In my last blog, I wrote about how Jake made his Adirondack chair and got it home. What I didn’t tell you is that Jake already had lots of chairs. This picture shows Jake sitting on two of his chairs. Why is he doing that? I don’t know. I just walked into the room and he was sitting there listening to rap music.

Jake is quite proud to have several chairs of his own. His friend gave him the taller “twirly” chair. The blue chair he found alongside the road and dragged it home. He has another blue one – same story. Then he got his Adirondak chair.

One day we went out of our place to get in the car, and across the street was a chair with a “free” sign on it. I forbade him from getting it. He looked disappointed.

What Jake really likes about his chairs is that to him, it is a grown up thing – to have chairs. Whenever he talks about moving out on his own, he says he will be all set because he has chairs. If he got a roommate, he could say, “Bro! We’re covered! I got chairs!”.

He has started adding to his list of things that he is proud to have for when he moves out. He has his own side table and a TV tray – both of which he built in woodshop. He has an old beat-up white tabletop Christmas tree, that he often mentions this time of year (it’s in storage). He also has his own set of forks. Yes, that is right. Forks. He had been using the household forks and leaving them in his room, and then there would be no forks left for other people to use – so last year he got a set of forks for Christmas – with white handles so he could find them in his room easier. At first he was angry that he got forks for Christmas. He thought it was a stupid gift. But now he likes having his own forks. Very grown up.

He also has tons of cups and glasses. He LOVES cups and mugs and has built up quite a collection. He will drink milk out of a margarita glass and Kool-aid out of a golden goblet. He uses his various shot glasses when he needs to take his medicine – just the right size of drink to help the pills go down.

And blankets! I don’t know how many blankets he has in his room. His favorite right now is the one that has a marijuana leaf theme. I have to remind him to wash his blankets now and then. So we end up with a huge pile of blankets sitting in the hallway to get washed.

With Jake’s disabilities I don’t know if he will ever move out on his own. But if he does, he already has the things he needs. At Christmastime, he could wrap up in one of his own blankets and sit in one of his own chairs and look at his own Christmas tree. He could use his own TV tray to hold a meal that he would eat with his own fork and have a drink from his own cup. To us, it probably seems silly that he gets so excited about having these things. But to him it is not silly at all. To him, it means he is growing up.

15 Dec This entry was published on December 15, 2020 at 1:19 am. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged Autism, disabilities, disability, family, growing up, muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.