That time of year has rolled around again, time for a cup of eggnog, scents of evergreen and the annual Dumaresq Christmas letter. We have been packing our days with holiday decorating, shopping and traditions, trying to keep hold of a spirit of kindness and generosity amidst troubling times in the world. We hope you are finding it within you to do the same.
You may recall that shortly after we started Jordan at CHSC we mentioned that at their urging we agreed to a series of assessments to help us understand some of Jordan’s more baffling personality traits. It was a lengthy process, mostly of waiting months between assessments, but on January 6th of this year, it became official: Jordan was diagnosed on the mild and high functioning end of the Autism Spectrum of Neurological Disorders (ASD). “What does that mean?” you might ask. Well, if you are unfamiliar with the clinical nomenclature of ASD and specifically what the symptoms are, Google is your friend or you can read my blog post from shortly after we got the news here. As for what this diagnosis means to us as a family, I would say #1) funding. The government now pays for Jordy to get a little extra help (he is seeing a behavioural consultant, and an occupational therapist,) that will help him be more successful in school, in his relationships with us at home and in life’s social situations. #2) While the diagnosis and subsequent therapies do not change who Jordan is, it does grant me and Chris a little extra serenity and patience knowing that Jordy’s anger, confusion and tears are generally not directed at us on a personal level. I don’t reckon there are too many parents out there who will come out and say flatly that they were relieved to hear their kid is autistic, but we were. The fact is, Jordan did and still does some “weird” things and it is emotionally draining to not understand your child and have him be unable to communicate in a way that helps you to understand. Knowing that he is “on the spectrum” doesn’t excuse bad behaviour, but it certainly explains most of it.
I know it’s still early days in our ASD journey, but on some of the good ones, I can glimpse the future and am cheered by the idea that my kid is slowly teaching me to stop thinking of other people as universally programmed. So, he sees the world in a different way, so what? Anyhow, as I said, that is me on a good day; mostly I just scratch my head and get back to the drawing board every morning hoping my patience can stretch until bedtime, but what parent of young children doesn’t feel that way?
In other news, Jordan finally taught himself to tie of his balloons without help from grown-ups, a skill that he admirably demonstrated at his school’s end-of-year talent show in June. He’s developed a love for Star Wars that makes his Dad and Uncle Mark proud and he does a mean Chewbacca impression. I am also pleased to announce that he is following in my own footsteps as one of only two kids in his class who has been assigned the advanced spelling list! He is still a funny little jokester and loves to laugh and get laughs too.
Cygni is in pre-school two half-days a week now. She took a long time to warm up to being dropped off and we had many a clingy, tearful good-bye the first two months. Things are going much better now and she has a few little friends that she always looks forward to seeing. Little C is also our resident artist and loves to colour, paint, sculpt and draw pictures of us and her favourite cartoon characters. She also enjoys her bedtime stories, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and The Polar Express are among her most requested at the moment. And she has a bit of a fascination with the macabre. I believe Halloween might be her favourite time of year for though she was a bit scared by the idea of skeletons and ghosts, she had lots of questions about them and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas countless times! Our Cygni is clever, observant and soaks up vocabulary and its appropriate context like a sponge; she is a right little woman, with frighteningly mature utterances coming out of her all the time.
As for me, I am doing the same part-time stay at home mom, chauffeur and barista gig for now. I think that will change slightly once Cygni starts Kindergarten next fall and I may be able to pick up a few more hours each week to supplement the ol’ household income. I continue to get the most joy from reading and look forward to my monthly Book Club meet-ups. I have also discovered a love of reading to the kids at CHSC, a more rapt and enjoyable audience you are unlikely to find. I find I have to restrain myself and try to give other parents a crack at being Mystery Reader every once in a while. I would do it twice a month if I didn’t think the staff would give me the side-eye. There hasn’t been much spare time for me to practice on my uke this year, but I may dust it off and try strumming out a cheery Christmas tune before the Yuletide is over, we’ll see! I did attend my 20th High School Reunion in Las Vegas this year too! It was so good for my soul to see my former classmates and reconnect with dear friends who I haven’t had the chance to hug and laugh with in many years.
You can read about my trip as well as all our other summer adventures in this blogpost. We had an amazingly fun and sunny summer. We did a little camping and also found some adventures locally for the kiddos. Then in August we took our special guests Nanny Mary and Papa Charlie to the BC interior for some fishing at Echo Lake and some R&R on Lake Osoyoos with The Leaton clan too. This trip to Osoyoos was unlike any other due to the wildfires burning in nearby Oliver, and across the border in Chelan, WA. Fires on the mountain that we could see at night meant some smoke-filled days. But we found a way to enjoy the water, the ice cream, the wineries and time with friends and family. We are living up to our promise to ourselves of visiting Osoyoos every year, we just love it that much. We are considering going there for Canada Day next year as the prospect of a fireworks show over the water is very tempting.
Chris has been keeping busy supporting us all with his work at EA. He continues to work on the Data Analytics team within the Quality Assurance organization. His team’s efforts have started to be recognized as one of the reasons for improved game quality across the company, which he is very proud of. Outside of working on videogames Chris spends his spare time… playing videogames. Right now he is focused on creating his own Super Mario Bros. levels on the Wii U (where he gets thousands of plays from players around the world) but this year really saw an increase in his retro videogame collecting. The culmination of this passion led the whole family to make their annual trip to Oregon in October to coincide with the Portland Retro Gaming Expo which is the world’s largest event for people who like old videogames. Chris even saved up some of his annual bonus to ‘blow’ on games with no guilty conscience. He spent a long day going through all the sellers’ tables and attending panel discussions and in the end he got some good deals on some hard-to-find games.
The trip to Oregon was more than just games though. The time of year wasn’t quite right to do our annual picnic in the park, so we met the friends with kids at a family friendly restaurant serving pizza and offering amusements for kids of all ages. We got to see nearly all of our Oregon friends, the kids loved visiting their grand-folks and especially horsing around with Uncle Tommy. As always, we enjoyed our stay with Stuart, Tina, Evan and their new cat Sassafrass. We know two kids that desperately want a kitty to warm our home now too… perhaps next Christmas? Before heading home we made a stop in Tillamook and stayed a night on the coast at Netarts, touring the famed cheese factory and playing on the beach before a long drive home to BC.
There have been challenging moments this year, but there have also been those that were special and heartwarming too. Before I began typing this letter, I was ruminating a while on the darker moments in recent world news, as I said in the first paragraph, “troubling times.” But it’s not hard to remember that humanity is capable of so much beauty too, and I am not discouraged, as Sammy Cahn wrote, “it’s that time of year, when the world falls in love.” All we need is a little good will. You know you’re a parent when you start quoting children’s movies, but it warmed my old heart when I recalled this scene from Rise of The Guardians, in which North (aka Santa,) is trying to help Jack Frost to understand what is at his centre; he shows Jack a matryoshka doll in his likeness and the very smallest one is a baby with large blue eyes. He asks Jack what he sees and he answers, “You have big eyes,” to which North replies,
Yes! Big eyes, very big, because they are full of wonder. That is my center. It is what I was born with, eyes that have only seen the wonder in everything! Eyes that see lights in the trees and magic in the air. This wonder is what I put into the world, and what I protect in children.
Fall in love. Share some good will. Let your eyes see the wonder in the world. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone!
With love and cheer,
Deb & the family
Special Thanks, once again, to my friend
Caitlin Cowan of Gingersnaps Photography for the lovely family portraits
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