Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Not in his goals, but in his transitions is man great.” In my life I have learned quite a bit about transitions. I have transitioned from being a friend, a girlfriend, a fiancé, to being a wife and from being a babysitter, mother-to-be, and then a mother. I have also learned how to evolve from college graduate, stay-at-home mom, sandwich artist, clerk, and newspaper editor. With the writing of this the inaugural edition of Callie’s Chaos, I am starting a new transition, to publisher of The New Stamford American.

Out of five generations of the Richards family, I am now the fourth generation to hold this title. If you lived in the Rule/Rochester area in the 1950s and 1960s, you might remember a friendly newspaper man that always had ink around his nails from spending so much time at a linotype machine and printing press. His name was Alton Richards, he was my grandpa, and he was the owner and publisher of the Rule Review. He came by the profession naturally, his parents, H.R. and Dora Richards as well as his grandfather, W.H. Richards, all helped to bring the Anton News to life. So it appears that the one thing I did inherit from the Richards side of my family was that my blood is full of printer’s ink and tends to run more black than red.

I have picked the name Callie’s Chaos, because that describes my life perfectly most of the time. I once described the word CHAOS as Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Often my life is an ongoing battle to defeat the ever present dust bunny, monster pile of laundry, and the waste land that is known as the playroom. A wise man once said,” You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” It has been through my various transitions that I have learned that chaos can sometimes be the mother of invention and the thing that helps you to laugh when everything is going wrong and your child has just said the craziest thing you have ever heard.

I hope you will enjoy the journey that we are about embark on together as much as I and my wonderful team have enjoyed putting it together. The New Stamford American wants to be part of the life of Stamford, sharing good things with you, being a part of your lives. And we want you to be a part of American, sharing your good things with us. We are glad to be here. We hope you are glad to have us. We are located on the north side of the square, so come see us.

First thing that I want you to do is close your eyes. I want you to imagine if music was blaring next to your ears, people laughing, cars on the street, music from the speaker in a store. A flashlight is shining right in your eyes, a lemon drop is on your tongue, someone is constantly touching you poking their finger up and down your arms, and the worst smell you can imagine is running up your nose. Doesn’t feel very comfortable right? Well….this is just one example of what it is like to be autistic. Now imagine that the noise is always too soft, no food has any taste, or it never seems to be bright enough for you. Imagine that you can get bit by millions of fire ants and not know it. This is another example of what it is like to be autistic….

 So how can one illness have two totally different types of characteristics. There is a saying that says “There is no “typical” autistic child. No portrait to paint. No two are alike. Like snowflakes, they resemble, yet remain unique. Therein lies the challenge for parents, patients, and physicians.”

Do you know anybody with autism? Chances are you do. It is estimated that 1 in every 150 individuals suffer from some form of autism making it more prevalent than pediatric cancer, diabetics, and AIDS combined. What is autism? Autism is a neurological disorder that impairs an individual’s ability to communicate and relate to others. It can also affect the individual’s ability to perceive the world around them, especially in regard to their senses.

All my life I had viewed autism as Dustin Hoffman’s character on Rain Man. I had vaguely heard the word every now and then on the news, but never had I thought it would affect me. My son, Logan, was a very difficult pregnancy. He was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck and had to be rushed to the Neonatal ICU upon birth. He  made a fast recovery though and continued to develop and grow in the usual fashion of babies. He was such a good baby, he hardly ever cried. Later I would learn that almost every autism parent said the same about their autistic kid. After a very normal development, at 18 months he began to slip. We noticed things about how sensitive he was to noise, things like the vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and even opening a trash bag drove him to screaming fits. We thought this was part of terrible ones. When he turned 2-years-old, I took him in for a baby well check-up and was astonished when the doctor questioned me very thoroughly about Logan’s behaviors….“Did he always talk that way? Did he always turn in circles? Did he always touch everything in the room?” The doctor was very concerned and after a series of developmental tests, meeting with a licensed professional counselor, and a psychologist, I was told that my son either had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) or that he was autistic. Upon meeting Logan, the psychologist confirmed his diagnosis: PDD-NOS which stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified. In the real world, we call this Autism.

We had a very hard time accepting this until one day at the park Logan was playing and we had loaded up in our car not thinking anything was wrong. About 10 miles down the road I happen to glance down at Logan’s Hand that was swollen with fire ant bites. When I questioned him he just looked at me and said Bad Ants.

I was shocked. As a parent, how would I deal with a child that didn’t play by the same rules as a “normal” child? I quickly learned that even though Logan is a “quirky kid”, he is still my sweet Logan and a blessing. As my step son Anthony would say, “Logan is crazy, but it is an awfully good crazy.” Sometimes his perspective of the world makes the world more unique and enjoyable. Logan is now six, and while he has challenges that surpass what a “normal” kid would deal with, he is thriving and with speech therapy and occupational therapy has learned very well to fit into the world around him. Every day we discover new things that affect Logan while some problems go away.   In fact most people would not guess that he is autistic, unless he is having a quirky day.

Autism was first identified in 1943 by Dr. Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the same time, a German scientist, Dr. Hans Asperger, described a milder form of the disorder that is now known as Asperger Syndrome. These are two of the five developmental disorders that fall under the autism spectrum disorders. The others are Rett Syndrome, PDD NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder), and Childhood Disintegrative Disorder. All of these disorders are characterized by varying degrees of impairment in communication skills and social abilities, and also by repetitive behaviors.

Autism spectrum disorders can usually be reliably diagnosed by age 3, although new research is pushing back the age of diagnosis to as early as 6 months. Parents are usually the first to notice unusual behaviors in their child or their child’s failure to reach appropriate developmental milestones. Some parents describe a child that seemed different from birth, while others describe a child who was developing normally and then lost skills. Pediatricians may initially dismiss signs of autism, thinking a child will “catch up,” and may advise parents to “wait and see.”

Facts About Autism

• Autism is a developmental disability, which usually begins before 3 years of age and is a life-long disability.
• The incidence of autism is approximately 1 out of every 150 births.
• People with autism have a normal life span.
• Autism is 4-5 times more prevalent in males than in females.
• 67 children are diagnosed per day
• A new case is diagnosed almost every 20 minutes
• Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S.

Presently, there is no cure for autism. However, there are various treatment options to help the child cope with the symptoms.

Presently, there is no known single cause for autism. However, autism is not caused environmentally by a child’s upbringing.

Research indicates that people with autism learn best through a structured environment.

Autism occurs in all countries and within all socioeconomic classes.

Research indicates that the earlier the intervention, the better for people with autism.

Siblings of autistic children are 3 times more likely to be autistic.

Autism currently affects over 400,000 people in the U.S.

Now you might want to know about vaccinations and autism….Some people believe that the MMR vaccine you get at 18 months causes autism, because lots of kids start to decline at this age. In our case there is strong evidence to support that genetics was at play.

April is National Autism Awareness Month. I encourage you to learn all you can about this disorder. While there is no cure for autism, education is the first step in combating the problem. Autism is not the tragedy, Ignorance is the tragedy. For more information about autism, check out www.autismspeaks.org. 

Callie and her Benny having a moment at Dinosaur Valley National Park.

As a parent I never ceased to be amazed by the fact that the very ones we are supposed to be teaching are the ones that are in fact teaching us. For spring break this year, my two boys, ages 6 and 4, one set of grandparents, and my husband and I all made the two and half-hour trek to Glen Rose, Texas, which is home to Dinosaur World and the infamous dinosaur footprints at Dinosaur Valley State Park. These dinosaur footprints were instrumental in showing paleontologists how dinosaurs walked in prehistoric times. Previous to this discovery in the 1930s, scientists thought dinosaurs walked like alligators.

It was on this trip that I learned several things. The first thing was that sometimes it isn’t about reading all the signs and knowing all the facts, it can really be just as simple as oohing and aahing about the awesomeness of the dinosaurs. When I was pointing out an allosaurus tooth, Logan informed me that yeah he knew it was a tooth, but could we please move on, mom!

Ben, 4, also brought to my attention how imagination and blind belief are not something lost on the young. At one point while we were standing next to a footprint, I pointed out that right in the spot where Benjamin Allen Metler was standing, a dinosaur had also stood long ago. To this Ben got really excited and asked, “Do you think he was looking for Benjamin?”

The trip may have lasted only a day, but I know we all walked away enjoying each other’s company and that of our dinosaur buddies. Plus I learned to listen very closely to my kids; after all I might just learn something!

Callie with Logan, 6. Logan was diagnosed with Autism 4 years ago.

I have a confession to make. I suffer from a problem that I am sure many women on this website can identify with. It is one of anxiety. Four years ago I left my husband of five years. There were many problems with the marriage, but the main reason was that our then 2 ½ year old son was diagnosed with autism. This news was like a glass shattering. It was devastating as parents and my ex-husband took the news a lot harder than I did. To him he had lost his son, and this was something he could not and to this day still has not recovered from.

When the decision was made for the boys (I had a 2 ½ year old and 9 month old) and I moved back to Stamford, we did so. We lived with my ex-husbands parents for a while and finally moved into our own little three bedroom house in Stamford. I was a wreck. I had been a stay at home mom for the three years previous to that and I took a job working at the local Subway sandwich shop. About two months after moving there I had my first panic attack. From that point on anxiety had always been a factor in my life. It is like the elephant in the room waiting to jump on me should I get too overwhelmed by life’s daily task.

Recently I have had several health scares and they have brought back the anxiety monster to haunt my days and sometimes my nights. It is sometimes hard to reconcile the woman that takes care of her family, does a very high profile job of being the editor of the local newspaper, as the woman that is laying in her bed at night her body shacking from the latest panic attacks.

If you have ever suffered from this, you know that just telling yourself you aren’t going to give into the anxiety doesn’t do much to correct the problem. For me the answer is the loving support of my husband, Michael and the love of God. There is a wonderful song by the band Superchick, called “Crawl (Carry Me Through)” In it the singer tells about what she does when she is hurting and how when she is crawling through something God is crawling with her and then he carries her through the situation. If not for God carrying me, I am sure that there is no way that the woman could beat the anxiety that lives within her.

If you are dealing with anxiety realize that you are not alone. I think more people than we realize deal with some form or another we are just often afraid by admitting it, we are weak. Honestly after a week like this last one, I feel very weak and tired, but looking into my husband’s eyes and my children’s beautiful faces and I find all new reasons to get through the anxiety.

It is very important that I explain something here. I have a four bedroom/ 2 living area house that is home to 2 adults, 5 children, I miniature horse, one overweight beagle, one cat, one turtle, one rabbit, and a fish named Pete. There is always an ongoing battle to defeat the ever present dust bunny, monster pile of laundry, and the waste land that is known as the playroom. A very wise man once said, “Housework is what a woman does that nobody notices unless she hasn’t done it.” To that comment I say, “Preach on brother.” Another comment comes to mind. If a woman cleans a house and nobody sees it, was it really ever clean? This predicament is a conflict of how do I be a good mother, wife, friend, newspaper editor, marketing director, clubwoman, and all around person in this state of CHAOS?

When I have the answer to that question I will be sure to let you know. I know one thing for sure, getting out of CHAOS doesn’t happen overnight, it takes baby steps, and it also takes the realization that being all the above named things is WAY more important than my house looking like Martha Stewart lives there. I can tell you that this is something that my little organized heart has to take a deep breath over daily.

A very good friend of mine in San Angelo was known for her scatterbrained ways, and most of all the disarray of her home, partially because she had five children all under the age of six. She was an integral part of a ministry I was involved in and she actually wrote a column one time titled, “A friend loveth at all times, except when her house isn’t clean.” She struggled constantly with the idea that she didn’t feel like she could have people over to her home because of the chaos that was always found there.  Her dust bunnies weren’t just bunnies, they were things that ate bunnies for breakfast, think full-blown dust wolves.  

Her approach to the situation was to take each day as it came and find other ways to minister to people than have them at her home. She didn’t stress over the state of her home, and she was still able to be a good leader.

Now you would think that God in his infinite wisdom would have thought about things like cleaning, but I guess it doesn’t say in the Bible that on the third day God created dirt or the vacuum cleaner. After giving this much thought and contemplation, I figured that the only solution was to move to a completely sterile environment, like one of those white rooms that you see on futuristic movies. There would be no dirt and maybe we could all wear disposable clothing that we could just throw away after we wear them….one can only dream. But until I find that great clean home with no dirt and no chores like laundry, dishes, or horror-of-all-horrors toilet bowls to clean, I will be content to blare my favorite Sheryl Crow CD, pull back my hair and go bunny hunting. Don’t call me a housewife, I prefer Domestic Goddess.

Callie and Mary Lou

Who is my mentor? My life has been influenced by so many great and wonderful women, but one that sticks out is our local Pierian Club president, Mary Lou Gilbreath. Mary Lou has been part of my life for a very long time.

In fact, I remember at a very young age going over to her house and hanging out with her children. She taught school with my mother, and I was often seen hanging out in her classroom after hours. She dealt with some of the more difficult students, ones with learning disabilities and children that sometimes didn’t fit the model of the average student. She did so tirelessly, and it is thanks to her that the special students always felt special and many of them went on to succeed after leaving her classroom.

Now as a retiree she is the much-needed glue that holds our tiny chapter of the Pierian Club together. She is always graciously opening up her home for executive committee meetings or our regular club meetings.

There have been many times when I felt discouraged, and an e-mail or phone call from her came my way giving me much-needed encouragement. It was she that invited me to join the Pierian Club, an invitation that I gladly accepted.

That is why on this “Thank Your Mentor Day,” I would like to thank Mary Lou Gilbreath.