Life with Sadie and autism

I have to spend more time sharing my Sadie stories. (Sadie is our 14 year old daughter with autism.)

Friends invited us to their house for dinner after Mass today. Sadie was excited to go to dinner. I brought her portable DVD player, she likes to put on head phones and tune us out and that's fine. So that's what she did, started her movie right after she greeted Sue and Antony.

When it came time for dinner Sadie was overwhelmed and wouldn't join us.  For Sadie, sitting different people around a little dinner table at once, where people sit across from you and talk is sometimes too much. That seemed okay until I went to check on her a few minutes later. She had stayed in the living room which is out of sight from the dining room, I heard her saying "did put it in the fire" over and over again. Now with Sadie, that could be something that just happened, and yes they did have a fire going in the fireplace, or it could be about the time she through something in the fireplace at our house 6 years ago.

Well, it was recent. She had taken off her tights and panties, put her tights back on, and her panties were in the fire! Nothing like being a guest in someones house and having your daughter burn her own panties at the party.

As the parents, this is not what you want to happen, but we are blessed to have understanding friends. I like to keep these little memories for a good giggle in the future. Most of the time Sadie is a good girl, she's just what we lovingly call high maintenance.

We are not always proud of the things Sadie does, she can be down right embarassing at times, but we love her with all our hearts just the same. I think there are a lot of parents out there with special children who can really relate to this, that's why I decided to share more. Maybe even parents that don't deal with this sort of thing will read and be more understanding, or like us, just get a good laugh at life.