Brotherly love - Dream on

“I am be like!”
“Really! What do you like dear?”
“I bin dun like dah cream!”
Oh no! Don’t tell me ‘bin dun’ is back to haunt us again, one of this pre-emptory terms equivalent to ‘er.’ I look at my little neophobe and his 15 foods. Verily the child doth lie through his little wonky baby teeth.

“Indeed!”

Oddly enough he picks up on my tone of skepticism, as does his brother, who dives in to defend, encourage and elucidate.
“Yeah Mom we are have ice-cream in school today.”
“Ice-cream!”
So much for the ‘healthy food in school policy,’ that didn’t last a whisker.
“How come you had ice-cream?”
“Coz it was Tim’s birthday.”
“Ah.”
“It wuz a birthday treat.”
“Nice explaining dear. Surely he didn’t eat ice-cream?” I ask over his brother's head in a need to determine the real truth of the matter.
“No….he don eat dah ice-cream.”
I thought as much!
“But he did eat dah cream!”
“What cream?”
“Dah cream dat woz on dah ice-cream!”
“Cream on ice-cream!” talk about overkill.
“Yeah an it was real cold, but he ate it anyways……he din scream at all neither but he did his shivery thing………he wuz real brave mom.”

I smile as I think. Is cream really a food or merely a condiment? Does anyone eat a whole bowl of cream? Can you count cream, or would that be like counting mustard as a food?

I look at my boys. The retrieval of the words has the effect of making him relive the experience. I watch as the little one judders involuntarily at the memory and the big one puts a steadying arm around his bony little shoulders.

Bravery awards all round [and rats to the theory of mind.]

Complementary abilities and word retrieval

I drive the boys home, a pal and my son, the very verbal and the not so much so.

A match made in heaven.

They are as different as chalk and cheese but they share the same label.

They have little in common yet they are a perfect foil for one another. Mine is a head taller yet a year younger, but I'm not really interested in chronology or inches. I watch them in the corner of the rear view mirror. My son examines the inside of his pal’s ear, the one closest to him, both pal and ear, that is to say.

“Your ear……” he fizzles out.
“What about my ear?” he asks looking straight ahead. My son sticks his finger tip in his friend’s ear, tentatively.
“Don’t do that, you’ll make me deaf and then I won’t be able to hear ever again,” he responds factually, without reproach.
“Oh.”
“You know you should never put your fingers in your ears, it’s bad to put your fingers in your ears, even if it’s really noisy you should never put your fingers in your ears,” he explains with authority.
“Oh.”
“You see these bits? These bits of your "ear" here?”
“Dey are be calllllled ‘lobes.’”
“Yeah, right. If you take your lobes and stuff em in your ear holes, that’s dangerous too. It could stop you from hearing forever. You shouldn’t do it o.k. or you’ll go deaf.”
“Oh.”
“So don’t do it right? Don’t stick your fingers in your ears or you’ll bust the bit inside and then you’ll be deaf for ever and ever.”
“Dah inside is being dah ‘drum.’”
“Yeah, that’s right. So don’t bust it.”
“Oh.”
“Do you know what else happens if you bust your ears?”
“No.”
“You’ll fall over coz you’ll break the balance bit in your ear.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, you have this thing in your ear, like when you spin round and round and it kindof makes you dizzy, you’ll break that bit and then you’ll fall over all the time.”
“Dat is be dah cochlea, curly. It be looks like a snail.”
“Yeah, like that guy next door in 4th Grade, he’s got a cochlea implant.”

A car honks close by. Both boys cover their ears with their palms in the same instant and duck in unison.

The Curse of Socks

On the first day of term, on the first day of school I was destined for an afterlife in heaven. This was directly due to my snowy white, knee length socks. Each was secured in place with a thick elastic garter above the calf that cut off all blood circulation. The cuff was neatly turned now with perfect symmetry. It is a well know fact that one’s personal appearance in the neat, tidy and clean department, has a direct correlation with the condition of your soul, or so I was led to believe.

The second week at school showed that I was winging my way to a completely different destination. This was due to my inability to keep my immaculate socks free from grass stains and dirt. Their general grubbiness could not be eradicated by my inadequate hand laundering skills in cold water with the aid of a bar of yellow soap. The flames of everlasting hell and damnation licked at the toes of my grey cotton foot coverings. I prayed for salvation, with the sincerity of a Tibetan monk, for the chance to languish in Limbo instead.

As luck would have it, I grew up and left school, never again to be troubled by socks, free from the burden of associated guilt, or at least for a few decades.

A few decades later I was presented with a sock dilemma in an entirely new magnitude.

One of the great benefits of being an adult, is that you can force smaller people to do your bidding. A baby or toddler can tug at their socks but their fine motor skills aren’t quite up to the job of removal. As their skills or possibly determination, grows, they may well manage to rid themselves of their hateful socks, but as the parent, I can gather them up and ram them back on again. No matter if they scream in protest, because I, the adult, know what is best for them, because that’s what being a parent is all about.

Much, much later, and after a couple of diagnoses here and there, I learn a few remarkable new facts, things like tactile defensiveness, sensory integration and learning life skills, whatever those might be. Now I have an even greater problem. No only do I have to stop myself from efficiently dressing my children, but I also have to teach them how to do it for themselves. How do you go about teaching someone to do something that they don’t want to do, that they have no interest in achieving?

The obvious answer is to hire an expert to do the teaching, but for many a family that option is not possible, either due to unavailability, or worse still, inadequate financial resources. On the whole, experts are kindly people, full of all manner of ludicrous suggestions to get you started on the right track, but other than that, you’re on your own.

It is tempting to sink to the lowest common denominator, just like my children. Who needs socks anyway? Can’t we just skip the whole sock thing? Is it really that important in the great scheme of things? There is of course the issue of shoes too, and no-one will ever wear shoes until their little tootsies are first protected by a layer of socks. Do we really need shoes? Can’t we just step over the shoe issue, we’re in California afterall, the centre of casual attire. At the current stage of development, no-one wants to leave the house in any case. You only need shoes if you are outside surely? There again, I should be tackling the ‘outside’ issue too. Why are there so many competing issues? Why can’t we address them one at a time? Why is everything overlapping and interlocking? My explanations sound more and more like excuses, as the simplest of excursions becomes impossible:-
“I’ll meet you in the coffee shop at ten?”
“Can’t go to the coffee shop as the smell makes him barf.”
“Excuse me?”
“In any case I can’t take them anywhere if they don’t have shoes and socks on.”
“What?”
“I’ll never be able to get them all dressed by 9:30 and I’ll never be able to get them in the car as that’s a transition they hate.”
“Transition?”
“I’ll never be able to find the coffee shop as my brain will be fried by the volume of screaming.”
“Screaming?”

I makes no sense without direction experience, or some variation on a theme. It sounds feeble, inadequate and pathetic even to my own ears, but the explanations take too long and are of no interest. Suddenly I am disqualified from the status of ‘friend.’ Instead I become a neurotic, obsessed with children. The only logical conclusion is that I suffer from a serious, delusional personality disorder, or maybe Munchausen by proxy. If you also find yourself friendless overnight, take comfort in the knowledge that the time you spend with those under your care, ensures that they will blossom and bloom, which brings with it, an entirely new insight into the human condition.

It is important to remember that these are not the selfless acts of a martyred mother but an investment in your own future. Next life skill to learn? How to push ancient mother in her bath chair, preferably avoid the cliff path.









I think I may posit with a certain degree of accuracy that 'socks on' would probably mean that the rest of the clothing might prove superfluous.

Now would that really be an improvement?

The Twits! You nit wit!

I think very hard.

I need to work out what country in the world will be enjoying Wednesday whilst it is only Monday night here?

I give up. I need to find a way of expanding time so that I won’t look like an idiot for posting Wordless Wednesday on a Monday night. Fortunately, I have a very scientific brain, so this should be easy to solve.

I decide to insert a scalpel in the world, pole to pole and add another semi circle of extra globe. The result is a ripple ball, with extra mountains and valleys and a few tectonic plates bumping into each other. I am not entirely happy with the result and I’ve only bought myself 12 hours. What else? Aha. Double the size of the globe and magically I have gained 24 hours. Brilliant! I may also have saved the world from global warming with one executive stroke. Now the world is under-populated. I suspect some people are frying because they are nearer the sun. Other people have frostbite and no idea why. I decide I am a big meany. World chaos just to save face with my three readers. I think. I decide that as usual, lying is the best policy. I’ll say that I hit the wrong button, by mistake. Three people are late for work or discombobulated all day because of me. They will sue me and then we shall be poor and homeless in a huge, empty, unfamiliar, bumpy landscape.

I am renowned for the efficient manner in which I run my household. Now that they are all at school full time, I finally have a chance to catch up on four and a half years of household neglect. I am ruthless. I discard some twenty, old, moth eaten towels which have always been stacked within easy reach. The spills, floods and misfortunes of life are always dealt with swiftly, but enough is enough. As they have grown older, the pile has been whittled down slowly from about 35 to a mere 20. None of those little wimpy scraps of wiping cloths around here, oh no! We have gallons of mishaps and mountains of mop up facilities. This is an easy equation to calculate because I am also exceptionally good at arithmetic. 3 children absent from home for 6 hours of the day means 360 minutes of less spills.

I pick them all up from school just after lunch, whisk them away the to shops and then return home in under an hour, a new world record. I clean my bifocals and then carefully read the instructions, as I don’t want to burn their heads. I do myself first, so that I can assess how much agony will be involved in this exercise. I supervise homework with my hair sprouting out all over my head. The volume of screaming is considerably lower than usual but that might just be the soap in my ears. I try not to drip of them or their homework, as I scoot around the table to help each one.

Once satisfied that no pain is involved, I start on the first one. They’ve only been in school three weeks and now they’re contaminated. Once again, I am jealous of homes choolers with their freedoms and their germ free existence.



“Are your "headlights" gonned mum?”
“Yes, dead as door nails.”
“Is mine gonna be deaded too?”
“Sure as eggs is eggs.”
“Are dah eggs gonna be gonned too?”
“Absolutely, we’re gonna kick them from here to kingdom come.” I release the first froth head and start on the next one after setting the timer for ten minutes.
“Gosh Mom, we only washed our hair last night!”
“I know dear, but we need to nip this in the bud.”
“How long is it gonna take?”
“I have no idea, not one iota.” I send her on her way for her ten minute down time and brace myself for the little one.

There is absolutely no pain involved. No pain, no pain, no pain. I seek him out. I find him hiding in a corner under three adult sized bean bags, quivering and clutching the toilet brush. I wipe the sweat from his brow and lead him to the kitchen sink, the only one with an extendable spray attachment. I wonder for the first time ever, how far it might actually extend? At best, I think I have about three feet until I will be at the end of my tether, or rather, faucet.

He baulks at the last minute, rears up and off, to disappear in a flurry of rooster noises. I track him down. It’s easy. I find him under the bed. The duvet has been dragged off the bed and is stuffed all around him, a barrier of protection that fails to muffle his barking. I remind him again. One good session now, means that we may avoid repeating the exercise in 10 or 14 days time.


I suffer a severe sense of humour failure when the kitchen sink decides that it no longer wishes to drain. Why on earth did I throw all of those old towels away? I pause in my deliberations and let him escape whilst I go on the hunt for the toilet plunger and more towels to stem the flood. Since this handy household appliance is my son’s favourite talisman at the moment, I anticipate a long search as to it’s whereabouts. He has acquired the habit of hiding treasures such as the toilet plunger, as he fears my arbitrary decisions re contraband. I am a staid individual at heart and it’s difficult for me to adjust to his collection of long handled items. I am uncertain of their current purpose in his life. Whilst many a child might wield a toilet brush as a substitute gun or sword, in this household it is more of a crutch.

Why couldn’t this have happened to a family with an only child instead?



We reach a consensus of opinion. The active ingredient in "Rid" is Piperonyl butoxide. It is the stinkiest thing in the whole wide world ever, unless it’s the other one, the Pyrethum extract, since we have no yardstick of familiarity. Her assessment that it smells bad enough to make her puke, is born out by her little brother. The sofa and carpet suffer, but he suffers far more so. I remember that Jamba Juice is now off limits, as the stench of the fruit is beyond his capacity to endure. It is hardly surprising, that this formula has made him vomit. His screams of “I cannot breathe! I cannot breathe! I cannot breath!” isn’t strictly truthful as he gasps, gags, coughs and splutters.

I have abandoned my rule about the filthiness of chewing gum. We have managed to get through a whole box of gum, which only partially succeeded in distracting two of them, as it’s not an option for the little one. I watch his toes massage a piece of discarded gum with his toes. I am uncertain whether to laugh of cry, so I concentrate on combing whilst I think of the best method of removing it from his digits? The sticky strands effectively glue his foot to the floor. I am beyond caring.



I release him like a cannon ball and start on the next one.

I comb.
“Mom?”
“Yes dear?”
“Um I was wondering?”
“Yes dear?”
“Do you ever leave the…….boundaries of the house……er the garden…..I mean the property boundaries?” Gosh, spoken like a true lawyer!
“? Er..yes I do.” She must have spotted me watering the garden late at night.
“No. I mean, while we’re here?”
“Yes, you know I do. Then Daddy looks after you, like when I nip to the supermarket.”
“No I mean…..alone?” You would have thought that with all the OCD that I have been recently plagued with, it would be easy enough to spot? I think I should award myself this week’s ‘thick as a brick’ prize.
“No. Never. I never leave you alone, ever.”



I think of the new Jazzercise class that I have so carefully orchestrated for them at school. Oiled wheels, social stories and a goodly deal of hard cash, times three. No school means no Jazzercise. I consider myself lucky to have missed my own hair appointment and the undoubted additional humiliation.


The wet beds are stripped, the laundry mounts up. Sleeping bags are the only option. Catering has come to a halt and we are reduced to hot dogs, Goldfish crackers and probably the last bottle of Ensure. Everyone is delighted that their nutritional needs have been abandoned. The boys have taken it in turn to have numerous accidents on consecutive days. I foresee that all too soon there will be no clean clothes available in the entire house. The carnage that follows a weekend and two more days at home, due to the head lice, means that we look like a war zone. For some unaccountable reason I feel a little teary, quite possibly due to the foolishness of blitzing my daughter’s room. Three hours straight of tidying, resulted in the entire contents being strewn in orderly piles all over the carpet. Then, the call from school commanded a premature and untimely halt to the process. I know that some half finished projects are doomed.

I remember to spray the car seats and all of the upholstered furniture in the house. I dither about carpets because they spend so much time rolling around there, one way and another.



My youngest son is mentally prepared for the torture. His head and shoulders have been off limits following his first lungful of air at birth. Whilst his brain fully understands that he has to have lice free hair, his body is completely unable to co-operate. Since his head of hair is inextricably attached to the rest of him, we are in a severe quandary. I limit his combings to ten minute periods, as that is all he is able to withstand. I worry greatly, as he is a writhing target and I have a metal comb with sharp teeth as a lethal weapon. This is probably the most terrible thing I could do to this particular child. He screams at level ten throughout. The others cower in other room, praying that it will be their turn soon, so that the sound barrier will truly be broken, if briefly. For the first time in living memory I wonder if a number 1 buzz cut, would be a kindness in the long run?

I am so glad that the instruction leaflet was accurate. It does indeed take between one and two hours to remove lice from a head. My recall of a similar incident with my daughter over twenty years ago is somewhat hazy. By the time spouse comes home, early, at just gone seven in the evening, I have the wrinkled hands of an octogenarian after six hours of combing wet hair. During the last few days I have only seen adults during a brief visit to the supermarket and on the abortive school run. I have become an unwilling hermit and very crabby.

I know that this is a cunning plan to rob me of the last few shreds of sanity that remain.


I hear the garage door and my cheery spouse appears.

“Ooo have you been swimming?” he asks innocently stepping over soggy towels, clothes and cloths. I pause, poised with the nit comb in mid air, a visual clue.
“New hair style?” I point at all the empty bottles of Rid on the kitchen counter. He steps over towards the counter and picks one up to read it, since fortunately, it is an unfamiliar product. He loses his grip as well as his hold on the bottle, “Ooer, off to the nit nurse for you lot then!”
“No! Nurse is nice. Mummy is dah bad evil wimmins!” Ever my lot in life.
“You have to move with the times dear,” I warn, as I know that he’s about to buried in facts.
“Nits are not nice. I am not liking dem in my hairs.”
“Dey are be dah great swimmers too!”
“Swimmers?”
“Dey are be hold der breafs for ten minutes, so dey are not be drown.”
“Nits are be living in dah clean hair ONLY. We are being too clean.” A likely story.
“Dey are be deaded at 100 degrees!”
“Mom is kind she are not boil our headses.” He points at the pan of boiling water, full of hair brushes, combs and hair accessories. I am sorely tempted to go and boil my own head in the hope of inducing clarity.
“Mom been done killed my headlights. Mom been done killed the wee little beasties. We are victorious!” Somehow I feel somewhat less than a vanquished hero, more of an over zealous Nero. Their father picks up one of the inferior purple combs and takes his daughter next door to continue the work in progress. We have turned into a troop of grooming monkeys. I can hear them chat because I am an earwig at heart rather than a louse.
“Mom says it’s a good thing for the boys.”
“Really! Has she lost her marbles, again?”
“No Daddee, don’t be so daft. She said it was good, well kinda good.”
“How could this possibly be good?”
“Well only sorta good, coz it must mean that the boys are getting close to their friends, you know, making contact and all.”
“There’s only so much socialism I can cope with. ”
“Social what?”
“Never mind, I just think your mother needs her head examined sometimes.”
“I already did.”
“Did what?”
“Examine her head, for the nits. She’s gonna check your head later.”
“Hmm your mother the nit nurse! Now there’s an……intriguing thought.”
I yell at him from the other room, “stop thinking aloud! This is a uniform free household!” He appears in the family room and leans on the door jam, “maybe there’s some other sort of service I could provide?” I glance up at him and his suggestive Grocho Marx eyebrows. There are few things further from my thoughts. “I’m sure I could dig out a white coat!” he grins. I try and find my sense of humour but it is buried under a funeral pyre of wet laundry. “I can’t think about that right now,” I sigh weakly, more than ready to fall asleep on the spot.
“No, I was thinking…first, er…maybe I could…..later…..give you a massage?” I examine the nit picker through my fusty bifocals, “well ….that would certainly be a very welcome ….start.”
“How about….after the children are asleep…..you could bathe?”
“Ooo yes a bath would be lovely.”
“How about a quick shower instead, speed things up a bit.”
“?”
“It would be quicker.”
“Well it would save time if you ran the bath.”
“But I thought you were tired. You don’t want to waste time having a bath.”
“I thought a bath might be part of it?”
“Part of what?”
“The relax, unwind, be comfortable, a lovely massage and then…..who knows?”
“Oh no. I just want you to be clean. It looks like a dandruff factory in here.”

Now where exactly did I put that metal comb with the sharp pointy little teeth?

Fish or fowl?

It’s definitely a kid thing, I think I can be confident in asserting that distinction. I’ve never seen or read about any adult doing it. I don’t think it’s an autism thing. I think it’s a sensory thing, which usually amounts to faulty wiring somewhere along the system. That said, because adults don’t do it, this must mean that whatever it is, disappears as you grow up. Perhaps you feel the same way, but find better ways of dealing with the matter? I need grown ups to tell us, let us in on the secret.

It’s an odd thing to watch, but not a pleasant thing to observe. You can sort of see it happening but for some reason, you’re not able to stop them doing it, at least not in time.

The child sits before the bowl of food. It can be any kind of food but something that in theory, they’re willing to eat. They also do it with food that they really like, preferred food, so it’s not a question of taste or even hunger. Sometimes they’re in a hurry and that might explain it sometimes, but now I’ve seen it in my own two boys and another boy, who is not biologically related to us, I can only conclude that it’s more common than I thought.

Say it’s something like Goldfish crackers, just for a handy example that happens to be a preferred food for any number of children for some unaccountable reason. They munch handfuls of the things. Chomp, chomp, chomp, even if they’re not very good at mastication. Before they’ve swallowed the mouthful, they stuff another handful in and then another. You can see it register in their eyes first, a glimmer of confusion quickly followed by alarm, quickly followed by ejection.

I suspect that these type of children are also wired with super strong gag reflex, which is just as well under the circumstances. The chin will drop and a tongue will slowly disgorge a perfect pellet of pounded putridness, half the size of a cricket ball, considerably large than the size of the oral cavity itself and shaped like a quenelle. Broadly speaking they do not appear to be overly traumatized by the experience and often start to eat a fresh handful of Goldfish without skipping a beat.



It doesn’t look like greed. It looks like an owl regurgitating, slow, deliberate and controlled. Do they forget to swallow? Do they have no taste buds? Do they lack the musculature to manipulate the food to the back of their throats? Do they not register that their mouths are already full? Of course I can’t be sure, and I expect it differs from one child to another, but for mine I think it’s a combination of the latter with a general lack of interest in food.

What’s your experience? Does this make any sense? Have you ever known an adult to do this?

Tiptoe through the tulips

One of our ongoing campaigns, is to continue to try and expand junior’s diet. Currently, he eats 17 foods. [translation = jolly annoying but more commonly referred to as neophobic] Ideally I would wish for our family to enjoy a meal together in the evening, but that dream may be a while away yet.

For the time being I am more than satisfied with a lesser deal. The lesser deal these days is for everyone to be at the table together, for a period of time. The time period is vague. [translation = more than a minute fits the bill] When I say ‘at’ the table, this is because I don’t expect anyone to really sit, in the conventional meaning of the term. [translation = hunkered down, kneeling, draped, or in close proximity to a chair, are all good enough]

At first, this might see quite a low bar. ‘But Madeline, surely if you have such feeble expectations of your children, they have nothing to rise towards?’ And indeed, as always, I would applaud that viewpoint. The trouble with that viewpoint, is that it is blind to a few little matters that are of great import.

For instance, if you have a limited diet and are required to be at the table with other people, then you have to see and smell their very offensive food. Sometimes you may also have to hear it too. Whilst I do not know what smells you dislike, I could hazard a guess that you would have a hard time eating your dinner in a male public restroom. Likewise, even if you are not a vegetarian, a slaughterhouse wouldn’t be my first choice of venue, to eat my tuna sandwich. We are all familiar with tales of foreign travel and exotic foods. [translation = chocolate covered cockroaches anyone?]

Hence, for my son to be at the table, whilst other people eat other things, this translates into a momentous achievement. [translation = thus we unite to chant ‘remember, everybody likes different things,’ but next time I’ll pick a better tune, or maybe better words, or basically something less irritating during the following months of repetition]

This means, that even a simple lunch time sandwich may cause great difficulties for the person who finds that peanut butter is ‘poison.’ Strangely, my other son finds the smell, taste and sight of bananas very offensive too. This is a great nuisance, since bananas are one of his little brothers 17 foods.

The trouble with only eating 17 foods, is that each of those 17 items appears more frequently in a daily diet. If for example, you as an adult person, enjoyed caviar or oysters or smoked salmon, even if you could afford to eat such things, you probably wouldn’t eat them every day, or even every other day. None of them would be around to torture the other people in your household very often. Even if you threw caution to the wind and stuffed yourself on smoked salmon for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and squeezed in a morning and afternoon salmon snack too, at the end of the day, the packet would be empty. [translation = but your tummy would be full to capacity]

As an aside, maybe you could find 17 foods that you could exist on for the next year? Just you, no need to concern yourself with other people’s foibles. Imagine you’re on a desert island. [translation = with fresh daily shipments by helicopter] Each item must be a single item. [translation = no casseroles] Don’t cheat and combine one thing with another. [translation = spaghetti but no sauce, chicken but no breadcrumbs, or breadcrumbs and chicken separately, they’d be two items] Be careful of pies as the crust and the contents will be at least two items. Even a nice safe soup is likely be a cheat, and I know that you’ll put your croutons on the side, for later or dessert. Two of your 17 items must be beverages. E.g. milk and water. That gives you 15 things to choose. Now come along now, you’re an adult, so don’t forget to ensure that you have a well balanced nutritional diet. Let me know how you get on. 365 days and counting!

But as usual, I digress. Meanwhile………..



As always, my timing is flawless. [translation = 5:30 p.m.] The children are absorbed in the ‘electronics’ reward time, as I nip back in from the garden with the world’s most perfect tomato in my hot little hands for my lunch. [translation = home grown and still warm from the sunshine.] The air conditioning in the single family room, ensures that their air flow is pure. [translation = no chance of him detecting that a tomato has entered the house] My handy dandy egg slicer, means that my sandwich is ready in a trice. I skip to the dining room to eat my lunch. [translation = summer holidays may result in malnutrition for some.] I sit at the table, as a proper grown up should and admire the bouquet of flowers. [translation = not from an admirer but from a guilt ridden dentist]

After one mouthful, I realize that I’ve forgotten the chives. I dither. Eat now, whilst the going is good and skip the addition of perfection, or add the perfection and risk skipping the eating? I slip from my chair and move silently back into the kitchen. [translation = the stealth of the truly motivated] I return to the table with a handful of chives and a pair of scissors, but as I open the blades I hear a howl from the family room, following by speedy steps that stop at my side. He tiptoes in place with his fingers neatly pinching his nostrils closed, eyes shut, “dat is dah terrible, dat is dah awful, dat is dah stinkiest ever, ever, ever!” His eyes blink open and then snap shut again before he whizzes away to bellow over his shoulder, “But das o.k. coz everybody is liking dah different things!”

Well something is getting through!



Not ‘one sandwich’ but several items = tomato, mayonnaise, slice of bread, one egg, ignore salt and pepper, all equates to four food items. Just as well I skipped the chives.

Oral Defensiveness – once bitten, twice shy

This is one feature of my youngest son. On the whole, he refuses all ‘new’ foods. A few of years back, my older son, who is also autistic, had a play date with his chum, a typically developing twin. This fully verbal child had energy, enough to spark my child into action. There were few words between them as they spent the majority of their time wrestling. [translation = roughhousing.] These two five year olds ‘played,’ until snack time, when all four came to the table. At this time junior only "ate three things," but we seem to have been working on this forever.

Very occasionally, approximately once or twice a year, he would snatch food from someone else’s plate, stuff it in his mouth and then promptly spit it out again, with accompanying screams.

The friend immediately noticed that junior had a bowl of Goldfish, but not the fruit and chocolate chip cookie that everyone else had.
“How come he doesn’t get any?” he asked immediately.
“He dun like it,” offered his brother, as both boys have speech delays. His friend was not convinced, so I backed him up, “that’s right, he doesn’t like cookies, but he really hates chocolate chip ones.” His eyes narrowed in the knowledge that he had caught an adult in a lie.

The snack continued. The friend decided that there was a conspiracy afoot and so asked him directly, “do you want one?” Junior rarely responded to questions verbally or otherwise. On this occasion, his response was to shade his eyes like a visor and lower his head, so that the vision of the cookies would be obliterated. The friend asked again, louder this time. My son squashed his nose onto the table cloth so as to close his nostrils from the stench of the cookies. The friend glanced in my direction, a quick check to see if the coast was clear. I decided to let nature take it’s course.

“Here, just give it a try. Everyone likes cookies. These are the best. You’ll like them.” Junior squirmed in his chair, became more compact, smaller. “Come on. You’ll love em,” he persisted. Junior curled himself into a nut, the smallest hamster in the world, invisible. “Hey! What’s wrong with you? Eat it!” he commanded waving a cookie at junior’s posterior. He tried a new tactic. “I know, if you eat this cookie then I’ll give you a………” He faultered, perplexed. “Eat this cookie and then you can go and play.” It was a nice try, but was the wrong lure, indeed I was a little short on lures myself. I waited, fascinated. “Eat it now or you’ll go straight to bed without any……” I suppressed all nerve endings to ensure that my face remained neutral. Those tired old phrases each came out, one after another, all of them. They’re the words that parents have been saying since children were invented.

Junior unfurled just enough to allow his tentacle of a arm to reach up to the table for another handful of goldfish. The friend wrenched the bowl away, lay on the table and dangled his own arm like a fishing line, in front of junior’s nose. The cookie waved back and forth, “come on, you can do it, I know you can, just a little bit…..” junior snapped at the cookie and bit off a chunk. It was so fast that the fisherman flinched, sprang back and retracted his arm at the same second that junior exploded like a jumping jack, caterwauling at 50 decibels, hands frantically scraping cookie crumbs out his mouth before running to the faucet to wash the inside of his mouth. The friend watched mesmerized, as junior drowned and gurgled under the flow of water, ripped off all his clothes and hurtled away to hide.

The friend was a statue, eyes like saucers, his body rigid, at attention. He relaxed, lost his stupefied look to add, “he really doesn’t like cookies does he?”

I assumed it was rhetorical.

Early Days 6 - It’s all relative

[From way back when]
Junior son and I have arrived early at school to pick up his brother from his Special Education Day Class, now that he is in First Grade. We're early because it allows him to adjust to the 'new surroundings,' even though it's been a few weeks now. It helps to be first because then additional people arrive gradually. We need to avoid the deluge of a crowd. Another mother and her child are also waiting outside the same door. We join her on the bench and I smile. It’s reciprocated.

I make sure that junior is on the far side of the bench, as far away from her and her son as is physically possible. My son doesn’t look at the other mother, nor her child. He might notice if it was a baby, but toddlers are in the same category as dogs and cats, small creatures that are unpredictable and need to be avoided. He starts to count the holes in the bench; it is a matrix of blue circles. His nose is two inches away from the bench, the holes and his fingers. He can touch it because it is smooth, not hot nor cold, because of the shade on a sunny day. Our awareness of tactile defensiveness and sensory integration grows. I've learned to appreciate these things as we cope with complicated matters like temperature. He counts in a whisper but explodes with “Barnacles!’ when he realizes that he’ll need to start at the beginning again, because he’s not following a mapped path of holes.

The other mother’s son beams hugely at me with large smiling eyes, heavily lashed. He’s still in nappies [translation = diapers.] We mothers start to chat, as we have a good 15 minutes to wait. She tells me about her family, husband and two boys. She’s very open. I know now that her child is not in the class room behind us but in a different, mainstream class. She tells me what a trial the little one is, so energetic “you wouldn’t believe!” she sighs. I would.

Junior’s body starts to push against mine. I know that my bottom is covering the holes that he wants to count. He’s not going to ask me to move, he’s just going to shove my weight out of his path; his 45 lbs is going to move my adult bulk by will power alone. I tap him on the shoulder to get his attention. He keeps pushing, oblivious and absorbed. When I don’t budge, he eventually snaps "wot?” with a "tone of irritation." Many autistic children respond, if at all, inappropriately, or out of proportion. Eventually he glances up at my huge immovable form with annoyance, his face scowls. I catch his eyes but before I can speak he realizes that he’s lost count again “Fish paste!” he bellows hurling himself on the ground, beating it with his fists, kicking up the dust [ translation = dirt.] He wears long sleeves and long trousers in the baking 80 degree heat. He realizes that the bare flesh of his exposed hands, has come in contact with something that he would rather not have contact with. Immediately he is on his tippy toe feet, flapping his arms and rain dancing to shake off the debris. I make brushing gestures over him, being careful to avoid the head area. His head and shoulders are especially sensitive and strictly off limits. He slumps, crestfallen and chin fallen. His eyes fall on the bench and he flops on it to start counting again. This kind of persistence and determination, often form a mesmerizing form of "perseveration," which is calming.

The woman next to me smiles, kindly “he’s a funny little guy!” I pause and glance at her, trying to gauge if it’s worth it. It would seem that I will see her often.
“Actually he’s autistic.”
“What?”
“Autistic, he’s in a special education class, Pre-K. So is his brother, that’s who we’re waiting for, he’s in Mrs. K’s class.”
“He doesn’t look autistic?”
I don’t say anything. We both watch him counting holes; 203, 204,205. He will be five years old in a few months. Her son keeps interrupting, wanting her attention; Watch me! Watch me! Play with me! Play with me!


The loud haler starts crackling, warming up ready for the siren. I move swiftly to the other side of him ready to pounce. The end of the school day is announced. It is very loud, with lots of static. I check whether he is about to meltdown and cover his ears or whether he’s disengaged from the whole world, solely intent on his task. It could go either way, but I’m ready to grab him if he goes hurtling off ears covered, to run blindly towards the traffic; 237, 238, 239. What is the American sporting game where you have to catch the ball just in time? Ah yes! Cricket.

“Really?”
“Really.”
“You’d never know, would you?”

I would now.

That darned cat - Is it any wonder!

I rip off the Marigolds and ditch them in the sink so that I don't risk 'wetting' my son. I march into the family room to determine the cause of the irritating skritchy scratchy sound that it driving me barmey.

"What is wrong with that cat!" I scurge.
"Nuffink! He is not 'wrong' he is a good cat!" squeaks the superhero, defender of deviant felines.

"Actually," she says peering over the top of her book, "don't you remember that he's the one with attachment disorder and bonding issues?" My mouth drops open ever so slightly, probably due to weak jaw muscles after surgery. Is she really only nine?
"That's as maybe, but what is he doing? Why is he making all that racket?"
"He not make 'racket' he make scratching noises wiv his paw. A 'paw' is dah foot of an animal." Well thank you for that unrequested clarification to further distract me from the task at hand!

"Yes, dear, but what is his paw trying to do in that drawer?"
"I know I am being mean to him. I will open dah drawer for him in a minute, coz he is too little to open it by himself."
"What does he want that's in there dear?"
"He wants dah little reptile."
"What little reptile?"
"Dah frog." I wonder how he knows this?
"Why does he want the frog dear?"
"Becoz he likes all doz little creatures dat come from the treasure box at therapy." How does he know this?
"Why does he like them?"
"Coz dey are squidgey." Fair enough, not that I'm any the wiser.
"How does he know that they're in there?"
"Becoz of dah smell."
"What smell?"
"Dah smell of the squidgey toys." Sometimes I wonder what planet I am supposed to be existing on?
"I can't smell anything, what do they smell of?"
"Dey smell of squidgey toys." Somebody save me!
"Can you smell them?"
"Of course I can smell dem."
"I can't!" say the eyes over the top of the book.
"I can," says the one who isn't listening and playing with Pokemon in the next room.

Visual accuity and 'Jimmy know alls'

It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have called him at just that moment and then he wouldn’t have become entangled in the chair. I wasn’t paying attention to him, so as he walked towards the kitchen, my calling his name like that put him a step or two off course. He is unpeturbed by yet another set of multiple bruises and would be the last to cast blame in my direction. My arms encircle him at the kitchen counter as I check for damage, “what you are wanting anyways?” he asks, brushing off my ministrations. I am impressed that he is following through. So often when you ask either of them a question it doesn’t penetrate the first time, or the second time for that matter. If you start a conversation [translation = exchange] you need to be persistent to extract an answer. Rarely if ever, can I recall him prompting me to finish what I started. I blink and try to remember why I called him over in the first place? Ah yes!

“Look I wanted to show you this!” He looks at the three little plant pots.
“Dey are light Chartreuse or maybe dey are pale lime.” Indeed they are. His interest in assigning the correct colour definition to all facets of his life is a challenge for me. [translation = limited palette]
“Yes, but can you see what is growing in them?” He peers, he thinks, he speaks.
“I know! It is dat time of year again!”
“What time would that be dear?”
“It is dah time of year to grow sticks.”
“Pardon?” I am distracted by a bevy of birds squabbling over the bird feeder, but try and remain focused.
“Last year you grow sticks when I was a little guy. Now I am a bigger guy and it is time to grow sticks again.” Fancy him remembering that!
“That’s right. Now look closely, what can you see?”
“Er I see free lickle smokey black sticks.”
“Good. Anything else?” He peers and squints and squirms trying to come up with an acceptable response.
“Maybe you are giving me a clue?” Great problem solving!
“Can you see a little green shoot perhaps?” He looks from me to the pot and then back to me again to tell me solemnly, “I can see dah little aubergine shoots wiv dah forest green bumpy little leaves.” [Tranlsation = eggplant or purple]
I resist the urge to grasp his skull to my bosom, “you are absolutely right, what great eyes you have.”
“Now I can go?”
“Er sure. Where are you off to?”
“I need my electronics, er dah cable for dah power.”
I open the cupboard door and peer at the jumble of cables searching for one particular adapter in a sea of entangled wires, “Sorry dear, it’s not in here.”
“It is, it is dere, look!” I look. I see a big messy mess, “nope, I think we must have left it in the other room.”
He sighs with one hand on his jaunty hip, shakes his head from side to side, amateur dramatics in action, “ okay, okay, okay, I do it by myself.” With that he clambours up on the counter and retrieves one cable of the many, deftly.

Air freshener fails to alleviate the stench

Strangely I have always considered senior daughter to be our family environmentalist. As we live in the States, she is there to remind us where we are going wrong. Her views are pretty mainstream as far as Europeans are concerned but extreme for our American cousins. For example, rather than use the car to go and collect the turkey for the holiday festivities, she cycled. She returned on her bike with the fowl in her back pack after a two and a half hour round trip.

I will avoid mention of her views on toilets, since I need to avoid scatological references as I am a Brit. I had not considered that there was a possibility that somebody else might climb on the band wagon, to ceremoniously beat our conscious and sub-conscious selves. It is therefore with some surprise that I engage my youngest son in conversation. I enquire why he is pinching his nostrils shut?

“Because of the badest smell!” he screams, keeping his distance. I struggle to gain a purchase on his person and park him on my lap to extract further details. He writhes and wriggles making retching noises. Loud ones.
“What is the badest smell dear?”
“It is you! You are the badest smell. You are worster than peanuts!”
My! That bad!
“You don’t think I smell very nice?”
“NO!” I didn’t really need clarification there, more a moment to gather my wits.
“What can we do about that problem?” He pauses to gaze at the ceiling awaiting inspiration.
“I know! You can be living somewhere else?”
“Where would you suggest?”
“In dah garden. You can be living in dah garden in a tent.”
“But I hate camping!”
“You won’t be ‘dah camping,’ you will be dah living dere.”
So much logic! I need to re-configure my brain.
“But I don’t want to live in a tent in the garden. I will be lonely. Won’t you be lonely without me?”
What a stupid question. Any first year lawyer knows that you should never ask a question that you cannot predict the answer to.
“You will be lonely but I will be stinky free.”
I am somewhat flummoxed, not for the first time. Spouse sticks his head around the door to clarify:
“it’s the Marmite! You didn’t clean your teeth and gargle with mouthwash before you breathed on him.”



It would appear that the health and well being of a fellow human being, is less important than a pollutant free environment. [Ref 1]

[Ref 1] ecocentrism

after ECOCENTRIC adj.
The view or belief that environmental concerns should take precedence over the needs and rights of human beings considered in isolation.

Bio-feedback

Many moons ago my child, when I was just a wee young thing….I would sign my name in the book as I arrived at work at the bank, where I was am employee, every working day. On one strange day, I was called into the under manager’s office. [translation = always a bad sign] He displayed the ‘sign in book’ because this was in the days before the ‘clock in’ machine. [translation = or possibly something more to do with snobbery, the ‘trade’ v. ‘profession’ debate.]



“Well McEwen!” he said in a fatherly tone. “What do you have to say about this?” He riffled the pages and pointed to my signatures. Week upon week, there is was, my own personal scribble. I sought clues. None were forthcoming.

He prompted, “don’t you see?”
“Er, I’m not on time every day?’ I squeaked.
He snapped the volume closed and sighed,
“what is it about Wednesdays?”
“I don’t know? What is it about Wednesdays?”
“Every Wednesday you have a squiggle.”
“A squiggle?”
“This is not your signature, just a squiggle.
Every Wednesday for nearly a year. What is it about Wednesdays?” [translation = what exactly preceded the observed event? N.B. See how much I have advanced since those days of youth?]
I didn’t know then, I don’t know now. I suspect it’s something to do with circadian rhythms or some other phsychobabbledom.



Today nearly thirty years later I am struck by a curious thought. That bank manager was a Brit, three decades ago? What kind of a bank manager was he? A rare breed. Someone sufficiently in tune with his employees, to even notice such a detail in the first place.





I notice traffic on the web.
Alerts are quiet.
What do you do on a Wednesday?
Mid week.
Not the ‘get into gear Monday’ nor the ‘wind down Friday.’
Think about it? What is it about Wednesday? I can see the evidence of my own eyes. What did you do today? How did you feel? What makes Wednesday different from Tuesday or Thursday? Is Wednesday the forgotten day? Is your battery flat?
Is it in limbo?
Why?
Don’t ask me.
I have no answers. Only questions.

Early onset

[translation = here sooner than anticipated {sub translation = senility, that is to say}]

Oooo enough of this ‘hidden disease’ malarkey. Far too tiresome, and certainly anything but hidden. It’s all to obvious around here I’m afraid. There might be many reasonable and logical explanations for what you might observe in the confines of this, our home, but the most obvious cause is autism.

How do I mean? Well, lets start with a small example and we can compare notes. Sounds like a plan? Good.

Here are the basic ingredients. [translation = add or subtract as you deem fit. {sub translation = minus}] Take one child or the smallish variety, ideally male. [translation = lower incidence ‘female.’] Sprinkle the following substances over the said child and observe reaction. [translation = for some subjects it is best to avoid the ‘head and shoulders’ area with there is a higher incidence of receptors]


Take and eye dropper. [translation = haven’t the foggiest, please supply at your earliest convenience] Fill with blood temperature water. Drop one droplet on subject. [translation = insert earplugs prior to commencement]





Take talculm powder and drift one siftlet over the child at a height of approximately 5 feet above head. [translation = a step ladder may prove useful for this portion of the programme.]



Thirdly, expose child to the sound of the fire alarm sensor. [translation = the soft beeping noise that the contraption emits when the batteries are low] Ensure that the device is the greatest distance possible from the said child. Do not be alarmed that you are unable to really hear the same noise yourself, until you are standing 3 feet beneath the dratted machine.


Fourthly, take your favourite foodstuff. [translation = any one will do, just as long as it is universally agreed by mankind, that it is delicious] Ask subject to a] look at food. B] smell food. C] touch food [translation = not necessarily with finger, due to tactile defensiveness] D] lick food. E] taste or eat food. Let me know if you get past A].



Lastly, try and cuddle subject when he’s not expecting it. [translation = bandages are in the bathroom]

Advanced programme. [translation = program {N.B. not for the faint hearted.}] Repeat as above, but this time use yourself as the subject. Observe the enhanced agony of your child, as you expose yourself to the same elements. [translation = cannot put oneself in another’s shoes {sub translation - rats to the theory of mind}] [See Ref 1] If the observer of the subject reacts as follows:

“No, no, no. Doe not do dat! Agh! Agh! Agh! You will be hurted! No! No! No! I will hep you!” then you may gain some small reassurance that the theory [as set out below] is not always the case. [translation = in all situations] It is sad, as always, to observe the callous attitude of the mother. [translation = prima gravida]

Have I convinced you?

Oh! You think it’s more ‘sensory integration issues and a bit of speech delay’ huh! Or maybe you adhere to the theory that he's a wimpy little nerd who needs to 'shape up?' A valid observation as always on your part. Luckily we’re all entitled to our biased opinion. [translation = especially me]



A child with too many nerve endings? [translation = maybe just a bad wiring job]

{sub translation = whoop de doo!
/jolly good show Mr. Eye Contact}







[Ref 1] The Theory of mind from Wikepedia [thank you] According to Simon Baron-Cohen et al,[7] [ translation = I love him and all his pals really] many autistic children appear to lack a "theory of mind," which is the ability to see things from another person's perspective. This is a behavior cited as being exclusive to human beings above the age of five and possibly, to a lesser degree, to other higher primates such as adult gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.[citation needed] Typical 5-year-olds can usually develop insights into other people's knowledge, feelings, and intentions based on social cues (e.g., gestures and facial expressions). An autistic individual may lack these interpretation skills, leaving them unable to predict or understand other people's actions or intentions. [translation = a load of old codswallop {Sub translation = rhubarb}]

Disgusted of Tumbridge Wells [translation = pissed in San Jose]

Oh dear me no! Well this is frightfully irritating. I don’t like this one at all. I’ll swap this for the old one. [translation = trade] This is not an obsession that I’m happy with at all, as it’s so impractical, not to say intolerable. [translation = for both of us] Can’t he have a practical obsession for a change? Who needs to wash their mouth before they eat or drink? [translation = the inside of it, the oral cavity itself] It’s not as if we don’t already have enough problems with eating and drinking. [translation = challenges] What’s this all about then? Where did this one spring from? Why didn’t I nip it in the bud? [translation = anticipate and ward off] Why isn’t water of just the right temperature more freely available? [translation = tepid] Why isn’t there a water fountain at just the right height at 50 yard intervals in America? [translation = not metres in this instance] What a dreadful country? [Note to self = contact City Planning department with helpful suggestion. N.B. remember to be polite not obsequious]



Why aren’t their taps in every room of the house? [translation = faucets] What idiot architect do I need to track down and pummel? [translation = berate] Why don’t I have sufficient supplies of flannels [translation – wash cloths] for this exercise? Why are so many of them faulty? [translation = sub standard with little strings and threadbare bits] Why is the laundry maid so negligent? [Note to self = research American term for ‘Water Board’?] Why isn’t the sink the right height for him to reach in an emergency washing session? The poor child will have knees like aubergines at this rate. [translation = eggplants] Why can’t I see this supposed ‘fur’ in his mouth? Why don’t I have x-ray vision instead of bifocals? Why am I so badly designed?

There again, although the meltdowns are all level 10 in volume, he’s not static. [translation = horizontal] He is proactive. [translation = trying to fix the problem himself] The flannels have a handy way of muffling the noise a bit. At least I have over 50 flannels already, which I should be able to recycle, if I get my act together. [translation = fire the laundry maid] The flannel and water, help to desensitize his mouth, which makes eating easier for him, when he eventually gets around to that evolution. [translation = starvation is imminent] It’s a positive step in the direction of oral hygiene, which is especially beneficial for someone with a smattering of British genes.

He has to use his hands. He has to use both of his hands. His hands have to co-operate with each other. They have to get wet. Dribbles sometimes run down his arms, almost reaching his body. I wouldn’t go as far as to say he’s tolerating it, but he’s getting there, and at current rates of speed and frequency, he’s going to get there jolly fast. [translation = quickly]


His hands have to use the taps, manipulate them to get the water in advance of receiving the reward. [translation = relief] That’s a challenge for someone with poor fine motor skills and planning. [translation = dodgy fingers and difficulty with seeing ahead] That involves waiting, [translation = delayed gratification] a condition that many struggle with.



Note close proximity of delicate digits to averse texture!
Thank goodness for gravity.

I suspect another bravery award is in the offing? [translation = appropriate]