ABOUT ASPERGERS

Weaving and Wishes

“We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving, and we all have the power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing.” ~Louisa May Alcott

On Friday the art teacher stopped me in the halls at the kid’s school and asked if I could come in on Monday to help out in Jay’s Art Class. “We start weaving, coiling really, baskets on Monday. It is very challenging and I sure could use the extra pair of hands,” she said to me.  I took that for meaning… Jay is bound to get frustrated and I could use you there to help out.
    When I arrived the class was already sitting on the floor around the art teacher who sat in the middle on a chair with a bunch of baskets at her feet. Each child already had a plastic bag with all the material they would need to get started. She was going over instructions. The children stared up at her with blank faces all of them confused by the multi steps she was cruising through. Jay was in the back playing with his yarn. I guess the teacher noticed me looking at him because then she made  a point of having Jay move closer.
“Jay I need to you to move over here in front so you can see me better.” she said.  “How do I get over there!” he replied obviously already getting emotional and frustrated.
The teacher looked at him confused. To her it was very clear that all he needed to do was get up and walk around the other students and work his way to the front. I could see her getting frustrated with him.
I wiggled my way over to Jay and whispered to him, “Jay how do you get from point A to point B? You are at Point A. She wants you to sit in front of her, that is point B. GO!” He smiled thought a second and moved all the way to the back of the room and walked around the perimeter until he made his way to the front where he sat down. Not the most direct route, the quickest path or the road I would have taken, but he made it to point B without a meltdown… mission accomplished. I gave him a thumbs up sign, he smiled.

The teacher then continued on with the very complicated instructions and then dismissed the kids and sent them back to their tables to try to duplicate what she just did. Jay sat there on the floor frozen in fear.I pulled him  up to his feet and lead him to a table in the back of the room. I knew something else was up. As soon as we sat down, Jay began to cry, “I forgot to do my study guide, I didn’t have you sign my agenda and now this?”

I looked him in the eye and said, “Jay… first off breathe! Look at me. We all forget things. It’s okay. It’s part of being human. You got to let that go. You made a mistake and now we move on.  And as far as this weaving thing goes… heck I am overwhelmed by it to. But we can try to figure it out together. That is all I ever ask of you Jay… that you try.” My son smiled at me and then said, “Coiling!” I looked at him confused so he continued. “It’s coiling a basket mom, not weaving!” And we were back!

As I helped my boy loop and COIL and stitch and turn it donned on me how much our life is like this. When coiling  a basket, you constantly have to pull it together , keep it tight, or else the foundation will have a hole and well everything will fall out of your basket. That is what we do. I constantly am turning and readjusting and doing whatever I need to do to keep it tight so nothing falls through the holes in the middle.

I wish the teachers could see how hard my boy works to keep his basket together. I wish they could understand that when Jay is overwhelmed, something as simple as walking from point A to point B  is too much. And I really wish they could applaud his creative way of getting from point A to point B and the fact that even got there!

Thumbs up sign baby! I see you and I am so proud of you!

3 thoughts on “Weaving and Wishes”

  3. Good job, Jay. So proud of you for trying! I know it’s hard. When I was in school, A LOT of the time I just wanted to go home. Home, even though it was a disaster of it’s own, was a lot easier to navigate than school. Trying to remember everything and figure out what I had to do on some project was extremely difficult for me to deal with and I just wanted to forget about it all and go home.

    Big hugs, honey. You’re doing great. Remember to breathe through it when something gets too hard or feels like too much. Mom will always be there to help you.

    Your friend & fellow aspie,
    Carrie 🙂

    Reply

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