Walking in my daughter's shoes

After reading Dr. Temple Grandin's, "Thinking in Pictures", oh, probably almost 10 years ago, I have sometimes said that if Dr. Grandin can get down on her hands and knees to look through the eyes of a cow, then I can try and I will try to look through the eyes of my daughter (the one who regressed into autism after her first birthday and a chicken pox vaccination).

And I have certainly tried to understand her perspective, to see through her eyes, to walk in her shoes.

As I became an accidental pupil of Gutstein & Sheely, the psychologists who have taught me an enormous amount about autism remediation and infant and child development, about what pieces of development go off course in autism (they call them the "core deficits" of autism), and how to get development on course, seems that every day, at least once, I see examples of what they've taught me, which broadens my window into my daughter's experience.

The window is broadening even more, this time, with an experience. Ya know the line from the song that goes something like this: Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. ?

We're moving. Surprise! It was a surprise to us. A big move. Cross country. From one region to another. We're leaving the Midwest.

And I am getting a first-hand, up-close-and-personal lesson in the difference between "productive uncertainty" and "UNproductive uncertainty", and the frustration and anxiety that "UNproductive uncertainty" can provoke.

I have some thoughts and observations on uncertainty and change - you'll have to stay tuned as I process them out my fingers through the keyboard.