candy, candy corn, candy canes, and syrup

it's cool and cloudy and the giant mpewere tree at my friends house has lost it's leaves. i'm listening to 'swingin' christmas,' the old good stuff.
and for the moment, it's beginning to feel like Christmas.

last night we watched Elf.  hysterical.  and it totally reminded us of our zoe.
will ferrel plays a human who was raised by santa's elves and returns to new york city to find his real father who is not a nice guy.  'buddy' the elf is pure and innocent and full of hope and love and kindness and simplicity.  he is so literal, always assuming the best of people; so full of goodness but misrepresenting himself right and left.

sometimes you turn around and life has happened.

that is how i feel these days looking at zoe. over the past 4 months here she's changed.  she's growing up.  she has become slightly less of a squeaky wheel needing constant attention, she has had a huge decrease in 'sticky thoughts', she seems less a victim of her own brain.  as usual, i relish this, i thank God for this, and as usual, i quickly forget where we were and increase my expectations.  this is hard.  i mean you can always find things to correct in your kids, but sometimes that needs a sabbath, sometimes you just need to praise them for what they're doing well and let it be.

but.

we knew growing up would be hard for zoe.  that it would be a long season of age appropriate hormones and the immaturity that comes with her type of learning disability and that combination would be tricky.  and it is.  she wants to wear make up, but has to be reminded to wear deodorant.  she talks about finding true love, but needs help finding her toothbrush. 

maybe hearing the growing up parts shines a brighter light on the parts that are behind. the contrast is greater.
i try to remind myself that we're on a different path.  that not being able to open the ketchup bottle doesn't negate the desire to be treated more like a 12 year old and less like a six year old. i need to remember that she is complex, even her parts that seem simple are complex.

she's begun to talk about 'liking boys' and while that is totally normal and age appropriate, she lacks the ability to know who to share this with, and when.  in her innocence, she shares her feelings, and i mean whatever feeling she my have at that moment, with whoever is around.  and this results in embarrassing the 'boy she likes' and making other children and adults uncomfortable.  which results in me hearing about it from several concerned adults, and mike and i talking to her again.

the hard part is we are dealing with a deficit in her understanding, and we are dealing with trying to teach her not just hard and fast rules, but how to grasp the subtleties, to not feel badly about her feelings as she matures, but how to not share them with everyone. often we do end up giving very firm boundaries, setting up hard and fast rules, while we work on the understanding part.

the hardest thing about having a child with autism spectrum issues is trying to teach the things that most people figure out on there own, trying to teach things that normally don't need to be taught.  the 'gut' feelings.  how to hear what has been said with out words.  it's. so. hard.  and it takes so long, and we go over it, and over it, and over it.

i hope as she grows up we can help guide her with out stifling her, that we can teach her those things that seem unteachable,  that she won't lose the beauty of who she is as she finds her way in the world.