Kamp for da Creature, pt 2 of 2---"It's all about da Boy!"

The closing song with all the campers...mine is the the one facing the wall...  O_O LOL

He wanted me to know that Kamp Kaleidoscope was great fun, apparently.  Also, he immediately wanted to know if he could do a WHOLE WEEK and when could he do that and could it be soon? 

He also realized home is really a cool place he'd like to be, too, and this realization was perhaps the first of its kind, in like, you know, EVAH.    (Did I just do that gesture where you quietly pump your arm back while hissing "YES" under your breath?  Nope, I'm WAAAY too mature for that...  Way.  Too.  Mature.)  He likes my food, missed me tucking him in, and really likes his very own bed with his stuffies. 

All of this was communicated in and amongst the  "I got to zipline TWICE" and "there was a campfire" and "they did gross stuff at the campfire and I didn't want to do that, but it was super funny, Mama," and "I GOT TO SWIM FOR TWO HOURS!!!" and "there was roast beef" and "I liked my counselor" and "there was this kid named Thomas, and he was great!" and lots of talking about the counselor's friend's iPod and the occasional grumble that there was a kid who "HAS to watch movies to go to sleep."  I reminded him he HAS to sleep in total quiet darkness and that his way is probably tortuous for the kid who needs the movie.  I also reminded him that he has his challenges, too... 

But he did have an insight he shared with me after I fed him "the best fried chicken livers in the whole wide wide world" (We're not going to tell him that there are plenty of gas stations in the south with the very same friend chicken livers, right?  We can all agree not to spill the beans, right?) and it was one I truly wondered if he would arrive at (though I suspected it would occur to him in some form, I did not really expect the form it was communicated in)

"Mama, I'm really lucky.  Autism gets harder deeper into that spectrum, doesn't it?"

Did you hear the mic drop there?  Did I hear gratitude, in a quiet murmurous roar build and crash on the shores of his life?  Did he finally, utterly see it?  Will he connect it to the work that we were blessed to be able to do from 7 months forward (because I knew...not my first rodeo, not my first encounter with the beast that is Autism) and continue to do every day to keep him moving forward, always forward (occasionally backward) and toward a hope that he can find his place in the world?  I don't know.  I'll know more when he has to go back to doing PT every day tomorrow.  Ugh.  The first day back is always so much unfun for da Mama, as he spews every bit of venom he feels about being "different" all over me while grudgingly doing the things we must do... 

The insight will bear fruit as his life goes on.  He needs to know he can understand that deep end, and probably communicate there as his special gift.  He needs to know he can be kind, when others are scornful and mean.  He needs to know that he will get bigger, and so will everyone else on the spectrum, and the world we all create together (neuro-typical's and ASD's) will very much depend on how much kindness there is to go around, and how well people can translate for those who communicate in so many varied ways. 

He knows he needs me.  He now knows he is lucky.  He had fun.  He met people who did not scorn his idiosyncracies.  He was allowed space to just be, without my frenetic pushing toward anything at all...

He played, swam, ziplined, and laughed.  He criticized food and schedules and probably gave the staff absolute hell before the ziplining, and about the kid who likes opposite night routines, and they were kind and did not scorn his himness.

I will continue to work to help fully fund this place, to help it grow, and to ensure that more kids will be nurtured and befriended in the rural woods of Mississippi.  It's a fantastic place.

Now....go like the FB group and FB page already.  I know some of you intended to the other day but didn't get around to it yet.  The links are in pt 1, the post right before this one.  :P  

Toodles!