– Tima, fourth (and last) page –

3.6.6. Pancakes and happiness

Maybe one of the best moments was when he made pancakes for all the kids: before eating, the staff explained that to all them, all waiting at the tables, and Tima was standing in the middle and everyone applauded and congratulated him; it was visible that he understood, and he was VERY happy. It was really moving.

This day, August 9, after two very successful days of “serving”, we wanted to do some things a little more complicated (and more rewarding) than just setting the table and carrying dishes.
I did not follow the moment when he participated in making the dough for these pancakes.
(They aren’t exactly pancakes or cakes or cookies, but I don’t know how it’s called. Maybe blinis.)

Here, his instructor starts by showing him what to do.
(Photos taken by instructors and sent to me)

Tima is applauded by all the children when we explain to them that he is the one who made these cakes (which are about to be served).
He understands and he is extremely happy 🙂

(4 photos taken by instructors and sent to me)

This is what we the autistics we are needing: acceptance, leading to the self-esteem, necessary to find how to find our place in society. Not the hospitals and special centres.

August 9 (ie the day after these two days of “restaurant” training, and after the “cakes glorious episode”), around 10pm.
We see that Tima speaks more easily.
Zhanna (who knowns him since quite a while) is very happy to see this metamorphosis.
In addition, we can notice that now he is standing straight (with his back straight), yet we haven’t done anything specific about that.

On the last day, he went back to the town on the normal bus with the others, without any problem of course (although it looked “impossible” to his sister at first).
We received this boy “like a toy” at first and we brought him back to his family “like a boy”.
I insisted with his sister about having him “doing normal things with normal children”, and she promised. Anyway, she could clearly measure the difference “between/after”, she could see that there was no danger in the change, that it was possible and beneficial, so she understood that *they* (the family) had to change, for the sake of Tima, and that it is possible and easy: just treat him normally.
Apparently, that’s what they are doing now, so once again this is a little success, and we are very glad to have helped this boy to start “going down from his cloud” and come to real life.

This story is particularly interesting also because it is the result of the collaboration of an autistic (me), the mother of an autistic (Zhanat), and another autistic (the president of the French association who paid for his stay).
So it is “very autistic”. And all worked fine 🙂

Pioneer Mountain Resort prepares to sleep…