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 . . . "