Reflective Ms. Wordy Wednesday

“Hi! I’m here!”
“Top of the morning to you!”
“That sounds more Irish than English?”
“Hmm. Sorry. Well my Mum’s Irish. Actually that’s just a lie I’ve sort of slipped into, since I’ve been out in the States.”
“Lie?”
“Well her parents were Irish, so I say she’s Irish, but she was born in England so obviously she’s English.”
“Gotcha.”
“If she found out I was going around saying she was Irish she’d have a fit of the vapours.”
“Somehow I always visualize your Mom as being like Princess Margaret.”
“Oh good, she’d like that. The reality is more ‘bog Irish.”
“Bog Irish?”
“Yes, don’t repeat that though, it’s very rude.”
“Rude?"
“Yes, you know, struggled up from the bog kind of a thing.”
“Huh! New one on me. So you’re Dad’s still Scottish though?”
“Yes.”
“Kilts and bagpipes kinda of a deal?”
“Close enough.”
“Not bog Scottish?”
“Castle.”
“Geez that class thing goes on in Scotland and Ireland too?”
“Don’t forget Wales!”
“The little stuck out bit.”
“The same!”
“So what are we looking at today? Child exploitation!”
“Ooo dear that’s a little harsh.”
“You’ve got him scrubbin away at the windows. I just call it like I see it.”
“Yes I can see why you might think that.”
“That’s not what I’m seeing?”
“Hmm therapeutic child exploitation sits easier on my soul.”
“What’s the therapeutic part?”
“Lots of things.”
“Such as?”
“Making his hands and fingers squeeze the lever on the bottle of Windex.”
“Why?”
“To make them stronger.”
“Are they excessively weak?”
“Maybe not excessively, but if you don’t use your hands every day for every day kinds of things, then lots of ordinary little tasks become extraordinary difficult.”
“Bit of a vicious circle then.”
“Spot on.”
“But why window cleaning? Couldn’t you have something….I don’t know……..more kid like?”
“Well for this guy, it’s a question of latching onto anything that he might show a tiny shred of interest.”
“And you’re trying to tell me that he’s interested in cleaning windows? I just don’t buy it.”
“You’re right, it’s not the cleaning or the windows, it’s the blue fluid.”
“Still don’t get it. Is blue his favourite colour or something?”
“No, still yellow. If I’m honest I don't really know what the spark was but he was definitely interested in it, so you work with what you’ve got. Neither of them rarely show interest in anything outside of their rather narrow fields, so when something catches an eye, you just have to go with it.”
“So you’d call this the Windex developmental stage of autism or the blue period?”
“Er…..?”
“Hah! Got yah, I was teasing.”
“Oooo, very good!”
“So you got him to use the wiper thing too!”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The stars were favourably aligned that day.”
“Fluke?”
“Who knows?”
“So he managed the crossing the "mid-line thing?”
“Ooo yes, well spotted, you’re so good at this.”
“Next time I clean the windows, I’ll remind myself of my "mid-lines.”
“You do that dearie.”
“Deal.”
“One last word of warning though.”
“What?”
“Do it too much and you end up with blue skirting boards.”
“You know Maddy, there are many things that we Americans get fixated upon, but you won’t catch any of us perseverating or reflecting upon our windows.”
“Mirror, mirror on the wall, "who is the fairest…….”





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