I push my kid....dont worry, not physically!

This would be my bad a** self many moons ago....ok maybe 6 years ago

 Skinny and Athletic....imagine that.  I think I stared Skiing around 11....then the winter of the year I was 12 I think I went skiing nearly every other weekend.  When I was 15 I decided to learn how to snowboard, well because that's what all the cool kids were doing :)

So that's the back story.  My mother and stepfather go skiing almost every weekend.  How a woman born in Cuba (my mother) came to be a skier is another story, but it was apparent that my mother has been waiting to see Frankie ski since he was in utero.

When the weekend came that we would bring Frankie to Vermont was approaching, to say I was anxious would be an understatement.  My skin broke out,I was moody and semi insane.  With Frankie you can do a social story but God Forbid you say we are going skiing...he must go NOW.  So For two days prior to going....he had to go NOW.

Now I might get some Shit (sorry have to use it) for what I am going to say.  I HAVE to push my son.  I know he has Autism, I know things stress him out, I know he is sensitive but truth is if I don't push him he will sit on the couch the rest of his life watching TV because it will be easier then getting up.  Say whatever you want, but I know because I suffer from the same nonsense.  When my anxiety gets bad I have to be forced to do things, maybe I had a good time, maybe I did not, but I got it done.

We drive the 4.5 hours to Vermont.  The big guy is amazed by the snow.  The last time he saw real big amounts of snow was Dec 26th of 2010.  There was no snow in NY last year so it was like seeing it for the first time!  My first mistake that Friday evening was not pushing him to get his boots sized.  The plan had been to get to get there and have his ski boots fitted and rented but of course being that we JUST got there, the transition to getting back in the car made him meltdown.  Say what you want but I should have pushed him through it, the discomfort of that transition would have made other things a lot easier the following 2 days.

The following day we went up to the mountain in the afternoon after an whole morning of meltdowns because snow is cold and the house was different and there was no cable and the netflix didn't work and we weren't going skiing NOW.  I could have went that morning to bring him skiing but he was just getting upset left and right over everything it wasn't going to happen.  At the mountain he decided he needed to go skiing that SECOND and needed the biggest skis that had.....meltdown because he couldn't have the biggest ski's.....bigger then skis I could even use lol.  I thought bringing him to the mountain just to see, to get him ready for Sunday morning would be a good thing, that he would have slowly adjusted.....NOPE...needed to SKI NOW SKI NOW!

This is us after going to the Candy store (bribery).....He still needed to Ski right then and there.  Also that is my husband....wearing our little guy in the Ergo.....gotta love a daddy wearing a baby!

We managed to get through Saturday with promises of skiing in Sunday morning.

Sunday morning, Frankie needed to go skiing NOW

This is us in the room where you can put on your boots.  We walk in and Frankie is adamant about getting his Ski's NOW.  Well....first paper work "I NEED MY SKIS".....then some boots "THESE BOOTS ARE TOO HARD, I CAN"T I NEED SKIS"....Then get Skis " THESE SKIS ARE TOO LITTLE THEY ARE FOR BABIES"

I'm not sure if most would quit by then.  Maybe people thought I was cruel to push him....but if my butt got on my ski clothes and all my equipment out after 6 years.....he was going skiing.

This is what a four year old on Skis looks like.  Boots, ski's, helmet, goggles helmet and awesome harness so mom can carry you around.  Can you see HOW BIG of an event this can be for a kid on the spectrum????  I think he was crying a little bit after this because now that we were on the mountain he wanted to go on the BIG SKI LIFT and not on the little bunny slope "magic carpet".  So again I had to force my child up a small ski lift as he screamed that he need to go on the "BIG HAND GLIDER NOW"

That's how that works, Mom puts child in the middle as child yells "WE ARE GOING TO CRASH".  Then when we don't crash he says "OK lets do that again but lets go on the other side".  So we go up again on the little "Magic carpet" (that area by the black tube in the photo) and this time we go on the right side where there are little flags set up to go around ;)

Now after a morning of screaming he has decided he want to go up the BIG "magic Carpet"

We went up a few more times.  After about an hour he was pretty much done, which was fine with me, I was happy he did it for more then 10 minutes.  I asked him if he wanted to do it again and he said only if we go on the "hand glider"(aka the chairlift that goes higher up the mountain).  I then asked if we could bring Lia next year....he said no, this was just for me and Mommy.

Maybe people think I'm terrible for pushing him, for making him deal with things that make him uncomfortable.  I wondered if people would say, just let him be himself, not be what you want.  Well If he never wanted to Ski again then I'm ok with that, but he has to try.  That's all, call me crazy.