Books and Business

"Mom, did you know...."

This was the beginning of a very, very long sentence in which Chef attempted to explain to me everything that happened in "The Rise and Fall of the British Empire" by Lawrence James. The next day, he started reading "Sarum" by Edward Rutherfurd. Chef's also been reading cookbooks and books about autism.

Chef is also making "pictures to sell" in hopes of starting his own business. He's generally spending a couple of minutes on each picture. In the past, Chef has done some very nice, simple watercolour pieces, and agrees that he wants to have a website to sell some, but when it comes down to doing the base-work for them (drawing the shapes before painting), it's back to mass-producing very basic pictures in very short order.

Chef is frequently talking about wanting to sell items at the local farmers' market. Last week, while at the market for our first time, he suddenly pulled out from his binder of papers a loose piece of canvas he'd painted months ago and announced to me that he was going to sell it. I reminded him that we weren't there as vendors (just playing music for now) and didn't have a sales table set up, and that he could gladly sell some items sometime when we've made plans together regarding what would be reasonable items to sell. Then he realized a lot of baked goods were being sold. This week, there have been many many lists of recipe names, with frequent verbal reminders of the additional need for cookbook names and page numbers. There's also been one long list of necessary ingredients proudly presented to me one day just as we were walking out the door to shop for groceries. Excellent planning! Unfortunately the list only contained the names of the items needed - no amounts, no reference back to the recipe, etc. Chef seemed very disappointed when he realized his ingredient-list was for naught and seemed deflated at the suggestion that he could still use the list and try to figure out the recipes that matched the ingredients, or try again with a new list and let me know when he was working on it so I could help him.

Everything new is step-by-step. It's nice to know there's a degree of motivation that's starting to surface. Hopefully that will stay long enough to smooth out the bits that Chef is finding to be challenging/disappointing.

Lunch at Last!

June 9, 2011

Morning:

Chef took his lunch to school! And an entire lunch at that - stew, a mango, a grapefruit. He also picked up a loaf of bread and had intended to take that as well then put it down when he was reminded to take only some of the loaf and to wrap it or put it in a container.

I asked Chef why he hadn't changed his shirt yet this week. "Because I didn't have a bath last night." The schoolbus was already waiting, so I didn't continue the conversation at that point but I'll be exploring that statement with Chef tonight to find out what he meant. Maybe Chef's understanding of putting on a clean shirt after having a bath means the ONLY time you put on a clean shirt is after having a bath. Hmmm.

Partway through the morning I received a text from Chef's EA asking about Chef's glasses because Chef had told his EA that I wouldn't let him have them. I have two thoughts on this - either he's doing his usual and blaming me for his actions and/or choices OR he's confusing the conversations regarding his old glasses, which are to now stay home (though he knows his new glasses are to be at school and he's had numerous reminders to take them there).

This weekend a friend has offered to take us along for a tour of various artists' studios. As often happens regarding such events, I'm torn. As Chef's Mom, I know this would be a beneficial opportunity for him and would create some positive memories in his life. But also as Chef's Mom, it sure would be nice to have some time alone with friends and just focus on myself for a change during an event...shockingly, even with the way Chef has behaved her lately, my neighbour has offered to take Chef for the day so I could have the day to myself. The catch is, that as relaxing as that sounds, I have a sense that I'd be waiting all day for the phonecall saying Chef had run off from her place or was causing problems for her, and that I'd be dealing with his anger all the next day. On the other hand, there is never a guarantee that Chef will go along somewhere. The only thing for certain right now is that I won't be telling Chef anything until Friday evening or possibly Saturday morning because there's always a strong risk that Chef will "act out" if he knows in advance that we're going somewhere new or there's a change in his general routine. Right now, though, I'm definitely leaning towards bringing him along on the studio tour and hoping that the memories from that day will make it all worthwhile.

I've been looking for volunteers for this summer; folks who would be willing to commit to spending at least one hour a week with Chef to take him to the park or swimming, etc. I've put a request on Facebook and have sent emails to the local colleges. My hope is that having different people doing different activities with him throughout the summer would help Chef continue to grow in his social skills and accept a broader variety of people in his life, as well as provide a bit of respite time. It would definitely be of benefit to students who are studying in certain fields, and volunteer opportunities are always good for community-building. We sure haven't had much success in finding individuals to work with Chef otherwise, but I'm hoping that an hour a week will be do-able for some folks who are community-minded.