im listening to victorious soundtrack and i watched a brand new episode of spongebob squarepants yesterday and went to chuck e cheese too! i get in trouble from playing my cousin jayden on saturdays! second grade is awesome! i like my new classroom and i knew all my friends from last year! i got the school store open again and i got two new pencils and a second grade pencil! its good to be back at school but i miss summer! its almost halloween but im going to be batman this year! its getting cold out for shorts!

Curtis

This was a fun Halloween. Curt's costume was fitting as he sprinted the streets of downtown Portland in a glide that resembled flight. He didn't knock on doors so much as soar past them. He didn't care about the candy, an apple was good enough, and he didn't like getting dressed up in a costume. Over the years his mom's love of Halloween has won out over his desire not to conform to wearing a costume.This year he is already excited to sport a Batman costume more than a full month ahead of time.

Greg, Dad

      We started Curtis at Easter Seals for early autism intervention services as soon as we could, the fall after he turned two years old. He was largely unconcerned with his classmates during his three years at Easter Seals and while socializing was important to us, at the time it was not as important as the speech and occupational therapies he was receiving. During these years, we were still trying to figure out exactly what was happening with Curtis and wanted him getting exposure to people who knew how to treat this condition.
      As Curtis turned 5, we explored different programs for youth sports and considered enrolling him in something. The way he played and interacted with typically developing children made it seem unlikely he could make it through a program like this but you don't really know until you try. Special needs athletic programs were difficult to come by he was 5, so we paid $40 to enroll him in an intro to baseball program for kids 4 and 5 years old. We discussed Curtis' condition with the program director who didn't think he would stick out as many of the kids ended up off doing their own thing at some point in the class. Let's just say the typical kids behaving badly had nothing on Curtis. He was dead set against proper participation and didn't understand who the instructor was or why he should listen to him.
      We understand more clearly now how much Curtis feeds off the energy in a given room or environment. For example, in addition to the noise, a cafeteria can be a chaotic time for kids and Curtis has a hard time with even a controlled school cafeteria. The sounds (clanging, slamming, yelling, excitement) just seem amplified to his ears. This intro to baseball program started simply enough with the instructor trying to line the kids up to toss a ball to each other. But kids were laughing, and walking, and yelling to their parents, and Curtis exhibited that energy by an exponent of four. He rarely ever stood in one spot as the instructor requested at his opening. He couldn't stand in his spot long enough to wait for a return pass on a ball he had just thrown. He just wanted to run. This program felt like a mistake.
      Laura was an patient as possible and when Curtis would run, she would walk him back over to the spot he was to stand on near the other kids. This just became a game to him and he would bolt in anticipation of Laura returning him. Some kids played pass, some kids stood still, and then there was Curtis, running and screaming all over the place. The parent glares were as bad this day as any I can remember. At one point, Laura retreated to the bathroom to cry briefly while I walked Curtis outside to an empty playground. A place he felt much more comfortable. There is certainly a frustration about not being able to control this type of situation. We left after maybe 15 minutes but returned over the course of the program to get Curtis familiar with coming to this school, at this time, for this reason, to increase his familiarity. We left only when we felt he was becoming too much of a distraction to the other kids who always had little idea what to make of Curtis.
      The baseball course was not a success but we tried again when he was almost 6, signing him up to play soccer with 4 and 5 year olds. He makes so much progress all the time that it's worth it to us to push him and see what he can handle. Plus, he had demonstrated a real interest in soccer and maybe this would be a better fit. In reality, it didn't go a whole lot better than the baseball.
      He had a soccer doll at home that he called "Soccer Boy" that we got out of one of those claw machines months before. On the first day of soccer, the patient instructor tried to start with some basic drills as any instructor would. Again, most kids did not have a hard time lining up and kicking the ball back and forth but Curtis did. He would run, yell, sing, doing anything to prove he didn't have to do what the instructor requested. Then he started calling the instructor "Soccer Boy", as in "Leave me alone, Soccer Boy!", etc. I could tell by the look on the guy's face that he was unimpressed with the moniker, though Curtis didn't mean it as demeaning as it sounded. Still, the instructor had a "you have to be kidding me" look on his face and soccer signs-ups were team sports disaster number two.
      At 7 and a half years old and after much progress, we still don't have a team sports success story, but we're working on it. We feel at the mercy of the types of programs in the area and an honest assessment of what Curtis can handle. We were going to sign him up for a special needs athletic program last year that was cancelled. There is also a "challenger" baseball program though his baseball interest is still minimal. A special needs soccer or basketball program is probably an ideal setting for Curtis, especially if we can get another kid he knows to do the program with him. Though I'm willing to bet he's better at basketball than most kids his age, he still has a hard time with passing and following a structure of the game and I could still see him throwing in the towel 5 minutes into the first session, swearing he'll never go back. However, Curtis maintains the curiosity and willingness to do new things and that's what we consider most important. Eventually, we find when we work tirelessly with him on things, he usually does come around. So maybe one of these days we will have a successful story along the team sports line to share. Until that time, he'll get his usual one on one instruction from those who care about him the most, and we don't have a problem with that. He will be ready when he is ready.

Greg, Dad
     

I have been a baseball fan and player since about the age of eight. Even now at 33 I still play in a wooden bat baseball league for players 25 and older. Naturally, I had an expectation that any son of mine would play little league, school baseball, summer leagues, as well as plenty of baseball with his friends. Suffice it to say, sports is just one of any number of areas where Curtis is happy to take my expectations and flip them on their head. Curtis playing defense on a baseball field, which often involves standing in one small zone for a lengthy period of time, seems pretty unlikely to happen, though I've learned never to say impossible when it comes to Curtis.

The sport pictured in the background....mini golf? Curtis has his own take on that one. For Curtis,  his goal in miniature golf is to take his ball and get it in the cup as fast as possible. He has been doing this for about the last three years with no sign of let up. Curtis lines up the ball to start his first putt, hits it, and immediately sprints to the ball to hit it again before it even stops rolling. His turn goes by in a flurry and then he sprints to the next hole and waits for the remaining players to catch up. You are trying to line up your shot? He isn't too concerned about that. He has a hard time understanding why you choose to play the game slowly. Curtis has almost no reaction when he gets a hole in one. He just grabs his ball out of the cup and sprints on to the next hole.

Basketball, soccer, street hockey, swimming, running, these are sports more his speed and where he gets the most enjoyment. His interest in baseball is relegated to the fact that he knows his dad loves it, so we have our occasional practices of hitting, throwing, and catching when he is up for it. We've barely scratched the surface of the rules of the game and his favorite thing to do on a baseball field is run the bases, in reverse order. He maintains a level of interest but the sport is far from his favorite and I'm fine with that. For my part, expectations evolved and I'm happy to play sports with him that he is comfortable with and that he enjoys. He comes with me to the batting cage and I run around with him on the grass with a soccer ball (despite consistent soccer bashing by me in the past). Who knows, he might well play baseball someday but I'll hardly be holding my breathe. Instead, I'm happy to toss previous athletic expectations aside and just let him do his thing, guiding him on the sports he enjoys. It's also a hell of a lot easier than trying to teach him to be relatively still on a baseball field.

Greg, Dad

Curtis was delayed in several areas as a toddler but walking and running were not among such delays. He walked at 10 months, was running at 12 months and full on sprinting by 15 months. I believe he sprinted from 15 months old until about 9 months ago, straight. He wouldn't get winded, was rarely deterred, and tried to run in any and all public situations. Drug stores were a favorite because he loved sprinted and hugging the aisles as he run on the occasion he broke away. I would take him to a small revine where kids would swim when he was 4 and 5 and we would spend the whole time running laps around the park. Curt's love of water couldn't get him in there among the 15 or so other kids who were splashing water on each other.

I never really minded the running, it was the nature of some of the running that just flat kept me up at night. While Curtis was aware that cars were dangerous he had no fear of them at all. Or bodies of water, or balconies, or anything else that could end his existence. What do you do when your child doesn't respect his own mortality? He seemingly took pride in trying to run away from us and into traffic and this went on until about age 5 when he fell in love with sidewalk chalk. One time when he was 4 I had to almost knock a woman over to catch him in the concourse of a baseball stadium when he broke away from me. He would do this thing where he'd get a little distance on you, shoot you a smile over he shoulder, and kick it into 5th gear. He didn't run so much as glide and it was always effortless. That incident and a recurring nightmare of him running into the path of a moving vehicle still serve as the boilerplate for any anxiety nightmare I may occasionally have.

At a 40th birthday picnic when Curtis was about 5, a friends sister in law saw me chasing Curtis and promised me one day the running would slow. I told her that was nice of her to say but that I didn't believe it. Not only would he not stop running but he'd run straight into his demise just to prove to me that he could. Well, he's 7 now and the running has indeed slowed. He respects cars now (though he still forgets to look when crossing the street), and he has a sense of his own mortality. However, the only thing to do until he slowed down was to stay on top of him every waking second and repeatedly explain the consequences of kamikaze living until he figured it out. As is the general rule with Curtis, it's a shitload of work that is worth every second.

Greg, Dad


I feel confident saying the first 18 months I worked with Curtis my primary goal each day was simply to keep him alive.  Before I met Curtis, his mother cautioned me that he was a bolter and that he was quite fast.  I felt confident with my past experience that this would be no big deal. In fact, Curtis took bolting to a level I had not previously seen.  As Greg wrote, Curtis would simply look over his shoulder, smirk and take off as fast as he could with no regard for collisions of any kind.  While today he no longer bolts, he still loves to run and his body seemingly requires it.  There are few things he enjoys more than a game of tag.  Curtis has learned over time when it's okay to run, be chased, and how to ask for these things.  We are fortunate enough to be in close proximity to a playground that is fully fenced in and this was a great place to take him and teach him how to ask to be chased.  When he took off running, because we were securely fenced in, I didn’t go after him unless he asked me. Once he mastered the fenced in running we moved on to trails.  Curtis would take off running on trails he knew well and ask me to come after him, eventually alerting me instead of just running. He also looked at some online coloring pages about street safety, his favorite being “Don’t stop in the street.”  Slowly but surely Curtis has calmed down and does not bolt at all anymore, not to say I ever let him get out of arms reach.  I was lucky enough to be at his house the day that he looked at his mom and asked, “Mom can we take the locks off the doors?”  Both exit doors had covers on them so that Curtis couldn’t open them simply because he would be out the front door if you turned your head.  Laura did remove the door locks that day and you could see the pride in both of their faces as she did this.  We now work on more functional safe walking, i.e., using crosswalks and waiting for walk signals.  It can be difficult to wait for a walk signal while it is clearly safe to cross, but Curtis is not ready to make that judgment without that little flashing light so I meet him at his ability and we continue to build. With patience, slowly but surely, Curtis always meets the goals set for him.


Jamie, In-Home Support

Curt's mom had him doing ABC yoga from about the age of 3 years old. There was a yoga pose for each letter of the alphabet and each mimicked an action of an animal. He would often do the yoga in the morning before pre-school if we could corral his attention long enough to get through the DVD though it's more occasional these days. Perhaps he and mom will pick it up more with all the time they get together over the summer.

My favorite thing to do with Curtis before the chaos of school is to take him to an open field and drop a soccer ball. It's been evident for years how great it feels to Curtis to just run. Plus, it doesn't hurt for him to get some of that crazy energy out of his system before the morning announcements. Running is as soothing to Curtis as drawing roads or reading a book. Other Curtis wind down activities include stapling squares of toilet paper together and creating short books out of them and he loves playing "math man" on the computer. A Pac-Man style game where you have to solve math problems before you can get the pellet and eat the ghosts.

Greg, Dad