Colin’s 8th Game: Wagner vs. New Braunfels, Oct. 21 (day before BIG UIL contest)

Another game in San Antonio, but this time, unlike a couple of others I can think of, we had no trouble showing up at the right stadium in the right city on the right day.  And we got there early enough to sit close to the Monoceras, the Unicorn Dance team that always sits next to and hence between us and any parents and the band.  However, we were able to align ourselves fairly easily with the woodwinds.  This meant that, occasionally, we were able to glimpse Colin’s curly head, and to see that yes, sometimes he was dancing with the rest of the band. 

            I’d never known that the band kids amuse themselves, and are encouraged to do so, in a large part, by dancing to whatever the percussion section or whichever section(s) that is/are playing until the that very first game, back in September at Canyon Stadium.  Seeing that Colin participates in the group dancing has been encouraging and is still downright unbelievable.  The kid who hates confined spaces with other people--my kid--gets up there and dances on one small strip of aluminum with a bunch of other kids.  Who would have thought this would be one of life’s blessings?  But, it is. 

            At Wagner, a fairly new school judging from the smallness of its crowd, cheerleading squad, and other groups, we easily outnumbered the parental opposition in the home stands. 



Sparce parental opposition at Wagner (in yonder stands)

           Their football team, however, proved to be a fairly even rival with ours.  We only beat them by one point (us 28, them 27), and that was because they went for a two point “conversion” instead of a one point “point after touchdown” (or “PAP”).  PAP?  Really?  You can tell that those who invented footballese, which to me qualifies as a true second language, never went for their yearly gynecological exam.  In this house, that someone would be not only Colin, but also my husband Roger, who played the game—something I’ve never done, and part of my football resentment problem—but that’s a completely other story.

      The Wagnerites must have expected the competition to be tight, as they'd selected us for their homecoming game opposition, something Roger tells me is a sign that the other school thinks you'll lose.



Wagner Homecoming Court:  See ballgowns on sideline.

            In the meantime, owing to the awkward schedule of the USSBA competition the next day in the same stadium, I went to the front to look for the phone numbers of chaperones the director had told me to get for the next day.  Colin’s sister had a performance with her dance studio then at a Spurs game.  Chloe’s studio would be leaving New Braunfels for the San Antonio Spurs’ ATT Center at the same time as the contest Colin was in would be finishing up at this stadium, also in San Antonio.

            The band’s director, Mrs. Pradervand, had agreed to let Roger pull Colin from the contest right after the bands’ performance (normally, the bands stay to watch the other bands) so that Roger could go take Colin home to New Braunfels, then drive back to San Antonio to see Chloe and her group to perform.  But, again, we needed the numbers of the people who would help us connect with him after the performance.

            The good thing is that, while at the front getting the phone numbers, I talked to Colin’s section leader’s mom, a nurse at a local elementary school, about how Colin was doing in band. She had finally solved the problem of getting Colin to talk to her by realizing that his speech therapist came to her school and consulting her.  The key to getting Colin to talk, my new booster friend Mrs. Dietert found, was telling him she knew the speech therapist, Mrs. Gonzales, and that Mrs. Gonzales was her friend. 

            Somehow, knowing that Mrs. Gonzales was a friend and that therefore, Mrs. Dietert was okay, provided a necessary key to open the Colin door and get him to communicate.  In fact, after he’d figured out that she was safe for him to communicate with, Colin had become, for Colin, ebullient, or at the least, talkative, sitting with Mrs. Dietert in the front of the bus, where he especially liked to sit. 

Once more, part of that the mindset so many autistic kids have is that they must be first.  Years earlier, on a trip to Disney world, we’d even had to get a doctor’s note stating his disability and needs so that we could take him to the front of a line if it became necessary to avoid a Colin detonation. 

            Thankfully, that letter had not proved necessary.  Roger and I had decided ahead of time to try to make Colin wait like every other kid did there and he’d taken it remarkably well.  Now, if we’d had a sign to hang around his neck on the flight home saying, “I’m autistic.  Be gentle with me—and especially my parents” we might have used that, as upon arriving at Hobby airport on the flight home, he was literally rolling around the boarding area as we waited for the connecting flight. 

            Now, Mrs. Dietert said, he’d share with her concerns about sitting down before she did on the bus but also about issues in the band, even seeking her out for some questions. 

            The bad thing about all of this parental networking was that, during my efforts to get to know Mrs. Dietert and other the folks who worked with Colin, I missed a crucial announcement at half time.  He’d been recognized as band student of the week.

            At least his father had caught the news.  “He looked left and right,” Roger said of Colin, “as if he were looking for another Colin Jones.”  Me, engrossed in the moment, had not seen this.  Roger, the attentive parent, had at least been able to yell Colin’s name and cheer him on.  After all, in a group of over a hundred kids, not every one will make student of the week, and certainly precious few during football season. 

Later, as usual, I asked Colin to write down what he’d thought about the game:

Colin:  “I talked mainly to a friend of mine named Christian about various stuff such as how our concert is going to be.  Also I asked a couple of times to go to the restroom.  Mainly I talked to her [Christian] about dancing.  Today I talked to her when I was eating about the bus we were taking to Houston [for the USSBA contest in the Woodlands].”

When asked what he talked to Christian about some more, Colin said, “I kind of talked to her about the moves I made.”

Mom:  “What did you say or ask?”

Colin:  “I kind of forgot.”

Just as his mom forgot to get a photo of him as band student of the week.  But I got more at other games and contests--to follow shortly . . . or slowly.  But, to follow . . .

Colin's 7th Game, Unicorns vs. Steele

Oct. 15, I believe, a Friday as usual

Next Game after Homecoming, Steele vs. New Braunfels at the Unicorn Stadium, Oct 15, 2010

Roger and I had arrived late and so ended up sitting far above where we usually sit—next to the drill team and within eye-range of the woodwind section of the band.  This time we were far above that, perhaps four rows from the top, and seated amongst football people as I’ve come to think of them, that is, folks who were there mainly for the football (and some for their kids in football), which I am still, stubbornly managing to not understand.

            It was supposed to be a cold night, glowing, full-ish moon, and dressing for it was part of what ran us late.  Having been warned by a band parent friend about the horrors of sitting in the cold at football games (butt chilling bleachers, arctic winds), I’d gotten myself into a turtleneck, long johns, and cowboy boots. 

            Most of the other folks there were in their shorts and shirts sleeves.  I’m always the freezing one wherever I go, so I’m used to it.  However, I did learn some things about football and about our team in particular, mainly by using that social tactic I’d advised Colin to employ:  Listen to those around you and when you have a comment or question chime in and see the result.  In this case, I was lucky, as the person I queried was friendly and interested in answering my questions about which football player was which number, why was the game going the way it was, which kids her daughter knew and how, and so on.



Blurry but you get the idea.  No monoceras nearby, band down from us, some folks in jackets.



Okay. Uni up close.  Couldn't resist. 

            Ever since our social “fumble” at the last USSBA Contest, I’d had Colin asking questions and commenting on his band teammates’ responses, with the result that, by the time this game came and nearly a week had gone by, he was feeling better about band, happier about it and his band “friends.” 

            To prepare him for the “conversations” I’d asked he have that week (oh yeah, I still owe him dollar per interaction—he hasn’t remembered.  Unlike his sister the Border Collie, he’ll let “minor” things like money get by him. 

He’d worked on what was essential and old format we used to use with ABA drills.  He’d memorize a three part sequence (sequence being one of his biggest deficits as a child with Autism—a very common problem on the spectrum). and we’d rehearse it the night before class and before he went in and tried it on his bandmates the kids at school.  I specified “talking” to two of his bandmates at first, then upped the number to three.

Here’s the drill:

1.      Ask the other student: “How was your day.” (part 1)

                  Listen (part 1b)

2.      “Ask that student a more open-ended question:  ‘So what happened?’” [Part two, which would work with either a positive, negative, or neutral

3.      Answer from the bandmate being questioned in part 1)

                  Listen (part 2b)

      Comment (part 3—and he had to listen—again part 2b—for this to work) in a way that related to what the bandmate had said:  Example to negative answer, “Oh yeah.  I’ve had that happen to me/Oh. That sounds bad/terrible” or, example of answer to positive response, “Oh yeah.  I have had that happen. / Oh.  Sounds good.”

I recorded some of Colin’s attempts to follow the prompts/drill above that week:

Colin:  “Hi Katy.  How’s your day?”

Katy:  I had a test for every class period.

Colin:  “that’s terrible.”  [well, at least he knew to say how most of us would feel in such a situation!]

Colin:  “Hi Katy.”

Katy:  “Hi.”

Colin: How was your day.

Katy:  It was alright

Katy:  Hey I like your shirt. 

Colin:  “You know about Marvel?” [Colin is a huge Marvel Comics fan]                

Katy:  I’m totally into that

Wow.  A conversation that went to this level.  This is almost un precedented for Colin (and later we found that Lauren likes Marvel too.  Double Wow.  Now if only we could figure out how to connect with these kids in other ways.  Think think think. 

The result of his efforts at conversation were particularly good.  From Oct. 17 Sunday, about the preceding week:

Mom:  “How was band this week?”

Colin: “Band has been alright for me this week.  Nothing in particular happened.  Talking to  people has helped this week.  It makes me feel more or less shy.  Because of that I am (sort of) in the mood of talking with people.”

And finally, I ventured to the front to take a shot, where for a while I hid behind a stadium assistant who had had kids himself in the band.  When I expressed my reluctance to take photos and my fears of blocking others’ views, this fellow had a wise piece of advice:

“It is easier to get permission than to be forgiven.”  Bearing this in my, I ended up with these great shots!  Finally, my son, fairly happy, in uniform!



Yey Colin. He's happy here!  Take my word.



Homecoming, Mum and Ribbons, and “The Management of Grief”

At last, Homecoming happened.  Participants seemed happy, and most important, I got to see the hallowed MUMS and RIBBONS.  The Unicorns won their Homecoming game, the homecoming king was not only a football player but also a tuba player, the stands were packed, and all was right, or at least status quo, with the high school world (at least for those involved). 

And I got some decent, though not necessarily good, photographs.  Oh yes, and Tanya, thank you Tanya, took the first below of my daughter (Colin's evil sister), there from her middle school dance team to be a guest of the high school dance team:



Chloe to left, Old Mum to right.





Might Unicorn Band, preceded by its trio of Drum Majors (Colin among multiudes behind).





Clarinets with mums, including, somewhere, Colin minus mum.





Mum madness (the parasites of Homecoming night, mums migrate to anything or anyone nearby)





Nice ROTC Guy with real, live Sword (sans mum).  Chloe would have died were she nearby when I took this.  Even Colin might have noticed his crazy old Mum.



Homecoming court standing in front of the Unicorn Band.



Cheerleaders plus miniature guests plus mummed megaphones. 



However, of course, however, at some point not long after the sun went down, I thought Colin looked upset.  The stands were packed and the dance team had left for some reason so my view of Colin, usually gotten through the rows of dancing girls, was unimpeded.  In any case, Colin did not seem happy.  He was fidgety, frowning slightly, not smiling when he had to stand with the rest of the clarinets because the director called on them to participate more.  After a time, he worked his way to the end of the row, asked a chaperone something (presumably to go down to the bottom of the stands) where talked with another chaperone, and then left off the stands to the side (the band is always at the end of the stands). 

            Remembering an incident involving Colin during his eighth grade year, I sent Roger to check him out as discretely as possible.  The eight grade event had occurred at a pep rally when the noise had gotten to him.  He’d thrown down his backpack and accused the kids standing next to him of being mean to him for being loud, though by other accounts, they’d been yelling because it was, after all, a pep rally and were confused but not put out by his accusations:  again, their knowing him was his salvation.  Indeed, to this point, kids’ understanding that he has autism has seemed a good thing. And for the most part, I think it still is.

Roger returned after having found Colin waiting with some other band members to go the bathroom.  When I asked if Colin were okay, Rog said he’d asked and gotten a nod and a pleased enough expression from Colin.  So I thought for a while that things were all right.  But at some point further, I noticed that he was talking more and more to himself than to others.  And he was talking animatedly enough, turning his head from side to side but not making eye contact, that I was sure he was audible, though he seemed to be looking at the field too and at others a little.  But, the kids next to him weren’t listening, or they weren’t paying attention to him.  They were in fact no doubt paying even less mind to him than usual if only because of the homecoming celebration and the MUMS and RIBBONS and the celebration that infused their already energetic bodies and minds even further. 

And he wasn’t noticing.  At home, he often talks to himself, usually the loudest outside, when he’s enacting conversations between superheroes, wrestlers, or whatever else he’s been watching and not wanting feedback on from others.  It seems to be a sort of practice talking and part of his daily detox from life at school where he can’t be as expressive and get away with it. 

But I was noticing him at the game, and I was disturbed.  Again, echolalia sets him apart, reminds me not just that he’s different but that sometimes his difference doesn’t help—at least in the way his mother would like.  His behavior was more evidence of the separation between him and the neurotypical world and, implicitly, of the difficulties inherent in any sort of separation from the norm.  Watching him returned me to what fiction writer Bhahariti Mukertjee has called, in the title of one of her more widely anthologized short stories, “The Management of Grief”—which is, admittedly, better than unmanaged rending grief, the kind that shrinks you to a messy ball of weeping, snot, and teeth gnashing.  But it brought me back to that day I found him doing what is called in the autism world “perimeter walking”—but this time inside a perimeter of kids in the band hall only a week or two earlier, the Unfair Day before our game at Westgate.

This hadn’t been the first time I’d seen him perimeter walking.  In fact, Colin’s perimeter walking was one of the earliest “signs” we’d had of his autism, back when he was not yet even identified, or right around that time—that is, right as he turned three, and grew to four.  Perimeter walking is a behavior that involves repeatedly walking around the edges of a group without any sign of interest of going to the group and interacting.  I like to think of it as an autistic version of what doctors identify as parallel play in normal children.  Parallel play involves playing next to or in proximity with another child, often doing the same sort of thing, but again, not interacting with that child, and is a perfectly normal developmental stage—as long as it remain a stage and the child moves on to interactive play.  And stop it out there:  I know there are some of you, who, like me, at times think we’re still stuck in parallel play land.  If so, go see a doctor.  Try for a diagnosis.  They’re not as easy to get as you might think, and just because you have one doesn’t mean anything can be done about it (as I know from my experience, not Colin’s, too well!).

Perimeter walking was what Colin had been doing that day in the band hall after the Comal County fair parade (Unfair Day), when I’d brought him his garment back, or come in to find out if he needed one, and he’d held up that filmsy gauntlet bag.  The only variation was that since most of the kids were hanging out around their band lockers, he had to walk inside their perimeter.  But he was still going in circles, and his perimeter did not cross theirs.

Even then though, I’d known that the fact that he can walk inside the perimeter of kids at the band hall and be recognized and at least accepted and not “reviled” is in itself a victory.  But he’s also beginning to notice, as I wrote about in my last entry, that those around him are being noticed more, and more than that they are communicating and being communicated with.  And when he saw his bandmates giving high-fives to others at the contest the day after Homecoming, he’d felt left out.  And, what I’ve had to see the week since is that this is good. 

If he didn’t notice, or didn’t care, the kids in band would be nothing more than padding, the kind you find in those white rooms we see in movies in psychiatric wards.  And living in a padded room, comfy as it might be at first, should never be a goal.

But since then he has been working, and I have with him, on talking with his band “friends” and listening, and the great news is they respond, and he knows, thanks so some repeated drilling and practice, to respond in turn. And he has told me that this weekend, the weekend after homecoming and after another game and contest, that he’s had a better time in band, that it’s been “more enjoyable.” 

            But before I go into the how and why of that, here’s Colin’s version of homecoming, at last, for really and for true:

I like the fact that some of my friends were there such as Mallory, Rene’ and Chris.  I also liked that fact that the unicorns won which was good because we lost 3 games already.

I didn’t like that one of the other team members were down which took then ½ an hour to get the person up and into an ambulance.  I also didn’t like that when we got back to the NBHS band hall some wacky college woman came into the band hall and started to hug another friend of mine named gus who has orange hair, wears glasses and is shorter than I am.  In affect to that I flicked my bibbers at her in which she still said I was her friend which is more crazy!!!

I didn’t like her, and she even called gus Harry Potter!!!

If only from this interaction, I can see that we've got a lot more work than on reciprocity ahead of us in the social sphere.  But, again, it's late. So that will have to wait, like so many things, till tomorrow.

Un-Homecoming a.k.a. USSBA Marching Band Contest, Saturday, Oct. 9, 2010

On October the 8^th we played San Marcos in our Homecoming Game.  It was the first whole homecoming game and performance I’d been to, the first for Colin, and for Chloe (evil sister), who was there as a guest of the high school dance team.  Other than that I’ve been to half of a Texas State Homecoming as part of a ESL Conversation Group at work, and the Japanese students had to teach me the Texas State “hand sign” for “Go Cats.”

            Thus, when the weekend finally ended, I was eager to read Colin’s assessment of the whole affair.  And when he handed me his written “review” of the game, I was ready to read how he felt about the surprise half time, improvised band performance, or the king and queen, or all the beribboned mums that most of the girls and some of the moms had pinned on their shirts, on uniforms, or in the case of the dance team, on garters around their legs, or for the cheerleaders, on their megaphones, or for the twirlers, on the back of their pre-performance beach chairs.   

Where are those mums?  Maybe Dragon/Aquatic Lady's carrying hers in her _left_ hand . . . Maybe all those ladies are carrying their mums--and they've tucked in their ribbons . . . right!

Here’s what he wrote: 

           

Being in homecoming wasn’t the horrible especially if you are a shadow.  All you have to do is stand and the other band members play the opener.  After that we got to go and sit in the bleachers and drink water. 

Then:

The blue dudes wearing the masks looked like spacemen and played awesome.

            This gave me pause.  The “blue crew,” the flag carrying guys who run up and down the field after every point is scored, hadn’t painted their faces as usual or worn masks and hadn’t “played” anything. 

Still, I read on:

When we got back to NBHS I was a little tired but I knew we played awesome and won the gold.

Huh?  I’d asked him to write about Homecoming and the Homecoming Game.  Somehow, he’d skipped the event of the season for NBHS and half of New Braunfels.  What I was reading was a description of a USSBA (United States Scholastic Band Association) marching contest we’d gone to on Saturday after homecoming in San Antonio.  But not only that was wrong: 

What a spectacular day this was and I wish I could relive it again.

Now, he wasn’t just not writing about homecoming. 

Drumline "Blue Men" in formation.  No mums in sight though . . .

There's the band, but where's the football team?  And why are we at Judson's "Rutledge Stadium"?  Oh . . . . . . .

Having graded more freshman essays than I care to remember, I know English essay lingo and this was that:  lingo.  It reminded me of some of the journal entries he’s made for English classes in the past.  Like something you’d want to believe someone would feel, and, in his case, like something that didn’t ring true.  The language was formulaic, similar to the kind of talk we gleaned by from him when he was little. 

Then he used his echolalic, gestalt type language processing.  Echolalia involves whole sale, repeated verbage, sometimes words, and in Colin’s case and that of other high functioning kids, sentences and sometimes whole books and songs.  Some of the kids even memorize the scripts to entire movies.  And they, like Colin could with his books and shorter “scripts” from TV shows or books, can repeat them with minimal cues and without the book being in front of them or the movie being on.  Sometimes, they can even use chunks of this language, as Colin did, in situations in which the language actually works for them (hence the gestalt label—the whole chunks spewed like impressions to inkblots).  Specically, this type of language is called mitigated echolalia.

Colin’s most famous bit of mitigated echolalia occurred when he was two and not yet even diagnosed.  While his father held him one night next to my parents’ grandfather clock, he said to my Uncle Hill, “And now it’s eight o’clock!” and pointed at the clock’s face.  My Uncle’s eyes widened as if he’d heard a budding genius or an apparition speak:  the grandfather clock’s hands were, exactly, at eight o’clock.  What poor Uncle Hill didn’t know, and what we simply found funny then, not knowing that Colin was autistic or what echolalia meant, was that Colin was simply repeating a phrase from one of his story books—albeit at precisely the right time and place for that comment to be made. 

Besides, we were used to Colin’s repetitive talk by then.  Even when he was not yet speaking, Colin had been happy to lie in his crib for 45 minutes to an hour after waking simply babbling to happily, and then, later, talking ceaselessly.  When the babbling turned to words, and he kept “entertaining” himself, I’d sometimes listen and hear him saying words or phrases from books or shows he liked, but again, we didn’t know that persistence echolalia was a “red flag.”  I even asked the doctor office if it was okay for me to leave him in his room alone for all of that time—since I was working on coursework for my graduate degree and writing a lot in the mornings, his slow, happy rising was a sort of boon, albeit one I felt guilty about.  The response was that as long as he was happy, he was fine.  And, so I left him until he’d begin to say my name which, other than his father’s, was one of his few communicative words.  Again, no one knew then what his long recitations were prompted by, and, even if we had, I’m not sure we could have intervened much earlier. 

So, back to the story at hand, when I read those last two lines in his description of “Homecoming” (now, obviously, our last USSBA Band competition), I asked him to tell me the truth about the day of the contest.  I told him, rather wrote for him a request that he tell me, really, what he’d thought of his experience at the competition.

And I got this:

OK, honestly that was not to pleasurable.  I mean I’m pleased we won 1^st place but I felt “left out” which kinda screwed up my attitude because no one gave high fives, no-one patted me on the back, Heck no one even congra[d]lated me but they congradulated the rest of the shadows . . . !!!

Setting aside the exclamatory, hyperdrama of 15-year-old language, “Left out” is a great triggering  phrase for parental anxiety, whether your “left out” kid is autistic or not.  Plus, having just gotten a call from my good friend about how well he was doing, I felt that we were having another roller coaster crash from great to horrible, something we are very familiar with from Colin’s in years past.  In fact, we’d been extra vigilant (especially my algebra-knowledgeable husband—thanks Rog) academically this year because we hadn’t wanted to deal with this sort of crash in academics. 

            So I worried that Colin really was being hurt somehow—for about two minutes.  Then, I reminded myself that the other kids had always spoken to him and seemed to like him, and I simply felt sad.  Maybe the end of something good had come?

            Still, tired (a warning, always) and not yet at a solution for him myself, I tried for another description of Homecoming.  Didn’t want the memory of it to wear too thin . . . and I got a paragraph about a different band competition (in which the Unicorns this time came in 2^nd—which was the competition time before last) except for the last line, which continued along the “left out” vein:

Nobody talked to me like always!!!

And finally, continuing along the line of thinking which endorses continuing a behavior without changing it and each time expecting a different result (a.k.a. insanity), I asked a third time for a couple of paragraphs on the homecoming game. 

First came a paragraph titled “Positive,” which included yet another description of the men in blue masks (boy, did they make an impact) who looked like “moon men playing drums instead of humans,” and a “Negative” paragraph”:

Oh, those Blue "Moon" Men . . .  from Judson!

"Shadows" Marching to Watch (Note fist clenching disgruntled Shadow from left--that's Colin "Shadow Man"

1^st of all was the 40 minute drive with others.  I didn’t like the being of feeling left out which  . . . makes me feel like nobody in the band likes or respects me.

Colin "Disgruntled Shadow Man" in line at front; "unloving" Unicorn Band in Formation beyond

All Bands' Drum Majors waiting for awards to be announced: Unicorns' (to left, black cotton-swab plumes) band wins 1st!  Yey!  (Sorry, Sad Shadow Man--but really, "they done good")

            Though tired and sad, I knew we had to address Colin’s problem.  For while I knew the kids in the band liked him, that they spoke to him and accepted him, I also know that folks will persist in a behavior only as long as it’s being reinforced, and he had to talk and listen to them and respond for him to become reinforcing.

So, prone in my bed at about 11:30 p.m. (oh, it’s 11:45 p.m. now), I called Colin in for some on-the-fly social problem solving.  After about 30 seconds, I surrendered, as I’m about to now:  He was too tired, I was too tired.  And I trudged into his room to pray with him as I do every night.  But I did talk with him, very briefly, after his nightly prayers, after having to re-pray after a smarmy attempt to work in a directive about how we “should act” instead expressing gratitude and asking direction . . . finally I asked him about listening to the other kids around him and when you hear something you know about, chiming in or asking a question.

“Uh.  I tried that before in 8^th grade.  These two boys, they’re friends of mine now, but then they said, ‘Butt out.  This isn’t your conversation.’”

To which told him that this kind or thing happened to me (or at least a lack of responsiveness in my adult “peers” that equated to the more blunt, 8^th grade repulsion), but that you had to keep trying it and most of the time it worked. 

He still wasn’t that comfortable with the “listening to others” approach and asked if I could help him.  I said I could, but, my head inclining more and more toward the floor and my voice angling into a lower, duller register, I mainly wished the social skills group hadn’t disbanded for lack of participation (not enough high functioning teens in New Braunfels) and wondered if I could ask the speech teacher for help. 

Again, sleepy, I don’t think very creatively, or practically.  Sleep, I’m finding, will let me see possibilities where, before, I’d seen mainly obstacles or grief.  And, at the least, it’ll give me the time to consult a trusted friend—something I did do the next day. 

Then as my wise friend pointed out to me as regards the missing high fives, “He could have just held his hand up.”   

Mighty Unicorn Marching Band vs. the Westlake Chaparrals (i.e., roadrunners, i.e., “Chaps”)

Driving into Westlake territory set off, as many things seem to these days, another Missy Elliot song, this one about having money and expensive cars, because, as far as I can see, Westlake is, in part, fueled by a lot of money and has, perhaps, even more expensive cars.  

Escalades, BMWs, Lexi, Porshes—even those cars whose doors raise like roach wings—abound there.  And the High School reflects these “fly cars” and the “platinum Visa cards” their owners possibly carry.  The football stadium looked comparable to some college ones:  new with a central red section in center of the home side for the season ticket holders, a super elevated press box, instant replay (really, at an HS football game) on a big end-screen.  And, at half-time, the announcer, in the highfalutin’ diction with which such affluence is associated, described the band’s marching routine as a “confluence of Tchaikovsky and the rhythms of jazz, juxtaposed to the traditional strains of a John Philips Sousa anthem”—or some such talk.

Groovy, instant replay screen, final score displayed.  Not my photo, of course.  Sun was behind screen (which was to my left) shining on us poor visitors during most of game and hindering picture taking on the handy dandy digi-cam. 

Fancy red section across from quotidian visitors' side.  Chaparral Band on field.

Even the dance team had costumes which left our drill team looking like kids wearing sparkly blue tow sacks.  Maybe we were in our “away” suits, as I’ve seen our dancers in fancy boots and hats too. 

Boy, this is a downright professional looking photo of the Chap "Hyline" dance team--nudge nudge, wink wink.

 However, while the band was bigger than New Braunfels’ (Roger and I joked about their having an escalator to take them all into the stands), their costumes were comparable to ours in their newness and quality:  their blue feathered hats nicely “juxtaposed” our white feathered ones.  Watching the bands bob out to the field, Roger observed, “It’s the battle of the plumes.”

All this is not to say that the school’s parents and students aren’t dedicated because the district is wealthy.  I know parents there who have devoted countless hours to fundraising for their children’s activities and getting tutoring for their kids.  And I know that the students have a competitive, even dangerously so, atmosphere at that HS, where a straight A, all-AP GPA doesn’t necessary land one in the top ten percent of the class and a large percentage of graduating seniors end up going Ivy League. 

However, the affluence of the area, and the educational reputation of the district, brought back memories of Colin’s early days in therapy in the land of less fortunately funded public school ed.  At the first district we had him in, the spec ed autism resource people claimed that they didn’t even know what PDD-NOS, the clinical diagnosis for High Functioning Autism, was.  Though, to their credit, that district was probably one of the poorest in the state, and Colin one of the first of a huge, new “wave” of autistic kids.

Which takes me back to my first encounter with Westlake’s reputation, way before now, when Colin was going through hippotherapy at a wonderful, nonprofit org in San Marcos called AWARE (Always Wanted to a Riding Experience).  Largely devoted to disabled kids, the therapists at AWARE honed and developed Colin’s proprioceptive functions (sense of the body in space) and addressed other physical/neurological differences (like sensory integration) associated with autism.  Because he was fairly high functioning sensorily, Colin got assigned faster moving horse, Tupelo Honey, bless her soul, a twenty-something mare.  In fact, most of the therapy horses were 20-plus with extremely gentle natures.  

Thanks to Stephanie Boyd, id-ed below!

 Colin recently told me he remembers his time there, when he had to have been all of 4 years old.  Here’s what he wrote about it:

Feeding the horses in my early life was a big deal because I had to nearly put my hands in their mouth which is covered with bacteria.  Riding the horses was pretty cool.  It was like taking a piggy back ride only on a four legged creature.

Sound underwhelmed?  What happened to the freedom and self-confidence granted one by a hippotherapeutic experience?  Does Colin remember old Tupelo Honey at all? 

Uh.  Not Tupelo Honey.  This is Stephanie Boyd, at AWARE.  Stephanie is one of my honors thesis students, and this and the preceding shot are from her Honor's Thesis:  Horse AWAREness, which she did about AWARE, years after we had moved to Unicorn Land.  Thanks Steph! 

In all fairness, I suppose his could be a response almost any 15-year-old male, with or without autism, could give.

But again, AWARE connected us to Westlake.  A mom of a kid we saw at AWARE had moved with her whole family to Westlake—because the autism services were so great.  Problem was they had to live a cardboard-walled shanty to afford doing so. 

While Roger’s work and our schedules (and money) kept us from going that far afield, I know what this is like, moving for a district, and in our case, for a teacher in a district.  It might sound precarious but for us what the autism services came down to in public ed was people, and help from those people early.  And those people cost money, which usually means higher property taxes derived from those who own expensive homes.  Many families move to places where they knew the educators were doing what their child needed then, because with autism, statistically, usually, the kids who get closest to living happily and independently in the world neurotypicals inhabit get educational therapy that consists of structured, one to one drills--and they get it early. 

So, prior to the game, we knew something of the territory we were entering.  Thus we weren’t all that surprised to hear the aforementioned announcer tell us that Westlake was the first high school in Texas if not the nation to offer its own IPod app, nor that the educational booster club had a $5000 Visa gift card to award to a student, nor that the boys and girls LaCrosse teams were having a car wash.  High school LaCrosse?  In Texas?    

But the point, the kids, the game, Colin’s experience.  How Colin lived through a radically long day that had already included marching in a parade, performing at a fair, rehearsing, and driving in school buses an hour-and-a-half to, and later from, a city for a game: 

Here is your turn, Colin, on the trip (in schoolbuses, with band) to Westlake:

The trip to Westlake wasn’t that long.  We got to eat chicken express on the way there as well as take some ipods.  [He didn’t take his because he was afraid he’d lose it.]  I didn’t fall asleep on the way which was good because I needed to get pumped.  I didn’t talk to anyone because I was usually very quiet.

Then, once back and rested, he wrote about his experience there:

Standing and watching the band play was a hard task to accomplish.  My face began to sweat and started to itch but I didn’t scratch until the music was over because it wouldn’t help the band at all.  Sitting in the bleachers was very tough in which we were squashed in together in the top row which I got vertigo.  It was also difficult up there because we had bugs zooming in and out of our faces.  While we were up on the stands we were basically just goofing off in which I didn’t say anything because I don’t like to get hyper after watching the band till I was exhausted. 

Woodwinds' section practice, right before marching.

Colin's one of the "possessed" clarinetists, middle, but off-center right. Curly hair, no glasses, not quite as "possessed" as the flautist with the ponytail, lower center.

The next day, I asked him some questions to expand on his feelings about the game:

[Transcript]

Mom:  Did you like dancing in the stands at Westlake [because he did this]?

Colin:  I did it to impress the others.

Mom:  Who did you do it to impress?

Colin:  Just some of my friends.

Mom:  What are their names?

Colin:  I don’t know.  Just some of my friends.

Mom:  What their names?

Colin:  I don’t know.

Mom:  Did you like watching the football game?

Colin:  Yes.

Mom:  What did they do that you liked.

Colin:  Just liked watching them ambush each other. 

Mom: Did you like it when the guys [the Blue Crew] ran up and down the field with flags and the girls pulled the blue unicorn [the Swarm] back and forth in front of the stands?

Colin: Sometimes—if it means we scored a point I do.

Dad:  What part of the football games do you like?

Colin:  Basically, none.  I don’t like watching football games very much.  They’re just boring.  I’m not a sportsman.

Mom:  Did you like Westlake’s mascots and paraphernalia?

Colin:  It doesn’t bother me.

Mom: What section of the band do you like [he plays clarinet in the woodwinds]?

Colin:  I wish I would have signed up for percussion.

I wouldn’t be blowing my mouth so hard I would suffocate.  Blowing so hard my face turns red.  It doesn’t scare me [though???].

And one finally word, from Missy Misdemeanor Elliot who, to the day two weeks later has been haunting my thoughts:

“Where your Lexus jeeps, and the Benz jeeps, and the Lincoln jeeps, and the Bentleys, and the Jaguars, and the fly cars?

Where you at?”