Cassie French Ferguson's blog

If I want to understand Katie’s mind, I need only go as far as Farm Ville on facebook.

Farm Ville on facebook… yeah… right… that’s all you need to understand the mind of an autistic child. Ahhh, you are cynical.

Over the years since Katie’s diagnosis I have read every book that would help me understand the way she experiences life. The best tool that I have found to date is to stop and watch her as I see her slipping into meltdown.

If I were asked to define Jeremy’s first six years as stated by teachers, I would say that he was searching for his drummer.

Just before age three, Jeremy spent three mornings a week at Farm School. Remember, I was a first time mom, so I researched preschools as though my boy’s future depended upon it. He was a child of the 70’s and his father and I were certainly children of the 60’s, therefore an open, free environment would be ideal. No boundaries, no structure, no-no, do not fence-in our child.

Jeremy’s vocabulary developed in the typical fashion, “mommy, daddy, milk, ’round-’round… ‘round-’round?” you ask. Yes, ’round-’round.

‘Round-’round was the fixation of Jeremy’s expressing himself from the age of a year and a half to two. No words were more important to him, spoken more often, nor defined his world better than ’round-’round” or a-round-a-round. ’Round-’round was his first choice and he stuck with it.

Way out on the ocean
Far beyond the seven seas
There’s a tiny little boat
Faith is keeping her afloat
And a tiny little skipper
With his worn and tattered coat

Lauren. Just look at that face. You know the one… you can see the “I’m trouble” twinkle in her eyes. My two oldest daughters; Kellie on the left and Lauren on the right.

At 20 years old, Lauren is the drama queen, extraordinary athlete and the girl who drives the laughter from me when I am aching inside. When my heart is breaking and my thoughts are filled with, “How do I continue to cope? How do I keep myself focused and moving forward when I have one (or more) of my children spiraling out of control?

There are no depths of grief that Lauren cannot pull me from.

“The Prophet” by Khalil Gibran, On Children.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

I may be in the minority on this site, however, I remember so very well when children were dying from measles. When I was 11, a friend developed rubella and was kept in a dark room for weeks. There was no treatment, only prayers that she wouldn't be blind or deaf following her illness. She did have significant hearing loss, but maintained her eyesight. She was lucky, she survived.

I had the mumps at age 9, as a result, I have kidney and reproductive organ damage.

I suppose that I have given this subject quite a bit of thought. After five kids, a good portion of my life was devoted to teaching them proper bathroom habits. While I really was unprepared for managing a child with autism in this regard, I must say that I have learned from the experience. From birth to her current age (12 1/2), it has been clear to me that issues around eliminating were going to be monumental. I’m not kidding, either, the bathroom can either be heaven or hell.

As a homeschooling mother, I often have concerns about meeting educational expectations. I am blessed to have a daughter whom is also a teacher, and Kellie’s input and support are invaluable to me.

I would like to share a little interaction that I had today. We are currently immersed in the “human and animal” science block, studying the cow as a metabolic mammal. A good deal of time was spent laughing at my drawing of a cow, to which I was told, “It looks like a zombie.”

“O.K. So what does a cow give of value to man?”

Katie: ”Toppings for tacos?”

Jamie: ”Pizza?”

“… Human instincts are of two kinds: those that conserve and unify, which we call ‘erotic’ (in the meaning Plato gives to Eros in his Symposium”…’ and second, the instincts to destroy and kill, which we assimilate as the aggressive or destructive instincts. These are, as you perceive, the well-known opposites, Love and Hate, transformed into theoretical entities; they are, perhaps, another aspect of those eternal polarities, attraction and repulsion, which fall within your province…” So wrote Freud in a letter to Einstein in 1932 (Einstein on Peace).