It's a MelloYello Life

Dealing with a son with AS really beats you out sometimes.  Some days I come home from work and ask him how his day went and he'd say something like : "Normal. Mama, I don't want to talk about it, if that's ok."  That, coupled with a somber look on his face.  I just know that someone at school made fun of him for behaving in a weird way. Or he went berserk because he got frustrated over some little thing at school that ticked him off. Those times I feel totally useless and worthless to him. That really sucks. BUT there are days when he surprises me.  Just last week, he asks me: Mama, how do you make friends?  I ask him about who it is he wanted to be friends with and it turns out to be a neuro-typical girl in school who likes Pokemon just as much as he does. I was so excited, I rambled on and on about how to make a good impression, how to find the right timing to approach her and talk about stuff. I've been there, done that, I know how to catch someones'...

Today I have the flu.  I decided to stay in bed and rest as advised by my friends and family. BUT, as restless as I am, I turned on my laptop and searched for Asperger's documentaries to better understand my son K. You see, I have been struggling with him lately.  Unlike before, he's more withdrawn and would rather not share anything about what happened during the day.  He doesn't know it, but he hurts my feelings when he says : "I'd rather not talk about it". I know that the AS makes him blind to emotions because he simply doesn't recognize them, thus making emotions irrelevant. I find this hard to deal with but it's something I need to accept and work with everyday to prepare him for life. Anyway, allow me to share with you a video I found on You Tube about a teenager with AS. Reuben is a lot like K, being very literal, the bullying, confusion in the supermarket, self-confidence issues. Among all the videos I've seen, this is the one I can rela...

I'm quite sure that for most 13 year olds, going to the mall, and hanging out with friends on the weekend is a normal activity. This isn't so for my son K. Having  Asperger's Syndrome (AS), K has difficulty socializing. He isn't an introvert or anti-social. He is simply incapable of recognizing and responding to verbal cues from others.  A couple of years ago,  buying his own burger and fries at McDonald's was enough to make him sweat nervously and clam up.  He needs to rehearse what he needs to say to the cashier before he gets in line to order. It takes him forever to muster up the courage to get in line.  Lately, I've been "training" him to buy the stuff that he wants so he has no choice but to do it. I was excited and nervous when he told me that his good friend A invited him to go to the nearby mall and play network games. K, got down all the details of the "play date" and relayed them to me. I was happy that he finally had the urge to ...

Given my association with the world-renowned Philippine Madrigal Singers, people naturally ask whether my son K also likes to sing. You know, I believe I haven't heard him sing more than 10 times in his entire life. K reacts to music. That manifested when he was about 3 years old and we were on a taxi home and the radio was playing "I never had a dream come true". All of a sudden I heard sniffling. K was crying! I asked him, "What's wrong?" He just shrugged and buried his head into my lap. When the music stopped, he explained that "the music made me cry".  Another instance was at the end of the first Harry Potter movie, he begged me to stay and finish the end credits. I asked him what he was waiting to see on the screen. He said he wanted to finish the music. I noticed that since then, he prefers soundtrack or theme music than songs with lyrics. However, K would occasionally grant us a song or two when we had our Magic Mic moments, but not happil...

A lot of parents know this: the first day of school can get a little crazy. For my son K, it was just that. All throughout the week he had been wondering which class he'd belong to and who his class adviser would be. So when I told him that he'd be in the same class and under the same teacher, he was pacified. You see, people with Asperger's Syndrome need to be aware of their schedule for the next day. If changes occur unpredictably, it would be very devastating for them. We started the first day of school morning like we had during the school year before: we woke up at 5, I cooked breakfast and prepared his lunch while he got ready for school. We chat for a few minutes during breakfast, he brushes his teeth and goes downstairs to wait for the school bus. Everything went smoothly and I was assured that he was ok until his teacher sent me an SMS saying that he had been transferred to a more mainstream class. I knew I should be ecstatic. I had been excited for the day w...

Some will say that giving birth to and living with a child with Asperger's Syndrome is a curse. Imagine teaching someone how to look at people in the eye, or, how to crack a simple joke, better yet, understand one. Or think of how you can work on conjuring an "acceptable" smile, or teaching him how to pause between sentences as "normal" people would. Let me tell you, it's hard. Most parents are concerned with their child's bad behavior, worrying about peer pressure, or being too independent, too early. Parents of kids with AS worry about totally different things. I've consulted several books on how to understand, help, and live harmoniously with my child who has AS. The books all helped but I believe the best way to go about it is to listen, observe, and remember. You have to listen to him and try to "get" him. He doesn't talk like other normal/neuro-typical people. He talks like he was reading off an encyclopedia in a monotonous...

They say Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton had Asperger's Syndrome. It was 3 years ago when my son Kyle was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome . His teachers told me years before that to have him checked by a neuro-developmental pediatrician because they saw something different about his behavior at school. He had outbursts in the middle of class, talked too much, got bullied a lot, laughed too hard, and though he was extremely smart, he couldn't seem to express his feelings as well as other kids his age. I was in denial for years and thought that Kyle's behavior was very typical of a growing boy who had a very wide imagination. BUT it was only when the teachers refused not to admit him into Grade 4 unless he had gotten checked by a child psychologist, so, I did. Many people with Asperger's are often regarded as being eccentric. They sometimes lack social skills, are obsessed with complex topics and can have problems communicating. -BBC News I brought Kyle to a couple o...