Obama Rally in Leesburg

Senator Obama was coming to Leesburg, practically my back yard. The gates would open at 3:00, and the rally would begin at 5:30. Should I attend?

Good sign number one: I called my McCain-supporting father to see if he'd babysit, and he said yes.

Good sign number two: After I showed my kids pictures on the web of other Obama rally crowds, explained to them they'd be elbow to elbow with others, that there'd be long lines, lots of noise, and lots of waiting - my son still wanted to go. This would be my son with Asperger's Syndrome. He asked me to bring earplugs, just in case.

Well far be it from me to squelch the fledgling political interests of my children, ASD or not, so off we went.

After finding parking off-site, we arrived around 2:15. The line was already long, probably a thousand or two people ahead of us. We settled down to wait for the gates to open. I brought a blanket to sit on, and books for my son to read, but I forgot water. Not smart. My son started a tale of woe almost immediately, complaining of thirst. Then he started sneezing excessively - you could SEE pollen and dust and weeds thick in the air if you squinted towards the sunlight. Not good - he can easily derailed by stuff like this.

Son, after a loud, goopy sneeze: "I wish I wasn't sneezing!"
Me: "I'm so sorry, hon. Here, use this tissue. Try to sneeze more discretely."
Son, near tears: "I'm trying! I can't help it!"
Me: "Here, take this benadryl. I wish I had Claritin with me, that wouldn't make you sleepy."
Son, increasing anxiety: "Sleepy?! I don't want to get sleepy! I'm already tired!"
Me: "No, no hon, it says it is a POSSIBLE side effect. You may not get sleepy. Don't worry about that anyway, you can put your head on my lap if you do. The important thing right now is to stop the sneezing."
Son, even more anxiety: "I feel like I can't breathe!"
Me, as soothingly as possible: "Hon, you can breathe. Let's do deep breathing through our mouths together, and get the air all the way deep in our lungs."
Son: "Maybe its because there aren't any trees next to us. You said trees give off oxygen."
Me: "Well, that's true, but I promise you the air has plenty of oxygen even if we aren't next to trees."

He finally settled down on a blanket, and tried to read. I chatted with the people around me. What an incredibly diverse crowd - senior citizens, families, teenagers, young adults, all from a variety of backgrounds. Everyone's excitement was palpable.

We all felt lucky to be where we were in line as we saw the line double in size behind us (those are people in line along the horizon). At 3:00, the line moved quickly. In no time we were up at security, unzipping our jackets and showing our cameras and cell phones.

Once inside, my first mission was to find out about the helicopter in the air that was making my son nervous. A policeman informed him that it was most likely a press helicopter.

Second mission, find water. I got in what I thought was a long line for a concession stand, and an Obama volunteer directed me to the proper place, to the end of an even longer line. I asked if there was another place I could purchase water for my son, and the volunteer said, somewhat conspiratorially, that he'd get me a bottle,.

Third mission, find a place to sit! Initially we were up front, quite close to the stage. However, I realized my son would not be able to see over the tall adults standing in front of us, so we sought refuge on the slope in the back of the site. We had much more room to breathe back there - it was positively civilized compared to the crush of up front, so we were quite satisfied with our move.

Now it was about 4:30. Only one hour to wait! At 5:00 festivities began with the Pledge of Allegiance, a prayer, and the National Anthem. Then we waited a bit longer and saw a motorcade drive behind the stage. The crowd began screaming and clapping, both my son and I were energized by the enthusiasm and joined in.

Senate candidate Mark Warner came out and spoke to the crowd, and that was when we realized that our amazing spot provided a clear view of what must have been the teleprompter! We couldn't see Mark Warner's head at all, just a black thing that looked like a music stand. So we had to quickly move --what a bummer, stepping over people's stuff and trying to find a decent spot that didn't block other people's views.

Then Governor Kaine came out and spoke. Through all of this, my son was jumping up and down and clapping at the right parts, his enthusiasm still running high.

Finally - Senator Obama! He walked slowly across the stage, making sure to wave to people on the side of the stage. What a tall man! How very presidential he seemed. And what a nice, easy demeanor. He opened with a joke about how we all looked like Virginians to him. He eased into policies, starting with his tax plan. He talked about his tax plan actually benefiting Joe the Plumber, and joked that Senator McCain's policies were designed for Joe the Hedge Fund Manager, or Joe the CEO. I loved listening to him speak.

Unfortunately, around this time my son started getting upset. The sun was shining in his peripheral vision, it was getting colder, people kept shifting into his line of sight, he couldn't see Senator Obama very well anyway (we forgot our binoculars), and he had worn out his attentiveness listening to the earlier speeches. I coaxed him into listening a little bit more, and then headed out. The last thing I heard Senator Obama say was how he doesn't like to count his chickens before they hatch, regarding polls and elections.

We headed out past the security gates, and to my surprise there was another field packed FULL of Obama supporters! Apparently they only let so many through the security gates into the main field, and everyone else had to stand on the field beyond the fence. They probably could have fit more people on the hill where my son and I were standing (particularly on the section with the view of the teleprompter rather than the candidate), but I'm so glad they limited it, because while it was crowded, it wasn't miserably so.

All in all, a very enjoyable afternoon for this Republican, Catholic Obama supporter.
I actually used to work for two Republicans on Capitol Hill - admittedly, they were the Republicans that the right wing of the party tries to get rid of (unsuccessfully, I might add, both of my former bosses are still in Congress). And, based on some of the flyers that are being left on my van after Mass, many Catholics would cheerfully excommunicate me because of how I plan to vote. Nevertheless, that is how I view myself.

I consider myself pro-life. In fact, one of the reasons I became Catholic was because I fundamentally believe in the inherent dignity of human life. The Catholics I've known and admired have always been concerned about and active on behalf of the disenfranchised, trying to improve their lives. They've opposed the death penalty, believing that people can be redeemed. They've advocated diplomatic efforts before military force, believing that the loss of innocent lives, regardless of race, creed, or religion, is to be avoided. And, they've opposed abortion, believing it to be the killing of unborn children.

I, too, believe that abortion is a grave evil, that people are far too quick to abort what I believe to be a human being. I don't understand that. I'd like to see reasonable regulations regarding abortions, as well as more policies that encourage and help pregnant teens and women choose life.

One more thing. I have a child with a disability. I love my son with all my heart, but believe me it is not a cake walk, and he is considered high functioning ASD. We were able to meet his incredibly expensive and demanding private therapy needs without plunging our family into poverty, breaking up our marriage, or any of the other common negative outcomes, and our son has made tremendous progress. But not everyone has the resources we had. If the government is going to consider forcing a woman to deliver a child with any serious, severe disability, then the government absolutely must be willing to provide for the enormous therapeutic and educational needs of that child, to guarantee that child has health care, to ensure the child's family earns a living wage, etc... If these things were in place, then perhaps more people would choose life without laws forcing them to do so.

Other issues matter to me as well. I am not a single issue vote. I am thrilled by the opportunity and change that Senator Obama represents. I believe that the Republican mantra of unbridled "deregulation" in every industry (telecommunications, airlines, banking, energy, health, etc...) is a recipe for greed and disaster. I believe we need to be better stewards of the earth. I believe diplomatic efforts should be exhausted before our country commits to war. I believe that people who work hard ought to be able to provide a decent standard of living (certainly above poverty) for their families. I believe Americans should not be one health crisis away from financial ruin. I believe that our society needs to show more compassion for those who have mental illnesses, disabilities, and/or addictions. And, I believe that Senator Obama will take on these issues, and others, if he is elected President.

As a moderate, I confess to some unease that perhaps Senator Obama is more liberal than his speeches make him seem. But, to be honest, I am more worried that Governor Palin IS as conservative as she seems. And I'm worried that Senator McCain, who I've admired in the past for his reasonable positions on the environment, on immigration, on torture, etc..., may be less willing to stand his ground on these issues with the conservatives, particularly given his selection of a running mate.

Well anyway. My son and I had a great day!

Homeschooling with Asperger's Syndrome

Yesterday I sent in my Notice of Intent to homeschool my rising 5th grader son, who has Asperger's Syndrome.

Watching him these last few days, I am struck by how hard life is for him. He just does not have the resiliency, the flexibility, that allows him to change an expectation and adapt. His first recourse is to regress, to fall apart, like a three year old. I am thankful these episodes are, for the most part, short lived. Within a minute, I am able to calm him, to get him to rethink the situation, and to come up with other possibilities of what he COULD have done.

Instead of screaming and throwing himself on the floor when he walked into our home and found the air conditioner off, he could have asked me if he could turn it on, and planted himself over a vent. Instead of screaming and wailing and throwing the light saber on the ground when he "lost" the battle between himself and his brother and another friend, he could have said, "I need to go home now" and vented his frustration here.

I worry about homeschooling him. I cannot allow his anger, frustration, and vocal misery to create an unpleasant climate in our home. I have to rein it in!

We often discuss perception, how a glass can be 50% full of water, and one thirsty person can see it and exclaim, "Great, the glass is half full!" and someone else can see it and wail, "Oh, man! That class is half empty!" Yet it is the same glass. He gets that.

We also talk about the idea of changing the DVD in your head. An expectation is like a DVD in your head of what you think will happen. If something doesn't happen like your DVD says, then you need to eject that DVD and put in a new one with revised expectations. It's no big deal. In fact, it is how people learn. My son gets that too.

But implementation is another issue entirely. I remind him to choose joy and to change his DVD, and he tries, and I need to give him credit for all the times he is successful (just now I heard him agree to play a different game from the one he wanted). But these issues come up at least a dozen times a day, about the most inane things.

I begin to understand why some families turn to medication. When your child is made utterly miserable by the most insignificant things in life, when you feel unable to increase your child's resiliency and flexibility, medication looks like a great option.

I'm not crossing that bridge yet. I want to give him another year, to see if he makes progress in these areas, now that I'm homeschooling him. Wish us luck.

Learning All The Time

Autism, Tae Kwondo, and other maternal musings

I just got back from my 10 year old son's Tae Kwondo orange belt test. My son has Aspergers Syndrome - long story for another post.

Anyway, I thought Tae Kwondo would be good for him, that it would help him learn self-discipline and improve his physical prowess, as well as give him something he could legitimately be proud of.



Today, however, my son had several meltdowns (a meltdown begins with a long, loud wail of frustration, followed by a weird, contorted grimmace of anguish with mouth wide open, and then concludes with flopping down on the mat fully prostrate) during testing. The incidents followed his failure to do something he thought he should have been able to do, and/or seeing his sister do something that he failed to do.

This was torture for me, because my first instinct was to go rescue him, preventing further meltdowns and my own personal mortification. But I stayed put, unsure of the protocol for walking out onto the floor, and hoping my son would rally. The Master would let my son flop for a minute and then tell him to sit up, and thankfully, my son wasn't so far gone that he refused to obey.

The last testing event was the board breaking with a side kick. My son tried twice and failed, and the Master moved on to my daughter who broke it, resulting in another meltdown for my son. After the first pass through the class, the Master went through all of the kids who didn't break the board the first time and let them try again. The first two kids succeeded.

My son got up and tried twice, failing. Then he tried a third time and mis-aimed his foot, scraping it badly on the side of the board. He collapsed with a really loud wail and burst into tears of pain at that point, and I stood up, but the Master did not catch my eye and instead encouraged my son to try again, and, unbelievably, my son did.

And then, miracle of miracles, he broke the board with the last kick -- injured foot and all! At which point I myself was unable to hold back my own tears. Tears of happiness and thankfulness that he finally succeeded, of relief that I hadn't "rescued" him and denied him this success, and of anguish because as far as my son has come, he still has so much further to go.

I am constantly surprised by these types of revelations, that no matter how much he learns to compensate and cope with his autism, that no matter how intelligent he is, autistic behavior will still spring up and make its presence known in such spectacular ways. As the mother of a child with an invisible disability, when things are good, I hope they'll STAY good. I guess deep down in my heart of hearts I still want to believe my child will "recover", regardless of what my brain tells me. That maybe it was all a mistake, a misdiagnosis, that my incredibly bright, sweet child will figure out how to live in the world and to enjoy it "like everyone else".

But I need to knock that off!! I can't put my head in the sand about his challenges, I've got to keep teaching him how to problem solve, how to adapt, how to get his brain to overpower his impulses. And he can do it! He's learned so much, against considerable odds. It took him 3 years of daily speech and behavioral therapy to teach him to communicate, but he did it! It took him 2 years of weekly swim lessons to overcome his fear of water, but he did it! I just have to stay patient and be willing to teach him compensating strategies, over and over again. He can get it! And the world is a big, diverse, place, and my son can still live in it, enjoy it, and grow in it, even if he's not exactly "like everyone else."

And as he gets older, society will be less and less tolerant of his idiosyncracies, his occasional lack of self-control. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see parents, aghast, as my 10 year old behaved like a 3 year old, over and over again. I didn't look at any of them, not being able to stand what must be going through their minds. They have no idea how far my son has come, they could care less. All they saw, all they judged him by, was the behavior they saw at that point in time.

Well that is the way the world works. I shouldn't even be thinking about those other parents. My job right now is to see that my son stays in Tae Kwondo, because it benefits him in countless ways. I'll visit the Master and explain about my son's autism. I'll have my son write a note apologizing. Perhaps in the future, I'll have my son belt-test in private. Perhaps I'll sign him up for more weekly classes, so he has better mastery of the moves.

And if there is another outburst, perhaps I will look at the parents. Maybe one of them was glancing at him with a sympathetic eye. Maybe one of them has a relative, or a friend, with an autistic child. Maybe they weren't all as judgmental as I fear. And if he has another outburst, maybe I should be honest. "This is really difficult for him, he has autism," I could say.

I don't know. And this is where, once again, I want to bury my head, "It WON'T happen, it WON'T happen, it WON'T happen again...."