Monthly Archives: June 2012

Cursing and Gravity

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Image

Sir Isaac Newton got hit by an apple, not an F-bomb.

If you’ve been around these parts you know we’ve been struggling quite a bit with discipline, particularly as it relates to Ryan and one of his self-described “hobbies” — cursing.

Now, I’m no prude when it comes to, ahem, colorful language. I do realize there are far more important behavioral issues. But Ryan’s insistence on cursing goes to his willingness to defy the things we ask him to do, and both Veronica and I feel we must address it.

Plus, there have been incidents of him cursing in public, at friend’s houses, etc., that have caused issues with other parents. We have tried to use those as teachable moments. Ryan always insists that he has his cursing under control and will never use bad language outside the house where it could get him in trouble. Not so.

Still, this is an ongoing battle. He seems determined to push the envelope until we relent and just allow him to say whatever he wants. So far, it’s a stalemate.

All that is background to where we found ourselves the other day, which was desperately trying to keep a straight face after questioning Ryan about a particular cursing incident.

Typically his cursing is of the PG-13 variety, but on this occasion he had slipped into Rated-R territory, using the F-word.

“Ryan, is it true that you dropped an F-bomb?” we asked him.

“Yes,” came the reply. But his mischievous grin indicated there was more coming.

“I dropped an F-bomb”

[Pause for dramatic effect]

“BECAUSE OF GRAVITY!”

What am I supposed to do with that?

Ryan on YouTube

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Sorry for the late post today. Between all the travel and random days off, I didn’t even realize it was Wednesday until late in the day. And since I have published a new post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday since launching this blog, that means it’s post day.

We are in that week-plus between the end of the school year and the start of summer camp. It’s the most unstructured time of the summer. Veronica took the kids to visit her sister for a few days while I was at the NHL Draft, but now we’re all back together. Veronica and I are trading days off this week and today was my day.

Ryan has been bugging me for several days to help him “put a video on YouTube.” He loves YouTube. He can spend hours — if we let him — watching hockey highlights of all varieties. Lately, his favorite has been re-watching the Devils’ player intros from the Stanley Cup Final.

When he started making noise about putting a video on YouTube, he didn’t quite understand that we’d have to actually film something first. Once he understood that, it became a question of what. Shockingly, all his ideas centered around hockey. He wanted me to film him playing an entire game of NHL2K on the Wii. I explained that video would be way too long. We went back and forth on how long his video could be. He wanted 10 minutes, I countered with three, telling him that it would take hours to transcode and upload a 10-minute video. (OK, so I stretched the truth a little).

Once he reluctantly agreed to a shorter video, we got down to specifics. He has on several occasions asked me to film him playing Hockey Guys. His play-by-play calls have become quite intricate, and it’s actually fun to watch. He packs in so many nuanced details that he has picked up watching highlights on NHL.com and the NHL Network, such as the sound he makes — it’s hard to describe — that approximates the sound of the “wipe” between highlights on his favorite show, NHL Tonight. You kind of have to see them side-by-side to understand, but trust me, it’s highly accurate.

He agreed to do some Hockey Guys highlights and have me film those. I told him I’d give him some cues to tell him when his three minutes were nearing an end. After we were done, I decided rather than just upload the clip to YouTube, we’d do some editing on iMovie first. He had typed a large introductory script, which he displayed on the computer screen and asked me to film. We ended up turning that into scrolling “credits” on the video. We edited out the parts where he was moving his Hockey Guys into position between highlights. We added a few transitions, and we were done.

I have to say, the whole project was pretty fun. And Ryan could not be prouder of himself that he’s actually published on YouTube. Have a look for yourself, as Ryan does play-by-play on some imaginary Flyers-Hurricanes highlights:

The result is 100% Ryan, right down to the explanation of the standings in the “credits.”

This was a child that was always challenged by creative play. But he was found incredible ways to make his Hockey Guys as realistic as possible. From the mini-flashlight he uses to put a “spotlight” on the player who scored (not in this video, because both goals were scored by the road team, duh), to the play-by-play calls he has mimicked from watching hundreds of hours of hockey highlights on TV. Nothing gets by him.

We are looking forward to a somewhat return to structure when camp starts next week, but I have one more day of unstructured time with both kids this week. Who knows what sort of project we’ll get into. This may have been Ryan’s first YouTube video, but I don’t think it will be his last.

Something New

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Arcade

Trying something new at the arcade. This is not small.

School is out. It’s officially summer time. We are in that difficult, super-unstructured period between the end of the school year and the start of camp.

It can be trying. Ryan wants to spend most of his days away from us, alone in his room typing hockey standings. If we let him do it for too long, it invariably leads to outbursts of anger and frustration, so we have to impose strict limits. Challenging behaviors have been met with consequences such as no computer or Wii for the day.

I have been away for work, so Veronica has the kids with her at Aunt Mary’s house for a few days. Aunt Mary’s house is fun. There is a pool. For Riley, there is a dog to play with. There is always time for some street hockey in the driveway.

Veronica and Mary made several plans for the visit, including a trip to a water park. The hope was to avoid too much unstructured time at the house, where Ryan prefers to withdraw to his room and type on the computer.

Unfortunately, the weather and a wave of colds that swept through the family would not cooperate. There would be no water park visit this trip. Veronica was worried. Issues were compounded by the fact that she felt miserable and that Ryan had not slept one night due to his cold.

But before I had a chance to worry too much, the texts form Veronica started to arrive:

Btw, we all watched nat geo weird animals. Ryan LOVED it. New show!

It may not seem like much, but this is progress. Ryan typically will only like one show at a time. He will watch the same episodes over and over on the DVR, driving Riley nuts. Shows on his preferred list have included Spongebob, AFV and Wipeout. In order to get him to try any of those we had to force him to sit on the couch and watch with us. If he decided he liked a new show, that was it, all his old shows were instantly discarded. So the spontaneous adoption of a new show — especially one so different from the rest of the ones on his roster — is huge.

Ryan & I went 2 park & played basketball 4 an hour. Yes. BASKETBALL

Another little thing that’s not little at all in our world. Ryan’s interests are so limited, and so focused on hockey, that they often get in the way of him relating to other kids his age. When a new friend wanted to play football instead of hockey, he gave it a brief try before insisting they convert the game to “fockey,” or football crossed with hockey.

Been playing bball in pool. Going 2 arcade l8r.

The next thing to arrive was a picture of Ryan playing some sort of driving game at the arcade, the kind I have tired in vain to get him to play many times. Usually he insists on only playing air hockey. There was lots of air hockey at this arcade visit too, but as Veronica texted me later:

Nice 2 have Ryan do different things

It is nice. It’s wonderful. These new activities may or may not last. Once he’s back in the familiar environment of home, Ryan may opt to revert to only those things he typically does there. He has an amazing ability to compartmentalize experiences. It’s just another way he is able to impose some straight lines on the unstructured curves the world throws at him.

But even if that happens, these experiences will be added to the memory bank. They can be referenced later as we attempt to get him to branch out is interests and activities. There is value in that.

As Jess’s post today reminded me, the one thing we can’t impose on our kids is a timeline. We can nudge and prod and work to give them the tools to experience new things. But they, and only they, will determine when they are ready to do so.

Deja Vu

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I don’t have time to write much today. I am traveling again for work. Not complaining, this is one of the perks of the job: getting to attend the NHL’s major events.

This time, it’s the NHL Draft in Pittsburgh. I love this event for several reasons. Watching these 18-year-old prospects, who have worked and sacrificed to reach this point, never gets old. A lot of these kids made difficult choices, including moving away from home at 14 or 15, to pursue their dream of making it to the NHL. To see their reactions when their name gets called at the Draft is priceless.

I also love it because it can feel very much like the last day of high school. After a six-month regular-season, the two-month playoff grind, an Awards show in Las Vegas, the NHL Draft truly marks the end of the season. By the latter stages of Day 2, everyone is in a giddy mood, saying their goodbyes for the summer.

But my favorite thing about the Draft is that it isa giant hockey convention. Everyone — with the exception of current players enjoying a brief summer vacation — who is anyone in the game is here. Coaches, owners, general managers, agents, former players, prospects, etc. Anywhere you turn your head in town you spot someone noteworthy.

I think of how much Ryan would love it here. He always gets excited seeing hockey stuff anywhere. There is signage and team logos all over most of the downtown hotels. People are walking around everywhere wearing team paraphernalia. Yesterday, I spotted the Sharks head coach, Todd McLellan, and quickly fired off a text to Veronica to have her let Ryan know.

He’d probably object to being here because it’s not a game, but I just think once he saw all the hockey people that are here he’d love it. I’ll have to get him to a Draft one day.

There was another surprise when I arrived in Pittsburgh. I walked into the hotel lobby and was instantly hit with a sense of deja vu. I knew it wasn’t from other work related trips to Pittsburgh, which were spent at different hotels. I searched my memory bank for why I recalled this spot. Then someone mentioned they had seen a member of the Minnesota Twins, in town to play the Pirates, at our hotel.

That did it. My dad and I used to take baseball trips when I was a teenager. At first, we wanted to see all the old ballparks. Later, we combined seeing ballparks with college visits. That’s how we found ourselves in Pittsburgh, on the way to Michigan to visit what would end up being my college of choice in Ann Arbor.

As an added bonus to these trips, we would research and stay at the visiting team hotels wherever we could. As a starry-eyed baseball fanatic, it was an incredible thrill to find yourself seated next to Ozzie Smith at a hotel coffee shop.

The city of Pittsburgh is much different today. Three Rivers Stadium has been torn down and replaced by matching gems for the Steelers and Pirates. The Penguins’ old home, the igloo, is a pile of rubble near our hotel, having been replaced by the brand-new CONSOL Energy Center, site of this weekend’s Draft.

Of course, I am much different as well. I’m no longer a star-struck teenager. I’m a husband and a father. I’m thankful for the experiences I had with my dad. I don’t think I would have developed the same love of sports without his influence. Every time I’ve taken a sports road trip with my kids, I’ve thought of the times we spent together seeing games around the country.

I’m already looking forward to our next trips. Even though this has been a long season, I’m already looking forward to October. It can’t get here fast enough.

 

Future Goals

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Today, my little boy — who is not so little any more — graduates from elementary school.

Nine years in the making. I still remember dropping him off at his first day of the wonderfully titled “preschool disabled” program at another elementary school in town. It was the day after his third birthday. We were terrified. We could not imagine leaving this child, who struggled so much to communicate his needs, in the care of strangers.

But as we all fought off tears, Ryan was quickly wrapped in the loving embrace of an unbelievable teacher who would guide him through his first two years of the program. The aides and therapists could not have been more caring. It was obvious — these people would not just teach our son, they would love him. It was still incredibly difficult to leave our crying child with them that day, but we knew he was in good hands.

Fast forward nearly a decade and one school later, and today Ryan will graduate from fifth grade. For each of those nine years, he has been taught, and guided, and embraced, and aided, through the school system by some incredibly caring, warm individuals. He has been loved. And we have never worried about leaving him in their care.

In so many ways, Ryan barely resembles the scared child we dropped off so many years ago. He’s nearly as tall as his mother. He has developed socially and intellectually in so many ways. He has friends. He plays sports. He is able to communicate his needs. And though there are still plenty of struggles, and plenty of worries, today is a day to stop and reflect at how far he has come, thanks to his own hard work and the efforts of so many of the individuals that have assisted him along the way. Teachers, aides, therapists. The school secretary who promised on his first day to look out for him and has never failed to greet him with a hug. They have all played a part in getting him to this point.

Ryan’s yearbook came home last week, full of signatures from friends wishing him a good summer. As soon as we could, we flipped through it to find his picture. Each child had a chance to list their favorite things, as well as “future goals.” Before reading, I would have bet anything that his future goals would have included either “playing in the NHL” or “being a hockey talker (announcer)”. Ryan rarely talks about the future, but when he does he always lists one or the other as his future occupation.

I could not have been more wrong.

Veronica was reading his entry out loud; favorite activities, book, movie, etc. When she got to future goals, her voice caught and she stopped in her tracks. On about the third attempt, she finally got the words out.

“Future Goals: Success in [his next school] without Ms. [his aide].”

Like a lot of parents of children on the autism spectrum, Veronica and I try not to look too far ahead. It’s not easy. You see your child struggle and you wonder what this will look like at age 15, 18, 35. It’s a dangerous game. We try to remind each other to focus on the here and now and the immediate future. What can he do this week, this month, this year that he couldn’t do a week/month/year ago. Small victories add up and it helps you feel like the long-term progression will be positive.

And yet, we wish Ryan wouldn’t follow that same advice. We wish he’d listed playing for the San Jose Sharks as his future goal.

Ryan's yearbook entry

Ryan’s yearbook entry. In case you were wondering, his favorite saying comes from Florida Panthers’ backup goalie Scott Clemmensen.

He is so worried about changing schools. About not having his familiar aide. About riding the bus. So are we, but the last thing we want to do is have Ryan pick up on our fears.

The unstructured summer is always trying. This year’s will be more of challenge, as we fear Ryan’s anxiety over his new school will creep in and prevent him from having any summer fun. We are doing everything we can to make the transition easier. We’ll visit the new school and new teachers over the summer. We’ve already made fast friends with the administrators. They’ll be hearing from us plenty.

It’s funny. You spend so much time worrying about how your child will develop. And then they do, and they’re ready to take the next step, and you worry even more about that. We never wanted to take him to elementary school as a three-year old. Now that he’s ready to move on, we don’t want him to leave.

Ryan is ready for this. The transition will be rough for a brief period. But he will adapt, and so will we. He will succeed, even without his aide.