Thursday, May 24, 2012

Lost Track of the Time

Well I have to apologize for not being a good blogger. I feel sorta silly writing the same things over and over when the activity seems pretty repetitive. We learned about a lot of different things. We walked a lot. We ran some. And that is what we did. Pretty boring stuff...... Well not really..... I watched a wonderful group of young ladies grow. I watched them learn about Autism. I watched them cheer my Buggy girl on and really reach out to include her. I am so very lucky to have had the chance to work with these wonderful young ladies. During the GOTR program the girls have to choose a service project. The service project they chose was to help with the Special Olympics Spring Games. The girls washed signs and put pins in the backs of the ribbons that the Special Olympics Athletes get. However, the real test came at the 5K. I observed on of our girls offering an encouraging word to a runner from a different school. I saw them stopping to make sure that someone who was sitting down was actually ok. I had them come up to me after the race and ask me how Charity had done. Now that was a good question. How did Charity do. Well, Charity did very well. She walked some and she ran some. She finished pretty close to the back of the pack but she finished and that is all that matters. I am so proud of her. She hung in there even when she was far enough back that there were no other runners in sight. She kept going even when the officer that was supposed to stay behind the runners had passed her. She kept going with small and simple and steady steps she accomplished the mighty task of completing a 5K. The 5K is over. The certificates have been given out and it is all over. There is a bittersweet sense of accomplishment and loss. Will I ever get to have my daughter be a part of such a wonderfully encouraging group of girls? Well we will be doing GOTR in the fall so hopefully we will be part of a group that is just a great as this group. Until fall I will probably not be posting very much on this blog. However, there will be a few posts as we try to keep up our walking during the summer.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Day Three

Well day three went pretty well. We completed 6 laps but we had to stop at these clipboards and do some type of activity at each one so that slowed down our ability to do more laps. Charity was not very happy about not completing her 10 laps and there is not much I can do for her feelings on the issue. However, We are learning to participate in the program according to the rules and for Charity that is a real stretch because of her Autism. She is often resistant to doing things the way people want her to do them if that conflicts with her own ideas. So for now the growth is not in how far we went or how fast we went there but in how well she is coping with following the rules and the directions that she was given.

So far there has not been a meltdown over the issue so we will just keep plugging along and see how well she does. This is going to be a short post because I am exhausted. I am still nursing a hurt ankle and we are still doing swimming so taking time to write a great deal tonight is just not something I can handle right now. I am trying to actually blog on the day we do GOTR rather than the next day. This is a stretch for me physically so again we will just see how well this goes. For now I am going to go do my swim blog and then I am going to bed.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Day 2

As usual I am a day behind in actually writing this but that is because if I try to write after our full afternoons I fall asleep at the computer. Now I have a laptop and I am writing from my bed but that does not make falling asleep at the computer any better than if I was at a desk. I still get strange pains from the even stranger positions that I find myself in when I wake up. So I will settle for being a day late writing about things.

Day 2 of GOTR Wednesday February 22, 2012 was absolutely wonderful!!!!!!!
Yes my ankle is still hurt but Sidney went along with us today and he helped his little sister in the section of the walk that I could not do. He was out there doing his best Stitch (Lilo and Stitch) Voice and Buggy was being Lilo. He was threatening to tickle her if she didn't get going and she was giggling to the point that I actually thought that she was going to fall down laughing. I would challenge her to "Go get Stitch" and he would walk/chase her back to meet me. She did 1o laps which equals 1 mile and I am so so proud of her.

The lesson was really good. Larissa explained to the girls that their spirits were like this beautiful white light that filled them up with energy. She also explained that the world was like a cord that plugged into their brains and could either feed them with good stuff to recharge their light or gunky stuff that would drain their energy. She taught them to visualize unplugging themselves from the things in the world that were part of that gunky stuff and plug into the GOTR positive stuff.

Now my daughter is not the most observant person and she is also not the queen of logical reasoning but yesterday she had her thinking cap screwed on good and tight because later when we were talking about GOTR and Special Olympics both being good cords and that if she was having a bad day or she was getting negative messages from someone to just unplug that gunky cord like Larissa taught them to do and plug in her GOTR or her Special Olympics cord and remember that she was wonderful just the way she is. Then out of her mouth pops, "or I could plug them both in at the same time!" Ok Maybe it doesn't seem like it is that profound of a statement but for her it is. She gets it. She get that the more good stuff she plugs into the better insulated from the bad stuff she becomes.

If she plugs into being a Child of God, a beautiful young woman, and the best autistic person she can be then maybe when the name calling, finger pointing, and general discrimination that she will inevitably experience because of the harshness of this world comes across those high tension wires of society she will simply unplug from them and plug into the fact that she can love herself just the way she is as a beautiful Child of God that has accomplished being a Gold Medalist in Bowling, a beautiful little sister to a bunch of people that really love her and are proud of her and her accomplishments, and the daughter of loving parents that think she is a wonderful blessing in our lives.

She understands how to turn off the bad messages and tune into the good ones. Now the real struggle begins, reminding her of that when it is the person she thought was her BFF is the one sending the negative messages or the "to die for" guy. Well I'll leave that to another day to worry about and revel in the fact that for right now she likes who she is and has a really good idea of how to hang onto that feeling.

On to Special Olympics Swimming . . . . .

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

In the Beginning

Before we get started here you might want to go read my other blog so that you have the full picture of my frame of mind right now. I have chosen not to copy it here because I want this to focus on the actual days that we spend at GOTR.

Here is the link to the "all about mommy's mental health" blog and where I am coming from Autistic Proverbs On The Subject Of....

Monday March 20, 2011

This is the first day of Girls On The Run at my daughter's school. Now for those of you that do not know Charity she is an Autistic Person (Please Google Jim Sinclair "Why I dislike person first language" before you have a meltdown over my phrasing). Charity is warm, kind, beautiful, overweight, clueless about when people are being mean to her and above all she is my forever baby (I can't have any more children) and the child that I am probably the most defensive of with perhaps one exception and that is her more severe and profoundly Autistic brother Joshua. So I am doing Girls on the Run with her as an assistant coach there to help her.

Now honestly, if you read my other blog you realize that with my ankle in it's current state that I am in no mood to be walking to the bathroom let alone roaming around the front circle of my daughter's school repetitively. however, that is exactly where I was from 2:45 to 4:00 on Monday. Of course I put on the Mommy Face and did everything I could to support my Buggy girl in her first day at GOTR. I helped the girls with one of their pre-running warm-up games and we were having a good time.

THEN......

the real run/walking began and I was not doing very well emotionally on the inside but I was not going to give up.

I did what was best for my foot and took a shortcut to get out in front of Charity in order to be there with my hand stretched out for her to push herself to reach me and that did wonders for her and allowed me to not walk on the hurt foot as much. She knew I would be at our meeting spot and she would walk the part of the circle that i could not handle.

Now part of the program is that they give the girls index cards with positive support phrases like "Good Job" and "Keep It Up" on them. The idea is that when you pass another person or they pass you, you say the phrase on your card and they say the phrase on their card as an encouragement to you to keep moving.

WELL.........

Charity is out in front of me by about 25 yards and along come three of the girls from her group in the earlier pre-running team game. They pass me and don't say anything but you can see them whispering to each other. Then all of a sudden they turn around and yell, Good Job Keep It Up Miss Athena! I had a hard time just spitting out a thank you to these sweet young ladies without bursting into tears.

They realized that I was trying to support Charity and that my ankle was hurt and they were reaching out to encourage me to keep going and not give up. One of the messages of the program was already in their hearts.

They get it... You know they really get it.....

Now will they apply it everywhere in their lives? Will they see the weaker person and reach out to them when they get a job and try to help their co-worker to grow in their job? Will they see a neighbor in need and reach out to help them? Will they like themselves well enough to avoid becoming one of the statistics of teen suicide or teen pregnancy because they can't feel good about themselves enough to ignore bullying or tell that jerk of a guy that insists that they take care of his sexual desires or he will leave them to take a hike because they are good enough to not need him. I hope they will. Actually I pray that they will.

These young ladies are beautiful with clean bare faces, no make-up, no primping, nothing but raw beauty and energy and I am proud that my daughter and I have the privilege to be part of a program with gorgeous young ladies like these.

Oh and these same young ladies went right up the way and patted Charity on the back and told her to keep going that her mom was going to be waiting on her at their meeting place. They slowed down and walked part of the way with her then they dropped back and let her reach me all by herself. Once she had my hand they passed us both and yelled Good Job and kept on going.

In the Beginning there was Charity Bug, Mommy, some really wonderful girls, and a Program called Girls On The Run.

Stay tuned for the middle and the end which will be a 5K Walk/Run in May.