Adulting For Autism

We owe so much to the University of Washington Autism Center.  Tad has been a patient at the center for 6 1/2 years now, and Thumper has been a patient for just about 18 months.  We’ve also been involved in three different research programs, including the infant study that both Rerun and Thumper participated in from infancy (age 6 months for Rerun, age 3 months for Thumper, until age 3), which is going to be publishing some big results in a scientific journal this spring.

Last fall, the Autism Center tried to hold its first fundraiser dinner.  It got “stormaggeddon’d” out – the place where the dinner was going to be did lose power, but the rest of us prepared for a windstorm and…. nothing happened.  (Except the local weathermen were mocked mercilessly.)

Anyway, the fundraiser dinner was rescheduled for last Saturday.  (Good thing it wasn’t the Saturday the week before, when we were all sick!)  Grandma and Gichan watched the kids for us in exchange for pizza.  Oh, and did I mention that the fundraiser was “cocktail attire”?

It really was a fun evening, and highly entertaining in parts.  Getting to see everyone that I “work” with at the center in an “out of school” setting, especially all the Ph.D’s and therapists and staff, was a lot of fun.  Tad’s ABA therapist, who is now the director of ABA services, gave one of the 5 minute presentations (it was about her thesis, so no Tad anecdotes, though I did finally get to meet her husband.  The lightbulb that went on when I introduced myself as “Tad’s mom” was immediate, which I found very funny.  Tad stories are kind of unforgettable).  And it was nice for the Webmaster to see all the people who know/work with/have diagnosed his sons.

The dinner was great, the desserts were lovely, and there was a whole lot of money raised.

Plus, we got to dress up and stay up late.  Though by the time we retrieved the kids, Thumper was fast asleep and didn’t wake up when we put him in the car, drove him home, dressed him in pjs OR when we brushed his teeth.  That’s how out he was.

I hope they do this again next year!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 2nd, 2017 at 12:19 am and is filed under Autism Adventures.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed and Both comments and pings are currently closed.