Dear Addie,
With so many entries I’ve written in this journey, this is one I honestly never thought in my lifetime I’d witness, let alone write to you about. But here we are.
You see Addie the world is currently being attacked (I guess that’s the best way to describe it) by a new virus that is causing catastrophic illness and even death among so many in the world. It is currently making its way now through our great country as we speak, causing some very scary and unprecedented times. While it (so far) has not affected younger children or young adults in their ability to recover and survive the illness, they can carry it and spread it to those that are immunocompromised or our elderly who have had a tougher time recovering. As an entire country, that has become so divided, we are challenged now with coming together to do none other than save precious lives - One Team, One Dream Addie. Having said that, each of us has been asked to do something that has shaken up most of our day to day lives. While we know (or hope) it’s only temporary, we also don’t have an end date either. Unsettling? You could say that.
Our mission as a country – social distancing.
You might be asking “What’s that mean?” Well, for starters avoiding large crowds.
Addie, not to make light of the situation, but with the social distancing recommendation put into place, it has probably got just about every autism family feeling like they’ve been training for this moment. While others struggle with the ability to stay cooped up at home, this is where we have always been able to exhale from the stresses and unknowns that arise whenever we leave the house. Large crowds have never been a happy place for us.
Now with all this is mind, the best advice parents receive when handed an autism diagnosis is “Exposure is key.” Well not so easy now. If I’m being honest, I’m afraid that the progress we have made up until now (which has taken literally years and has been great in the last couple months) is going to be like starting over from scratch. God, I hope I’m wrong, but it’s safe to say at this time we are literally being forced away from our greatest advice, but we understand and know wholeheartedly it’s for a good reason.
So now what? Scary part…no one knows, but a saving grace for us right now is we have mastered the art of one day at a time, but this might test my patience level.
Suddenly I’ve gone from lunch lady to teacher in one short weekend, and while I’m doing my best and have plenty of resources put into place – I’m not qualified, no way – no how, and that’s kind of a scary thought.
Week 1 has had plenty of scenarios similar to me helping Clara with Civics & Government, Gabe with Religion & Language Arts and you following me around asking for whipped cream “A whip cream please, a whip cream please!” What’s going on in my head…THERE’S NO WHIPPED CREAM!!!!! Ahhhhhhhh! Find a happy place, find a happy place!
Deep breaths, deep breaths.
Trying to find as many positives as we can right now, I think with you being so sick for the last 10 days, we had a dress rehearsal of social distancing before the rest of our country did. Unfortunately, I wish I would’ve known everyone was going to freak out about toilet paper, because I probably wouldn’t have waited to buy some! This type of hoarding of tp is still quite frankly mind boggling to me. But I digress...
In our self-quarantining days with your illness I went through a phase of mass organization and disinfecting binge. In that mass organization I decided daddy needed a new belt holder for our closet. Random I know, I may have been a little delirious from the constant cleaning, but with the touch of a button, Amazon had it too me the next day and for whatever reason you became very fascinated with it as soon as it came out of the box… and you haven’t let it go since. Seriously, with all the toys you own the belt holder is your new favorite and daddy’s belts are still waiting to be organized. Sorry dad. Well that wasn’t what I had planned, but you’re happy and it’s just belts and let’s face it, daddy can probably wear sweatpants working from home for the foreseeable future, so…
I see a lot of things in the weeks (or maybe months ahead) turning out like the belt organizer. As we adjust to this new norm, we need to be flexible that things are going to go a different way than we imagine, but we got this. I need to keep telling myself that every day.
In this journey predictably unpredictable is our norm (me teaching Civics and Math not so much) fasten your seatbelts – here we go!
Belts are still everywhere, but you’re happy and I’m good with that.
It’s time to focus our thoughts on what really matters – health, happiness and learning math the way I did when I was in school – carrying the one.
Addie this is definitely a time no one saw coming, but we are in this together.
Love,
Mom
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