The Cadillac of camps

So it's been awhile. But give me a break, OK? What with hauling Elijah to and from camp every day, working until midnight four nights a week, trying to make it to the gym four days a week (success!) and trying to keep the jungle known as our yard under control (failure), blogging has fallen a bit by the wayside for both Jeff and me. I see that we haven't even updated those "Spring Arrives At Last" pictures there on the right. Perhaps by the first snowfall, we'll get around to it.

All in all, we've been having a good summer. Elijah's camp experience is going well, except that the therapists are a bit frustrated with his inattentiveness (which I refer to as spaciness) and his failure to follow directions (which I refer to as just plain annoying).

It's been suggested that we try a gluten-free diet, which, if you know anything about autism, is the standard well-meaning suggestion from well-meaning people who do not share a home with an extraordinarily picky eater -- a topic I covered thoroughly in my June 9 post and will spare you from rehashing here.

I'm all for improving his diet, but once you eliminate pizza, mac and cheese, bagel chips, pretzels, cookies, granola bars, bread, crackers, cake, spaghetti, all other pasta, all other baked goods and anything that involves flour or wheat in any form, you pretty much eliminate the entire American diet. (Which, come to think of it, is the whole point of that documentary "Food, Inc." and is, in theory, not a bad idea.)

Yes, adults with celiac disease manage just fine without gluten, but adults with celiac disease understand WHY they need to manage their diets very carefully. Just try explaining the (scientifically tenuous) connection between autism and diet to a 6-year-old who has no idea what the words "autism" or "diet" mean, much less the word "gluten," but knows he's very hungry right now and Mommy won't let him have a granola bar OR bagel chips OR mac and cheese OR waffles OR cereal OR toast OR .... you get the idea.

I'm sure at this point you're wondering, "Why doesn't she just try the gluten-free alternatives in the supermarket?" To which I can only reply, have YOU ever tried them? If so, my sympathies. Super-mint toothpaste will help get that taste out of your mouth.

So, on we go. We're within six weeks of the start of kindergarten, and state budget cuts have made it extremely unlikely that there will be a para in the classroom to help Elijah and other "spacy" (or, if you prefer, "special needs") kids through the day. It makes me really dread the school year. And really grateful that I'm not a kindergarten teacher.

Still, I'm trying to go forward with some degree of optimism. At the very least, we have Elijah in a good place for the summer -- a much better place than being home with a sleep-deprived night-shift-working mom. (Note to self: In next life, be born wealthy and never have to work for a living. There! I feel more optimistic already.)

As a measure of just how great this camp is, consider this: For Elijah's birthday, the camp arranged for all the kids to take a limousine ride to Chuck-E-Cheese (which could probably just rename itself Chuck-E-Gluten).

Limo rides are no big deal to a lot of kids in my area -- no self-respecting 8-year-old girl around here would be caught dead throwing a birthday party that didn't include a limo ride and some sort of "spa day" -- but I am of a more down-to-earth nature, and this was Elijah's first-ever view of the inside of a limo. (Mine, too, actually. Until three weeks ago, I could always note with pride that I would never be pretentious enough to go anywhere in a limo. Now I've wasted that source of pride on a franchise pizza place featuring a giant singing mouse.)

So here it is -- the gas-guzzling, global-warming Cadillac Escalade behemoth that transported a group of wide-eyed kids and their moms (and in Elijah's case, grandma) for a spin around the suburbs and to the much-beloved Chuck-E-Cheese.








As everyone used to say in those months after Sept. 11, that's why they hate us!