Kim’s Story, Chapter 10: Our Autism Journey
Kim’s Story, Chapter 10: Our Autism Journey.
Kim began her second year finally walking,
and beginning to say a few words. Our quiet child.
We were immensely relieved when Kim began to walk,
beginning right around her first birthday.
Kim was sure-footed and seldom fell, although her stride seemed a tad ungainly.
It was a joy to watch her mobility, carrying her little pink bear with the calico dress everywhere she went. The bear was gifted to her from the Grandma who only came to visit once a year, in the winter. Maybe her love of Pink Bear was her way of keeping Grandma Evelyn near her heart.
We’ll never know, though…
so quietly did Kim go about her days.
We began to think of her as our quiet child. Undemanding, easy to please, appreciative of hugs and kisses, but not often returning them…
She did, however, love to sit on my lap. And I loved holding her.
Kim’s Story: Our Autism Journey
We’ve shared about Autism Spectrum Disorder here, here and here, but now we decided to tell Kim’s story, and our family’s journey on the spectrum (without knowing we were there in those early years). Because when a child is on the spectrum, the journey involves the whole family. This article studies the effects of autism on the family.
Kim’s Story: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8. Chapter 9.
Kim’s Story Chapter 10
Even though I knew Kim would be our last baby, I was glad she was getting older.
I hoped, correctly as it turned out, that she wouldn’t get sick as often. Because surely she would become immune to all the germs that kept causing her bronchiolitis. It could have been so different, thinking of the many people who suffer from autoimmune diseases. Still, I was very thankful Kim did seem to outgrow her many colds. It’s so hard to watch a tiny, thin child suffer. I’m sure it’s just as hard watching a chubby child that’s sick, but to me, Kim seemed so fragile.
But she proved me wrong.
She was anything but fragile physically, in spite of the lack of “meat” on her bones. And her lack of eating meat, or much of anything. She seemed to survive on breakfast cereal and spaghetti with hamburger, and not much of that.
Our first child was small, wiry and didn’t like to eat.
Our second child loved to eat, weighed 20 pounds at 6 months, and was chubby.
When we had him, I thought I now knew the secret to having a fat and happy child who never got unwanted attention for being too small or skinny. Everyone wanted to cuddle him.
Alas, my theories went out the door.
You just can’t force a child to eat when they aren’t inclined that way. And now we had another skinny child. A skinny and small child who appeared much more fragile than our first slender and small child.
I usually ended up feeling like the “bad mom” when we visited family, went to the store, to church, everywhere. I played the comparison game. What was I doing wrong? It became a constant refrain in my head! Unless I was having fun with my children, which was most of the time.
Because, actually, we had an awesome little family
living the American dream.
Happy, obedient children. A nice, comfortable home I loved to decorate. Wonderful neighbors, with one teen girl becoming our built-in babysitter. Shannon was at our house whenever she wasn’t in school or in bed. Two of Shannon’s brothers were good playmates for the boys, as was another family of 3 boys two doors down and across the street from us. My rule was no neighbors in the backyard, or in the house. And no going into neighbors’ houses or backyards without permission from me. It seems incredible, but my boys never broke those rules. For a city lot, we had a fairly large, grassy front yard with a post and rail fence. And when the boys began playing soccer and football, it seems there was usually a parent or teenager to watch them when they played on the street.
Our Summer Trip
That summer of Kim’s second year we drove about 7000 miles on our annual summer trip to see my family in Canada.
Our oldest son’s teacher got married in Fort Vermillion, Alberta, and since my sister lived just 4 hours south of there, visiting that far northland seemed doable.
We traveled in our usual, unusual style. We drove an 8 passenger GMC mini van with fold-down seats and lots of baggage room. It was loaded with suitcases, sleeping bags, pillows and Kim’s car-seat. And a honeymoon basket to give the bridal couple, which happened to have crystal goblets that tinkled on all the bumps for the first half of the trip. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore, and dug around and rearranged to get rid of the unwanted musical accompaniment.
We got on the road about 7 o’clock in the evening, and didn’t stop driving until we arrived at a cousin’s house in southern Alberta at 9 o’clock the next evening. We drove through the canyons of southern Utah, then the green fields of northern Utah and Idaho, whizzed past Yellowstone Park and breezed across the Canadian border.
And sweet Kimberly?
She sat in her car seat that whole 26 hours, except for one stop where we all stumbled out and got some exercise. She ate, played and slept in her car seat. Sometimes with me beside her, sometimes with her brothers beside her. Driving through the night was our MO in those days, because boys tend to get bored and fight if they’re not sleeping. This was our way to make fast miles with the least stress. Diaper changes happened at gas stops, but truth is, she didn’t drink very much, so those Huggies lasted a long time. And we did drive-through food, because when you’ve driven all night, no one feels like showing themselves in a real restaurant.
That was Kim’s Story Chapter 10.
Before we knew we were on an autism journey.
Life was really, really fine.
In case there’re others who need to hear about living with autism,
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