We’re back! As you may have noticed, we took the summer off of podcasting as our families navigated some big changes and milestones this summer. We didn’t mean to disappear, but we may have forgotten to tell you that we were taking a break. Sorry about that.
So today, we’re catching you up on all the changes in our lives during the last few months. Gwen is giving updates on all three of her kids –yes, you read that right: three. She’s covering Rylan’s employment adventures, Reagan adjusting to a new sibling, and of course, introducing their new family addition!
Meanwhile, Kristen shares how Graham is continuing to gain confidence, Jameson is loving school, and how Hayden has finally found a place in the world that feels well-matched to both his strengths and interests.
Plus, in this extra special Last Word, you’ll get to meet the newest member of Gwen’s family and hear from her directly, as she describes acclimating to her new family!
If your family has also been in a state of change this year, this episode will feel very relatable. Let's dive in!
Quite frankly, we need your help to keep this podcast going. If you want to support us and the production of YDWAHR, consider donating to our GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/fund-the-future-of-you-dont-want-a-hug?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=p_lico+share-sheet&attribution_id=sl:05e43f5c-1789-4820-8549-9a5b3e1f75f6
In this episode, you’ll learn...
[01:03] Kristen and Gwen acknowledge their unexpected absence (sorry, friends!)
[03:15] Gwen describes the way her family has expanded
[10:09] Kristen explains the big changes that her family experienced this year
[16:21] Gwen and Kristen discuss the sticky topic of neurodivergent kids transitioning into adulthood
[22:57] Gwen and Kristen each share hopeful stories of their children finding success navigating the adult (and soon-to-be adult) world
[29:05] The lesson Gwen and Kristen keep learning over and over again
[37:33] The Last Word with Rylan and M
If you just can't get enough of us, don’t forget to join our newsletter and check out our other projects.
Resources for this episode...
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Transcript for "We’re Back! (Sorry We Forgot To Tell You We Left!)"
If you have an appreciation for honest and sometimes irreverent conversations about parenting and walking alongside neurodivergent humans, you are in the right place. I'm Gwen.
Kristen:
And I'm Kristen. And together we have decades of experience parenting fiercely amazing neurodivergent humans, as well as teaching, writing, advocating, and consulting. All of this has provided us with an endless supply of stories of inspiring failures and heartbreaking wins.
Gwen:
Welcome to You Don't Want a Hug, Right? We promise to come at you each episode as our true selves sharing the hilarity and delight in the midst of the heart of our journeys. You'll also hear directly from our kids at the end of each episode.
Kristen:
Most importantly, we hope to remind you of your immense value as a human outside of the caretaking role you play. So grab a cozy blanket and a beverage and go hide in a closet nearest you.
Gwen:
Hi.
Kristen:
Gwen.
Gwen:
Hi, Kristen. We're back.
Kristen:
We're back, listeners. Hello. I don't know if you noticed, but we left-
Gwen:
We're [inaudible 00:01:14].
Kristen:
... for a period of time.
Gwen:
We never told you we were leaving, but here we are to tell you that we're back and we trust by the end of this episode, you'll understand why we didn't tell you we were leaving. We just kept saying, "Oh, we've need to podcast," and then didn't.
Kristen:
Nope.
Gwen:
But we're here today.
Kristen:
Boy, are we and do we have so many things to share? Guess what, it's season two of You Don't Want a Hug, Right?
Gwen:
It is season two and we raised enough money with our crowdsourcing, thank you to everybody who contributed, to keep doing this for a few more months, and that's all we know for now. But we're going to be with you for a few more months at minimum, and we are hoping that we will continue to raise more money so that we can keep doing this because we love it.
Kristen:
We do. We really love it.
Gwen:
It helps us as much as it helps all of you, we hope.
Kristen:
It ensures that Gwen and I get to see each other's faces. Otherwise, time just gets away from us. We realized this summer we were missing each other terribly because we weren't podcasting.
Gwen:
Well, and we just didn't have the capacity to do even personal updates.
Kristen:
No, mm-mm. There was no Marco Poloing.
Gwen:
There wasn't. Then if there was a Marco Polo once every two weeks, I would just stare at the screen. There's too much and so nothing, thus I'm going to give you nothing. Bye. But I'm alive and I'm upright. So we have a lot of catching up to do just with each other.
Kristen:
Yeah. So, buckle up. Here we go.
Gwen:
We are not going to do Rylanisms and Grahamisms because really the whole episode is going to be updates on all of our children and now they're six.
Kristen:
And now there's six.
Gwen:
And now there's six children.
Kristen:
Why don't we start with that?
Gwen:
Just that piece?
Kristen:
Just that piece.
Gwen:
Just that extra child?
Kristen:
The extra child. We picked up a child over the summer.
Gwen:
But we really did. We're just going to call her M, because she is legally still in the foster care system, but she is a permanent part of our family now. She just turned 17. It's like she's always been here and never been here all at the same time. Our summer has been really one of just nesting like you would when you have a newborn, just cuddling in as a family and figuring it all out. It was super fugly, fun and ugly and beautiful and really hard. Everybody in this house has lots of needs, so we figured why not just keep adding?
Kristen:
Yeah. Here's the thing, I don't know very many people that have a bigger personality than you, Gwen, personally, except M. M has the tiny body with the biggest personality I think I've ever seen. I haven't even met her in person yet, and she's just the spiciest, funniest, most vulnerable and real. Oh my gosh, you guys, wait-
Gwen:
She's a delight.
Kristen:
... when you get a load of her, she is a delight.
Gwen:
I will eventually invite her to be on The Last Word because I think it would be fascinating to get her perspective on moving into our family because she has beautifully rich relationships with both our kids. She loves Rylan and also will look at him and be like, "Who do you think you are telling me to stop saying that? You literally repeat yourself every single day all the time." So she has a really fun relationship with him, and then she and Regan are best friends. So she'll have some really interesting insights, I think, to share.
Kristen:
On so many levels, right? She has such a challenging life story of her own and which she can tell in her own right, in her own time, but her merge into the family has been a fascinating thing to be a part of from afar and endlessly entertaining updates as infrequent as they were. It's been kind of fun for me on the other side to say, "Oh, you have three teenagers. Oh, what is that? What is that like, Gwen?"
Gwen:
I like to think mine is harder.
Kristen:
Of course, you just go right on ahead and think that.
Gwen:
Okay. Thank you.
Kristen:
I don't want to burst your bubble.
Gwen:
Yeah, that was the biggest change in our family. So we really didn't see many people. We never left the state. We couldn't and there was a lot, lots of court dates, lots of... A lot. But she is with us permanently. If that's adoption, we don't know yet, but she will be with us until she's a legal adult and then is welcome to stay for as long as she needs to, so...
Kristen:
Oh my goodness. Big deep breath, for sure.
Gwen:
So what I don't want is anybody sending messages saying, "Bless your heart, you're amazing." Please, I'm just going to ask right now, stop it. I don't want any of it.
Kristen:
She's not been amazing. I'm just going to tell you right now.
Gwen:
No, I'm really not. I'm really not.
Kristen:
She's more than amazing, but it's a tough thing to do.
Gwen:
It is, but it is also just who we are and so when people... I had somebody the other day literally put their hands in a bowing motion-
Kristen:
Oh, God.
Gwen:
... and got bent down and I was like, "Ooh."
Kristen:
Ooh, that's awkward.
Gwen:
It was so uncomfortable.
Kristen:
I think our listeners know better because so many people tell us what heroes we are as parents, and we know that that feels yucky and awkward when people say that because we have autistic children.
Gwen:
So our families, these are the way they are and we do what we feel called to do and what is put in front of us and nobody needs reverence for that.
Kristen:
I think too that I'm looking forward this season to talking more about the adoption experience because it's something we've touched on, but we haven't really dug into. There's a lot of things we're excited to talk about this year. I think things like transition, the transition age with our young adults, wowie. I mean, we could just go for days. Jameson's really interested in talking about his transgender journey. I think that would be a great conversation for us to have because it's not an easy one. It's messy and beautiful and hard and confusing and all the things, and I think it's an important conversation to have for our population, especially since we do have a lot of gender differences in the autism and developmental disability community.
Gwen:
I would love to talk about dating and sex and maybe not things that you and I directly have dealt with neurodivergently yet, although the dating for sure. Rylan came home with his first crush already this school year, so I would love to bring somebody on who can talk to us about that experience.
Kristen:
That's a great idea. And really building resilience as parents, how do we actively build resilience is something that we want to talk about, and building social networks for our kids. It's going to look different for our kids as adults, what their social networks look like. How do we normalize that? How do we come to understand it and accept it and integrate it into our family life?
Gwen:
Yeah.
Kristen:
I think the other thing that we were thinking would be really interesting to bring somebody on a psychiatrist to talk about meds. It makes us shiver because we have to deal with it so deeply. We know all of you do as well, whether to use medication or not. The tremendous journey it is to find the right cocktail of medications and then once you're there, it changes in a year. So it's a challenge that we know lots of us face and we want to really talk through some of that.
Gwen:
And warning teachers when they forget to take their meds in the morning because the effects will be dramatic and noticeable.
Kristen:
Yes. So I had some things happen in my house this summer. So I think our listeners know that we moved out of our house that we've been in for 18 years, and boy, was that something? Having neurodivergent kids learn to let go of their childhood home, that was quite the process and for us and for Greg and I and move into a much smaller, more urban setting, little bungalow, which is darling and we love it.
Gwen:
And was very intentional for Graham.
Kristen:
Was very intentional because we are building an apartment for Graham on the property. It's going to be a two-bedroom apartment and we're hoping that Graham can have a roommate, might or might not be one of his siblings now and then, but also maybe some other friends who are looking to practice adulting with us right here on the property. So that's been really exciting and a tough transition for Graham turns out. Shocker.
Gwen:
Hey, Kristen.
Kristen:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Tell our listeners how we know it's a tough transition for Graham. What are some of the physical signs?
Kristen:
Yeah. So the fist bumping quotient has gone up exponentially. There's so much fist bumping right now that I almost don't know what to do with myself.
Gwen:
Are your knuckles raw? Are you wearing a fist guard at this point?
Kristen:
Sometimes we don't even know he's next to us and he just fist bumps the side of our head or our shoulders, and so now we're almost like reacting to that there's a fist bump coming from somewhere at all times and there's a lot less spaces to run away to in our smaller home. So that is definitely one way we know. Yeah, he's dealt with it beautifully to be honest. He really did a lot of work leading up to it and he's been remarkably flexible, but then I think we see some of that rigidity in other ways. So it's been very, very hard to find a job that fits his needs. His community college classes started and he immediately shrunk down to one class. So his world has gotten very small.
Gwen:
And immediately meaning day one of class.
Kristen:
Yeah, day one of class and then having a job and leaving it on the first day. Granted it was a toy store and his reason for leaving, I couldn't argue with.
Gwen:
I feel like you need to queue up for this story. Hey, Kristen, will you please tell us about Graham's first day at a toy store? We won't name it. Can you just replay that incident for us? Thank you.
Kristen:
Yes. So Graham was there for a few hours and alerted the management, who he has reportedly told us, I don't know, lots and lots of times they're top notch, top-notch management. However, he told them, "This is not a Grahamy-friendly environment." They were like, "For your grandmother? I don't..." "No, I'm Grahamy. It's not a Grahamy-friendly environment." There are loud screaming children and irresponsible parents and I cannot work here. Thank you very much for the opportunity," because he's always polite. He's always so, so polite. Then he had to immediately call me. I was out of town. I was back east visiting my family. Immediately, he needed me to know that this had occurred and that he was indeed very, very taken with the management and how great they were.
Gwen:
Top notch.
Kristen:
Top notch.
Gwen:
And it was too late because he had already quit.
Kristen:
He had already quit and he had already dropped the classes. So all that to say, friends-
Gwen:
Because he's an adult.
Kristen:
He is an adult and his tolerance for things being difficult right now, it's just not there. It's not there at all and it's putting me in a grief spiral. My husband informed me that indeed I was having too high of expectations and I'm at a loss. So we started thinking that we need a program where we're doing some planning to move forward, so we are doing that with a group that's going to be doing career planning for 12 weeks. Had to go look for a private company because what's provided by the state is just not really filling all of the needs. They're filling some of them, but not all of them, as I know a lot of you can relate with voc rehab. Yeah. So that's Graham. We're just looking at issues of tolerating things that are hard. When they become young adults, it becomes a trickier conversation to have. So I know that he's sad that his world has gotten small, but he feels lost and he doesn't know where he belongs and that's a bit of a heartbreaker.
Gwen:
Right. While we laugh about the fist bumping, that is his literal way of finding connection in his world.
Kristen:
That's right. That's right.
Gwen:
So we have to fist bump.
Kristen:
We have to, and so it's a toleration task for me to just learn to, "Okay. This is what he needs in terms of support right now is tolerating the fist bumps coming from literal thin air."
Gwen:
I had a friend tell me recently that her neurodivergent child, instead of screaming angry, mean things at her, she has requested that he use different words and he said, "Fine, I'm just going to say I need your attention." She goes, "Okay. What does that mean?" He said, I just need you to hold my hand and rub my eyebrows."
Kristen:
Oh my goodness. So specific.
Gwen:
You could be rubbing his eyebrows, which would be worse than fist bumping.
Kristen:
That would be worse. I would need to be medicated for that scenario.
Gwen:
While I laughed until I literally was choking on my water as she told me, it's a very big disturbance in her life that she has to rub his eyebrows.
Kristen:
Right. Then as parents were like, "Should I be doing this? Should I be doing this?" This is an interesting thing about this age group and why transition is so important of a topic. We don't know how much we're enabling, how much we need to accommodate and how much we need to let them learn because it takes them so many times to learn-
Gwen:
So many.
Kristen:
... and so long to learn, and the providers in our life aren't including us the way they did when they were younger. So one of our providers sent an email saying, "Would you like us to come with you to the first day?" Does Graham check emails? No, he sure doesn't. It's easy for him to just not respond to an email and I wasn't CC'd on it. So there are a lot of ways in which providers are trying to have self-determination and self-efficacy and dignity at the forefront of working with their adult clients, yet our adult children still need us to be involved. So it's a really weird time. That's all I'm trying to say. It's a weird time.
Gwen:
We'll dig into that more in the transition episode because a bulk of my summer has been around learning. Rylan will be 18 in March. What's coming? Because I didn't know any of it, and as soon as I learned something, it led me to more, which led me to more, which led me to more. So the cognitive load I was carrying this summer, just trying to figure out what are we doing and what do we need to do when he turns 18, I believe you might have gotten some Marco Polos from me during that period just breaking out saying, "Do I need legal guardianship?" You're like, "Hold the phone, no." But there was so much I didn't understand, and that was an intense, laborious process this summer of learning what to expect.
Kristen:
Right. Our kids are going to be 21 in a month and interacting with all new agencies, different kinds of plans, different kinds of insurance considerations, whether college is part of the equation or not. I think there are some great resources out there, but they don't fit our unique kids even within our community, our IDD community. So we just have lots of things to say about it.
But another thing that happened for us this summer is that Jameson started his school year and is loving his new major, just absolutely loving. Had a really tough summer, not going to lie. For Jameson, summer is always been incredibly hard. It's a big trigger for him. The lack of structure and the lack of access to friends is very hard for him. So to be back at school in his major, he's 3D animation major and his roommates are back in town and he couldn't be happier, so that's really cool to see.
Gwen:
Yeah, the summer as a whole for structure for our kids, we've talked about many times, is just a train wreck. It's just a train wreck.
Kristen:
Right. Now as our kids become young adults reminding them, "Hey, remember this is hard for you, and so we need to start planning in the winter. We can't wait until April or May to plan the summer stuff. We really have to think through it." So that was a lesson learned and he asked for some support around making sure that next summer feels like maybe a different experience.
Gwen:
Hold on. So you're going to quit all of the jobs that you're doing so that you can take that on, right?
Kristen:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Is that what you're saying?
Kristen:
Yeah. I am trying to consolidate my jobs at the moment. That is good.
Gwen:
Congratulations.
Kristen:
Thank you. Then my last but very not least bit of news is our Hayden, who as our listeners know, came home mid-year last year from his university pretty defeated. Really the ADHD absolutely overwhelmed his anxiety. He wasn't eating. He was developing an ulcer. He wasn't sleeping. He wasn't doing well in school. So we brought him home to just try and heal him physically and get him into a better place. He applied to a program called Forest Corps, which is a collaboration between AmeriCorps and the US Forest Service. It's the inaugural program. It's part of the Climate Corps that the Biden administration put into place. We didn't know if he was going to actually be able to get in because it's really intense, very, very physically intense.
He had to do a lot of training for it and preparation. Getting him out of here was just overwhelming. When he got there, he had to jump through some hurdles and pass the hard pack test, which he did and was formally inducted into the program and has now become a trained wildland firefighter and is working in California like a boss, a boss. He has his red card. He's a type two firefighter. He is every day working 10 hour days digging fire lines, doing wildlife surveys, collecting data, felling trees. He has ass big chainsaw
Gwen:
And he is certified to use it.
Kristen:
Certified to use it. So he's out there, friends, in long sleeve shirt and pants with a 45-pound pack on and a 35-pound chainsaw that he has to service, take apart, clean and repair on the daily.
Gwen:
And he's smiling like a little baby.
Kristen:
Up at 5:30 in the morning, running two 10Ks a week, physical training five days a week, and then working 10 hours a day with his group of 10 or eight... I think it's three women and five men. They get along so great. Anyway, all that to say, we literally want to just lay down on the floor and cry. We're so proud. We're so, so proud of him. But why I think it's so important for our listeners is, and that Hayden and I have talked about, and hopefully he can do a last word on, environment is everything for our kids. Hayden is neurodivergent. He has significant ADHD, anxiety and tics and has struggled to succeed. This experience checks so many box for him. It's highly structured, takes a lot of decisions out of the day. There's tons of technical information he has to learn, which feeds his soul, tons of physical activity and the camaraderie and brotherhood and sisterhood that he's experiencing. He'll never be the same.
Gwen:
It's amazing. She sends me pictures of him and he is like the stud of the century.
Kristen:
He's just the happiest boy.
Gwen:
Crushing his life.
Kristen:
So way to go, Hayden. We'll post some pictures on the website with this episode and there's hope.
Gwen:
Oh yeah, there's hope.
Kristen:
If Hayden can get up and be a wildland firefighter, I have all new kinds of hope for people.
Gwen:
I mean, are Graham and Rylan going to go the route of Hayden?
Kristen:
No.
Gwen:
We quite enjoy thinking about that, not at their expense, but just because it's not who they are. But Hayden is absolutely born for this.
Kristen:
He's born for it, and it's going to put him on a path. When he comes back at the end of 10 months and goes back to university, which is his plan, whether it be fire management or back into natural resource management, he's so driven now. To be a part of a solution and to know that he's serving his country, he couldn't be happier. Now he knows what makes him tick. Yeah.
Gwen:
Another hopeful situation is what we have experienced this summer with Rylan. He was in a hard place at the end of the school year as far as just his overall mood and just the vibe he was putting out into the world and into the air we were breathing in our home. We were really struggling with fears of is this depression? Is he going to go down to the basement just like our Graham did and spend a couple years just trying to heal himself? On a call with my sister-in-law, who also has a neurodivergent son, Rylan's age, she said, "When's the last time his doctor upped his meds? Because he went through puberty and gained, I don't know, 100 pounds." I just stopped in that moment like, "You're absolutely right." He is on the same dose that he was before puberty. So the next morning I got on the pipe with his doctor who of course was like, "Oh yeah, that's a great point. Let's double his dose."
Kristen:
Oh, God.
Gwen:
Yeah, double this dose. Within two days our child was back. So I feel stupid that I didn't put this together. So please take that as a lesson that if your child's temperament is all of a sudden changing and they all of a sudden have a full body of hair, a low voice and are taller than you, it might be time to up their meds. So once we saw some joy coming back and a positive attitude coming back and not being combatant, we started looking at opportunities for him. He wanted to apply for a job at the zoo because he loves animals, we know turtles and chickens, namely, and he didn't get the job. So I said, "Well, let's apply to be a volunteer and see how you feel about that." Naturally, I went to the four-hour volunteer training with him and we both became certified volunteers and he spent the summer volunteering at that zoo. He would skip around that zoo like a kid in a candy store. He had his badge. He got 50-cent Slurpees, which was the reason initially he said he would do it.
Kristen:
Fair enough.
Gwen:
Earned all these passes and took me and the girls to the zoo with him and was the grand marshal. It lit him on fire in a way that Tim and I decided that we are sending him to Beacon College, which we'll do an episode on college. We've got a great person to bring on for that, for the neurodivergent college experience because they have an anthrozoology major, one of two in the country, and that's what he needs to do. We need to stop just saying, "Oh yeah, you like turtles. Okay. Can we find a career?" Well, I don't know if it'll be turtles exactly, but we have to collapse our bodies into their interests, right?
Kristen:
Yes.
Gwen:
We don't just lean in, we lay on the floor and huddle those interests in and then try to work with them. And that is his joy. Animals are joy. It's not work for him. He volunteered dozens of hours over the summer and said that's all he wants to do. So Beacon is where he's going to go, and I think he can do it if we can financially figure it out. I think he can do it because it's a school that gives us much attention to the social emotional experience as they do the academic experience. It's a school for neurodivergent learners. We took him there. It's in Florida. He toured it. They have a Pokemon store on campus.
Kristen:
Oh my gosh.
Gwen:
For that reason alone, he wants to go there. So now that's our goal. We were able to quick whip up an IEP meeting, change his transition goals. I'm so tired, but that's where we're headed now because we can't force interest and engagement out of our kids.
Kristen:
No, let's just say that again because this is a lesson that we keep banging our heads against over and over and over again. One of the things this summer that I was experiencing a lot of grief over with Graham not being where I thought he was going to be at this stage of life and worrying about whether I was pushing or not pushing, the fact of the matter is we can't be done. We're not done. If we don't help them find their joy and invest in those special interests, they will be in our basement forever. It just is a fact and I feel angry about that fact, and I feel resentful about that fact, but it doesn't change it. If we take our foot off the gas, yet at the same time, to some degree, we have to balance that with it's not my fault that he's not where I thought he would be or where he needs to be, or maybe he just is where he is supposed to be.
Gwen:
Or his fault.
Kristen:
Right.
Gwen:
Right. It's easy to assume that too. Try harder, try harder.
Kristen:
It is easy. It is easy to assume, and I have to constantly reel myself back in and say, "I'm looking at this from my own perspective, with my own skill set and my own motivation and drive and initiation skills and executive functioning skills, and that is not the same experience that Graham is having." I just have been in a grief spiral all summer over it. Some days I recognize all those things and I'm able to be kinder to myself and to him, which then I can be kinder to him in my mind, and then some days I'm just not. Some days I feel like, "Where's the camera? This can't be real. This can't be what's happening," but it is.
Gwen:
It is. I don't know if he'll even get into this school, but we always need to have a plan that we know will deviate or look different, but this plan is based on him for the first time and not what we think would be.
Kristen:
Good. Ooh, that's really good, Gwen.
Gwen:
Yeah.
Kristen:
That's really good.
Gwen:
We thought, "Well, Western Michigan has a great autism program." Well, guess what, they don't have a major that deals with animals. So we could make him go there and he could feign interest and muddle through and maybe do okay, or we could just send him to the school that he's on fire for and give him a chance at finding a career that brings him joy. I struggle with this because how many of us have careers that bring us true joy? I understand a lot of us don't. Our kids though can't feign interest enough-
Kristen:
No, they can't.
Gwen:
... to have a career in something that they're not passionate about.
Kristen:
They can't.
Gwen:
And that is a gift for them and for their employer if they are matched and aligned.
Kristen:
Right. I just want to come back to that. Disability is environmental. Hayden has shown us that. Jameson has shown us that, and Graham is trying to show us that. For some reason, we've had a hard time learning the lesson with him, but I'm here. I'm getting it. I'm getting it. It's just taking longer to find his place. For him to say, "I don't know where my place is in the world," I mean, how could you say at any plainer? It's like, "I don't either. I don't know where it is for you either, but I sure as hell I'm not going to give up on helping you find it." But it is going to be very specific because a lot of our kids are specialists trying to live in a generalist world and we can't make them fit. We have to find an environment that fits them.
Gwen:
Right. Like Rylan right now, for example, he is at GrandCon, which is a tabletop gaming convention. He bought a three-day pass and he's there, but I said to Tim today, "He drove himself." He got his license. I don't know if we talked about that.
Kristen:
We did talk about that. That was very exciting.
Gwen:
So yes, we talked about that he's driving. He drove. He drove two friends who, we'll talk about another episode, he is friends with because of online gaming and that has led to them doing things together, all centered around gaming. When they hang out without gaming, they sit in a room and look at me and ask me what they should do. So, it's fine. They are at the gaming convention and they're going to be there for the next three days. Don't even ask me what it means, what they're doing, what kind of costumes they might be wearing. I don't want to know any of it.
Kristen:
But look how independent and great that is.
Gwen:
Yes. He hasn't called me.
Kristen:
That's crazy.
Gwen:
He hasn't called me and I didn't have to be on the phone to drive with him there.
Kristen:
He hasn't asked you what he should have for lunch?
Gwen:
No.
Kristen:
That's crazy.
Gwen:
Can you believe that?
Kristen:
No.
Gwen:
Tim and I are just like... I am no longer able to be everything that he needs, which I know you understand and you feel that way. So the second we find something that's like take him and be that for him, we just jump. So that's what we're going to try. that's what we're going to try with this Beacon. We're hoping for the best and might have to live in a tent and sell our home to make it happen.
Kristen:
I'm proud of you guys. I know that's a hard decision. I would be, I don't know, losing years of my life at the thought of sending Graham to a different state, but I believe in Rylan and I know he can thrive.
Gwen:
Yeah, I think so. We've got this whole year to get him ready, which of course means that I am advocating my arse off and researching everything under the sun to grow the gifts he has and strengthen the weaknesses that he's going to need to be not in the same zip code as me. But can I just tell our listeners what he said to the vocational rehab worker when we talked about this summer? He said, "Well, yeah, I'm going to go to Beacon because they're close to the turtles and mom's just going to get a condo." Yes, right?
Kristen:
That's right.
Gwen:
She looked at me and I was like, "Oh." I don't feel like now is the right time to break this news because I need him to actually be present in this meeting and act like, well, kind of an adult, but I also can't let her think that we have the funding to purchase a vacation home. So I said, "Oh, buddy, that's actually very inaccurate because remember, we have Reagan and M now." He's like, "Well, they'll have dad."
Kristen:
Well, you're going by yourself. I love it so much.
Gwen:
Right.
Kristen:
It's not too much to ask Gwen. I don't know. I don't know. I think maybe you and I could live in the condo in Florida together.
Gwen:
Nope. Florida is never going to be a part of my journey other than just a hotel room visiting, which now we have agreed to quarterly stays.
Kristen:
Nice.
Gwen:
So we have worked ourselves down from a permanent residence.
Kristen:
Okay. Well, that's good work. It's good work within a couple of months.
Gwen:
Thank you.
Kristen:
All right. We're going to pass it on to our kids because we could talk to you all for days. We're so excited to be back. We've missed you.
Gwen:
And we're so sorry that we forgot to tell you that we left.
Kristen:
Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that. Sorry about that.
Gwen:
Okay. Thanks for listening, y'all. We'll give it to our kids. Bye.
Reagan:
We know our moms are amazing, but they don't know everything. We think that you deserve to hear from the real experts, their kids. Woo-hoo! We believe in nothing about us without us. So here it is, The Last Word.
Gwen:
Okay. Friends, we are back here with Rylan. Rylan, it's been a few months since you've been on the podcast. We're happy to have you back. There has been a lot that's happened since the last time you were on. Do you want to share with our listeners some highlights from your summer of 2020?
Rylan:
Probably going up to a cottage with my cousin Josiah, D&D, hanging out with friends, volunteering at the zoo.
Gwen:
Whoa. Let's hold back. So we had cottages. What do you love to do the most at the cottages?
Rylan:
Swim.
Gwen:
And?
Rylan:
Sea-Doo. Not much tubing, but yeah.
Gwen:
But you love the Sea-Doos, right?
Rylan:
Yeah.
Gwen:
And you have a license to drive them?
Rylan:
Yep. Sadly, one of our Sea-Doos got broken. I'm not sure if it's broken beyond repair, but it's definitely outwardly broken. Just don't know if it can go for-
Gwen:
When it flies off a trailer going down the highway and lands on the middle of the road, that's a problem, isn't it?
Rylan:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Yeah, that was a problem.
Rylan:
Especially when there's thousands, millions of flies flying at your face where you're trying to fix it.
Gwen:
Oh, I know. That was definitely the hardest part for you, the flies.
Rylan:
I hated them.
Gwen:
Yeah. I think dad was more concerned about being safe, getting off the highway, rescuing the sea-do, but for you it was the flies.
Rylan:
Yeah, they kept flying in my eyes. I was hot that day. Oh, I hate it.
Gwen:
Yeah, it was hard for you, wasn't it? Anyway, so the Sea-Doo was a highlight. Talk about the D&D, Dungeons and Dragons.
Rylan:
Had at a camp this summer about D&D, had my friends over a few times.
Gwen:
And that's a group that you started, right?
Rylan:
Yeah.
Gwen:
That's awesome. It's been a way for you to stay in contact with a lot of friends, isn't it?
Rylan:
Yeah. Still trying to recruit more people, but yep, it's good.
Gwen:
It's a good group. It's what? Five, six kids?
Rylan:
Yeah.
Gwen:
They all love the D&D. Anything else? Tell us a little bit more about the zoo. What led you to the zoo?
Rylan:
I tried to apply for a job, but I didn't get in and then my parents saw volunteering opportunities and signed me up, so yee.
Gwen:
How did volunteering at the zoo make you feel?
Rylan:
Good. It was exciting to go. I'm actually doing some zoo volunteering in October, which is coming up. But yeah, that's going to be fun. It's going to be handing out candy to kids at the zoo.
Gwen:
Why do you think that you didn't mind getting up at 8:00 in the morning in the summer, lots of days to go clean windows?
Rylan:
Because I got to see animals and have a good time.
Gwen:
Yeah. Because if we asked you to get up at 8:00 on a Saturday to clean our windows, would you be excited about that?
Rylan:
It also goes by really fast.
Gwen:
Because?
Rylan:
I know what windows to clean, how long it takes. I also get to see animals.
Gwen:
Yeah, the animals. That's really the key feature because if there's a tiger behind the window we're looking at right now, you might be excited to clean it.
Rylan:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Right?
Rylan:
Yeah. Or turtle.
Gwen:
Or turtle. I mean, same, same level of interest. All right. Anything else highlighting the summer that you'd like to talk about?
Rylan:
No.
Gwen:
No?
Rylan:
No.
Gwen:
Do you have a new sister in the family?
Rylan:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Yeah. Do you think that that's been an exciting part of the summer, adding a sister to your life?
Rylan:
Yep.
Gwen:
Yeah. All right. Anything else to say about that?
Rylan:
No.
Gwen:
No? Okay. Cool. Cool. All right, guys. That was Rylan. We're out.
Rylan:
Bye.
Gwen:
Okay. We have a very special first-time guest with us on The Last Word today. Y'all know her as M and you know very little about her other than she's a part of our family now, and she said she would like to talk about what it's been like to become part of team Vogelzang. So, M is with us.
M:
Hi.
Gwen:
She has no problem finding words, so I'm just going to let her talk about being a part of our show of a family. Can I say that to you?
M:
Yeah. Okay. Let me describe my experience. So the first couple of weeks was definitely very nerve-wracking. I was initially terrified. I did not know what the future hold. I just knew Gwen was a super kind woman who welcomed me with open arms. The process of feeling comfort was immediate with a new room, a new decorations, awesome siblings, and a great parental figure who was really kind. As time went on, I slowly started to ease up and develop closer relationships with everybody else. I felt comfortable eating around them. I felt comfortable sleeping. Everything. My quality of life has just significantly improved. I had so much fun this summer. I never knew summers could be this fun. We went tubing a lot, which I really, really have found myself to love. Overall, I'm just very grateful and it feels like a one-in-a-lifetime experience. It feels like I'm on a vacation living with them.
Gwen:
I hope vacation feels a little better than normal.
M:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Yeah, we love her and I think you already see why. Tell us a little bit about what it's been like adjusting to having a sibling with autism.
M:
I'm going to be honest, at first, I definitely did not understand and I was very narrow-minded, for sure. People say that they're open and they're advocates and whatnot and they know so much and I'm one of those people who thinks they know so much, but in reality, I knew very little. Every single person with autism is completely different from the other. There are similar traits, but Rylan is completely different from another person with autism. He's an autistic person or he has autism, but that's not what defines him. He's so special and just I love that about him. He's so unique. There's things that make him who he is. His honesty, I love that. His humor, sometimes when he's not even trying to be funny, he is the most funny 17-year-old boy I know and he doesn't even try.
Gwen:
Or again, think that he's not trying to be funny. There's a difference between when we laugh with him versus people laughing at him.
M:
Yeah. Yeah.
Gwen:
Because you've seen both.
M:
I have seen both.
Gwen:
And that can be hard.
M:
Very hard.
Gwen:
Yeah. M has become his biggest advocate at school.
M:
People are jerks.
Gwen:
They can be. All right. That's a lot for the first word or last word, not first word, but your first word on The Last Word. So you're going to get to hear from her more and I know that you feel super grateful about that already.
M:
Yeah.
Gwen:
Okay.
M:
Bye.
Gwen:
Thanks for joining us for this episode of You Don't Want to Hug, Right? We'd sure appreciate it if you'd subscribe to our show in your favorite podcast app. If you want to win Listener of the Month, you can rate and review the show preferably with five stars.
Kristen:
If you'd like to stay up on all our happenings, resources and bonus material, join our newsletter at youdontwantahug.com.
Gwen:
Remember, even the best caretakers make panic rooms out of their closets. No judgment here, friends. So shoulders back, double chins up. We are all in this together.
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