A Brave Baby Dragon

Enjoy one of Melissa's little dragon stories. . .

A Bowl of Birthday Cheer

Melissa actually wanted a party for her birthday. My heart leaped for joy when she told me so. "A party with cake, and to drink, the juice in the bowl with ice cream."

I knew she meant punch. I have a punch bowl, and it makes an appearance now and then full of berry flavored sugar water and citrus-fizzy drink, sometimes frothy with sherbet. Melissa wanted a party, with punch. So as I said out loud the names of invitees, she nodded enthusiastically. "Of course, of course, of course!" to each name. We compiled a house-ful of friends to ask. I marvelled, was this the girl who six weeks ago would not even leave her room? She has taken a turn for the better.

Her party was a huge success. She received gifts, showed off her computer art, ate cake, and pizza, and pink fizzy punch with glee. My dad said it all when he told me, "It was great to see Melissa being the belle of the ball."

Melissa's Art Show

Today is the reception and opening day for the "Autism Artism" show at Lane Community College's art gallery. Three of Melissa's prints are on display. She knows about the art show, and several of her friends are planning to attend. She, however, will not be there. She has had a very rough week. The meltdown at the end of school, Thurday's meltdown because Mom took her to the hair salon, and Friday's meltdown because Mom insisted that she pick strawberries. These are stories of their own, but for today we are enjoying some peace and tranquility, and I just wanted to post the art that will be celebrating Melissa's unique life. We are there in spirit.

Good-Byes

Since Spring Break, Melissa has been more and more reluctantly following the morning routine, the showering, the dressing, the school bus. It has been obvious to all that she is ready for the lazy hazy days of summer. This week she was supposed to have two last days of school, really easy days with movies and art and snacks, while the masses went roller skating.

Monday rolled around and she would have none of it. From the moment I woke her up until the tense struggle coaxing her onto the bus her anxiety rose and rose. She was verbalizing all her negative thoughts, which are so painful for me to hear.

"I hate that place, the kids will laugh at me! It's stupid! I am not pretty, they say I am FAT! I do not want school, I cannot go to jail! They are all liars, they lie to me! You hate me! You love James, you have a new kid, I am alone!"

So forth and so on, my patient protests of love notwithstanding. So when my phone rang at work I was not surprised. It was a full-on melt down at school. Her Teacher, who has been with Melissa every day for this entire school-year, her aide, now a two-year veteran, and me, her Mother, for Heaven's sake, were all non-plussed. It was touch and go for hours, in fact, the county crisis team was almost summoned.

Eventually she did calm down. The day was completed. Finally, she was able to talk to her teacher, her counselor, her sister, to me.

What was making her so upset? Why did she choose today to explode into a cascade of hostility?

Transition. Melissa hates change. And here we are, on the cusp of that hated experience. No more school...no more morning routine...and especially, no more Teacher. Teacher is not returning in the fall, falling victim to unfortunate union seniority rulings, her position is being reclaimed by someone who has been in the district longer. I haven't made much of this, hoping to minimize the sadness, but as usual, nothing gets past Melissa.

Her tears flowed. Finally, we put action to the feelings and made her Teacher a good-bye gift. I dug out a clay pot and some paintes, Melissa painted hearts and swirls and colors on the pot to give to Teacher. I put flowers in it while she signed a thank-you card.

In fat black marker she wrote "I will miss you" and signed 'Melissa' with a little sad drawing.

I took her to school to deliver the good-bye gift and when we left there was not a dry eye in the room.

"How do you feel now?" I asked her.

"Funny." she said. "I feel happy and sad all mixed up."

"Yes", I said, holding her hand. "I understand."

Dragons for Valentine's Day

At Melissa's annual IEP meeting, her "team" sat around a large table in childsize chairs to discuss her progress in school. I am thankful for a group this year who have all seen and appreciate who Melissa is, underneath her autism. We went around the circle to share her strengths. Some tears were choked back and some authentic awe was expressed. We all spent time brainstorming about how to encourage her to engage with her friends, since we have become aware that she is longing for some. There were several good ideas and my heart was comforted knowing that she has the support of some very bright and dedicated adults.
That night at home, I invited Melissa to join me at the table to create some homemade Valentine cards for her class. The list was long, 29 kids, most of whom she has never interacted with for more than a few minutes. She sat down gamely and we began an assembly line. I cut and pasted, and she wrote the kids name and drew a dragon for each child on the envelope. I do so wish I had been able to get a scan of those dragon sketches...each one was different and so vividly portrayed what she thought and felt about each child.
Some kids had elaborate dragons with embellished hearts and swirly letters. Some kids had ferocious dragons with lightning bolts and muscles. One kid's dragon was wearing a hoodie. There were even a few not so flattering depictions of kids who must annoy her. I hoped the art would outweigh the interpretation.
It took us two hours, and Melissa stayed with it the whole time. She said to me "the kids will like my art and it will be wonderful." We stacked up 29 envelopes and tied them with red fuzzy pipe cleaner.
The next day at work I got a tearful phone call from one of Melissa's speech teachers. She had visited the classroom after Melissa had visited to deliver her cards. She said no less than five kids approached her to show her what Melissa had made them. They told her they were going to hang the drawings up in their rooms. They asked when she was going to visit again.
I choked up and thanked her, and spent the next five minutes staring into my computer screen, visualizing Melissa making friends.
Bless the Valentine Dragons.

Self-Service

A frequent complaint of mine about Melissa has to do with her attitude about food. Even when she was tiny she was all about feeding herself. She would slide a chair up to the cupboard and scale the Mt. Everest of the shelves to reach the Fruit Loops, even if I was right there in the kitchen next to her. She doesn't want to triangulate with me around her food. So nowadays it is commonplace to see her foraging in the refrigerator or pantry for something to munch on. If I ask her if she wants help, she always declines. "No, thanks, I'm just fine, heh." The little laugh on the end of the sentence is intended to put me at ease, and hopefully, make me go away. The pantry might be well-stocked, but if there are not certain items available it might as well belong to Mother Hubbard. I keep individual tuna cups, string cheese, bacon, bagels, and peanut butter on hand all the time. Popsicles are a favorite, and so are Ritz crackers. Bananas disappear, and so does Wonder Bread, a loaf at a time, becoming toast and P.B.J.'s. I can manage to get her to eat roasted chicken breast, as long as it is the only thing on the plate, and has no sauce or skin. Or chicken strips, as long as they are from a Carl's Jr. drive thru. Little Caesar's "Cheese-Sauce Pizza" is the only kind she will eat. Sometimes grapes, but mostly not. Sometimes applesauce.
Eating is one of those activities she prefers to do in private, and she would prefer we would stick to that habit as well. Especially her little brother. She can't handle the slurping and smacking noises he makes when he is enjoying his breakfast. Even from an entirely different room. One day I was in my bedroom and heard this exchange between Melissa and James, who were not even in the same area as each other.
James: (eating cereal happily in front of SpongeBob) "Slurp...."
Melissa (shrieking from her bedroom) : "EWWWW!!!! Stop that awful chewing noise! Stop that eating!!!"
James: (incredulously) "Do you want me to DIE!!!!????"
Me: (wearily) "Sigh . . . "

A Joke

Yesterday, after about 20 minutes of "Easy Silence" between Melissa and me, she piped up out of the blue with a joke. Yes, a joke. She has a great sense of humor and is brilliant. She gets it from me. (Puffing up with pride here) She introduced her thought with perfect comic timing. "SO." She says. "Yes?" I answer. "If you take a dingo, and an alligator, and stir them all up . . . " Here she pauses and makes a rolling motion with her hands, to illustrate stirring. "You would have a new sort of creature." I'm listening. "You would have . . . a Dingo-dile!" She closes her eyes and laughs with great relish. Yes, she drew a picture of the "Dingo-dile". I will add it soon. I am still laughing.

Melissa's Artwork

Some of Melissa's early art is available from Kindtree, a local autism advocate group here in Eugene.

Hiking Hannah's Trail

Last Sunday was a sunny winter day and I took Melissa and her little brother to go visit our friend Hannah. She lives on a large piece of land west of us that has a heavily wooded section. Hannah is singlehandedly creating her own walking path through the woods, clearing brush and knocking down blackberries. The kids enjoyed following the muddy path and Melissa could be heard talking happily to herself. She was creating a whole drama in her head, and we got to enjoy the sound effects. She was even content to share the walk with James. It was a nice change of pace for all of us. Thanks, Hannah, for sharing your trail & your time. We will be back for sure.

A Friend For Melissa

It is not entirely true that Melissa is perfectly happy all alone, although it does seem that way, the way she hides out in her room most of the time. Even at Christmas time she waited until the general chaos had subsided and opened her presents solitarily. I have wished for her to make a friend for a long time, someone at school she would enjoy and want to be with. There was one sweet little girl in 2nd grade who was making a valiant effort to befriend Melissa, but sadly her family moved away after Christmas. It has always been a struggle to get Melissa to care enough about the other kids her age to even remember their names. She tends to categorize them as "annoying" or "likely to laugh at me" or even "freaks!". This does not win her points in the popularity contest. Although she has never seemed to care much one way or the other, before lately.

This year though, she has started to express new feelings of lonliness. I made arrangements for her to see a counselor, a social worker who has that certain knack for connecting with Melissa. It is astonishing to hear the deep and heartfelt feelings that Melissa shares with Kara as they meet once a week. Upon leaving her office after one of the first few visits, Kara showed me a list Melissa had made of "things I want to do with a friend" that made me cry, and turned my stomach into a raisin-like knot of sorrow. On the list, with little illustrations of Melissa and a "friend" were hopeful ideas like "ride bikes"..."play video games"... "go to mini-golf" ... "go to church"... it makes me hurt to realize that she has no friends, no little My Space clan of texting girlies to go to the mall with. I spent some hours worrying for her, and trying to think of people who would be willing to pose as her "friend" now and then as a favor, people who could tolerate her mercurial temper and odd outbursts, and strange appearance.

Yesterday, she emerged from Kara's room a little bit early. "It was hard for her today" Kara explained, "She says she is really tired." Tired, but smiling, however, and she had something in her hand. My daughter opened her fist to show me a safety pin, adorned with colorful beads. I was instantly transported back to 1983 and similar pins I had traded with my girlfriends out on the playground. I started to get all misty eyed. "I recognize that..." I said to Kara. "I thought you might." she replied softly. To Melissa she said "It's a friendship pin...you can put it on your shoe and when you see it every day you will remember that I am your friend, Melissa." And with that, Melissa stood up and hugged her, and said "Adios, amiga!" "I'll see you next week..." said Kara.

I drove home with a lump in my throat, and Melissa smiled all the way, touching the pin on her shoe.

Midnight Madness

It's two a.m., a cool time of day. For Melissa. I have just scolded her for waking me up with her own version of Karaoke. She has taken to using the solitude and quietness of the flip side of the clock for her personal bat-activities. Which of course include drawing, but also surfing YouTube for videos. She likes Disney montages and dragon related things. Some of the things she watches are from users who post their video game skills, navigating their way through pixellated adventures. I am surprised to find this stuff taking up any virtual space, but Melissa loves it. Lots of music involved, she is learning some great songs. At Christmas time she was singing "Wham's" version of "Last Christmas" word for word. I thought it was silly so I put it on for all of us to sing-along with. Great. Now that is stuck in my head. Maybe I will just have to pass it along to the rest of you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3354flS1KJs