The month of April is best known for the explosion of Easter Bunnies, obscene amounts of chocolate as gifts for children and a magnificent feast to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. To many people April is Easter, They plan, they organise, many months in advance sometimes, Children have the time of their lives, gorging on chocolate, receiving gifts from extended family members, but to me, April is Autism Awareness month.
So to celebrate this, I am going to dedicate my blog for a whole month to families who wish to share their Autism Journey with you. Some of these people have autism themselves, some are autistic parents to autistic children. We have teachers with autistic students and even Bloggers who want share their journey with me, which I am very grateful for.
With
April coming to a close, I would like to share one of my most entertaining
moments as an Autism Mom…one I thought I would never have.
A little background
on our autism journey…
My son Cody was diagnosed at the age of 25 months, he is
now 20 years old. He was non-verbal and severely apraxic at the time of his
diagnosis. We introduced sign language early on and he picked it up quickly; he
was desperate to communicate, which was a huge gift!! He started to imitate
words and had some scripted phrases that he used consistently by about 7 years
old.
When
Cody was 11 years old and in Middle School, there was a student in his class
that had an extensive swear word vocabulary that he used quite often and in
context. One evening when Cody was working on his homework at the dining room
table and I was cooking dinner with just a breakfast bar between us I hear
“bitch”. It surprised me but I decided to let it go because it was clear that
he had no idea that I heard him.
Over the next ten minutes my precious little
angel said the word bitch about one hundred times in all different voices…low, deep
voice, high pitched squeaky voice, raspy voice, whispering, yelling. I know
that it is very age appropriate to be curious how a swear word would sound
coming out of your mouth, but after 10 minutes, I had to confront him.
I
went over to the dining room table and asked him what he said. He told me,
“nothing”. I said “oh, okay” but as I walked back to the kitchen he started
again. I went back to him and asked him what he said again. He started to
fidget and got his “OH NO” face on. He was wringing his hands and looking up
for an answer that would keep him out of trouble. After several seconds, he
said “gar-bitch”.
I repeated “gar-BITCH???” and he said “yes, gar-bitch”. It
took everything in me not to laugh but I know I could not hide the pride
beaming. My very clever boy came up with a much better cover than I ever could
have. I went on to tell him that the word is pronounced “garbage not gar-bitch”
and he replied “oh, sorry”. I just smiled and went back to the kitchen.
I
know that April can be an overwhelming time of year for our families and I hope
this put a little smile on your face, thinking about that day put one on mine.
So put all your gar-bitch aside and try to find the humor even on the hard
days.
You got this!!
You may have recognised Jennifer from her page:
Autism Awareness Shop
You can also check out her website - HERE
You may have recognised Jennifer from her page:
Autism Awareness Shop
You can also check out her website - HERE
So honored to contribute to your Autism Awareness Month series 💙💙💙💙
ReplyDeleteThank you so much being a part of my series
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