Technical Assistance

At 2:55 a.m. I follow in his wake. Every light in the house is on, blazing into the darkness. He sits on the family room carpet playing with his sister’s new toy. [translation = hooray! Unsupervised and self initiated imaginative play] I debate my best course of action in the blur of my brain. Ignore him? That’s what I should do, then he won’t get any positive reinforcement of this behaviour. [translation = being awake when he should be asleep]

I move towards the computer and try to focus on the screen, but my eyelids seem to have put on weight during the last four hours of sleep. [translation = weight gain in the wrong venu]

I remember that ignoring an autistic child is one of the more stupid things that you can do. I try and adopt my ‘autistic viewpoint’ widget. [translation = align my thought processes to something approximating my child’s] On the whole he is more than happy to be ignored. [translation = left in peace without any demands being put upon him] This means that instead of ignoring him I should do something positive. But what?

Whilst I think, a small person materializes by my side.
“What you do?” [translation = haven’t a notion at the moment]
“I er, I’m working on the computer.” [translation = bare faced lie, how can you ‘work’ when technically you are still asleep?]
“What it is?”
“Er, um, it’s a blog.” [translation = oh no, why did I say that? Now I will have to explain the unexplainable!]
“What it is ‘a blog.’?”
“Hmm, now it’s funny you should ask me that. Lots of people have been asking me that very same question, and do you know what? I haven’t got the foggiest notion what a blog really is.”
“You don know?”
“Well, some of them are diaries [translation = journals] others are just a way of chatting to your pals, but with written words rather than spoken words, like you would on the telephone.”
“I hate dah telephone.”
“I know.”
“So it is for the writing for the friends?”
“Correct. But I don’t know what it is really. What do you think it is? Do you like how it looks.” He peers and then squints his eyes.
“What it is, dah ‘tags,’ dah ‘sleep disruption’ is meaning?” You may well ask.
“Er ‘disruption’ is when things don’t go smoothly, you have a few bumps.”
“I like smooth.”
“So do I.”
“But I am liking the word ‘disruption’ dat is to do my new word of the week.”
Oh goodie!
“I’ll write it down for you, to add to your other words.”
“Der are words and I am reading dem. Der are pictures, and I am liking some of dem, but the best bit is dah tools.”
“The tools?”
“Yes.”
“What tools?”
“Doze lickle fings over der, on dah right, dey are crossed over like the skull and crossbones of dah pirates. What day are?”
“I don’t know that either I’m afraid. They keep appearing.” I think they’re breeding during the night.