7/4/08: One Boy’s Independence Day
Happy July 4! This week my son Sam gained a new type of independence, probably the most important to date in his 8 1/2 years of life: he learned to ride a bike.
Riding a bike is something most families take for granted. A few rocky starts, a few skinned body parts, and you have a rider. Not so with Sam. Sam was diagnosed with high-functioning autism at age 2 1/2. Although he's climbing out of it, he finds some things difficult: complicated motor skills among them. See the June 4 blog entry for that struggle.
Enter Bike First!, an affiliate of “Lose the Training Wheels.” This awesome non-profit was developed to help kids like Sam, and frankly, kids far more challenged than Sam, learn to ride a bike. The kids start with special bikes with training rollers that look like tapered rolling pins. The rollers get progressively smaller as the child learns to rely more on his own sense of balance. Eventually the roller disappears, and the child is biking. Sam lost the rollers by Day 3 of the 5-day camp, thanks to the great staff of volunteers, notably his wonderful instructors Lindsey and Nicole. These young ladies were patient, fun, nurturing, and encouraging. Sam adored them, and asked me if he could invite them to our house for a sleep-over. I doubt that they will ever fully understand what they have done for our family. You have my undying gratitude, ladies.
If you are looking for a place to send a tax-deductible donation, please consider Bike First!
6/17/08: Editor in Recovery (or Signs of the Times)
Hi. I’m Yvonne, and I’m a recovering editor. It’s been approximately eight hours since my last editing episode. I was at a coffee shop in SE Portland (Genie’s, to name names) and saw a sign to this effect: “Large parties may have to wait more than an hour do to heavy customer traffic ...” The “do to” should of course have been “due to” but the sign had been printed, affixed to the espresso machine, and had a semi-permanent-printed-on-quality-paper look to it. I didn’t think they’d appreciate me having at it with a red marker. (No, I don’t actually carry one with me. Usually.) I even restrained myself from pointing the error out to the barrista, a 20-something waif with a nose ring who I doubt would have been amused.
Likewise while on a recent weekend getaway at the coast (Long Beach, to be exact) I spotted the sign to the right. I actually asked my boyfriend to turn the car around so I could take a picture of it. They used the wrong “to” of course—it should have been “too” meaning “also.” Where have all the spellers gone? Someone wrote the sign. Someone else designed the sign. Then someone proofed the sign, and signed off on the sign. Someone built the sign, and finally someone attached the sign to the building. And no one noticed? In my nightmares I believe someone did notice, and that he or she pointed it out to the owner of the sign who shrugged and said, “So wut?” Is proper spelling going the way of the Thank You card and the RSVP? Has spell check atrophied the part of our brain that actually knows how to spell? Or does no one care but me?
I think I will start collecting photos of signs with errors in them. I’ll make a coffee table book, “Mistaken Signs” but I’ll spell it “Misstaken Sings.” I think I’ll start drafting the first chapter over my next lottay.
6/12/08: The Summer Sky
“To see the summer sky is poetry though never in a book it lie. True poems flee.” Emily Dickinson (via Hayley, my son’s teacher). But where is the summer sky? This is June 12. Public school has been out for two days. The Rose Festival is over, so where is our summer sky?
It seems like every day recently I hear of someone I know getting the flu or going low energy or getting migraines ... I think it’s lack of Vitamin D. We can’t all move to Maui, so come on Mr. Sol, shine already.
At the risk of sounding like Pollyanna, maybe it’s time to spread a little sunshine of our own. Wave someone through at an intersection. Hold the door for someone who is a few steps behind you. Say thank you and smile when someone does that for you.
And maybe shine on yourself while you’re at it. Take a nap in the middle of the day. Walk during your lunch hour. Look up any quote by Will Rogers. Rent a stand-up comedy video and watch it sitting down. Wash all your windows to catch any rays that may come through. Get your car cleaned inside and out.
Or book a flight to Maui. Make it in the dead of winter when you will really need it. And hold the door for me. I’ll be right behind you. By the way, thank you.
6/5/08: Boys & Bikes, the Sequel
After writing my blog last night I hopped on the Internet and again fell in love with the medium. I googled “teach child with autism how to ride a bike portland” and up popped this awesome site called Bike First. They are a national organization with a local presence. Their counselors and volunteers teach kids of differing abilities how to particpate in one of the key joys of being a kid: how to ride a bike.
Bike First has two 5-day summer camps each year. In 2006 they had 30 participants. In 2007 they had 60 and turned away many. In 2008 both camps are already full but I was able to get Sam on the waiting list and Ann, the coordinator I spoke with, was very optimistic that he will get in. Although it’s a 5-day class, often children learn after the first day or two, creating spaces for others who want to learn. I am jazzed! I told Sam about it and he’s jazzed too. He said, “Let’s go there now!” but I explained that the camp didn’t start for a couple of weeks.
Bike First is a great organization to check out if you know a child who is having trouble learning how to ride a bike. With a little expertise and some specialized equipment, they are turning kids who otherwise would miss out on this milestone how to ride a bike.
Sam is 8 years old. His brother Max, almost 10, did not learn to ride a bike until he was 7, but with a little coaching he picked it up in a few hours. Sam is more problematic. A lack of motor skills and lack of focus are getting in the way. We have worked with him: first with training wheels, then without training wheels and lowering the bike where his feet could touch the ground, then without pedals, getting him to sit on the bike and push it along, concentrating on simply keeping it upright while he walked. We’ve had him push the bike while walking beside it to learn how bikes move. We’ve sat him on his bike and pushed him for miles, letting go for milliseconds before needing to steady it again. He gets frustrated by not being able to just ride it. “I need a new bike, a good bike,” he says. He thinks the problem is his bike because his brother can ride his bike.
We’ve put Sam on the back of a tandem so he can feel what riding a bike is like. He likes that best and always wants to go faster. But he’s getting bigger and that’s getting more difficult, and so we don’t go on many bike rides together.
Sam came up with a solution recently: “I want a tricycle,” he said, then drew one for me and labeled it “Sam’s tricycle.” Then he drew a picture of himself riding it.
How do I tell Sam that he is too old for a tricycle? I hoped he’d forget the idea but he brought it up again last night. He wanted me to look for a tricycle for him on the Internet. I did find some for adults, advertised for “the handicapped.” But even if I got one for him he wouldn’t be able to go on bike rides with us. He would get frustrated because his trike wouldn’t be fast enough to keep up.
I feel so blessed to have Sam in our lives, and so grateful for his recovery process. “He is walking away from autism,” an aide he no longer needs told me. Most days I forget about the diagnosis entirely. He’s just Sam to us. But I am greedy. I want to see him with that silly carefree smile on his face having the time of his life. I want him to be able to ride a bike. Like any other boy.
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