Tues - Two and a half baths

Which half would you like?

It’s one of those little American oddities, a few words that are completely incomprehensible.

You can read it on a page, you can say it out loud, the net effect is the same. What on earth are they on about now? But that was in the good old days when I was a fresh faced immigrant. Years have now passed and I am far wiser. Non-Americans will be pleased to learn that Americans do not have diddy little baths. This is America, the land of big, bigger and the bestest.

Many moons ago in England, I lived with my family in a tall Victorian terraced house. Tacked on the back of the house as an after thought no doubt, was the bathroom. The bathroom had a bathtub, a toilet and a hand basin, but not very much else. It did have a deadbolt and a lock with a rusty old key the size of my small hand, but you needed the strength of a rugby player to shut the door, let alone lock it. All five of us were good sharers and privacy was non existent.













If we were really desperate, there was always the option of the old lean to toilet in the back yard next to the air raid shelter.

This original toilet was there before the bathroom was tacked on.

It was a place only for the brave.

I am, and always have been, a cowardy custard.










Hence I have little sympathy with the current generation of children in my care when it comes to foibles.

When it comes to foibles, which it usually does, their father has one, a foible that is to say. Every morning he shaves in the bathroom next to the kitchen. The bathroom has no bath and is the same size as a crampt cupboard. Standing room only. As he froths and shaves, rivulets of water run down his hands and forearms to collect on his elbows and then drip onto the linoleum floor. Two little puddles of dribbles, every day. This is no great hardship. What is great hardship, for me at least, are the blood curdling screams from my son, every day, when he decides to use the bathroom and finds his path blocked by his dribbling father.

The bulk that blocks his way isn’t the hardship. The hardships are the two puddles. It would be easy to step over the two puddles located closest to the sink, especially if you only have child sized 13 feet and are on your tippy toes, or easy for some people. Other people pogo on the spot and scream, loudly, every day.

Many people, would learn that if you encounter the same problem every day, it might be a good idea to find an alternative solution, preferably a quieter one. Other people need help finding solutions. It is hard to find a solution when you can’t hear. Generally speaking, it is hard to hear if you are screaming your lungs out.

All too often, I find myself just looking at him. I have to remind myself that he has an ‘on’ switch and an ‘off’ switch but no dimmer function, a period when he could think and work out an alternative. It’s an all or nothing approach to life. The absurd can sometimes seem ironic. It is quite sobering for me to realize that this is not a child having a hissy fit or a meltdown, but someone struggling with a gargantuan obstacle, a puddle that might just as well be Niagara Falls. It’s tempting to giggle, a nasty habit that I seem to have acquired over the years.

Instead, I wait a moment to see if the frenzy is spiraling up or down. If it’s on the up and time is precious, I have no option but to scoop him up and cart him off to the loathed toilet down the hall. If it’s on the down, then we have the opportunity to repeat the sequence, to find an acceptable alternative, every day.

Maybe one day, he’ll step over this hurdle all by himself. Just as with so many of the other foibles. It won’t disappear but he will find other ways of coping all by himself. Maybe soon.

Ah poor little chap! The sympathy vote

From our visit to England

Little chap attempts to compose himself in the car. The wailing has waned as we make ready for our public appearance. We are in a holding pattern until we can return to civilization. [translation = the holiday flat] Fortunately I had a towel handy, as you do when you go for a beach holiday in the rain. I’m not certain what size of towel it really is? Too big for a hand towel, too small for a bath towel. Whatever size it really is, is unimportant, as it only serves the purpose of covering him from waist to mid calf.

One corner of the towel is very soggy. It is soggy because he has been chewing and biting it for the last twenty minutes. I am uncertain why it should be, that people in great pain should find relief from their pain by biting? I do know that before the days of anesthesia, victims were encouraged to down a pint or two of ale or something stronger, and would have a cloth inserted into their jaws to bite upon when the pain became too much to bare. Was this to protect their teeth? Is there an instinct to clench one’s teeth in times of great pain? I can think of childbirth where women were also given similar relief; bear down and bite down. There must be something in it.

I also know that for one of my sons, when he experiences pain, he is apt to bite anything within biting distance. The thing that is usually within biting distance is me, as I rush to assist him with whatever injury he has currently inflicted upon himself. Broadly speaking, stuffing the end of a towel in a six year old’s mouth, is an act, likely to be misinterpreted. If the stuffing is accompanied by screaming, indicative of someone being impaled by a 6 foot stake through the heart, a parent’s actions fall into an entirely different category altogether.


Having overcome the latest dose of public humiliation and risked the summoning of the Child Protection League, we are now recovering our equilibrium in the car.
The rest of our party are already ensconced in the pub, where luncheon has been ordered. They await our presence. Junior assures me that his wounds are such that even the thought of food is enough to move him into a state of stomach churning vomiting. But I also know that he is hungry. If we can just reach a state of relative calm, I am confident that consumption can be achieved and malnutrition warded off for another 24 hours.

The wet corner of the towel is a source of distress but the rest of his bodily condition is of greater distress. We practice our breathing and gird our loins as we step out of the car. I hold the towel around his personage at the back. [translation = the lady in waiting holding the train] He hobbles towards the door, a cross between John Wayne, Long John Silver and a ballerina on tippy toes.

We are observed by a mother putting her baby into the car and assisting her elderly parents to do likewise. She smiles at me, a warm smile, “oh dear, little bit of an accident? Never mind, you’ll be right as rain soon.” She shuts her car door and gives us a little wave. My son mutters disconsolately, “not little accident, BIG accident.” I mutter soothing words as we slowly make progress towards the door. He is a little large at six and a half to be having that kind of an accident, but on this occasion, it is not that kind of an accident. It is an entirely different kind of accident, the kind of accident that few people on the planet appreciate.

The bar staff watch our slow progress towards the table, but say nothing, the height of discretion. Everyone is very conciliatory towards a young gentleman's delicate sensibilities. I do not address the situation directly, as this is a perfectly satisfactory state of affairs for all concerned. This mis-understanding elicits the appropriate behaviour from strangers. He sits on his bench and sighs, exhausted. He glances down towards his knee and winces as he bends his leg to seat himself. His eyes widen as he peers beneath the table and the towel. “I can see it! I gonna die! No hospital!” he squalks. [translation = at 50 decibels] I tease the corner of the soggy towel towards the corner of his mouth. He seizes it in his front teeth, worries it like a dog with his eyes tight shut and then chews contentedly.

It would never do for his eyes to have to see the graze on his knee, the pinpricks of blood down his shin that no-one can touch or clean. [translation = and the rapidly forming scab, I hope].

Moral - do not use your imaginary snow board, at high speed in a park that inhabited by foreign birds.

Little known fact - English Pigeons are twice the size of their American cousins.

Even lesser known fact - Superpigeon and snowboards don't mix.

Addendum - the child and the towel were surgically separated some thirty six hours later, with no long term ill effects for either party.

Patience.......the "answer."

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.

7 Tips - Coping mechanisms for parents of children who have just been diagnosed with autism

1. Make sure that you are alone. Scream as loudly as your lungs permit, for as long as you are able. Cry until you are incoherent. Ensure that you have an adequate supply of tissues. [translation = several catering sized boxes of Kleenex]

2. Take a damp cloth and wipe your face until your breathing returns to approximately normal. [translation = your regular breathing rate]



3. Visit or phone a true pal [translation = friend] and/ or relative [translation = family member] and talk. Advise them that you are likely to blub [translation = weep] and that they do not need to respond merely listen.

4. Start reading the paperwork that the professional who diagnosed your child gave you. N.B. If the pile of paper is too heavy to carry skip to the ‘recommendations’ page. N.B,B. make sure that you have a medical dictionary with a large font size at your elbow for reference.




5. If you find that your brain has shriveled to the size of a pea and that you are incapable of taking in technical information, push the paper work to one side and go and do your favourite thing instead. If you discover that your favourite thing is not working, do not worry, normal service will be resumed in the future.









6. I tell you truly that things will improve and that you CAN do this.






7. Seek out aforementioned child/[ren], the same child/[ren] who now owns a new label. Hug and kiss that same child/[ren] with or without labels.