I was escorted out of a church service yesterday with my 9-year old autistic son.

Despite the fact I had heard of this sort of thing happening on the news more than once, I never expected it to happen to me.

You see, I’ve never been asked to leave anywhere with Max.  Not restaurants, not movie theaters, or shopping malls or grocery stores or any other place I can think of.  Not because he is 100% good all the time.  No child is, never mind a child with a developmental disability, but because I have always left places when I felt things were getting too difficult for Max or he was becoming agitated.

Maybe I was naïve.  Maybe I was expecting too much.  Maybe.  But I don’t think so.

No, this wasn’t my regular church.

I don’t  have one, but I am looking.  Attending church was a large part of my childhood, and as  my boys grow older I have begun to realize it is something I wanted to expose my them to.

But I was nervous.  Not just because of my older son’s autism, although that was a part of it, but also my own social anxiety disorder.

A church, in an ideal situation, is like a family, but to a newcomer attending one for the first time, there is no denying it is a large group of strangers.

With this in mind, I kept seeing these billboards for The Journey North that made it seem like an open and relaxed kind of place.  On their twitter page it says, “Come as you are you’ll be loved…”  Sounds good, right?

One weekend, when both boys were with their father, I decided to check the place out by myself.  Coffee was served prior to the service and the people there seemed genuinely friendly.  Most of the kids went to a program they called Kidventure for Sunday School, but I noticed a few who stayed with their parents throughout the service.

Kidventure seemed like something Sammy, my five-year old, could really enjoy.  The service itself had a lot of music.  Max not only adores music, but is musically gifted.  I thought, ”This could really work out.”

So this last Sunday I decided to give it a try with the boys.  My sister came along too, bringing her daughter Allison.

Sam and Allie went to Kidventure.  I wasn’t sure if they were really equipped to handle Max,  not to mention handing off your minimally verbal child to anyone can be a little scary.  I explained to the woman who signed Sam into Kidventure that Max has autism and I wanted to keep him with me.  It didn’t seem like it was going to be a problem.

We sat toward the back, which in my experience is the unofficial, “Families with loud Children” section of most churches.

The music was not the same as the time I had attended by myself.  Rather than one man leading the congregation in song with an acoustic guitar, there was a full rock band complete with drums.

It was, to be honest, a more than a little loud for me, but Max absolutely loved it.

Was he perfectly quiet?  Well, no.  He sang along with the words projected on the screen.  He chattered on  in his way,  but was in my opinion, not at all loud or disruptive.  He made no more noise than any other small child, and as I  mentioned before, the sound system was loud.

There was no danger of anyone not hearing because of him.

It wasn’t until we were about an hour into the service that we were ushered us out of the auditorium.   At this point there couldn’t have been much more than twenty minutes left in the service.

A small group of people was waiting for us.  It was clear they felt Max was a problem.  It’s hard to remember everything that was said.  I  was stunned.  I had honestly thought things had gone well up until that point.  I was deeply embarrassed.  My hands shook.  It was hard not to cry.

They said they didn’t want us to leave, but we needed to find some accommodation so that  Max wouldn’t disrupt the worship for everyone else.  I said I felt Max hadn’t been disruptive.  They didn’t argue with me, but made it clear they didn’t agree.

A woman offered to walk Max in the halls, but what would he get out of that? exercise?  One of the Pastors suggested I take  Max to Kidventure  and stay with him. I said if I did that, I wouldn’t hear the sermon.  More options were thrown out, but I don’t remember most of what was said.  The pastor obviously meant well and felt he was doing the right thing.  He couldn’t seem to understand why I was so upset.  He seemed to think we could work something out for next Sunday, but it was very clear Max was not welcome to go back into the auditorium.

I said I felt awful being pulled out in front of all those people.  I told him how shy I was.  I told them how unwelcome I felt. I don’t think he ever really got it.

So we left.

Nothing they did or said at that point could wipe out how I felt being yanked out of that church service anyway.  I would never feel welcome there again.

Sam and Allie weren’t happy at leaving.  They didn’t understand.  They had been having fun.

Once we got out to the car, I broke down in cried.  This wasn’t how I wanted our first church service to go.  I didn’t want to leave it at that.

So we decided to try again.  That very day.

This time we tried a more traditional looking Lutheran Church.

The first thing I did was ask if they were special needs friendly.  They were.  Wholeheartedly so.   Not only was a little boy with down syndrome attend with his family but also one another with autism.  I was shown a nursery where I could take Max  if I felt I needed to. In the nursery there was TV set so you could continue watching the sermon.  But when I spoke to the Pastor he encouraged me to NOT take Max out every time he made a noise.  ”If you do that, how will he ever learn how to behave in church?”  There was no talk of accommodations and the word disruptive never came up.  Max was never treated like a problem, instead we were treated with simple kindness.

This church really felt like a family.  I can’t begin to tell you how good that felt.

Max has autism and it takes a certain kind of person to wrangle him, which is why I end up cutting his hair myself most of the time.

The most important thing is, I work fast.  I start with the back and try to do the bangs after he’s settled down, but before he’s getting restless.  I take a bit off all over and keep going until it gets to a length I am happy with or he has run out of patience.  I try not to push him past his tolerance.  It just makes it that much harder the next time.

I try to keep him distracted.  This time he watched the “how to cut hair” videos on YouTube that I had just finished watching as a refresher.

Oh, and I bribed  him with  ice cream.  I repeated, “First haircut, then ice-cream” like it was my mantra.

Anyway, I think it It turned out pretty well.

Max’s Haircut:
At least it doesn’t look like I did it with a bowl!

Sammy’s J.C. Penney Haircut:
It can also be gelled up into a fauxhawk when the mood strikes him!

I watched my very first Ryan Gosling movie last Friday.  It was Crazy, Stupid, Love.  He was funny as hell, and of course, smokin’ hot. That’s some kind of accomplishment, right?

Max is still stripping, but at least he’s still keeping it to at home.  For now.  I don’t think anybody wants to get a phone call because their kid is streaking his elementary school.

Also the van is running, so that’s good.  The downside being that shit ain’t cheap!

I had a trip planned to the Chicago Blues Festival.  I haven’t gone in probably 15 years.  I was really looking forward to it and now I’m probably canceling the whole thing.  It would be the mature thing to do, but I don’t wanna!

I’m trying to look at the upside of this.  The van could have gone kaput in Chicago or even on the way there.  That would have really sucked.

And here is a bonus Hey Girl:
I ran across this picture of Data on facebook and couldn’t resist going to a very obvious place with it.

I thought about doing another Mechanic Ryan Gosling but I couldn’t think of anything with the words ‘blown head gasket’ that wasn’t kinda sorta completely obscene.

So here is what I did instead:

Ryan is still so gosh darn thoughtful…

And understanding…

But lots other people suck eggs.

If you like this meme, and how could you not, be sure to check out
Sunday Stilwell’s blog for more Ryan Gosling #HeyGirl fun!

Day 20 = something you can’t live without

Day 21 = where you stand

Day 22 = pink

I made this little guy after making some other critters using amigurumi crochet books.  Before trying  amigurumi I had only really crocheted scarves and baby blankets. I think he turned out pretty darn cute.

I haven’t been doing any crocheting for the last year or so.  Now I sort of want to go hunting for my crochet hooks.

He loves school and summer is just a huge change in schedule for him.  He does have summer school and that helps.  But it’s only for part of the summer and it’s not in the same building or even with all the same people.

The longer days also make it harder for him to sleep too.

When I was a kid I loved summer vacation.

I no longer love summer.

We aren’t even friends anymore.

If you ‘ve enjoyed Special Needs Ryan Gosling Friday,
(and how could you not)
be sure to check out Sunday Stilwell’s blog
 for more Ryan Gosling #HeyGirl fun!

I was out for a bike ride when I stopped at Caribou Coffee and spied this tasty looking morsel.  But I decided to be a good girl and stick the iced tea I went in for.

On the way home the bike trailer had an inner tube blow out.  I kept thinking, should have got that coffee cake.  Like in some kind of wacky butterfly effect way a piece of coffee cake would have prevented it.  Crazy, right?

Anywhooo, I haven’t changed a tube in a bike in years, but I remember it being pretty easy.  I even have a book.

I love to read, I can’t fall asleep without reading something.  For a long time I thought I was going to be a writer, but I fear the truth of it is I am a reader, and at the end of the day, that’s not such a bad thing to be.

Right now I’m reading Soul Music by Terry Pratchett because you can’t go wrong with Terry Pratchett.

I’m also reading Bicycling: A Reintroduction: A Visual Guide to Choosing, Repairing, Maintaining & Operating a Bicycle because I’m trying to get back into riding my bike as a daily habit.  It’s really one of the few forms of exercise I can get behind. I found a lot of the books in the store on biking were written with  hardcore cyclists in mind, so this book was a welcome find. It is full of large color photographs and has step by step instructions, so I feel like it will really be useful and not just end up gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.

The only part I didn’t really need the ‘choosing’ part as I already have two bikes, a vintage bike that I picked up from a garage sale for next to nothing, and my Trek, which is an awesome bike.  (I think if I was a wealthy person I could end up with a bike collection, kind of like Jay Leno, but with bikes.)

Weird Minnesota is a fun book coffee table kind of book, but it could have used a better index.  Listing the attractions by city, for example would have been very handy.

The last book I finished was The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I know taste in reading material is highly subjective, but is anybody else as disappointed with it as I was?  I understand the appeal of Lisbeth Salander as a character, however I feel like the writing itself was just lacking.  I gave it two out of five stars.

I posted a review of it here, but I warn you, it’s spoilertastic.

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