Moving Onward in Autismland (#166)

Posted by kristinachew on 10/12/2005 · 6 Comments 

“See ya next time!”

Said Charlie brightly as I was waking up. He was watching my mom (who has been sleeping in the same room as Charlie, as our extra bedroom is now Charlie’s home therapy room), as she packed her suitcase. He laughed and ate his breakfast sitting on the heater vent, only to yell out

“NO!”

when we told him it was time to take PoPo to the airport. (Charlie started dragging her suitcase up the stairs.)

But he was calm, eyes focused, as we waved at her as she walked to her gate. We drove up to “Daddy office” in the “Bwonx” and then went to the Holiday Train Show at the New York Botanical Garden where the air was earthy and fragrant. Charlie stood still, blinking, moving forward to ride the miniature trains on their journeys round the bark and stem and flower replicas of the Hell Gate bridge, the Chrysler building, the New York Public Library.

There were on-and-off crying jags that Charlie pulled himself out of. My mom called as she was waiting for her plane to tell me how happy she was that Charlie had handled her departure so well. Charlie took the photo of my parents’ house with us in the car and–though Jim and I talked of PoPo, school, and other subjects that have brought him anxiety–Charlie maintained his peaceful easy feeling and fell asleep on the ouch at 9.30pm, swaddled in Daddy’s blue blanket.

My mom’s return to California marked the end of an odyssey for us–our search to find the right educational placement for Charlie. This search really began a year ago and even before, from the time Charlie was diagnosed with autism on the 22nd of July, 1999. Charlie is now attending a private ABA autism school and we hope that his good first week portends many days of good learning.

I began to write this blog in June, in the midst of our search for the right thing for Charlie. Charlie has always learned best in an ABA program and, now that he is in an ABA school and has a good ABA program at home, one chapter in his story is ended and another is opening.

To celebrate this step forward for Charlie, I am moving this weblog to this new website, http://www.kristinachew.com . Here you will find the still-to-be-told story of Charlie and our lives, in Autismland. All of the posts I have written for My Son Has Autism can be found at here at my new site, whose only real difference is the URL, the software, and the format (I will still keep the Blogger website, My Son Has Autism, too, but all new posts and updates willl be at this new site).

Charlie’s story is yet untold and yet to be told and I’m looking forward to venturing farther into Autismland with all of the friends I’ve met from my blog, with one of his hands in mine and the other in Jim’s. Onward.

Autism Children Science Health Parenting

Filed under Education, NJ/NY, Weblogs