two or a hundred squares at a time.  We worked on the fine motor part of wiping because, at first, it was more like spreading than wiping.  It turns out that wiping is more of a challenge than one would think when you are visually impaired, you have low muscle tone and you don't really care about things being clean.

I've had consultations from multiple autism specialists, a visual impairment specialist, several occupational therapists and a physical therapist.  I am guessing that we've had at least 15 college educated people plus a half dozen people with masters degrees working on the challenge of teaching my beloved boy to wipe his bottom.  We even went to one pediatric psychiatrist with an MD/PhD for a couple of consultations.  We paid him $300 an hour to basically show me how to make fancy charts.

Like an annoying, demanding relative who lives with you in your house, toilet training has always been with us. You just wake up and keep giving it attention every day, accepting that this is a part of your life.

But now, he's done it. My son wiped his own bum successfully all by himself.  I'm not sure if we are yet fully living in the promised land of full toileting independence but we've experienced the fruits of our determination today.   I'm proud and I'll blog it from the rooftops!  In my little special needs parenting world, today hope prevails.

Dead Hummingbird

Tough morning. Daddy is out of town. Mom forgot to set the alarm. We woke up just as Josh's bus was about to pull up at our house.  I tried to keep my voice mellow and subdued but I think I ended up sounding serious and intense.  "Girls, Mommy made a mistake and forgot to set the alarm.  I really, really need your help right now!"

The girls picked up on Mom's stressed out tone of voice and scrambled out of bed.  They were very impressive in this mini crisis getting themselves (and even helping Josh) to get ready. Someone got Josh a glass of water.  The other one gave him a very crispy piece of toast. Teeth were not brushed thoroughly and we all had crazy hair but we were only 5 minutes late heading out the door with breakfast in our hands. It was a miracle of morning productivity yet it was clear that we were all adrenalinized and on the brink of snapping at each other any minute if anything were to go wrong.

Do you know what gave me the most energy in the midst of this flurry of activity?  It was the fact that Josh smiled through the whole thing.  My son's super power is that he does not pick up on other people's emotions.  Yes, that's often a downside in social interactions but in moments like these, when negative or stressful emotions are swirling around, it can be so helpful.  Josh woke up happy and was blissfully clueless that others were not.  He was glad to be awake and no one was going to take that away from him.

Unfortunately, we opened the front door and found a dead hummingbird at our doorstep.  I think one of the girls might have even stepped on it's little dead wing as she went out. Weeping ensued. It was like a little handful of cuteness and beauty had been crushed right in front of us.  They demanded that we give it a proper burial right then and there. We three females all felt the spike of sad, negative energy in the moment.  Aya.  What to do?

"Girls, girls, please.  I am begging you.  Can we deal with this later?"  I gently placed the hummingbird's corpse in what I called a "special resting place" under a purple bush in my front  yard.

By some miracle, the girls were both able to choose to be redirected.  Josh was already in the car, munching on an apple and smiling broadly for some unknown reason.  At this point in my life it is such a beautiful thing that at least one of my children is pleasantly resistant to being infected by the negative energy or emotions of others.  He does not get pulled into the panic or anger or sadness of the people around him.  He is just where he is at.  I find that sort of wonderful.  

I want to be someone who can smile and remain happy even when people around me are not.  What is the secret to not getting sucked into other people's stress or negative emotions?  Short of having autism, my guess is that the answer is to become a person who is deeply rooted in peace.  I don't even know what that would look like but I want it.  I want to have a spiritual and emotional force field to the destructive and dark vibes that swirl all around me in my day.  

Sometimes life hands you a dead hummingbird on your front door on a day when you are already running late.  Some days are just like that.  The next time I have one of those days, I am going to picture my happy, apple eating, emotionally unfettered son and try to remember that I do not have to sink into heaviness and despair.  It is possible to be free and happy even on chaotic, dead hummingbird days.  

A Shared Joy is a Double Joy

Yesterday I took my kids through a drive-through car wash for the first time in their lives.  It was, to Josh, a revelation.  He was immediately deeply engaged by the experience, exuding a sense of awe that one might have when observing the Grand Canyon or the earth from space. The brushes going back and forth, the spray of the water, the squirting of the detergent, the vibrating rumblings of the machine that ensconced us, these things were absolutely enthralling to him.  

This blog is called "shower heads and hairdryers" because those have been two of Josh's absolute favorite things since he was very little.  Many autistic individuals have a special interest in unique things such as elevators, trains, or dial tones.  Showers have always been the zenith of interest for Josh.  He can spend a good part of a day drawing them.   One year for his birthday, we printed out dozens of images of shower heads and hairdryers and put them up all over the house.  It was better than a trip to Disneyland for my son.  

 As the carwash brushes whirled by spraying florets of water, I could hear Josh whisper with a voice of wonder, "shower head." 

"Yes, Josh" I said. "It's like we're in a shower head.  Like a car shower."

"Like a car shower," said Mr. Amazed.  "Like a car shower."  

For the next 10 minutes, Josh yapped happily about his experience, savoring the sounds of talking about what he had just seen.  

"Like a shower.  Like a brower.   Like a shower head.  Like a dower.  Is it like a zower?  Drower?  "

After a while, Josh's annoyed sisters coudn't tune him out.  "Josh, please stop."

But there was no stopping him.  Home boy was on a roll.  "Zower.  Like a shower.  Shower head. Brower.  Would you like a dower?  It's a car shower.  A car brower."  

"Girls, let him talk.  He's happy."  I said, taking in Josh's exuberance.  

Yes, Josh was very happy and he wanted to share it, in his own way.  And this filled me with joy, even though it was a little bit like being swallowed by a Dr. Seuss book.  My son was sharing about something.  He wanted us to share in something that he was experiencing. 

When I serve in our church's nursery, one of the things that tears my heart a little is watching little 9 month babies point to things.  Pointing is a sign of something very important in a child in terms of his or her neuro-social development.  That child is wanting to share about something with another person.  Pointing, eye contact, shared attention on another interesting object, these are things that naturally happen in a typically developing child, even at a very young age.  It is a critical building block of learning and connecting.  A child points to something then an adult says, "Yes, that's a train. It's Thomas the train.  And this is Percy.  Percy is green!" With a facial expression, tone of voice, and eye contact the child takes in the nuances of meaning.  The experience of sharing attention is a magical portal for learning.

Most autistic children have a very low impulse to have shared attention.  They are often content to experience things on their own, thus, their worlds tend to develop in ways that are not very connected to most people.  This was true of Josh.  I don't ever remember him pointing to things.  He rarely wanted to share his interest or joy in something that was interesting to him. Shared interest has been, to Josh, a very, very thin thread in his developmental life but it's there. 

Yet, in this moment, even in his ramblings, I could tell that Josh was trying to express to us that he had experienced something extraordinary: a shower in a car.  I longed to milk this moment of shared attention and shared joy for all that it was worth.  

This morning as I woke Josh up, I said to him, "We were in a car shower yesterday, huh, Josh?"  He smiled a little smile and said, "Car shower".  And I thought that there was a split second of eye contact as he said it.  

A professor once told me that a shared joy is a double joy.  And even though I need to be at work in a few minutes, I have to post about this moment because I want to double, triple, quadruple my joy.  My son had a moment of joy and, in his own way, he wanted to tell me about it!  It brings me such happiness to reflect on it, to relive the moment!  ZOWER!

May you have a moment of wonder today and may you have the grace-joy-synergy-energy to share about it.  

I'm Having a Very Good Life

One of my favorite movies in the world is a little known film called Mi Familia (or My Family).  I love it because it’s a beautiful snapshot of Los Angeles, a city that I deeply love, and about three generations of a Mexican family, a culture that I love.

I saw this movie when it first came out 21 years ago and since then, at least every couple of months I think about the final scene of the movie.  The matriarch and patriarch of the story, Jose and Maria, are sitting together in their golden years reminiscing about their past and they say, “God has been good to us, we've been very lucky, and our life it has been very...very good.” 

I remember being totally shocked by that scene because in their lives, Jose and Maria have endured many horrible, difficult things such as illegal deportation, the LAPD gunning down one son in front of another, several children going to jail, gang violence, the death of a daughter-in-law as she gave birth to a grandson, all kinds of racism, poverty, back-breaking work etc.  But somehow, near the end of their lives, they are grateful people.  They are grateful to God.  I remember thinking that it was some sort of miracle or parable --- to have a very difficult life but to be able to see it as good.  To have a glad and grateful heart even after having endured so much sadness and evil is shockingly striking.  The memory of this scene has been deeply planted in my mind.

I want to be like Jose and Maria. 

As someone on the journey of parenting a child with special needs, it is easy to see your life as less than good.  There are difficulties, isolation and so many things that you just can’t do.  I find myself wondering, “What is the next crisis that will come along?”, "Will I find poop in random places in my house?", "Do I have the strength today to battle with various systems that seem take a pound of flesh from me before giving me the meds that my son needs?"

It is still so easy to fall into comparison with other people, other families.  And then there is the future.  What will Josh do when he is booted from the school system?  Who will take care of Josh when we are no longer able to?  Will I ever not be parenting someone who functions as a toddler?  Anxiety, discontentment, bitterness:  these things offer themselves to me daily like shiny fruits from the forbidden tree in the middle of the garden of my life. 

But I am beginning to get a glimpse of what it might mean to be like Jose and Maria.  On some days, I look at my beautiful son and I find myself thinking about how lucky I am to get to be his mom.  I see him as the overwhelming gift that he is to me.  Through Josh I have learned compassion, servanthood, slowing down, being needy, waiting, the blessed state of being a dependent child.  I would not trade these lessons for anything.  I imagine myself, at the end of my life, thanking God and giving him unending praise for having the wisdom to give me a child like Josh for the sake of my own sanctification.  I picture God laughing that I could share His joy in the great gift of my son. 

As my mind stretches out to meditate on contentment, I remember a book that I read years ago called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. This "rare jewel" of a book, written almost 400 years ago, addresses the basic problem of human discontent and suffering. True contentment, argues the author, is achieved by surrender to God.  I feel the hardness of my heart and the smallness of my brain whenever I approach this book.  But I also feel the warmth of the truth in it's contents and I am strangely attracted to it.  

I might be a complaining, entitled, cranky person tomorrow or even an hour from now but right now, I see and I submit to the reality that God knows what He is doing.  He loves me and wants more for me than I can even dare to imagine.  I am having a very, very good life.