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    A Car Full of Neurodiversity: Lessons Learned in Nine Weeks on the Road with Two Unique Kids
    A Car Full of Neurodiversity: Lessons Learned in Nine Weeks on the Road with Two Unique Kids
    A Car Full of Neurodiversity: Lessons Learned in Nine Weeks on the Road with Two Unique Kids
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    A Car Full of Neurodiversity: Lessons Learned in Nine Weeks on the Road with Two Unique Kids

    By Cathleen Small

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    About this ebook

    "When you travel with children, don't necessarily expect it to be relaxing or fun; just expect it to be different." That advice is especially true when traveling with kids for whom routine may be exceptionally important. In 2018, the Small family tackled their lifelong dream of going on a nine-week cross-country road trip--with their son who has autism and ADHD and their son who has Down syndrome. Both boys typically thrive on routine, but both had the time of their lives while crisscrossing the nation in an aging minivan. This is the story of their journey and the laughs they had along the way.    

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCathleen Small
    Release dateDec 19, 2018
    ISBN9781386314264
    A Car Full of Neurodiversity: Lessons Learned in Nine Weeks on the Road with Two Unique Kids
    Author

    Cathleen Small

    Cathleen Small is the author of dozens of nonfiction books for students in grades five through twelve. She has also edited hundreds of books on everything from technology to vampire fiction. She and her family reside in the San Francisco Bay Area with their pug and numerous cats. They travel as often as time and funds allow. 

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      Book preview

      A Car Full of Neurodiversity - Cathleen Small

      A Car Full of Neurodiversity: Lessons Learned in Nine Weeks on the Road With Two Unique Kids

      Introduction

      Back in 2011, my husband , Chris, did a job interview via phone while sitting in the parking lot of a gas station. We had a noisy preschooler and two loud dogs, and I was six months pregnant and peeing every three minutes. The job was important enough that it wasn’t worth the risk of Theo interrupting him with, DADDY! I NEED YOU TO WIPE MY BUTT!!! MOM’S IN THE BATHROOM AGAIN! So Chris drove across the street to the gas station where his cell phone had a good signal, and he did the most important job interview of his life while sitting in his battered piece-of-junk commuter car and watching people fill up their shiny new SUVs with premium gas.

      He came home, looked at my expectant face, and said, It went really well, I think. They want me to come for an in-person interview. There are a lot of good perks with the job.

      Like what?

      Well, every six years you get a six-week paid sabbatical, and...

      WHAT?! You need this job! I cried. I’ve got big plans for that sabbatical!

      Because hello bucket-list item: road-tripping across the United States. My long-held dream was suddenly right in front of me. Well, six years in the future if all went according to plan, anyway.

      He got the job, and we rapidly relocated 100 miles away to a city we could barely afford. And when I say barely, I mean we found a house two hours away from his job because it was the only decent thing we could afford. But the hellish commute was worth it for a terrific job...and the promise of that sabbatical.

      Then fate threw us a bit of a curveball. Sam, the baby I had been carrying, arrived less than three months after we moved, and with him he brought a very tiny but also very huge surprise: an extra chromosome. He was born with a third copy of his 21st chromosome—in other words, he had Down syndrome. Needless to say, that was a bit of a shock.

      I think most parents of children with disabilities will tell you that when they think back to their initial reaction upon diagnosis, they want to cringe. They want to grab their naïve self and shake some sense into them. Because hindsight is always 20/20. Naïve, 38-year-old me, staring at her newborn son, wondered, What does this mean for our life? Will we ever be able to travel again?!

      It seems silly. Shallow. Why was I thinking about travel? Well, travel has always been our family’s passion and a way we reconnect every year. It’s the time when we set aside work (I’m self-employed, so we both work) and explore and laugh and have fun. It sustains us; it keeps us going. Even after we had Theo, we still made a point to travel once or twice a year. And somehow, while looking down at my beautiful new baby who I loved so fiercely, that was the one doubt in my mind: What if we couldn’t travel?

      It didn’t take long before I realized how ridiculous I had been in my worry about life with a child with Down syndrome. I quickly met many older children and adults with Down syndrome and realized that most life goals are still possible, including travel. They might look a little different than we thought, but they’re still possible.

      But then the story got even more interesting. About a month after Sam’s birth and diagnosis, Theo, our aforementioned noisy preschooler, was politely asked to leave his preschool and was subsequently diagnosed with high-functioning autism (and later ADHD and anxiety). It was quite a month of surprises. But when all the dust settled, what did we do? Took a short vacation. We drove down to Cambria, on California’s beautiful central coast, and spent a relaxing and wonderful five days.

      And just like that, all the pieces began to come back together. Life got pretty normal again. And the dream of the six-week road trip was back on. All systems go!

      After six years of planning, the road trip (which by then had expanded to nine weeks since Chris was able to take a few extra weeks of vacation time on top of his sabbatical) commenced in mid-June 2018. Upon telling people of our plans, we were met with one of several responses:

      "Whoa, that sounds amazing! You’re so lucky to be able to do that!"

      "I would love to do that, but my kids would never be able to handle it."

      Are you out of your mind?! That sounds like a nightmare!

      We finished the road trip in mid-August 2018, and I’m happy to report that it was amazing, that we are lucky (incredibly so) to have been able to do it, and that our kids (ages six and ten at the time of our trip) not only handled it, they thrived.

      This is the story of our trip, with lessons learned along the way and (hopefully) a whole lot of laughs. I know we belly-laughed more times than I can count; hopefully you’ll get a few laughs out of it as you join us for the ride.

      Chapter 1: Always Bring Paper Towels

      It is a truth universally acknowledged that the one time you don’t have a spare change of clothes on hand, your potty-learning child will have an accident. And apparently, when you’re kicking off the trip of a lifetime, your potty-learning child will have that accident in a most spectacular way.

      Exhibit 1: Donner Memorial

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