Whoo-hoo! I was out of town on a girls’ weekend where I could FINALLY relax and not think about autism.
The second night, I called my husband, Greg, to see how things were going. He sounded a little down, but that was to be expected since he was in charge of chasing our three young kids for a few days. “Ha!” I selfishly thought, “He is getting a taste of what my life is like every day, all day long.”
Greg showed great self-control that night on the phone not telling me what had happened earlier that day with Lizzie. He knew it would have ruined my ability to enjoy myself on a rare weekend away. I found out later that he had had the scare of his life.
He had taken the kids to the nature preserve to play at the park. Seems simple enough, right? Run around the park, swing a little, and maybe go down a few slides. That would surely kill an hour or two.
Only it wasn’t simple. The park was super busy that Saturday. Our youngest, Noah, had to be carried or in a stroller, our oldest, Andrew was an extremely active 6-year old, and then there was 4-year old Lizzie, a wanderer with autism, who had no understanding of danger or the consequences her actions could bring.

Since I have been “doing autism” for almost 10 years, sometimes I feel like I have heard it all. I go through periods of time when I really want to dig deep, research and tackle the issues that Lizzie is facing. Other times, I am overloaded with information, and I am really just trying to keep my head above water as I run the daily activities of my family.
Recently, I was asked by a friend to go to a seminar on autism. I wasn’t excited because lately I have been in that “overloaded with life” frame of mind. But, I went anyway, and I was glad I did!
I heard Dr. Sandy Gluckman speak on the how we can impact our child’s body chemistry just by controlling our words and stress level. Wow! Did this hit home!
I run my kids from therapy to activity to more therapy. We are so hurried and stressed for time that it never even occurred to me that I could be undoing all that therapy with our stressful schedule! It never occurred to me that I could actually positively affect the chemistry in Lizzie’s brain just by choosing to slow down and say the right words to her!
Rather than try and recap what I learned, I thought I would have Dr. Gluckman share with you some important information that was news to me…even after 10 years of autism.

As I sit in an airport in Austin, the words from a Garth Brooks song ring vividly in my head,
Stuck in an airport in Austin,
and all of the flights are delayed.
As the rains keep fallin’
The memories keep callin’
me back to another time and place
For the first time in a long time, I am alone in an airport, traveling by myself. No whiny children sitting on my lap demanding food, no tantrums from a little girl who doesn’t understand why she has to wait so long, and no Dora DVD playing in the background. I don’t have to keep my eyes darting from child to child to child to make sure one of them doesn’t disappear. I am free.
Yet, I still have an uneasiness that stems from the feeling that I should be doing something more. What I am forgetting? Oh yeah, nothing. So I give myself permission to relax and do what I have always loved to do in airports…People Watch.

As I might have mentioned once or twice (or possibly ten thousand times), autism takes its toll on the mind and body. The lack of sleep alone can kill any desire to do anything fun and leaves us feeling as if we have nothing left to give. As parents, we just want to get through another day, so that we can lie on the couch and watch a TV show that will take our minds off our troubles – even if it is only for an hour.
When Lizzie was almost 3-years old, life was really hard. We were in the middle of a 30 hour-a-week behavioral home program. I had a very active and challenging 4 1/2 year old who was bored at home, and we were trying to sell our house so that we could move to a better school district for Lizzie. Oh yeah…did I mention I was 8 months pregnant?
I literally ate my way through that pregnancy. If there were a contest in stress eating, I would definitely have won! Anxious from decisions with Lizzie and the stress of having a child with so many problems weighed heavy on my mind all day long. I went to bed with the same knot in my stomach that I woke up with, and my sleep was restless at best. Chocolate was my medication, but unfortunately, I had a bit of a tendency to over-medicate! Fudge and brownies were a normal breakfast for me during that time, and so as you can imagine, 8 months into the pregnancy, right around the time my 31st birthday was a approaching, I had already gained 50 pounds (all baby, of course!).

The therapy every day, the tutoring, the doctors’ office visits, the living and eating in your car, the hours spent preparing special diet food, the hundreds of hours spent researching on the Internet, the time spent dispensing and taking pills, the hostile stares from other people, the whispers behind your back, the old friends that have stopped calling, and new friends that don’t quite get it….
Couple all of that with holidays, and sometimes it is just too much! Sometimes we may want to throw our hands up in the air and scream, “Forget it! Life is too short!!!!”
Unfortunately, autism doesn’t go away when we get overwhelmed, but there are some ways to reduce the stress and make it a little more fun. Here a few suggestions on how to throw caution to the wind and totally rock autism:

Today was the big day. It was Baptism Day at church.
I could hardly believe that the little girl standing in the water, publicly professing her love for Jesus, was the same little girl who just a few years ago had no language and would only tolerate church because they had a really cool fake fish tank. God had spoken to her heart, made her one of His own, and we were once again humbled by His mercy and love.
Baptism Day didn't come easy though. Just as it takes a long period of rain showers each April to finally produce the beautiful, delightful flowers in May, it took some serious “April showers” to get Lizzie to her baptism.

In the first few years of autism, you jump in full force hitting all the therapies, supplements, and latest research out there hard. Then you start to realize that you are in this for the long haul, and you must slow down and pace yourself for the survival of your family. Never have we had to do this more than dealing with Lizzie’s eating issues.
Lizzie was a problem eater. A problem eater is a child that would rather starve than eat something that they don’t want to eat. The texture, consistency or smell is so offensive to them that hunger pains pale in comparison. I know this first-hand because when Lizzie was four-years old, I almost starved her.

I am blessed to have a wonderful mother that is not only supportive in words, but also in her actions. She has made autism more bearable by helping me in exactly the way I need it. When I need her, she comes running.....especially if it has to do with Lizzie. Mom, you really are the "wind beneath my wings".....even if you had to wait almost 38 years to hear it! Thanks Mom. I love you.

See Me Beautiful…..A Grandmother’s Journey with Autism
By Marilyn Statler
The piercing scream had heads turning in the McDonalds play area. The beautiful little girl with the huge brown eyes and brown curls was standing in the middle of the area screaming at the top of her lungs. She didn’t appear to be hurt or even unhappy—she was just screaming.
My heart stopped. I knew at that moment that something was terribly wrong with my precious granddaughter, Lizzie.

Do you remember that TV show “Kids Say the Darndest Things?” It was a show, hosted by Bill Cosby, that ran over a decade ago in which the host would ask kids questions in hopes of getting them to say something funny or inappropriate.
Well, you don’t have to put my daughter, Lizzie, on a TV show to get her to say something inappropriate. Inappropriate comments flow so freely out of her sweet little mouth that I sometimes find myself thinking, “We worked so, so hard to get you to talk, and seriously, is this what you are going to say?!!!!”
Having a child with autism causes every subject to be laid out on the table for discussion. There is no ability to dance around a topic or keep hush-hush on any subject. Every topic, regardless of how socially inappropriate, is thrust out in the open to be discussed with no filter on what might be said. For Lizzie, her thoughts and her words are one and the same, and sometimes her words can catch me completely off guard.

A recent series of conflicts left me seriously doubting humanity. With each twist and turn of kindness and flexibly I tried to show, I was slapped in the face with an attitude of entitlement and more demands made in an ugly and hurtful way.
Because I am still pretty irritated with the whole situation, it would give me great satisfaction to list my every right and her every wrong just to make you see how hard I tried to do the right thing. I would also love to share the list of funny (and not so funny) ways I have creatively crafted in my mind to get back at her. But at some point, I need to consciously stop thinking about it and choose to focus my energy on the good I can do in the world instead.
Sometimes I think autism helps me quickly get to bottom of a person’s true character. If someone is kind and welcoming to Lizzie, then I know they have a good heart and can likely be trusted. But if they show irritation or choose to talk down to her, then I know pretty quickly that I need to be on guard with them in other areas of life as well.