Black and White OR Red All Over!

While reading through some of my past blog posts, specifically one from 2012, I came across the reminder that our instructions to our children with Aspergers need to be black and white. Crystal clear. You'd think, after five years of knowing this is what's going on, and knowing I need to be extra clear on this, I'd give black and white instructions. And yet, I failed once more. Recently.

A couple of months back, my daughter was invited to spend the day on the lake with a youth group. She'd never done that before but was excited. As I've mentioned before, the water is her home. We made sure she had snacks, sunblock, the obligatory ratty clothes. I picked out the perfect shirt for her to take with her, thinking she would wear it over her swim suit while in the lake. What I neglected to do was tell her what I expected. So, you guessed it, she didn't wear it. And while she did have sunblock on and even put some on later, if you have ever spent all day in, on, or around a lake, even with sunblock, without a t-shirt, you FRY. She fried. And had the chills that night. And was tired the next day.

I hadn't planned on her going to church the next day, even though it was Sunday. That is something I learned awhile ago in this journey - ONE event per weekend and church counts as an event for the Aspie mind. So not only was she obviously in recovery mode, she had to deal with a sunburn on top of it. Well, experience is the best teacher and she won't soon be forgetting that lesson! Within a week we had bought her an actual swim shirt and  she was thrilled. Found them at Costco and they had ONE in her size! I know that was God! The slowness in timing was mine, not His. His timing is always perfect; mine, not so much.

In all of this we learn, again, to be crystal clear in the instructions we give to our amazing Aspie children. We also learn that while we wonder if they will ever survive out in "the real world", away from Mom's and Dad's protection, we have these little tastes of how they'll react to similar experiences. Best they have those FIRST experiences and "oops" within the safety of a loving family
where they can be guided and talked through what follows. And that, my lovely parents, is quite an honor!