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Just to remind...it's Autism Awareness Month so I am doing my little part. I figure that the only people who really read my blog are people who are in my life and therefore by extension in Carson's life. It's important to me that the people in his life understand him a little better. He is not misbehaved because we suck as parents (the non-matching socks are more the sucky parents issue). Most kids will take a while to "warm up" to a stranger or a strange kid or a new place, but with Carson in may take several exposures - it's nothing personal.
This is an easy to read article that puts forward an interesting hypothesis:
http://health.msn.com/pregnancykids/kids
"When Harrison was born, he had abs. I don't mean a six-pack, but a defined ridge separating his obliques from the rest of his abdomen. He also had perfectly round deltoids and a visible trapezius muscle in his upper back. His quadriceps bulged on his hairless little thighs. If you didn't know better, you'd swear someone had spiked his umbilical cord with testosterone.
Which brings me to one of the newest and most intriguing theories about why autistic kids are that way. It's called the "extreme male brain" theory of autism, and it starts with an unusually high amount of testosterone before they're born."
The muscle thing was and still is true of Carson. The child is cut - as if he works out. If I am ever trapped under a car I hope he is near by. I don't know a ton about this stuff, but it would seem to me that if this is true, the effects should be able to be mitigated. Also, why don't athletes who take hormones become Autistic? If someone has even a guess I'd like to hear it.
On a lighter note, they also had a Child Height calculator:
http://health.msn.com/pregnancykids/kids
I don't know the kids' exact heights and weights, I will have to get that from Ted. The information I had in my head for Eden must be incorrect. Otherwise she is predicted to be just about the height of the average WNBA player (5' 11"). Carson would be taller than Ted. That doesn't seem right...
- Location:Sarajevo
- Mood:
confused
I am sad that he is not like most other kids, though. I am sad that he has to struggle for so many things. I hurt thinking that he might be already able to understand that he is different from other kids in a way that might make him sad or frustrated.
There is a huge difference between the normal sense of loss and concern that comes from having a child who struggles with a disability and "feeling negatively" toward a child. In addition, the person seemed to be telling me I should focus on what Carson can do and not what he can't. Well, duh...but that's what a journal is for - to work through your feelings.
I worry that we have become a society of people who have labled so many feelings as wrong that we have moved beyond the fear of expressing them to an even deeper level, where people fear even having these supposedly wrong thoughts or feelings. It has made us numb and dysfunctional as a society.
Sorry, but I am not going to participate. I will feel what I want, when I want, about whomever I want. I will attempt to exercise good judgment as to how and where to express my feelings and opinions, but I am not going to attempt not to have the feelings at all. That would be my definition of "crazy".
(To quote the great Jack Nicholson: "Go sell crazy somewhere else; we're all stocked up here")
- Location:Sarajevo
- Mood:
annoyed
So out of curiosity I went to find LJ communities that discuss autism. I found lots, but what I really found was that *I* am not ready. Reading the posts depressed me to no end. Even the posts that were uplifting are depressing because, well, it's hard to explain...
- Mood:
sympathetic