Dearly departed - a new perspective

The search for Jasper the cat was fruitless. A kindly neighbour collared me to tell me on the quiet, that he’d been found on the side of the road, probably poisoned and that he had disposed of his little body discretely so save heartache. At the time, I was grateful for a number of different reasons. I was grateful for my neighbour’s consideration and kindliness, as he was well aware of the special bond between the two. I was also grateful because it meant that I didn’t have to risk stoking up junior’s obsession with death and dying.

Nine months prior I had been at the park with the three of them, the same park that we always went to. ‘Lone Hill Park’ was a safely remodeled park and close at hand. It was for little children with a big football field for junior daughter to go mad in. I was also a dog park, which fed into another preference. It was situated in a cul de sac which minimized traffic dangers. It had shade in the summer and open sunny spaces in the winter. It had a toilet stuck right in the middle and drinking fountains. It lay in a hollow which meant that if you wanted to escape to you had to negotiate an incline or steps, neither of which was an easy option for the boys. All of these features made it as near as ideal as we could achieve. As a result we went there nearly every day for several years, as familiar territory was the only safe way to go.

That day I was puttering about between the three of them, all independently going about their business. One with a football in the field, one hiding in the shade under the structure sorting pieces of tannen bark and the other lopping around distractedly on the play structure above. They generally gravitated to the same occupations until ‘forced’ to do otherwise.

I watched him fall. It was in slow motion of course, arcing through the air, loose soft limbs in the shape of a crescent moon. My body moved in tandem to where he landed on his head and crumpled into a heap. Initially he didn’t move or speak. No screams. Silence. Suddenly he sat up as if a spring had snapped and vomited violently. Tears sprang from his eyes, but no sound. I scooped him up and ran up the steps to the car. Once I had him strapped in, I returned for the others, junior under one arm pit and a tight grasp on the one without the football, both of them were screaming. As we drove to the hospital he vomited repeatedly.
At the hospital I abandoned the car and lurched into the ER with one, another attached and the third keeping up the pace in between gulping tears. He vomited on the Triage nurse and we were whisked away.

As they took him for an MRI, the nurse put her hand on my arm to say, “I’m sorry, but you’d better brace yourself.”

To cut a long story short and skip the drama, when they returned he was fine.

I learned a great deal from that experience. Whilst he was on the gurney the other two were ‘loose’ in the room. His sister sniveled and wept quietly. Junior found a swivel chair and hurtled about on it oblivious to everyone and everything, singing, singing loudly. A different nurse asked him to be quiet because there were ‘very sick people here.’ He bit her and then repeated her sentence for the next 30 minutes. He took his clothes of every few minutes and we lost his shoes during the episode.

I had always been worried that their preference for being naked would make them vulnerable to……..well vulnerable. When the doctor and nurse tried to remove his clothing, even though he had no speech whatsoever, he physically fought them off, clung to his clothes and flailed about, an instinct that I didn’t know he had.
Today, although he claims no recall of the incident, he refuses point blank to go to ‘Lone Hill Park’ even though until that time he had never given any indication of having known it’s name; “I go to park but not Lone Hill Park!”

48 hours later, junior’s phobia about death and dying was full blown and has been a recurring nightmare for us all ever since, even though at that time neither boy gave any indication of being aware that they even had a brother.

At that time, the boys had not had their diagnoses very long, the subject was raw. My level of knowledge about autism was growing rapidly but I had only told close family and friends. The first thing I said out loud to the treating physician was “he is autistic, he has a speech delay so talk to him like he’s two and a half.” I still don’t know what he was trying to communicate to me as he looked into my eyes and laid a hand on my son’s forehead, but I exactly recall the visceral instincts that coursed through my veins, pumped through my brain and made my heart turn to lead.

When spouse arrived breathless, it was all over. He talked to doctors, signed bits of paper and found cards as we assembled ourselves to go home. The nurse removed sticky pads from his head and body. She passed me his clothes, taking them out of a plastic hospital bag and said “you know I’ve been a nurse for nearly 17 years……..I’ve never seen anything like that……….I was quite sure……….”

It was the first time in five months that his label was irrelevant and meaningless.

Communication skills

It is just as I hear the garage door close with spouse’s departure that I realize that I am in a pickle. My son, even in the morning is technically non verbal. After jaw surgery, I am effectively non verbal also. The cleaners are coming. Senior son is home with me as his asthma is too severe to go to school. I debate how to explain this to the cleaners, that there will be two bodies skulling around the place getting in their way? I have no-one to interpret for me. I consider waving my wipe board at them, but my Spanish speaking is of ‘Dora the Explorer’ standard and I certainly couldn’t write anything in Spanish. I mutter mentally, moaning and complaining, what am I going to do? I have 45 minutes to come up with a plan.

I don’t know how much spouse explained about my condition to them during the previous fortnight? [translation = two weeks of recouperation] I run a finger tip check over my mouth and count the pins and needles per square centimeter; no chance. We snuggle on the sofa whilst my sluggish brain begins to plot. I start scheduling with my son. I write a list of our days ‘events’ to pre-empt repeated questions along the lines of ‘what we do next?’ at 35 second intervals throughout the day. I am lazy and befuddled. I write rather than be imaginative and use icons.

At three he could read. Somewhere between that time and now, when he is seven and a half, he has mislaid that skill. Therefore, this is not my hyperlexic one, this is my ‘I never read anything under any circumstances unless you put hot coals to the soles of my feet’ one. I tap the board to save speaking and catch his attention. He reads aloud. He reads aloud perfectly. His eyes flick between my eyes and the board. I write another sentence and we repeat the exercise inbetween his coughs and my dribbles. We appear to be in agreement. I know this, not because he verbally agrees, but because we both put our hands in a thumbs up gesture and make eye contact. He reads additional sentences and we make the same gestures; four points of acquiescence.

I cannot fathom if this really is a complex social situation or whether I am making mountains out of molehills?

When the door bell rings he scampers out to the hall where Maria and her team appear with copious cleaning equipment. I am a few steps behind. As I approach, I hear my son talk to her on his own volition: “I am ill, so I am home. Mum is ill. Er, mum is more iller dan me. We are bowf home together but we will be good.” Maria blinks. She has known my son since he was 18 months old. I doubt if she has ever been honoured with as many words in as many years. My puff ball face smiles at her. She shakes her head slowly and runs a hand over his silky hair.

Harsh Reality

Many of the difficulties that parents experience with their autistic children is the vast disparity between different skills in different situations. This, in some situations, is referred to as an inability to generalize skills, which means that if they learn a particular skill in a particular place, often they are unable to use that skill at different times and places. The skill is encapsulated within a discrete area which can be difficult to expand. I whip him of his cat and explain that his head is as heavy as a medicine ball, which will surely crush the middle of the cat into a pancake. His understanding is immediate. He is flustered, uncertain whether to make amends with his pet cat or with me, for his inadvertent error. I scoop them both up and collapse on the sofa together for a group cuddle. I stroke the cat and my son in exactly the same manner. He mimics his cat, they both purr with contentment. Whilst we sit I recall a couple of years ago when his first original cat went missing. Jasper the cat, was lost and I suspected that he had come to untimely end. I decided to prepare my son for the loss by actively addressing the matter. We made posters and pinned them up in the neighbourhood. When the weekend came Spouse took care of the other two whilst we went round house to house to make enquiries. We had the script and had been practicing. He held a photo of his cat. We would approach each house, ring the bell, wait for the owner, ask ‘have you seen my cat,’ hold out photo for viewing, wait for a response and then depart having given thanks. It is a variation on our ‘trick or treating’ skills which we also needed to break down into steps and practice.

We started with the real locals, the people who know us, the people with patience, kindness and understanding. We went further afield, but still no more than 50 yards away from our own front doorstep. He was motivated because he understood the logic of this method of cat finding and he really wanted to find his ‘lost’ cat. He had been pump primed for years with ‘try, try, try again,’ and ‘use your eyes, keep looking.’

We would amble up each driveway with his usual gait. At that time, is was his gait that immediately gave the game away that something was different. The simplest description I can come up with, is that of a badly strung marionette with an apprentice puppetier holding the controls. He moved in slow motion to the front door by a circuitous route. I would prompt him to find the bell and remind him to press it. When someone arrived I would squeeze his shoulder to induce speech. Technically he was standing, but his body moved as if his skin were infested with ants but he could only respond in slow and perpetual motion. His body was not orientated towards the homeowner, nor was his face. Eye contact was out of the question. Eventually the ‘exchange’ would be over and we would leave to go to the next house. I walked close to him as he stumbled in the general direction of the road, oblivious to traffic and the next step in the sequence of the task that we were trying to accomplish. It was a time consuming exercise. In all I think we managed a dozen houses.

During that time, every so often we would come across a dog or a cat. He’s not keen on dogs. Each ‘pet’ we bumped into evoked the same response. He would skip up to the creature with alacrity, almost agile, squat down and start chatting face to face, “Hi, you live around here? I’m looking for Jasper he’s my cat, here’s a photograph of him, here, take a look, ain’t he cute, have you seen him at all?” He would whitter away having an animated one way conversation, body orientated, face and eyes locked on to his target.

It was so extraordinary to witness that even now I don’t think I can do it justice, he behaved like two different and completely unrelated children, the contrast could not have been more stark. It was watching the switch between the two; the discombobulated, inarticulate, disinterested child talking to the homeowner and then the gregarious, talkative, energetic whiz to the pets that was mesmerizing, back and forth, off and on, over and over again.

I think is why all parents need to continue to try different experiences, as you never know what may be lurking just around the next bend.

Leaking

I sit at the dining room table with my children as they eat their snacks. My prompts are limited as my words are indistinct after jaw surgery. I try to glug my next bottle of Ensure, the most vile liquid substance on the planet. The crunch of munching crackers makes me slightly jealous, the salt crystals glitter in the weak Californian sunshine. Only five more bottles to go before bedtime. Three pairs of eyes long to share the sickly sweet drink.

“Eeow Mom, yur dribblin!” she squeals. Junior scrambles from the table and rushes into the kitchen. He slams a few kitchen drawers before returning with a floor cloth. He hesitates, falters, recovers and dabs ineffectually at my chin, “dehr you go mom, all better now!”

Rats to the theory of mind.

Progress

I determine to be productive after "jaw surgery" and set off into the garden to pull up weeds and remove dead leaves. As my knees bend and I hunker down I whiz through a decompression chamber such that my nose explodes with the shock of being 3 foot lower than usual. I drop the three soggy leaves that I’d selected and head back inside the house to clear up the blood from yet another spontaneous nosebleed.

It’s like a conspiracy of sloth has overtaken me. I move rapidly along to plan B.
If I cannot be physically active then instead I’ll just let my fingers do the walking and phone the gardening company to come and clear up the mess, damn the cost. I have just finished dialing when I remember that I cannot speak out loud, or at least not so that anyone can understand what I’m saying. Damn – it is a conspiracy.









I am so heartily sick of being ill and idle. I try and remember the things that I used to do before, before……..the children? When I wasn’t working my hands were always occupied. I sat down more. Hobbies of the past, or pastimes such as knitting stopped with the last baby blanket. It would appear that every waking moment was filled with children’s needs. Once those needs became more complicated, my time disappeared and reformulated itself into extracting words and teaching basic skills. The frantic pace with the mantra ‘early intervention’ ran through my brain at all times. Every second had to be used constructively. I was all over them like a rash, relentless and frenzied. We had started late, we had so much to catch up on. It was a relentless treadmill of our own making.


I also realize that whilst I didn’t have surgery three years ago, two years ago or last year, this year, now, it has been possible, that although we still all have a great deal of growing to do, I can stop obsessing on the trees and admire the forest.[Thanks Kristina]

Wife Beating and recouperation

It is a common phenomenon with autistic children that they often miss very obvious visual clues. It is also true, that many of them have such finely honed visual acuity that minute discrepancies loom large for them. It is the fact that these statements can both be true at the same time, that can be so disconcerting to a parent.

Spouse returns from work to find me and the children in a heap on the sofa with the saintly baby sitter hard at domestic duties in the kitchen. I have one child under each arm and the third sprawled across my lap. One picks as the loose threads on my elderly shirt, the other runs his finger nail along the very finely knitted ribbing. Because the sleeve is tapered from shoulder to wrist this means that there is a herringbone effect at the seam. It is uneven and the cause of considerable angst to junior. It should be even and uniform, such irregularity is the source of a great deal of irritation.

“So you’re much more perky today!” he says in a surprised tone of voice.
“Indeed I am! Went out and bought a few groceries.”
“Really! So you drove the car?” Junior perks up at the mention of ‘car,’ to add his two pennarth, “Mommy is betterer if she is driving!” He grins at me conspiratorially, rewarding me with perfect eye contact.
“Drug free honest!” I add to dispel any niggling concerns of his regarding negating our insurance coverage due to consumer error. Senior chips in. It’s almost like a family discussion, “mom, in not in bed. Mom is downstairs playing wiv us…..er, well…..not playing, she is…….she is sitting wiv us.” He head snaps back and forth between his father and me, checking that he has correctly described the situation, which he has!

“But your nose is still numb.”
“Yes, how did you know that?” I prod the end to see if any feeling is likely to return within the next 24 hour period. I assume that the pins and needles sensation is a positive one.
“Did you get any funny looks?”
“Don’t think so, only when I tried to speak to the check out woman.” I am aware that I still sound as if I have a mouth full of marbles after the jaw surgery.
“Have you looked in a mirror today perchance?”
“No thank you!” Perish the thought! My face isn’t as swollen or discoloured as it was a couple of weeks ago, but I don’t feel the need to check. The horizontal one, lying on my lap continues to read her book, oblivious to the ‘family’ conversation going on around her, but what else can you expect from your typical kids?
He reaches for a damp cloth and starts to dab gently at the blob of gristle that used to function as a nose, “you need to remember to check in a mirror or you’ll terrify the locals. How come none of you told mum that she had another nosebleed?”

Moral - you can think that you're "normal" but who really is?

School report

Communication with the school about daily events is a pivotal point of contact between both parties on the front line. Junior’s school report is not a happy one. It is a recurring theme, spitting at school. Bad habit or perseverating? He spits at home too but we are here to deal with these incidents. When he is at school we are virtually powerless. It is sad to note, that of all the many skills that we would love him to generalize, [translation = be able to repeat in different geographical locations and times] spitting isn’t one of them. We have used a variety of tactics to curb this habit, thus far they have all failed.

There is a veritable panoply of tools available to the parent of the autistic child and whatever current crisis that you are currently experiencing.

We started with the most obvious first step, namely the basic threat – ‘stop spitting or we’ll whip your gizzard out.’ [note to self – research location and function of ‘gizzard’] We moved swiftly onto step two –‘it’s duct tape for you matey!’ [translation = an option limited to fellow Americans] We then trolled through our usual options, the social stories, [translation = "Carol Gray’s site"] the sticker motivational option, the negative count. [translation = count the number of times that you didn’t do it, when you wanted to do it, and compare with the number of times that you couldn’t resist, then gradually tip the balance in favour of the later] This method is useful for the child that loves to count. I suspect that they enjoy it purely for the counting exercise, but that is immaterial if it brings positive results. Then the logical ‘germ’ talk, which often works well with the OCD kind of a kid, but to be used with cautious due to backlash of temporarily tamped down neurosis. The superclean child who is learning to be less so, is likely to react negatively to such a suggestion. This may result in all the reduced OCD habits re-emerging like a plague. It is a brave parent indeed, who will risk fiddling around with the status quo of the OCD.


We occasionally try out more conventional measures such as the ‘big boy’ appeal or ‘make me proud’ guilt trip, just in case something might have changed and we failed to notice the development. On the whole the last two are a waste of breath since no-one has any desire to grow older, nor be regarded as older, and ‘maturity’ is not rated as a strength. This is to say nothing at all about the unlikely or remote desire, to engender pride in anyone or anything. It always amazes me that these two most powerful tools in the average parents’ arsenal of tools, are actually the most worthless ones for the parent of an autistic child. But we haven’t forgotten their existence and we throw them into the mix every so often just to check the status quo. I fear, that should someone ever unexpectedly respond to either of these two appeals in the future, that I might suffer an attack of the vapours if not properly mentally prepared in advance.

In summary, the ‘spitting’ issue is a recurring one that we have yet to deal with successfully by any of the above means, as well as a whole host of others that I haven’t mentioned, due to time and space constraints, as well as the boredom factor. In the meantime, I think.









I prepare myself mentally and take him to one side so that we may both ‘clean our teeth.’ It’s a slow business for me, as access to my mouth is minimal after jaw surgery. I use a lot of face cloths to clean myself up before we retire to my bed, where my wipe board waits. I write, he reads.
“I SAW YOUR SCHOOL REPORT.”
“I had a bad day today.”
“I WISH I COULD SPIT LIKE YOU.”
“You cant spit.”

“NO.”
“Why you cant spit?”
“AFTER THE SURGERY MY MOUTH DOESN’T WORK PROPERLY.”
I pull an exaggerated sad face. His finger tips brush my lips.
“I can see? Open dah mowf please?”
I oblige revealing braces, lumps of plastic and enough elastic bands to play cats cradle to professional Olympic standards.
“I HAVE A DEAL!”
“What deal?”
“HOWABOUT YOU CAN SPIT AGAIN WHEN MY MOUTH IS BETTER AND I CAN SPIT AGAIN TOO? CAN YOU WAIT UNTIL WE CAN SPIT TOGETHER?”
“You want to spit with me?”
“SURE I’D LOVE TO SPIT WITH YOU.”
“You are the sad one?”
“I AM A LITTLE BIT SAD BECAUSE MY MOUTH IS ALL WONKY.”
“I fink maybe I can wait a bit. You are better tomorrow?”
‘I GET BETTER EVERY DAY BUT IT MIGHT BE A LONG TIME UNTIL I CAN SPIT LIKE YOU DO.”
“How long is dah long time?”
“I DON’T KNOW. TELL YOU WHAT, WHEN MY MOUTH IS BETTER WE CAN SUCK UP CHOCOLATE PUDDING WITH STRAWS TOGETHER AND THEN BLOW IT OUT.” [translation = an exercise recommended to help with lip closure and breath control!]
“You cant blow evver.”
“I KNOW. CAN YOU WAIT UNTIL WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER.”
“May be……….but I will not be blowing dah chocolate pudding out because I am liking to be eating it. You can blow it out though, coz I know that you are hating dah chocolate pudding.”

The 'Theory of mind' dies again. Horray!

Green Grass

“Now if I were, rich and famous, then really my troubles would be over!”
“You think?”
“Yup, I’d never have to make a bed again!”
“Excuse me! I seem to remember sayin that yah don make beds. Anyways you have those duvet things, that’s more of a shake and a shimmy, no hospital corners there.”
“Minor details.”
“Anyways, how a yer kids gonna learn to make a bed if there’s someone else there to do it? You’re still gonna have to teach em?”
“True. But at least there would be someone to clean up al the spills and mess!”
“I thought you wuz tryin to teach them how to do that too.”
“I am, but they’re not very good at it yet.”
“Don you think it’s gonna undermine their efforts if someone comes along and cleans up after they’ve tried their best?”
“Maybe. But it would still be nice to have someone pick up the children from school, a chauffeur! Someone else to man-handle them into the vehicle and get danger money!”
“How would you find out how their school day had been if you couldn’t talk to the teachershttp://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
face to face, see the other kids, their friends, the other parents, how would you keep your finger on the pulse?”
“Do you have something against being rich and famous or something? Still it would be nice to have someone do the garden, that would save a lot of time.”
“I thought that was your therapy time! You’ll be as mad as a brush without your down time.”
“Very well, just someone to do the shopping then!” A good one, for someone "allergic to shopping."
“There are other ways of learnin the value of money but it sure is good exposure for them and they’re gettin better at it all the time with all that practice.”
“Someone to wash up?”
“Ain’t that dishwasher workin? The cleaners already come to give the whole place the once over weekly, how much more do you want?”
“So basically you’re saying that I can’t be rich and famous because there will be too many learning opportunities wiped out by having all these helpful people around?”
“Your choice hon. I’m sure you’d get someone to do it all, but if you did, think what you’d be missin!”

Stickers be damned

I would like to point out that this isn’t a religious statement more a declaration of independence. Quite frankly, far too much independence, but that just goes with the territory. The world of mothers are busy motivating their kiddie winkies with tokens, stickers, prizes and hard cash, but not around here. I’ll have you know that I have more stickers than is healthy for a woman of my advancing years. Their variety is exhaustive but it never quite hits the mark.

The motivation key has always been a bit cloudy for me. I couldn’t imagine myself as a child being persuaded to do, or not do something for that matter, with the bribe of a ‘sticker,’ but it may be just because ‘stickers’ hadn’t been invented in those dark old days. But I digress.


What is the issue here? Motivation! Don’t we just love it, but what exactly is it and where do we find it? I can tell you one thing with confidence, it doesn’t have anything to do with stickers as far as my autistic sons are concerned.
The magic of stickers has long been a mystery to me, but I’ll try anything once, and then six months later, and six months later and so on.

Now we did have a couple of obstacles in our way as far as the sticker debacle was concerned. The first of these was that the average sticker is made of paper. [translation = the substance from hell for the tactilely defensive one] For senior son, the issue is more complicated, in that in order to peel off the sticker successfully from it’s backing you need a good finger grip in the fine motor skills department, which until fairly recently, eluded him completely. There are additional issues for my two. It’s can’t just be any old sticker, it must be a carefully chosen unique choice to most closely match the current obsession. Failure to observe this basic criterion will result in certain failure. Heaven forgive the woman who buys 20 variety sheets of Thomas the Tank engine stickers only to be able to use the one “James” sticker per sheet. Just shoot her now and put her out of her financial weak willed misery. Someone needs to protect her from herself.

I mean, you think she would have learned over the years that this is never going to work, to say nothing of the heebie geebie meltdown that ensues when one of the precious stickers is torn.

I’m afraid that my sympathies are with the children in question;
“Yes mom? You want me to do what? Eat something I hate and in return you will give me a vile paper sticker that I need to peel off myself with my own inky dinky little fingers and then place on another piece of disgustingly textured paper, which incidentally is a very poor colour choice? Right! What exactly is the purpose of this exercise again? Remind me of whatever inherent logic you’re attempting to achieve? You think this is helping? You are so out of your tree! Who is it supposed to be assisting and how? Go away lady, back to the drawing board, you are just so out of line, I can’t begin to even explain it to you.”

I think he covered the salient issues.


























Our only ever single, individualised, successful, nearly 'sticker' campaign!

check tags [test]

echolalia, perseverance, motivation, speech delay, tactile defensiveness, oral defensiveness, ocd, pivotal, autism, autistic, pdd nos, spectrum disorder

What I am?

I appear on the scene with my limited powers of speech and a wipe board as back, up in case I get out of my depth. A heated debate has ensued, but no umpire is near to hand. Actually there are a couple of umpires handy but both of them are busy with 101 domestic responsibilities.

“I am a vegetarian because I don eat meat!” he squalks at his sister with venom.
“Tell him mom, tell him he’s a big fat liar. Tell him that to be a vegetarian you need to eat vegetables.”
“Yuk, I am hating dah vegetables. What I am then?” I try and write sweet potatoes and fries on my board as evidence to the contrary but my hand writing is too squiggly, they’re already several sentences and topics ahead of me and no-one will look at the board anyway.
“I don’t know what you are? What is he mom?” Senior son comes to my rescue as I start to scribble on my wipe board.
“Hey mom, I know. He is an omnivore coz he is eating dah meat but he is not eating dah vegetables.” The last word has four very distinct syllables when spoken in this deliberate tone. He beams at me with the satisfaction of knowing that answering before anything has been written on the board, absolves him from a duty to read anything. His diction is so pronounced and evuncular, his eyes are so large and his face so close to mine. I have a strange vision of Mr. Bean and an ulterior motive. Junior protests, “dat is stoopid, I am not eating dah ‘oms’ either. What is an ‘om’ anyways?”
“It’s from the Latin! ‘stoopid yourself’!” I wonder if it is from the Latin? It sound’s convincing to me, but my brain capacity is incapacitated and I'm easily swayed if someone sounds like they ought to know what they're talking about.
“Maybe he is a herbivore,” his brother offers with exaggerated helpfulness and three crisp syllables, whilst his hand rests on mine, that rests on the wipe board that is holding the pen. He beams at me, guileless and engaging. I could swear he fluttered his eye lids at me! I wipe my board trying to get three sentences ahead, or two questions ahead, or simply ahead. I resist the temptation to tell him that he is in fact a neophobe, as not only is that not terribly helpful, it will only further confuse the issue between omnivores, herbivores and carnivores.
Spouse and the spare umpire arrive at my side and remove the wipe board, “Mum needs a rest now, but I know one thing that you all are!”



Three little faces turn towards him with anticipation,
everyone’s eyes drift towards his mouth and wait,
little sparks emit from junior’s fingertips……
”you’re all choccivores,” he announces with a flourish
and a bowl of chocolate mousse.


He should come home more often.

Found in translation

As a mum and housewife, I go about my daily tasks, tedious, repetitive and tiresome. I can think of no rational reason why a child should observe his mother during this period of time but he does. He is draped across the kitchen counter, his eyes follow me. Now, would be the perfect time for a casual mother son conversation, but I shun this opportunity. If I talk to him I am likely to break the spell and provoke a meltdown. I turn my attention to the cats and chat to them, the way you do. He sidles up closer to me,
to drape himself on the door jam for support.
“You are talking to dem?”
“Yes.”
“You can talk ‘cat’?”
“Not really. It’s a bit like babies, they don’t understand your words, but you talk to them anyway.”
“They can understand your words?”
“Not really. It’s the same as if you were talking a foreign language, Chinese or Portuguese perhaps. You don’t understand the words but you can understand the sound of the words, if they’re kind and friendly, or angry and mean.”
“I talk to dem.”
“I know.” He talks more to the cats than to anyone or anything else, not that I’m jealous of course.
“They are understanding me?”
“Oh yes! Very much so.”
“I fink maybe dah cats are more cleverer dan dah humans are.”
“You may very well be right about that.” We sprawl on the kitchen floor together, alternately stroking a cat apiece. He is careful to count the strokes, take a note of whose hands are on which cat, so that any errors can be corrected to ensure that each cat is psychologically assured of the equality of the bond of affection between them.










“I fink dey are dah clever ones because they can understand us but we cant understand dem so very good.”

A Troglodyte lives upstairs

I awaken late in the afternoon to the sounds of bath time. I can tell that it’s bath time because of the screaming and sounds of braking foot flesh outside the door.
“Noo eeee, I don do bahves, remember! I am dah melting one!” he pleads. He has come to a halt unexpectedly. He has unexpectedly bumped into his brother, who is a heap on the hard wood floor, not because he is protesting bath time, just because he happened to be there at the time. The sister comes up the stairs in a nonchalant fashion, commenting on proceedings at hand. “Well I sure ain’t gonna have a bath with them, no way, I’ll have mine after.” Spouse attempts turn taking and efficiency at the same time, a tall order at the best of times.


“It’s too difficult tonight, you’re all going to have to go in together and then it will be done!” Junior goes into automatic screaming protest together with flailing arms and legs, just case anyone isn’t already getting the message loud and clear. His legs pummel his brother who lumbers to one side a bit and exhales wearily before asking, “Why we are having dah bahf?”

“Because it’s Sunday and you always have a full scrub on Sunday ready for school tomorrow.”
“We are dirty?”
“May be yes, maybe no, it’s just a safety feature.”
“Dirty people have bahf on Sunday?”
“Definitely.”
“Mummy is having dah bahf?”
“Er, no. She’s too ill to barf, er, I mean bathe, er, I mean have a bath right now.” I pull myself up on my pillows to pay closer attention.
“You don have to have dah bahf if you are dah golden?”
“She’s not really golden is she Dad, more like yellow.”
“Yellow? Golden?” Spouse pauses whilst trying to remove three sets of clothes from three small people who are not co-operating and are semi clad on the top landing in full view of the neighbourhood for approximately half a mile on an early Sunday evening.
“Remember, you said this morning?”
“What did I say this morning?” he queries. I sit up taller and lean toward to the closed door.
“You said that mum looked like she’s been in a train crash because of the surgery. She’d change from mustard yellow, to blue, to purple to black and soon she’d be back to normal again.”
“Is that what I said?” Is that what he said?
“Yup. So the point is, she’s not dirty, the ‘golden’ won’t ‘wash off.’”
“Er. Den she will be dah different colours every day?”
“Right! Right Dad?”
“Er, yes, sort of.” I scoot down into the duvet cover as the door opens and they file past to use the really big bath together. As the water rages out of the faucets I here a little voice say, “I’m gonna tell my teacher dat my mom is a rainbow.”
I hear spouse fight with extraneous clothes, pyjamas, towels and small uncooperative bodies and mutter, “great, that will really confuse her.”
But spouse doesn’t
appreciate how clever those special education teachers are.
Actually, most of the time he does, he's just currently
to overloaded to remember that.
I snuggle down into my bed with my golden glow,
confident that all their teachers are excellent translators.

The Pet Police

I have decided that the evils of television may not be quite as bad as I am prone to preach about. The children have discovered ‘Animal Planet,’ a channel showing non stop wild life of every kind. There is a particular programme [translation = show] where abused animals and their misfortunes are displayed. The RSPCA [translation = Humane Society?] have been dubbed the ‘pet police’ by my offspring, all of them. Yes, it's a joint venture. They discussed it amongst themselves, and when the 'moment comes' they all shout 'send for the pet police.' Really gladdens a mother's heart to see her children working with one accord for a common goal.
Additionally, this has given me a new and powerful weapon against the ever growing developmental progress that they keep making when I'm not paying attention. 'Be nice to cats/ pets/ snails/ living creatures of any kind or I'll call the pet police!" It's my new mantra. I use it often, even when it's not strictly applicable - don't bite the leg on that plastic bear or I'll call the pet police!'
'But it's a toy, a plastic toy!"
"Don't argue with me, it's the principal that counts."
"What will the pet police do?" I think carefully, as I don't want to get this the wrong way around and have to pay for a few decades of trauma therapy for them all. "WEll, if you're mean to animals then the pet police come and take the pets away and give them to someone else who will love them properly.' I pause for breath and to run a quick inventory in case I have mis-spoken in my longer than usual, completely off the cuff spiel. Three pairs of saucer eyes indicate that I was about right.

I know that I'm over doing a good thing, but it works so well! It's so effective and get instant positive results. It's hard to resist. After a few days, I can tell that the magic of the words is beginning to wear off. I retreat muttering to myself about 'consumer over - use,' and 'come to think of it, as the responsible adult I think they’d cart me away first.” I mutter to no-one in particular, although of course that is the phrase that everyone hears and understands all too clearly, despite the speech delays and the auditory processing difficulties. “What do you mean?” she asks, her face a study of incredulity.
“What? What! Oh what? Well, if any of you do anything wrong, you are all under 18, which means that you are not adults, which means that I am responsible if you do something wrong.”
“You mean you’d go to jail,” she gasps. I think hard for a nano second before answering “yes.” I am still in two minds about that answer, which I know will come back to bite me.

When it comes back to bite me within the hour, “go on! Phone them, phone them, I want them to come and take you away,” in joint response to a refusal to do one’s share of tidying up, and the prospect of a mother free evening, I am more than ready. “Oh bliss I get to spend the whole night in pet prison with all the lovely cats, dogs, bunnies and guinea pigs and no horrible children.” A little underhand, I know, but the effect is electrifying. “You can’t go, we’ll be all alone, you have to stay with us!”
“Oh no I don’t, I’m of to prison with the animals, I can hardly wait.” A tad cruel but she speaks on behalf of the junior members of the family as a collective.
“You don’t know the number!” she sneers, the one that is always emblazoned across the television screen.

“Oh yes I do, it’s 408 626 8859.”
“What it’s nearly the same as ours!”
"That's right, we want the local branch not Detroit or Houston!'
“You’re making it up, you’re faking, you’re lying.”
“See you later alligator! Oooh, I wonder if they have any alligators there too?”
“I hope it eats you!”
“Excuse me, I need to use the phone.”
“Oh no you don’t!” She rips the cable from the wall.


“Your choice dear! Tidy or bye bye?"

Fictional Police report filed Friday, January 12, 2007

Nobody eats fruit around here!

The Sheriff arrived at 5:15 p.m. minus horse but with very shiny, pointy star badge. Please not that any errors in transcription are due to the indeterminate country of origin of the police personnel.

Quote - I was called to the property in question, responding to an anonymous tipster regarding a noisy disturbance. On entering the premises, I noted three semi clad children leaping about the place in an uncontrollable manner. An adult female identified herself to me as their parent. Fortunately the old crow was not scantily clad, however her wild behaviour indicated that she was in fact the ring leader. Although virtually incoherent, I did manage to piece together a few irrelevant details, as to the cause of the disturbance.

Note evidence 1 – item = the peel of an orange
The parent appears to be irrationally fixated upon the different sub species of orange, insisting that the peel in question, was not that of an orange but indeed, that of a Satsuma. I had to endure a long treatise as the options available, which included, but was not limited to: Clementine’s, tangerines and Minolas……….. Their significance or the importance of their distinctive characteristics was lost on me. I took this as an indication that the inhabitants are vegetarians, devoid of the karma afforded to us meat eaters.


It may well be that the parent's real complaint was of a 'littering' nature, although I am given to understand, by the said parent, that citrus peel is 'bio-degradable.' I advised the parent that I was familiar the term 'bio-degradable' but failed to see it's relevant in a domestic, interior context?

The parent declared that her eldest son had eaten a Satsuma of his own volition. I tried to determine whether the said food item had been tampered with, adulterated or interfered with in some other manner, such as to provoke fear and consternation throughout the family. Parent denied credibility of my ascertions.

Upon further questioning it became clear to me, that the family was not in fear of an incident of poisoning, as I had at first assumed. I soon determined that ‘fear’ was not the paramount emotion coursing through the family members, but rather ‘elation.’ I am still at a loss as to why it should be that a celebration had embraced the family following consumption of an orange by one member.

The member in question addressed me as follows “are you dah cop guy?” I confirmed that his powers of observation were correct.
“You see I dah one who does not eat dah fruit. I don eat the vegetables evver.” Whilst I fail to register the significance of such a statement, the child was obviously happy and I saw no need to detain them any longer. I gave a brief consideration as to whether to file a ‘wasting police time’ report, but though better of it.

Trading, a reality check

He accosts me in the kitchen, “hey mom, I wanna play shops. Get me the stuff.” At last! Horray, he wants to play something normal, something that other children want to play and it’s only taken five and a half years. I think of all the packets, boxes and jars I saved from the recycling a couple of years back, so that we could play shops, together with the till and pretend money so that we could model 'how one behaves' and 'what one does' in a shop. Needless to say it was one of my more spectacular failures. I don't think I broke down the entire sequence into small enough bits and I failed to take account of all possible phobias and unexpecteds, as I didn't know their full extent.
“What do you need dear? Shall I go and get the till?”
“Till! Till? I don need till. What I need till for?”
“The till has all the money in, the pretend money.”
“Money! Money? I don need money. What I need money for?”
“Well what do you want then?”
“I want bricks.” [translation = blocks] O.k., not quite the answer I was expecting. I haul out the box of bricks.
“Shall we play together?” I offer, even though I should be cooking supper, but it’s too good an opportunity to miss.
“No I don want to play with you, I want to play with him.” He stabs his index finger towards his brother. I am rejected as potential playmate. His brother is inaugurated into potential playmate status. Better and better. Do I have the opportunity to observe some parallel play perchance?

“Here you wan dis one or dis one?” he asks his little brother in rather an abrupt tone, but within socially acceptable levels of appropriate.
“I wan the red one, no, no, no, de yellow one.” They trade bricks.
“You don want dat one! Dat one is no good!” the little one warns.
“Why?”
“Look!” he shoves the brick under his brother’s nose, “it has a bad bit.”
“Where I don see it?”
“There! Right there! Look with your eyes, on the corner!” his finger nail identifies a tiny flaw. His anger rises at his brother’s inability to see what is so obvious to him.
“That’s o.k.” he says magnanimously, “it don’t bother me, I’m o.k. with that.”
“You are?”
“Sure, what’s the problem anyways?” His little brother’s face is a study of disbelief. Where minute discrepancies are blatant and unacceptable to him, to his brother, they are hardly discernible and of even less bother.
I predict that the bigger brother will be like his father, happy with a bargain, a good trade. I predict that his little brother will also be like his father in other ways, unable to make a decision, overwhelmed by choices, fearful of missing the best offer, "shopping" for hours but returning empty handed. Spouse appears by my side, I check to see if his ears are burning red, but he asks “what are they doing?”
“Playing micro economics in a very closed 'perfect' society, still based on the barter system, without the use of a token system of exchange, yet.”

Food Police

“But I’m hungry!” he screams.
“There are grapes on the table if you’re hungry.” He continues to stare at me, hands on hips, forehead thrust outward ready to charge. I keep my countenance bland, hoping that this will deflect the head butt.

Bull? [translation = full body charge] or goat ?[translation = head only.] My ribs may be bruised but there is no other indication of capitulation on my par. I am resolute and immovable. His nostrils literally flare, a skill I wouldn’t mind acquiring myself. His shoulders shrug attached to rigid arms and clenched fists, “o.k. then, if that’s gonna be how it’s gonna be!” He stomps off past me, in nearly a huff, I think? Yes, I think it's definitely a huff.

I think I like huffs. I think I consider a huff to be progress.

Tentative Steps

He sees his name on the envelope. I can't think of any teacher in their right might who would have written to me, their pupil at the same age. Times have changed.

I open it for him because it is made of paper and his fingers do not function well with such materials. [translation = paper, such as the wrapping on wax crayons, and on many other everyday paper examples, are aversive due to how they feel, which means that he avoids touching them] Even though this is technically a missed ‘therapy’ opportunity, I’m more anxious that he makes the human connection, the social interaction, which is especially tricky since the ‘human’ isn’t present.

It’s only us, him and me, not the writer of the note. It is from his former Pre-K teacher. 6 cursive lines of thanks. He reads it smoothly, his pupils trundle over the font until the end, where the ‘Ms.’ makes him stumble, until he recognizes the name that follows. His face is a picture of wonderment and delight, just as it should be.

Self Care

It's one of those little guilty mantras that whirr around your brain. You're supposed to be dealing with the hear and now [translation = chaos] but your also supposed to be planning ahead for the future. [translation = tomorrows chaos] It's very important that a parent should get the balance right. If the parent fails to get the balance right, this tends to result in random attempts at catch up, no matter how inappropriately timed.

Now is as good a time as any. If I start right now, then in a year, perhaps two they will all be capable of taking a shower and washing their hair. I'm not quite sure how I managed to exclude this from their list of current skills, or future skills. For right now, these skills have been skipped entirely. There is an entire blank page where there should be a skill or two, either on-going, acquired, or planned.

I herd them all into the shower having explained all to briefly, the benefits of showering; to be clean, sweet smelling and germ free, not that anyone listens.

It occurs to me that the act of showering, motivated by panic, is not a good synapse to be firing. “I have germs?” he squeaks in distress, “where they are?” he circles, a cat chasing it’s tail in search of invisible germs.

Oh dear. Perhaps I should have waited a year, or maybe even two, before starting this exercise? I persuade them to use the soap pump, to put a spoonful of soap in the palm of the hand and then rub themselves all over, especially the important bits, without thinking through this demand before uttering it.

“What are the important bits? Why are they important?” I definitely should have thought this through more thoroughly before starting. She rinses her hair, “is it all out?”
“No you have loads of soap left in there still.”
“How can I tell if I haven’t got a mirror?”

“Well, you can sort of tell by how it feels on your fingertips. It’s more squeaky when the soap has gone. You’ll be able to tell after a while if you keep practicing.” There are two many people in this shower. There are too many rapidly moving people in this shower and far too much soap.

Senior son grabs me by the forearms, to face me, a snowman of bubbles and soap suds, “hey Mum! My finger tips are telling me that it is all gone.” He blinks and his fingers tips rush to his brow to mop away lava flows of soap suds.
“What’s on your hands dear.” He looks at the ends of his arms to where his hands, alien beings, are attached, although you can’t really tell that they are hands because of the soap suds. He startles and jumps back, deeply offended by the betrayal “my finger tips they are lying.”

Handy Hint [possibly] Number 1

Note – this of no use whatever to anyone inhabiting Britain or Europe]

Whilst I would like to claim credit for this tip, unfortunately as usual, I have to thank the Muse for her psychobabble ramblings and acute powers of observation.
If you have a child with a speech delay, averaging 5 hour periods of silence, this may a useful way of making any potential listener, listen to what your child may eventually be able to utter or stutter out. It’ really very simple – begin each sentence thusly:
“Please may I…………” fill in the blank. Even if this comes out mangled ‘peez ma hi……’ it still works quite well.

I started out extracting this phrase from my children from birth, using the blanket approach to child rearing. This is what I did with the girls, so I attempted to do the same with the boys. It was of course a miserable failure for many a long year, but eventually they both managed to acquire an approximation of this. I wanted them to use it because that is how people are supposed to start a request. After diagnoses and other hurdles, it was pointed out to me that a simple demand for ‘cookie’ was far more efficient when dealing with a speech delayed child. Why make life unnecessarily difficult?

Extracting any word from a child with a speech delay can seem Herculean task, however there are a couple of unforeseen benefits of using this phrase.

Firstly, the only person who is likely to listen to your speech delayed child is an adult, children just don’t have the patience or interest. Therefore if you speak to an adult and your first word is ‘please,’ subconsciously you already have that adult’s attention – ooo a polite child, I might just give them the benefit of the doubt.


Secondly, the use of the word ‘may’ rather than ‘can,’ is also polite, which confirms to the adult that they might be on to a winner afterall. This combination generally results in a more patient approach from the adult in question. There is the remote hope that if the child can just keep going and squeeze out another word, the child is likely to be rewarded with a positive response, which in turn is self reinforcing, which means that they’re more likely to try again because it works.

However, I should point out that if you are contemplating using this strategy and turning yourself into a drill sergeant to achieve this, bear in mind that in a few years time when the child is older, you will need to abandon this plan and replace it with something more socially appropriate, unless you wish your child to sound like Little Lord Fontlaroy, which will not endear him to any potential peer group.


"Michele Garcia Winner" has a great deal of expertise in this field, namely social appropriate use of language and social skills generally, but since we are way below such advance techniques, this more basic approach might help somebody somewhere.

I suspect that a mid-Atlantic accent would be of benefit too, but I’ll need help with that one.