19th birthday bowling celebration!

Last week was a busy one, and though we celebrated Molly's big 19th birthday, I haven't posted about it until now. Bowling was it's own blog post that I wanted to save until I had a bit of time to write about it. After her "no dance Valentines day dance", Molly still wanted to invite Spencer along for her bowling and PF Chang's birthday celebration. She had received gift certificates when she graduated from high school and we needed to use them. This was the perfect opportunity!

I love these modern bowling alley's. No smoking allowed which makes it feel clean (except maybe where you put your fingers in the ball to bowl.... and maybe the shoes too) :) But that insight comes from my germ-phobe husband. I hadn't thought twice about bowling and then eating my nachos without washing my hands in-between! Don't tell Molly...she'd be running around handy wiping every ball in the place if she knew that was an option. The icing on the bowling alley cupcake was that THEY input our names and programmed the bumpers to go up when both Molly and Spencer bowled, and went down when the rest of us bowled. That saved a good half hour of programming struggles and we could start right away.

I want you to see what a typical photo session looks like with our kids. Spencer would be looking at me and as soon as I clicked to take a picture, he'd turn his head. He finally stayed put the third time  and as you can see, Jack is feeding me grief and laughing. We aren't picky about natural smiles or even eyes open. We just like them looking in the general direction of the camera :)

Success!!

For me, growing up bowling was a fun family activity that we did maybe once a year during a camping trip. Brooke looks like he has been bowling since he could walk. He throws it down the lane with such speed and loud crashing and spraying of pins at the end, that he looks like he should have chosen it as his career. Must have been a lot of beers and fraternity hang out time in college? He's good at most bar games. But we haven't really taken the kids bowling much and that was apparent the first time our athletic son rolled the ball down the lane. Brooke and I shot a look at each other like "WHERE did he learn THAT style?". Jack rolled it backhand, or back spin might be a better way to describe it? Kind of like you'd toss a bag in Corn Hole. It looked weird and acted weird for the whole game too :) There was a big bet riding on the game between the boys and whomever lost had to clean the others car, so Jack wasn't about to try and learn the correct way to roll the ball. Maybe next time we take him out?

Molly took to it quickly. She would watch to see when it was her turn and in one fell swoop from the chair, to quickly grabbing her ball, to running up to the line, to rolling it down the lane all took 1/2 second. She used the heck out of the bumpers too! The ball would Z down the lane and knock a few pins over at the end. After her first few turns, I was amazed to see her leaning her body in the direction that she wanted to ball to go. She'd even wave her arms trying to magically move the ball the correct direction to knock over more pins. It appeared that she REALLY understood the game and cared about the outcome. She would smile and high five us after each turn.

Spencer, on the other hand, looked like he would have rather been anywhere else but there. He would slowly get his ball, walk up to the line with his left hand in his pocket and his right hand on the ball. He'd move his arm about 1/4 inch and drop the ball with a loud THUD directly at his feet and it would ever so slowly creep down the lane. Spencer would stand there and look back at us, look around at the others bowling, and hardly ever looked down at how many pins would be knocked over. The folks on the lanes beside us would patiently wait for him to move before they would bowl since that is the appropriate etiquette. They quickly learned that it was okay to go as Spencer was going to be there a while and we had said "It's okay". Then he'd walk back wanting to sit down. "No, you have one more ball to bowl". And he'd go through the process again. Brooke tried to get him to move his arm and really wing it down the lane and also told him to take his hand out of his pocket. The winging never got faster but he DID take his left hand out of his pocket the rest of the time. Needless to say, it took a full hour to play one game. It wasn't until we had 5 minutes left of our time (and were told this on the scoring monitor above) that Spencer lit up and started smiling and engaging with us again. His face said "THANK GOD this is almost over and we can go eat. Why does this family take me on outings like this?".

Left hand in pocket

Molly, Spencer, Jack, Brooke, Kathy

Molly beat Jack! But she WAS using bumpers and he wasn't. I was thrilled to break 100!

If you are my FB friend, you know how monumental this cupcake is. Here is what I posted on her birthday:

This cupcake represents SO much growth in our daughter. Kind of embarrassing to admit that this is THE FIRST TIME EVER we have made cupcakes together (since she really didn't care to participate before). No surprise she picked pink cake AND pink icing. She cracked (decimated?) the eggs, she used the beater, she messily put the batter into the tin cups, and she iced them all beautifully by herself adding the sprinkles at the end. The sky is the limit my sweet 19 year old. Happy Birthday, Molly!

SO excited when her friend Maddie brought birthday flowers for her.

Molly's favorite song in the world is the "Happy Birthday" song. She loves to sing it to anyone and lights up when it is sung to her. She sways back and forth and a few of the words come out of her mouth. So she heard it at FSL at work, at her cupcake celebration at speech therapy, AND at Special Olympics basketball practice that night. And probably a few other times in the car driving to all these places. It was the perfect 19th birthday.

Want the recipe for a great day? I'll tell ya here.

If you are ever feeling like this world is going to pot, feel disheartened by the political system,  and suffer depression from the doom and gloom on the news, I have a solution for you. Volunteer to spend the day at a Special Olympics event in your area and your perception of the world will shift immediately. Your heart can't help but be touched and softened; the way you feel when you watch a puppy or cute baby video. The innocence and pure joy emanating from the "athletes" (as they are referred to in Special Olympics) will make your day and stay with you for many days afterwards.

As a mom of a Special Olympian, I of course have a tender heart for these athletes. All of them. But I think that you would feel the same way after a day in the stands (or volunteering). I want to share with you a few of the examples of gentleness and hilarity that we enjoyed this weekend at the Regional Basketball tournament held in Pueblo, Colorado for the SE division.

From the smiling volunteers of all ages who greet you and show you where to go, to the typical peers who play with our Olympians on some of the teams to keep the game moving, to the forgiving refs, to the beaming parents in the stands, to the excited Olympians themselves, the day is filled with energy and anticipation for the competitions.

There is a wide spectrum of ability on the court. On the not so good end is Molly, who does not have a competitive bone in her body, as well as this being the first year that she has played basketball. She  played in PE class and has nailed many baskets in our driveway through the years, but she has NO concept of playing offense OR defense. Brooke, Jack and I sat in the bleachers howling with laughter at how sweet and innocent Molly was on the court. She had a smile that was ear to ear all day long. She was loving being with her friends from FSL where she works 3 days a week. She didn't have a clue what she was doing but she didn't care in the least.

Molly's face all day long....even as she ran up and down the court.

Molly wore a hole in the floor with her straight and direct path as she loped from one end of the court to the other. At times the ball would bounce or roll near her but she'd make no effort to try and get it. The other team would score a basket and Molly would turn and run back to the other end. Back and forth. Beaming the whole time. We got such a kick out of that as the rest of the family is SO competitive that we just don't understand how she'd play this way? I was thinking: "Go intercept that lofty pass!! Blow by that kid and make the easy layup!!" In the 4th quarter, as she was running up the court, suddenly she looked directly at me in the stands, signed "potty" and went running off the court to the bathroom. Man down!! She left her team with only 4 players on the court. Her coach came to the bathroom to see if everything was okay as Molly hadn't told anyone what she was doing....and if you don't know the sign language sign for "bathroom"...you wouldn't have known what she was up to either.

They got creamed in their first game by a team that played offense AND defense. Our crew isn't so good at defense and our particular team doesn't have "typical peers" playing with them. It's a little higher level if you will.

The consolation round was a little more even. It almost looked like both teams had secretly met beforehand and said "If you don't play defense, we won't either. And hey, let's not run and get sweaty either. Let's just walk casually from one end of the court to the other and take turns scoring, okay? Break!" Spencer happened to be on the other team, and if it's possible, he was even more clueless than Molly with the rules :) He'd slowly plod back and forth, looking around at people in the bleachers, not really paying attention to the game at hand. If one of his teammates handed him the ball, he might bounce it once and then walk with it for 5-6 steps, and then directly toss it to the opposing team :) Almost as if saying "Here, do you want this?"

Another short kid would just tuck low and barrel head first into the kids standing under the basket, holding the ball like a football. Double dribbling and carrying the ball was hardly ever whistled (Thank God) and so funny to witness. Looked more like rugby than basketball sometimes. I loved how the cute refs would just smile at the infractions and often clap for the players when a basket finally went in. So opposite of what you normally watch on the court. If they whistled every infraction, there would have been NO basketball to watch. I loved watching all the athletes look to the stands at their parents for approval and affirmation. There is such an innocence and vulnerability that even as grown adults they have maintained. The day is filled with pure, simple joy and athletes giving it everything they have with just enough understanding of the game without the subtleties.

I also loved that Jack came with us to watch his sister. He had to get up at 7 am on his precious weekend to sleep in. He sat in the stands and loved every minute of watching Molly and the other Olympians. I love that he laughs and appreciates her and like us is laughing out of love and caring. He is an ultra competitive lacrosse player and loved how this event was unfolding in front of him. "This is classic" is what he said while videoing. Upon texting his girlfriend that it was "funny"...he then texted her back saying that "that didn't sound right". And I know what he means. It's hard to put into words the wonder of the day without sounding insulting to the athletes. I hate to even compare the day to watching puppies and babies but it's hard to describe pure innocence and joy another way.

Our world needs more innocence and joy. Thank you Special Olympics for gathering our athletes together and filling our day with smiles and reminders of just what IS important!

A "No Dance" Valentine's Day Dance

Another fun dance invitation from Spencer had us out shopping for her Valentine's Day outfit. When I asked her what color dress she wanted, she said "red" on her talker. Since finances are tight and she has re-worn each cute dress in her closet more than a few times, we headed off to the ARC for a little searching. She followed me up and down the 2 dress aisles. I said "Molly, YOU need to pick a few too. I'm not the only one searching here." She backed up and went straight for the red dress I avoided and that you see here.  It was like a potato sack and had no shape to it and desperately needed to be ironed. So I grabbed a few other *cuter dresses (though none of them were red). We headed to the dressing room to try on all 5 of them.

Molly was very excited about the red dress so she tried that one on first. It fit like a glove and she was ready to go. Like leave the dressing room NOW. But I wanted her to see if any of the others ones looked cuter ON her and you can only know that by trying them on, right? She was not excited about that. Felt like she was thinking "I'll do it for you, Mom, but I already know which dress I'm getting".

One was a little too open at the neckline. Another was so cute on her but I'm always a little nervous with short dresses as she doesn't sit like a lady and might do some fast dance spins that would flare up the dress like Marilyn. So after they had all been put on and taken off, I asked her "So which one do you want to buy?". And she adamantly grabbed the red one. You can't beat $3 :)

AND it looked good with her talker case, red necklace and cute boots.

Spencer's dad had him for the weekend, so they picked up Molly. Jon prompted Spencer to open the car door like a gentleman for Molly to let her in. Then Spencer walked off. Jon said "Come back and close the door". (These kids crack me up as they are SO literal. He did exactly what his dad asked). Spencer did a half ass push of the door that did not close it. Jon and I laughed and said "Close it all the way. We want to keep Molly safe". Then Spencer went and sat in the back with her.

About an hour later, I got a text from Jon: "Molly's not interested in dancing tonight. Any ideas for how to get her started?"

I almost fainted. Molly NOT dance?!!!! My girl is not picky about music and dances to every decade of tunes created. She loves a crowd and the ARC Dance is always packed. What could possibly have been the reason that she didn't dance? That my friends, is a question that we might never have the answer to. Molly can not answer (yet) the "why" questions. Or the "how", "what"...and often the "who" and "when" ones either.

We (I) had talked during our shopping outing about including others on the dance floor with her if there were kids that looked like they wanted to dance but didn't have someone to dance with. That's the beauty of these dances, as I have written before: Moms can slow dance with daughters and no one bats an eye. As always, I never really know what Molly understands as I talk to her so who knows what she took from that conversation? Maybe it was something like "DO NOT DANCE TONIGHT!"?

Afterwards, I started worrying that maybe she just wasn't into Spencer anymore? It's been 3 years and maybe she just needs a break? So I broached the subject by seeing if she wanted to include him on her pre birthday celebration of bowling and PF Chang's today. She adamantly said "Yesch" (yes). So it wasn't him that kept her from dancing.

A separate side story from the same day: Molly and I went up to the Air Force Academy to watch them play Denver University in lacrosse while the boys went skiing. It was a beautiful Colorado day where the sun was warm and the stands were packed for a great lacrosse game. It is notoriously windy on that campus, so when the wind would pick up, everyones coats would go on. When the wind would die down, the coats were taken off. Molly was completely hidden under a big blanket that I had brought for that very reason. Also she could look at pictures more clearly on my phone from under there. After a while, I leaned over to talk to her through the blanket and said "Mol, are you okay under there?". The lady sitting in front of us turned and looked at me with the most shocked look on her face and said "Your MOTHER is under there?!!" Made me laugh. "Mol" and "Mom" DO kind of sound alike in the wind.

Happy Presidents' Day!

Autism Speaks is having a competition for housing solution ideas for adults with autism!!!

Another amazing Lars Leber photo of moon over Pikes Peak

Don't you love that feeling when the stars and planets align and you talk to the perfect person at the perfect time? That happened to me last night at Molly's Special Olympics basketball game. In my constant blab-fest about "creating a forever community for Molly" this lovely mom that I was chatting with said: "Well, have you seen the competition that Autism Speaks is running?"

Say What? No. There are others who are thinking this same thing?!! It's like when we named our son "Jack" thinking that we loved the name and no one else was using it. Come to find out that EVERYONE who had a son in 1998 named their son Jack too. :)

As soon as I got home, I logged onto the Autism Speaks website and saw that there was a webinar TODAY that would give us all the details on submissions for our "Belief-busting breaks throughs" for housing solutions for adults with autism. This challenge started Oct 15th, 2015 and final submissions are due on March 1st. Winners will be announced on April 19, 2016. How cool that I found out about it just in time for the webinar with all the details.

Here are some grim stats that they cited:

-81% of adults with autism live with their parents.
-500,000 individuals with autism will be entering adulthood over the next ten years.
-Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis are increasing 10-17% annually.

I like their parameters as they look globally for solutions in this competition. Just putting our kids into an apartment does not create "community".

See on the graph that only 1% of adults with autism need no support! Molly is in the "35% need 24 hour support" category.

I like that there are three categories that you can submit ideas for. Of course many ideas would be awesome for all three groups and they ask that you submit your idea for each. I also like how they use the word "safely" time and time again. I think that as parents of these very naive individuals, we are hyperly worried about their safety. And it shows with the parameters. And that I'm not the only worry wart.

Also note that this may come in many forms: technology, architecture design, strategic partnerships, new business models, etc, etc. They sky is truly the limit in the "think outside the box" for the future of these kids.

I would love to encourage EVERYONE to submit ideas. See the website above for details. Even if we don't win the $50,000 prize, at least it is building momentum in finding solutions for our kids, their siblings and we parents when we aren't around to take care of our Molly's of the world.

I'll show you my submission when it is done!! Looks like I have two weeks to spit shine it.

The two times my naive daughter almost died.

"Do you want to go walk along the river with me?" was my question to Molly one snowy day up in the mountains while Brooke and Jack went skiing. As the years have all blended together in my motherhood fog, I would venture to guess that Molly was 10 or 11 years old? Or heck, maybe 12 or 13? All I know is that she suddenly proved her strength and scared me into realizing that I was not the one in charge anymore.

We put on our hats, gloves and ski pants to walk the 1/2 mile into Frisco from the house. It had just snowed a ton which made for a beautiful hike along the trail that parallels the icy river. The end prize was to be a steamy hot chocolate in town. One section of the trail passes a little playground that we'd always stop to enjoy. Today, however, was a much different story.

As the trail dipped down by the river, Molly ran off the path and started trying to walk out onto the ice. Totally freaked me out as she had never tried that before. I said "No Molly, the ice is thin and you can't walk across it"(which would have been obvious to any of you as you could see the river rushing under and there were many open spots too). She did not listen and continued to try and step onto the river. I pulled her back and she fought me tooth and nail. We ended up toppling over and wrestling in the snow bank as she tried to pull away from me to dive into that frigid, rushing water. It was opposite any behavior I had ever seen in her as she is normally so compliant. And now she was bigger and stronger and I was really having to fight to keep her safe. I can only imagine what the people were thinking who might have been sitting in the their living room watching what was going on on the embankment across from them. I was wanting to scream for help to give me backup support. I was SO scared.

Of course I finally won the match and pulled her back up to the sidewalk. She was not happy. There was no going out for hot chocolate after that and we went straight home. I got her into a bath and then proceeded to lose it crying. The adrenaline rush came through tears as I shared the story with my mother-in-law who was back at the house.


Why did Molly DO that? It was so unlike her.

I repeated the story and my query "Do you want to walk along the river?" and then it hit me! With Molly's auditory precessing disorder she thought that I had said "Do you want to walk on the river?" And obviously she did! I'm not sure Molly has that discernment even now? Another regular auditory processing challenge for her is when someone says "How are you?" and she answers "I am 18 years old".

As you can imagine, we have avoided that route on snowy days ever since. My PTSD doesn't allow for it.

I have had only one other experience where I have literally feared for her life and that was two summers ago when she was 17 years old. We were staying at my friend Jenny's Wrightsville Beach, NC house. Between her house and the boat dock area there is a 2 lane road where traffic is moving at a pretty fast clip (30 mph?). Jenny hated that when her kids were little as she was always on high alert as they crossed the street. Now that her kids are big and know better, there isn't as much fear. Well, my girl still is terrible about "stop look and listen, before you cross the street, use your eyes, use your ears, and THEN use your feet". We have said this at least 100,000 times in her life and she still sucks at it.

On this day, I had already crossed over to the beachy area where the kids were going to fish and paddle board. I kept watching for Molly when she was going to come out of the house as I knew that she'd need help crossing the street. In hindsight, I should have waited for her. Instead of coming out of the kitchen area and coming down the front stairs where I was watching for her, she surprise came out of the garage between the parked cars and started sprinting across the street to me. Before I knew it, she was half way across the street and a car barely missed her. There was absolutely no effort to look both ways...she just bolted across. She must have a few angels because she did not die that day. But she could have. And I would have witnessed the whole thing and it would have been my fault for not being more diligent. Makes me want to throw up every time I think about it.

Looking from the house to the dock area (and Jack paddle boarding)

Jack taking Molly out for a spin

See that car speeding between us and the house?

The reason that I have shared these stories with you is that I learned this week that  there is something that we can do to address these safety concerns! Hallelujah as what we've been doing for 19 years hasn't worked.  The therapists can write songs specifically for Molly to teach her how to cross streets and not go on icy rivers. Then they take her out into the community to practice. The tune has to be catchier than "stop, look and listen" is all I'm saying. I'll keep you posted.

"SnOwmaha" GO BRONCOS!!

I know everyone that lives outside of Colorado pictures us buried in snow year round. We chuckle at that as typically once it has snowed, the sun comes back out the next day and everything melts quickly. We are back to business as usual within a day or two at the most. Not this week!! Colorado got pounded with 20" of snow in and around Colorado Springs and even more to the east of us. I'm sure the ski towns got pummeled as well but we couldn't get up there as the roads were to precarious to drive.

So I stayed in my PJ's for 2 days! When the third "Snow day: school is cancelled" was called, I HAD to get dressed and go to the grocery store as we were out of anything resembling healthy. In my almost 19 years of motherhood in Colorado, we have NEVER had 3 cancelled days of school in a row.

Molly, on the other hand, is like her dad and prefers not to sit still. So luckily my man got her dressed to help shovel the driveway. As one friend put it "Her own huge white board to erase" :)

And then they went for a long yaktrax ( you attach them to your shoes to keep from slipping) hike in Red Rock canyon. Then she came home to a long soaky, candlelit bath, and TV.

Over the quarry

She has a "big foot" walking style ;)

Brooke after a day of entertaining his daughter

Jack, my 17 year old with no fear of driving in the snow and in constant search for the fun with friends, was out the door all three days snowboarding, sledding, hot tubbing, and eating at Qdoba's. He landed another back flip in front of a big crowd of peers which is always an ego boost. What I love about his high school experience is that he is having a blast and will always look back on these years and smile about them.

On another cold, outdoor note, a social media call went out on FB for folks to gather at 7 pm at the Manitou Incline to start hiking the mile long trek straight up an old cog route. In the deep snow. On the coldest night of the year to date... to create an "Ode to the Broncos" as they head to this weekends Super Bowl. The incline is a very popular workout in our area as it's a major cardio huff. You see teams of athletes from the Olympic Training center, to high school teams, to individuals of all ages, to out of staters who have NO idea what they got themselves into. I personally HATE it! It's a total grind and I'll admit that I've only gone once and really have no desire to do it again.

But my daughter and husband are both beasts and willing to try anything that gets their heart pumping. So they said "Yes" to the challenge, strapped orange glow sticks onto their back packs, donned their headlamps that ended up freezing and shutting down, put on their yaktrax to keep from sliding, and headed up with 30-50 others who were up for an adventure. The trail is always pretty narrow but last night it was only packed down one man wide, due to the deep snow that just occurred. If you stepped aside, you post holed and got snow in your shoes and pants leg. Here is the awesome time-lapse effect from one of the many photographers who were capturing the image from a mile away.

Lars Lieber stunning photo time lapse. The zig zag homeward down to the left of the orange is Barr Trail.

Headlamp was a must as the moon was not out. A few orange glows ahead of her.

Stunning view taken by Rob Lucas looking down at Manitou and Colorado Springs

Looking up at the hike

I bet those lazy Panther fans are still on their sofas. Bronco fans are where it's at. GO BRONCOS!!