Just Stop It

We spent a lot of time out in the community during our four day holiday. The weather was beautiful, and we were all in the mood for Summer. During one of our outings, we visited our local produce market. It's a little bigger than a farmer's market, but nowhere near the size of a grocery store, and the fruits and vegetables are always the freshest in town.

While we were there picking up our blueberries, strawberries, oranges, apples, limes and corn, we really irritated a lot of people. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we seem to annoy a lot of people because we are slow at times.

I understand that we move through places like a choo-choo train, two wheelchairs lined up, and everyone else in a single file also. I do that purposely so we don't block any aisles. But people still get annoyed, and the thing that I don't understand is why I feel the need to say I'm sorry to those impatient people.

Whenever I see "the look", I say "I'm sorry", and try even harder to minimize the space we all occupy. Why do I do that??? Why do I apologize just for existing, but that's what I feel like I am doing. If I hadn't already gone out of my way to be as considerate as possible, the "I'm sorry" might be an appropriate response, but I do go out of my way, even to the point of trying to pick times that fewer people are in the placed we need to go.

So, while we annoy people frequently, I am now annoying myself more. Neither I nor my children have anything to apologize for, and I need to remember that.

A Single File Existence

I guess I never paid attention to this before.

Back in 2006, I wrote about some adult group home residents that I saw at one of our local malls. I wrote about their walk through the mall – “I saw the two women in charge leading the slow-moving group, and the four clients trudging slowly behind, not seeming the least bit interested in their surroundings. They were in almost a single file line, and at the end of the line was Jack, working desperately to pull his underwear from his behind where it had apparently gotten ‘stuck’.”

Then yesterday, while shopping at Walmart, I saw an older gentleman with Down Syndrome, probably in his 40’s, shopping with someone who appeared to be his mother. I’ve seen the two of them before out and about in some of the same neighborhood places I frequent. This gentleman followed his mother in single file through the store, and has done the same thing every time I see him.

Also yesterday, I drove past an apartment complex near my home, apartments where our local community service board assists adults with intellectual disabilities live as independently as possible. I often see some of the residents making their way to the Walgreens or the McDonalds on the corner. Every time I see them, no matter how large their group, they are walking in single file.

Why single file? Why not walking side by side, chatting, laughing or even arguing? Instead, their faces are frozen with no expressions – they never talk to each other – they just walk, one behind the other, to their destination and then back home again.

How did they learn this behavior? Is this what we have taught them is the only acceptable way to be a part of their community?

All this saddened me, and I plan to make sure my children know they don’t have to walk in single file. They can run and skip, they can link arms or hold hands, they can talk and laugh and yell sometimes. I don’t want my children, or for that matter, any other person with a disability, to have a single file life.

Today I am thankful for bold, quirky people. They make life so much more interesting.

Diner Part Deux

Last October, I wrote about an unexpected and wonderful experience my children and I had while having lunch at one of our favorite restaurants. Well, it seems this particular restaurant is chock full of ‘experiences’ for us because something else happened this past Saturday.

We decided to have lunch at the River City Diner again. It was quite crowded but the server was agreeable to seating us in a quiet location away from the hustle and bustle of the lunch crowd. Ashley, understandably, does much better with meals when we keep the stimulation and distractions to a minimum, especially on this particular Saturday because she wasn’t feeling her best.

As the server approached our table to take our orders, Ashley hit the side of her head with her hand. It’s something she does when she is distressed, and although it doesn’t happen often, when it does happen it can be quite disconcerting. The server stopped in her tracks, a few yards from our table, and had a look of shock and horror on her face. She recovered quickly though, and came to the table to take our drink orders.

When the server returned with our drinks and to take our food orders, she immediately apologized for her earlier actions. She said that she had a nephew with Autism, and that she should have behaved better. She convinced me that she understood such behaviors, and she seemed genuinely contrite. I told her I appreciated her apology, and then just gave her our orders.

She was quite an attentive server, a young mother she told us, and a very typical diner sort of waitress. While the reaction initially annoyed me, the result, I believe, was positive. And, I’m hoping that some of the other customers seated nearby also were aware of the exchange, and perhaps had their minds opened a bit also.

What do you think? What would your reaction have been, and would you have handled things differently? I’m really interested in your comments, because as parents of children with special needs know, this sort of situation is common.

I don't get it...

The women featured in the film spend hundreds of dollars on "reborns" -- dolls with beating hearts, tiny veins and other bizarrely realistic features -- and treat them just like actual babies, diaper changes and all.