Saturday, April 28, 2007

Sprout Film Festival

Today Michael and I drove into NYC to see the Sprout Film Festival. They show movies 2 min-2 hours long that are about people with disabilites. Some are even made BY people with disabilites. I went to this event about 4 years ago and it's very inspirational.

This was the first time Michael & I went into NYC by ourselves. We went to Manhattan in July 2001 with Michelle. Then last fall we took a trip into the city with our friends from Nigeria. Last year Michael and I went to a Yankee game & a concert in Brooklyn. But, we never went into Manhattan by ourselves.

I told Michael beforehand, so he knew where we were going. He was pretty cool with it all- except the movie bored him alittle. Then when I said we were going to leave, this guy asked me to take a picture- but I had to wait until some people were done answering questions. So, basically Michael was running around, getting upset. It's so hard to "change the schedule" with him.

We got to meet Chris Burke, who has Downs and starred in "Life Goes On". I used to love that show. He was very nice and it's great to see someone with a disability who is so successful and independant.

I'm glad that we went. Michael and I had fun. He said he wanted to visit NYC again. To find out more about the film festival you can visit http://www.gosprout.org

Thursday, April 26, 2007

The Amazing Race

Michael and I participated in the "Amazing Ridge Race" on Thursday Night. It was like the tv show- basically a savenger hunt. Michael did great- following along and saying hello to his friends in the hallways. I glad we did it.

I took some pictures of Michael when we got home. This one I just love. The trees and flowers are blooming and are so colorful. For this picture I asked Michael about one of his classmates. The two of them are very silly and sometimes get in trouble together. Which of course, Michael thinks is FUNNY as heck. All I have to do is mention the kid's name and Michael smiles. BTW- speaking of other kids, I think for the summer Michael is going to spend half the day with his regular ABA/Autism classmates and staff. Then he'll go to the camp for 3 hours. I still have to work out the details. I'm not totally happy with it and hoped that the school would have an appropriate class for the summer. And now I have to pay thousands of dollars for camp too. I don't HAVE to send him to camp, but I think he would get soooo much out of it. The poor kid is an only child. Sometimes he plays with the kids in the neighborhood, but they can be alittle "wrong". The other day they were shooting BB guns. Holy crap- I don't think so. Don't even go NEAR my kid with one of those guns. I'm hoping we find some more positive roll models for him.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Greatest Haircut in the World

On Thursday Michael and I are going to participate in the 1st grade "Amazing Ridge Race". Honestly, I have no idea what it is, but it about students pairing up with a parent and having a competition. Like the basketball tournament, it's for mostly typical kids and Michael will probably be the only one with autism participating. He's mainstreaming more and more- it's so great to see.

Anyway, I decided today to get Michael a haircut. We love his long hair and curls, but it gets alittle "bedheady". We walk into our usual haircutters. Michael sits in the seat, asks for the timer, sets it and tells MaryAnn she has 18 minutes. I ask Michael if he wants MaryAnn to use a buzzer or scissors. Michael wants scissors.

Ok- let's go back in time, so you can understand the importance of today. We used scissors for the first 3 years or so. By the time Michael was 2 1/2 he HATED to get his hair cut. It would take 3 of us to hold him. He was scream and cry. After about a year of that, someone suggested giving him a buzz cut. I thought the buzzer noise would drive him crazy (which it did), BUT it was so quick. A big improvement over the scissors.

Eventually Michael got used to the buzzers. I would say about a year or so ago he would sit nice for his haircut.

But now that his hair is longer, buzzers don't really work. So, today when he asked for scissors I was surprised, because he has NEVER liked them. But, today, for some reason, he sat PERFECTLY. He even tilted his head up and down when MaryAnn asked him to. He kept saying to her "you have 12 minutes... you have 10 minutes". When paying I said to MaryAnn "Miracles DO happen". Of course on the way out he tried to touch the fire alarm- but hey, you can't ask for everything.