Branching Out

I've decided to step out of my comfort zone and give blogging a go.  Why not?  All the cool kids are doing it!  Why should I blog?  What golden nuggets of information can I dole out that will make this world a brighter place?  Probably nothing.  But, by virtue of having 2 children on the Autism Spectrum, I am a rarity. 

According to the CDC:
Parents who have a child with an ASD have a 2%–18% chance of having a second child who is also affected.

So our family is already pretty darn awesome in our uniqueness.  Top that with our decision to homeschool this year and throws us off the charts.  What???  We decided to homeschool with TWO CHILDREN WHO HAVE SPECIAL NEEDS?  Are we crazy?  Nope!  I don't think so.  

My kids have been in public education since they were three.  They have been in PPCD (Preschool Program for Children with Disabilities) and transitioned into Elementary Special Education at Kindergarten.  They are now 7 and 8.  So that's 4 to 5 years of hearing about what they can't do, what goals they need to work on to be like everyone else, their deficiencies, their delays (fine motor, occupational, speech, and social, just to name a few), and most importantly, their differences.  Thankfully, we have never had anything but kind, caring teachers and professionals that love my kids and want what is best for them.  This is not going to be a "I hate public school" bash.  I don't blame them, and I am still friends with many of the boys teachers.  They are doing what they feel is the best.  The norm, the standard practice today.  

One day last year I woke up.  I decided that I wasn't going to look at my kids through IEP's, Service Plans, Therapy Options, or Social Stories.  I was going to see THEM.  Let them find their drummer.  Let them march their own beat, however measured or far away.  

This is our journey.  The good, the bad, the always slightly off-center.  My kids are more than labels.  I think their education, and lives, should be too.

I'll start us off with my favorite quotes.  It sums up our life, and I'm happy we take the road less traveled.

Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Should he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality. Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?

by Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862)
from Walden: Or Life in the Woods, 1854