Michael is 22 years old now. There is a part of me that cannot believe it has been 22 years since he was born, and there is a part of me that cannot remember life without him.
As usual, he is a mix of so many things, volatile, yet subtle, humor-filled, yet humorless. He has autism, but doesn't want to be defined by it, but yet, invariably, he is marked by it.
This pandemic has been especially hard on him. His anxiety levels, his social issues and the way he isolates himself and interacts with others--all have been tested. I have seen a regression in him of social anxiety and tantrums brought on by frustrations and anxiety. For a while, he started getting a grunting tic because he was so anxious and overwhelmed. Michael has been doing great academically in school, but emotionally, the last year has been hard.
The past two weeks have been calmer and I do think that he has started to overcome some of the anxiety and social distancing issues. He has started to act more mature again, more like himself from 2 years ago. The grunting tic is almost gone. As things settle back in this country, and as the vaccination helps to make the world around us more "normal", I feel that we can start working to get back to where he was before all this mess.
It is hard sometimes with a child who has special needs, to know when to focus on those issues caused by that problem or when to leave those issues alone and just focus on the core person. With the pandemic and the issues brought on by that, I think we have all have been just focusing on getting by. Now, perhaps we can start moving on.
------------------------------------
Meanwhile, today was his birthday and I think despite the strangeness still of the pandemic, he had a fun day! Since he loves animals, I set up a couple virtual meet ups with animals: in the morning, he met up with a sloth, who was having breakfast. This one was a public meet up that was set up for everyone who signed up and paid for the event.
The big event was at 1 p.m., where we met one on one with the giant anteaters at Roger Williams Park Zoo...it was just Michael and us (and Uncle Tom) and the zoo keeper for the anteaters (Mel) showed us around the giant anteater enclosure, and we got to see them up close and personal--including when she was able to hold the recent addition--a "little" baby anteater named Ruth (after Ruth Bader Ginsberg).
Michael was so excited and despite his usual reserve in front of other people, you could tell he was impressed. He has a soft spot of animals, but has his favorites--and giant anteaters are one of them. (He sleeps with a stuffed anteater). When the zookeeper asked him why he loved giant anteaters so much, he said "Well, just look at them!" :-)
The zookeeper was able to hold the baby anteater in her arms and show us her paws and claws up close and we saw them eat some yogurt with insects and avocados (which, apparently, they LOVE). We got to see those long tongues and we got to ask the zookeeper any questions we wanted to. It was the most worthwhile 30 mins of our weekend and I am sure it was a perfect gift for my son, in these imperfect times. Heck, in a lot of ways it was better than going to the zoo live, because we would have never gotten that close to the animals or been able to ask so many questions.
At the end of our anteater time, they wished Michael a Happy Birthday, and said that anytime we can to the zoo, we could always page Mel and if she was there, she would come by and say "hi"
----------------
After that--it was cake time--I splurged because of the situation, and got a custom cake:
Michael is excited for the King Kong vs. Godzilla movie coming up at the end of March, so...a Godzilla cake was in order:
Chocolate cake with oreo frosting.
