A day to breathe out...

This is post two in a series of four posts about our trip to Oregon. For the other three posts, click here, here, and also here.

When I woke up this morning (at 6:30-Oy!!), the sun was shining and the kids were still asleep. In the summer all three of them like to have summer sleepovers together. They choose this, and while I know that this will not always be the case, I won't pretend I don't love it like crazy that at this point in time, they still happily do.

This was the view from the deck this morning. There were people already out, walking on the beach, and while I wanted to join them, I decided to try for just five more minutes of sleep.

By 8:30, we were all up and ready to explore the beach before breakfast.

Our hotel was built in the 1930's and was originally built as apartments. It has a pretty awesome history and the new owners have been doing a ton of work to restore it.

I showed Graysen and Lorelei that you could play jump rope with a piece of kelp, but they couldn't find anyone willing to skip. They were a little off in their timing, which might have been part of the problem.

Lorelei decided that this piece of kelp was her puppy, and she dragged it down the beach. Every so often, she would turn and whistle at it to be sure it continued following.

After breakfast, we did a little exploring in the city, but the beach was calling us, and so we answered.

Graysen will tell you that he doesn't like the beach and that the sand feels yucky. I'm sure that if you were here, his disgust would be obvious, by the way he skips happily into the waves, dancing and laughing. His constant rolling in the sand, and requests to be buried in it are also clear indicators of his discontent.

Today Caylen taught me how to throw a football properly. That was all kids of awesome.

Somewhere between football on the beach and momma burying two kids in the sand, the clouds rolled in. It stayed warm though, and daddy was happy flying a kite, so no rush to leave. Besides, I had two kids happily immobilized in the sand.

Lorelei made a few sand angels, and insisted on drawing in the halos. Finally, once everyone had their fill, we headed in for a swim in the pool.
In the court yard by our room, there are four fire bowls, and we decided to roast hot dogs tonight for dinner, followed by a movie in our room.

Lorelei ended the night with S'mores and while the kids fell asleep, hubby and I sat on the deck and enjoyed the angry ocean. Tomorrow, a search for sand dunes, or perhaps sea lions, or maybe a lighthouse or two.

One last kick at the (summer) ostrich...

This is post one in a series of four posts about our trip to Oregon. For the other three posts, click here, here, and also here.

Growing up, my sisters and I had parents that loved a good road trip. Three summers in a row, we packed up our family trailer, left our home in the southern interior of British Columbia and headed for a one month adventure in a US state. The first year, we explored Washington, the next Oregon, and finally, on that third summer, California, and all the Disney-riffic splendor that comes with.

Maybe surprisingly, it was the summer in Oregon that held my heart the tightest. Something about the coast, with it's giant intertidal rocks, and it's untamed beauty, called me.

A little nostalgia at the beginning of the summer, and a desire to pass on road trip memories to our own kids, landed us here, in Lincoln City. The room is quiet. The sliding door is cracked open, just enough to let in the sound of the ocean, and as I sit here typing, the roar of those waves takes all the rough edges and softens them right down.

At 3:30am this morning, I was wide awake, trying to snuggle Lorelei, and will myself to sleep for just one more hour. By 4am, it was clear that getting up was my best option. By 5:15 am, we were heading down the road, and by 5:45 am we were talking to a lovely US Border Guard who wanted to know, "Why so early?" and that told us, we had "the perkiest kids [she's] seen at 5:45 am in a while."

A gorgeous sunrise is a great reward for getting up early, and this morning's fire in the sky didn't disappoint.

By 6:30 we were rolling South down the I5, and I may have geektastically waved at some fellow Canadians as we passed them. Their Alberta plates tipped us off, along with their slightly confused, but friendly smiles. I'm sure the reason for my excitement was clear once we pulled in front and they saw our BC plates. At least that's what I told hubby.

Dear Seattle, We love you, we really do. So sorry we didn't have time to stop in for a visit today. 

Daddy made the kids little map packs so they could follow along as we went, but poor kids have never road tripped with mom and dad. Those map packs we made a couple of days earlier and the driving plan had changed a few times since then. Can you imagine the torture we subject our little order oriented man too?

He's telling us how far off course we are.

To distract him from the inaccurate map and all it's very bad, badness, we started playing the license plate game. Momma spotted a plate from Hawaii. You would think, that's gotta be an automatic win, but apparently not, and so game on.

 Oh and that Hawaii plate, was spotted at Johnson Observatory at Mount St. Helens.

Plate edited for privacy reasons.

Nothing like ripping that fear band-aid off. Graysen got a full education on volcanoes and early warning signs. What was once a fear, is now possibly morphing into an obsession. Driving all the way in to the mountain was about a three hour detour, but it's all part of the adventure.

We first went to the Observatory, which felt solemn. I'm not sure if it was the knowledge that 32 years ago, a scientist stood on that same ground and lost his life to an unpredictable mountain, or the fact that the mountain itself seemed to bare the scars of it's explosive past. Maybe both. We didn't stay long, as the Forest Learning Center, held stories of getting to pretend to fly a helicopter, and a "Hands On" exhibit. This little detour, fuelled conversation in the car for hours. Lorelei decided that when Volcanoes erupt, they are just burping. Graysen wanted to, "Google all the things volcano NOW!"

Mt St. Helens

It seems you can still hike around the outside of the crater. After some research, this is perhaps something best done with much older kids. If you are interested there are permits required as they limit the number of people per day.

This is behind the parking lot at the Observatory. These mountains, still bear the scars of the 1980 eruption.

The Forest Discovery Center, needs no explanation. Maybe a simple, "Copters, and puppets and textures, Oh My!" is enough.

Daddy and Caylen took off with the camera. This is what I found on the card when I was editing tonight. 

Lots of different textures to explore.

Found the puppets, naturally.

Lorelei loved how the pumice stone floated.

So, then, the not having cell service and the awesome Google maps happened.  We decided to rock the good old, "Fly by the seat of your pants." To be clear, there was a planned route, but sometimes when hubby and I travel, we decide to have an adventure. We headed East toward Highway 101 which is the coast highway, but weren't really sure which route we were going to take. We had planned to cross at the big bridge over the Columbia Gorge, but on the way, we saw this other little bridge and thought, "Hey, that looks fun." Wham! Bam! Ferry Ma'am! and a pretty little detour popped us into Oregon the back way.

A few miles into Oregon, it started to rain. No problem, let's turn on those handy dandy windshield wipers. Oh wait! No, sorry, the driver's side wiper hates us and has gone on strike. Calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean. After pulling over, and inspecting it with hubby, he declared it broken and we attempt to stand outside appearing to share a joke and a laugh for the benefit of the three little humans in the car. This is the part of the vacation where hubby drives down the highway looking through my side of the windshield and mommy attempts to act like that is all completely normal. 

Dear Griswold family, thank you for joining our holiday. You are awesome. Love, Me!

Okay, so that worked for about 20 minutes and we declared it silly, which is of course parent-speak for, "Oh crap, we are going to drive into someone." Hubby pulled into a nursery and this time we both stood outside laughing probably insanely, and formulating a plan, for windshield wiper domination, at 5:30pm...on  a Sunday...in a small county. This was about the time that I noticed that the motor was still turning, and perhaps the bolt was just loose. Excellent. Enter friendly Lisa, who is not afraid to ask for help. 

I walked into the Nursery, and found a lovely lady. I said, "Hello, we are a long way from home, we left our tools there and our windshield wiper needs to be tightened." While she did not have tools there, she made a quick phone call to her mechanic in Cannon Beach, to make sure he didn't close before we arrived. Ten minutes later, we were pulling into, Gary's Garage, "the only garage in the county" where, John, took a couple minutes to pop off and adjust our wipers and told us to have a nice day. And that is how we ended up getting a glimpse of Haystack Rock, five days sooner than planned. I'm a firm believer in pay it forward, and we will, but on the way home, we are soooooo stopping in to that nursery with a muffin basket, or a litter of puppies and a unicorn for that dear lady.

Haystack rock! Goonies! Awesomeness! I totally asked this rock out and it's free Friday. We will be back,

Almost at the hotel, but not too busy to let momma and her babies cross. It's blurry but a magical memory. Lorelei cried from excitement. 

We pulled into the hotel tonight at 10pm. The kids were excited, they oooooed and ahhhhhed at the ocean. Hubby fell over, onto the bed and hasn't moved since. Two, adventurous little humans joined me for a little run on the beach, and now I sit, reviewing this very full day, and looking forward to tomorrow.

I know there will be coffee on the deck, kite flying, and at least a couple of us will be combing the parking lot in search of some rare license plates. Mostly though, it's the impression and the memories that I look forward to. My parents gave me a gift of rich childhood adventures, and it's a legacy we hope to pass on to our kids.

The blur...

Raising kids can feel like a blur. You wake up in the morning next to a tiny infant snuggling with you, blink, he's a teenager and three inches taller than you. It's realizing the blur that makes me sit quietly and breathe in a million little moments, taking a mental snapshot of the truly extraordinary mundane. 


In the blur, there is a marriage too. I married my best friend and the only person I want to ride this awesome roller coaster with. 
It would be unfair though to pretend that through our adventures, there hasn't been those times we were at risk of losing touch with each other. It's so easy, through the blur, to become roommates, distant. Statistics tell us, that the deck is slightly stacked against marriage. Those same numbers will declare a marriage that involves kids with special needs, at an even greater risk.  


Seeing, and feeling this, means that we go out of our way to make sure that we still stay in touch with the friendship and the connection that made us. 


We have moved mountains, (and damaged credit cards) to have weekends away. Date nights, are part of the monthly budget, even if it means a walk at the river and coffee in a mug from home. However, there is one thing we rarely get an opportunity to do...be in our own house, alone. 
This past week, we suddenly fell into an opportunity where the kids were all at assorted sleepovers for the night. We love our kids, but I'm so not going to pretend that we didn't help them get out. 

We didn't stay home the whole time. Hit some balls at the driving range, which is always good for a laugh. I can either hit the ball 150+ yards or half a foot. 

The house feels different without kids. It's a little bit empty, and a little bit exciting. We enjoyed the quiet, and missed the chaos. 
Sure we took advantage of the empty house, but more importantly, we talked. We checked in, when it would have been just as easy to check out.

After a little dinner, a walk and talk at the river.

How do you hold on to those relationships that are important to you? How do you 'get away' in your own home?

Pulling clover...

We have been day tripping and following our bliss wherever possible for the last couple of weeks.  Today though, today was different.
It was a quieter sort of day.

Today, I decided to try to tend to the front garden. It gets attention twice a year, whether it needs it or not. While pulling weeds, I flashed back to sitting in the grass as a kid with my mom, sisters, and neighbour. We would just sit in the front yard and talk while we pulled out the clover. I remember learning that clover winds it's way through the grass with an intricate network of stems and that it was like a puzzle, tracing those stems back to the source.

Suddenly, it was all about the clover. Tracking the stems, and working back to the centre hub. The teenager came outside to offer help and quickly found his way down to the ground as well, learning clover removal techniques.
As we sat there, following the labyrinth, we talked. We talked about all those things that parents and kids should talk about. We talked about school, friends, girls and his plans for life.
He is growing so fast, and in his mind, he is ready to be grown. His dad and I find ourselves struggling with the balancing act that is allowing freedom, while still ensuring that he doesn't try to fast forward through childhood.
We are children for such a short time, and adults for so long.

As we were pulling and talking a neighbour walked past with her pup. She assessed our work and her first words were, "That's not going to help. You are going to pull that out and it's just going to all grow back."
Smiling, I told her that, "It's not the clover that matters."
Today, it was time spent with my little man that measured my success.
The front yard will just have to wait it's turn.

Of labels and walls...

Pssst! Hey! Over here. Can we talk?

So, this past week, a celebrity in the music world, made some crappy comments to a fan seemingly because the fan mouthed off to him. He told the fan that "he looked autistic" and then went on to say, "I don't want no special ed kids on my time line follow some body else."

Okay, so first off, I would just hate to be a publicist in this day and age. With all the ways for their clients to communicate via social media, I imagine many publicists have a permanent dent in their foreheads from the repetitive 'face-palms' they must do daily. 

Second, who says that? Really, are there actually people that think it's okay to say things like this? Wait, of course there are. See the thing is, that this isn't the first, nor will it be the last time that someone with a mass twitter/facebook/instagram following is going to misspeak. 

After all, regardless of your station in life, we are all human. We can recognize that at some point each of us has used our words to inadvertently or intentionally disparage others. So while I was frustrated and disappointed in the words I read, I could accept that the person speaking them made a mistake and needed to be educated. 

When this tweet was published, right out of the gate, Hollie Robinson Peete wrote an eloquent, well thought out, open letter to the offender. Over instagram and twitter, parents of autistic children sent him photos of their kids tagging #thisiswhatautismlookslike and #whatautismlookslike. I was one of those people. For the most part, this response was in the spirit of education and understanding. However, there was also a response of outrage and anger, which ironically echoed the outrage and anger that the tweet was born from. As the days wore on, with no public apology forthcoming, the anger that bubbled under the surface out of the gate started to rise and words like "thug" "ghetto" and "ignorant" became louder than educate, advocate, and communicate. Unfortunately, it was this anger that was heard and it was the anger, the "outrage" that was reported on. It seems the media has learned long ago, that their audience feeds on the negative aspects of a story first. Although lacking in spiritual nutrition, a headline like, "Parents outraged at 50 cent tweet" garners a lot more traffic than a headline that reads, "Parents of Autistic children patiently advocate for an apology." 

Yes, it sucks that medical diagnosis' are still used in derogatory ways, either as insults, or for laughs. It is discouraging that so many people don't seem to understand what autism truly is, and what it looks like both physically and in behaviour. It is frustrating that there seems to be a collective voice coming from the mainstream media that desires to compartmentalize and simplify what is a complex neurological condition. This misunderstanding only succeeds in further pandering and underestimating a population of truly exceptional human beings. Humans beings with gifts that often go unseen because a medical diagnosis, a label, meant to facilitate understanding, is twisted in a negatively slanted definition. It is this collective stereotype that feeds the miseducation of our population and breeds these derogatory slams.

It is all frustrating, and so the voices that start out patiently advocating get louder. These voices start getting angry, they start calling names. If the offence starts with labels being used derogatorily, how can it be resolved by continuing to use different labels derogatorily? An angry response not only serves to produce a knee-jerk apology from the offender, it also inflames a population of bystanders, polarizing the response down to those defending the offender and those defending the offended. 

With a delivered apology, the media has moved on from this story. Outrage, demanded satisfaction and got it. If we are to follow this lead, there is nothing more to discuss. However, I argue, it is the aftermath of feelings that we should all be talking about. The heavy focus on the initial offence blinds us from the lessons in the fall-out. When the story is dead, an autopsy on it is where the real learning begins, because this situation will happen time and time again. Some of the players will change, but the pattern is still there. The celebrity will eventually apologize, because, genuine or not, they have to. The world is watching. 

In the moment of misspoken quotes, the stakes are not the hearts and minds of those that misspeak. The stakes are the impressions left on the hearts and minds of the bystanders. The stakes are in teaching the bystanders how to respond for our children when we are no longer able to. 

If we yell instead of advocate, all that is heard is a collective noise, of anger. All that we teach is to respond with noise and anger. If we speak with kindness, and with a desire to educate; we can be heard. Perhaps, without 'outrage' we will not get that publicly demanded apology. However, when given the choice between an apology coerced by outrage, or an opportunity to educate a few more hearts and minds, I choose education. 

Mahatma Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." The change I must be is the person that seeks to foster understanding and communication, one heart at a time, in the place where anger once spoke. I must teach that the purpose of a label is for understanding, and not for mudslinging or laughs. If we don't want a medical diagnosis to define our children, if we don't want a label to quantify their existence, then we ourselves must recognize that all labels, when used derogatorily are equally offensive. By defining a person based on their negative actions alone, we cease to find a solution to the problem and instead build a wall. 

As human beings, we all are complex, and name calling is beneath the dialog we should aspire to. 

I strive to 'be the change'. I strive to educate and advocate with patience and understanding. It might be exhausting to do it time and time again, but at one point I benefited from patient education.  

Maya Angelou said, "When you know better, you do better." As a parent of children with special needs, I do know better, and I must do better. 

In the battle for the hearts and minds of the bystanders, I have a lot of loud voices to drown out with my one little voice. I don't have a network behind me. I don't have a large social media following. However, if my little voice, joins the voices of several other patient, teaching, advocates, we can be heard.

Always learning....patience

This week one of our kids has come back to visit us. Six years ago, he lived here for a short time, but left a mark on our family. Six years ago, when we got the call about him needing a place to stay, the man on the other end was solemn. He explained that there was a young man from Japan coming and that he needed to tell us that he had cerebral palsy. He wanted to know if that caused a problem for us having him stay here.

The question stunned me. I asked, "Is there something I should be aware of? Do I need to make sure that my home is accessible? I don't understand why this is a problem." He alluded to the fact that we were not the first family he spoke to and I stopped him and said, "We would love to have him stay with us."

During his first visit, he was off at school learning a lot, but there was a little time to play. One night we went to a BBQ at our friends and played badminton. I will never forget watching Keisuke play. He moved like a butterfly chasing that birdie, but he stung like a bee when he kicked our butts, time and time again.

This week having him back we were so excited to catch up. He was excited as his English was so much better and we have had some really great talks. The other day, we got to talking about disabilities, and I thought we were going to have a conversation about appearances and assumptions, but once again, one of my kids taught me something.

I asked him about what it was like to have a visible disability, whether it was frustrating when people assumed that his mental abilities were affected as well. For Keisuke, motor control is a challenge. This affects his walk, his movements and his speech. On more than one occasion, I was witness to someone assuming that his cognitive abilities were equal to his motor abilities. Having a little man with an invisible disability, who has trouble with social and emotional regulation, I have been witness to someone struggle to understand why a seemingly normal looking child was behaving in a way that did not mesh with his physical appearance. Having another child with tourettes, I have also bore witness to misunderstanding and assumptions about what it is, and what it should look like.

However, Keisuke's answer surprised me and made me think. He explained that he came to North America to go to school because here, people with disabilities get help, and are schooled with their peers. He explained that at home, children with disabilities are schooled separately regardless of their abilities and are most often not socialized with their peers. He explained that because of this, many people in Japan do not get to learn about people with disabilities. There is no chance for fostering understanding, because there is no opportunity to misunderstand. He went on to tell me that he prefers it here, where he might be misunderstood at first, but he has the opportunity to educate others and learn for himself.

It is a truth though. We can get all up in arms about the things that people do or say when confronted by a disability. We can shut people down, or get touchy that people say the wrong thing. We can get indignant and frustrated and even angry. We can, but none of that opens communication. None of those responses advocate or educate. Keisuke, reminded me that patience in the face of misunderstanding, fosters understanding. He reminded me that as a mom to children with differences, I would rather someone say the wrong thing to me, and open a dialogue, than say nothing and remain in the dark.

So I choose patience in the face of misunderstanding. I recognize that I understand, because children born to me dictated that I must learn. I recognize that it is my job to patiently educate and advocate. I accept that anger and resentment, breeds disconnect and discord. I choose patience in the face of misunderstanding, because I hope that it means I raise my children to do the same, to approach the world with the same grace, courage and intelligence as this amazing young man has shown me.

Also, I must confess, I love that he still calls me mom.