An institutional diet

I pick up four pairs of socks and three unmatched singletons, evidence that I have no influence or control over the 7 children in my home.

I can count to seven.

Seven is indeed my favourite number but I cannot say with any degree of certainly why I have four additional children in my house? Did I double book myself twice? How has this come about?

I give up and commence snack creation for the masses as malnutrition is imminent. I have a basic knowledge of four of them, one typical, 3 autistic. The overall ratio is a challenge, but probably only for me. I calculate the probability and possibility that one or more additional children will still be present at supper time? Which one, or more, is likely to be forgotten about or subject to the delayed parent, who drowns in traffic and rain? Is there any food substance on the planet that five autistic children and two typical children all eat, preferably something that I already have on hand?

I have a 33.5 ounce catering carton of Goldfish Crackers. If push comes to shove, will any parent thank me for feeding their child four and a half ounces of Goldfish or shall I been condemned as a gluten wrecker? Is four and a half ounces of Goldfish enough to sustain life for a period of 4 to 5 hours? How many calories does the average active child require per hour anyway? Why do I not already know any of these things?

During the car journey from school, I managed to determine that 5 people can just about contemplate the challenge of drinking water in a strange home because they have soda free, juice free variety of autism, by personal preference. I have no Dr.Pepper, Sprite or Coke for my daughter’s pal, who is not impressed with the water option.

I learn, to my surprise, that American girls drink neither milk nor orange juice, even under exigent circumstances. Even more surprising, is the fact that American girls do not eat Goldfish Crackers because they are considered baby food, or in the alternative, that they ruin a diet. I am alarmed that a ten year old girl is knowledgeable, extremely knowledgeable, about diets at all.

“What it is be?” hollers my seven year old as we burst into the kitchen.
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!”
“What is what dear?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” bellows one.
“That stinky smell?” Children gather around the screamer and the source of the stink.
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” Chorus two.
“What is that thing anyways?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” creeps the mantra.
“It’s a bread maker. Where does that phrase come from? It’s nearly February.”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” Chant three
“A bread maker? Geez I’ve never seen such a thing.”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” Call four.
“Sure smells good. Is it ready yet? I think it comes from 'Olive the Other Reindeer' movie.”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” Shout five at an ever increasing volume.
“Another couple of minutes, you can see it on the display, the LED.” Little faces peer with interest through the little glass window at the billowy loaf.
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” They’re stuck, all of them.
“Can you eat it?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!”
“Most certainly, in just a few secs. What comes after stereo? If there’s five of them, it can’t be quadraphonic?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” They repeat.
“I don’t know, but it sure is loud. Can it be our snack?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” I’m used to 2 repeating a phrase. I have adapted to 4 children repeating a phrase, once a week, on a Friday afternoon. I incapable of adjusting to 5 children repeating the same phrase with the required immediacy. I glance at my ear plugs with longing.
“Of course.”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!” Despite the noise, folklore infiltrates my troubled mind: ‘sing out of season, get trouble without reason.’ It has a whole new significance.
“Why is it so……..hot? And why are they so loud?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!”
“Because it’s cooking and because there’s five of them. O.k. you can say that three more times and then I don’t want to hear it again. Deal?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!”
“You cook bread?”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!”
“Yes, or rather bake.”
“Christmas! Bah boogie home!”
“Times up guys. Time to choose another phrase.” I lift the bread out and envelop everyone in a cloud of steam. They all take a step backwards as I wield the bread knife and place a slice on each plate. The girls leap on the loot to take it to the table. We are all assembled, a jug, ice free awaits with tumblers. We eat the diet of cell mates, free of a chain gang, all seven on bread and water.

Silent munching reigns for a few moments……before they start, again.

“Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle bells………”




New post up on "Alien."

Line up your ducks Old MacDonald

Sometimes you’re too close to it to notice.

The patently obvious is ignored by my radar.

The reports from school tell me important information that fill in some of the gaps, but I fail to note the duplication at home.

Habituation has set in, not particularly for them, but for us, the parents. We’re so used to the squalking, bleating and rooster noises that we hardly hear them any more. Ear plugs are unnecessary as we just tune out the ‘white noise’ of his mouth, as well as all the clicks, clucks, sucky and blowy noises.

They used to be irritants, now they are more of a semi musical accompaniment, a back drop or wall paper to our daily existence. I imagine, that if you were unfortunate enough to a secure the desk next to him in the classroom, you would have little chance of concentration. We need to address this.

Answer comes to me like a flash of lightening, because I am an American. The quickest solution is probably the best one. The strategic placement of a six inch strip of duct tape. Unfortunately we have to fall back on less immediate methods of assistance.

To understand just how all pervasive this noise machine is, I can give you a little snippet, as examples sometimes help. The noises take precedence over words. They’re easier to produce and require no thought. It’s usually a far more accurate response than searching around the word bank, identifying the right one and then verbalizing it, all of which is terribly time consuming. It is also very hard work. Even if you go to all the effort of finding a word or two and speaking them aloud, attempt articulation, the dim witted adult that you’re talking to, doesn’t get it. How frustrating is that? If adults fail to respond appropriately, or if you the child are under pressure, it’s much easier to just make noises. Part of the benefit of making those noises, a by product as it were, is that you actually feel better just by using them, like a little steam release valve of pent up emotion. The judicial use of squalking can actually aid word production, once the excess pressure is dissippated. Almost a win win position.


I need to remember, that when the rooster crows and nods his head towards the cereal box, although I know he wants me to open it, instead of obeying, I need to prompt or wait for him to find his words. This might seem unkind, but people in the general public are not going to make the same connections that I am able to make, especially if it’s not a box of Kellog’s cornflakes.

I think it’s difficult to understand this fizzling down to the lowest common denominator. If you can spell, write and know the meaning of ‘compromise,’ why would someone like that find it so difficult to ask a simple question like, ‘please can you pour some cereal into my bowl,’ or alternatively if that’s too difficult, skip the words and actually do the pouring yourself?

The answer to that question differs slightly for each of my sons, involves several different steps and theories, all of which would take far to long to explain here.

It’s enough to know that this is the nub of the problem from their perspective ‘too difficult but if I squalk I get results.’ This isn’t so very different from any other child's response in my humble opinion. The key for me, is to remember correct my own behavioural response. This old dog, must learn a new trick. I must not react like Pavlov’s dog.

And less of the 'old' thank you.

That darned Cat in the Hat!

“Can can, can you do the can can, if you can then I can,” he sings as he spins, interspersed with Pokemon noises, a surreal combination at the best of times.

I find it more difficult than usual to concentrate.

Whilst I have long been a fan of dear Ludwig, this modern version can be intensely annoying after a few hours. I hope that this "perseveration" will make him oblivious, as we have company.

The play date victim is a sweet natured, tolerant, typically developing girl.

The girls play.

The boys spin.

This faultless visitor has one minor idiosyncrasy that is of minute concern. Every sentence she utters is accompanied by the phrase ‘Ohmygod.’ I know that it is the verbal equivalent of ‘er,’ ‘um’ or ‘actually,’ but it is disconcerting for elderly foreigners who are set in their ways, such as myself.

After her last visit, it took a great deal of time to stop the boys from adding this 'word' to their vocabulary bank. Their version ‘oh my gosh’ sounds distinctly fake, but in a pool of fake, one more drop makes no difference, or so I like to think.

All too often, like Pavlov and his pooches, we make associations, one thing becomes inextricably linked with another. You smell freshly baked bread and you suddenly feel hungry. Your cell phone rings and you immediately answer it, even though you are conducting a conversation with another real human being, face to face. You see blood, you feel faint. You see Dad on the driveway, you say “hello Dad.” You see Jane on the playground, you say “hello Omygod.”

In the 95 degree heat, I need clothes of gossamer but slightly less revealing. I set the thermostat to 80 in the family room and leave the rest of the house to roast. For two pins I’d abandon the ‘you must remain dressed at all times’ campaign, but we must maintain standards, or rather, I must. It would never do to be starkers in my own home, as that isn’t the kind of modeling I’m cut out for. After 12 years in the country, I admit that I need to go on the ‘how your air conditioning works’ course. I squirt myself with a water bottle and pay attention.

My youngest son, "Mr. 17 foods," is experimenting with different cereals. He has also spent the last few days quoting huge chunks of “Green Eggs and Ham.” I am uncertain whether there is a connection or not? I am confident that his consumption of ham or eggs of any hue, are still many light years away.

His older brother is closeted in the bathroom. His little brother approaches the bathroom bearing one Alpha-bit in a perfect pincher grip. There is a very large Cheshire Cat grin pinned to his countenance and his eyebrows flicker like Grocho Marx.

“Hello der!” he beams. “Would you like to try one?” He waves the Alpha-bit before his brother’s face. This would be a particularly nauseous kind of sugary pap, with no discernible nutritional value whatsoever.
“I’m busy! Get out man.” My 'non-verbal' 8 year old has been transformed. He sits on the toilet defending his privacy, now that acknowledges that he needs some, privacy that is to say. I have yet to adjust to his new speech. I am unfamiliar with many of the hip phrases that he trots out with ease. I need to research who he is keeping company with? Where has he learned all these easy pat phrases from? Why has his mid-Atlantic accent turned all hip hop? I need to attend a hip hop crash course for fossils.

“Try one, you will like it, you will see!” His voice is light, enticing, a tease.
“No way. Go away man. Can't yur see I'm busy!” Usually it is all of us trying to persuade him to eat. It is so bizarre to watch him try and be the persuader.
“Try it, try it and you will see!”
“Oh man! What is wrong with you! What kinda crazy talk are yah doin?”

He skips, hops and dances before his trapped brother like a marionette on speed.
“Would you like it here or dere?” he fizzles and extends his body, slow motion, into an exaggerated sign post in the direction of the table.
“You are crazy man! Give me a break dude.” I am inclined to concur. This scene is entirely the wrong way around.

The girls appear just as the trapee is making his escape from the tiny bathroom. His little brother is like a darting mosquito, taunting his victim as he hovers and flits, still clutching the single Alpha-bit. The girls giggle, both boys become aware that they have an audience. He grabs a second Alpha-bit in the other hand. Both arms wave around, “would you like dem in a house? Would you like dem wiv a mouse?” The girls giggle. He continues, relentless, without mercy, spurred on by the girls.
"Can you stop with the "motor mouth" already!" He slaps his forehead in exasperation, “o.k. den!” His tormentor pops one Alpha-bit into the open mouth and one into his own mouth. Both boys shriek, but for different reasons. Both girls shriek in surprise. Everyone blinks at the same time to chorus ‘ohmygod!’ for many different reasons.

So this, my fine friends, is what we in the trade, mean by negative reinforcement.

I do not like green eggs or otherwise

I feel like a pedestrian in the middle of dodgem cars.
“I can hear my own bones!” he splutters and stretches like an athlete.

The other one bellows, “In the old ball game! In the old ball game! In the old ball game!” My mantra singer. This is interspersed with the many lines of Dr.Seuss that he has committed to memory, especially the Green Eggs and Ham volume. Whilst I dither whether on not to buy ear protectors for either or both of the boys, it occurs to me that I may be in greater need myself, as the ear plugs just aren’t up to the job any more.

Motor mouth continues relentlessly. His big brother complains, “you are just so annoying. You are so loud. You’re driving me crazy with all your "motor mouth talk." Mom, he’s bothering me.” This stream of words seems to be a replacement for pouncing and throttling the breath out of him. I consider this to be an all round improvement all round, in a carousel kind of a way. “Red alert, red alert, red alert,” chortles the little one. “Mom, he’s driving me crazy!”

“I know dear, I’ll just finish making the sandwiches and then we can fill up his mouth with bread.” I do a double take. Did I really say that out loud? “I mean I’ll find his vibrating spoon in a minute.” My son looks at me with wonky eye brows, deliberates a while and then announces, “don’t worry mom, I’m gonna deal with him for you,” and marches to towards the family room, the source of the incessant chatter. I drop the knife in the sink and hare on after him.

They stand face to face, much too close, nostrils flaring.
“Listen here you!”
“Red alert, red alert, red alert.”
“Why do you keep saying that? You are so annoying!”
“In the old ball game! In the old ball game! In the old ball game!”
“Can you just shut up already!”
“Red alert, red alert, red alert.”
“I’ve had enough of you for one day. You’ve been doing this all morning! Right!” He marches back into the kitchen, opens the correct drawer, rummages around in the back and whips out the vibrating spoon. Seconds later, in a smooth and seamless transition, he presents himself to his tormentor. “Here motor mouth, stick this in and chew it!”
“Eeow, that’s gross, eeow, that’s gross, eeow, that’s gross.” He summits nonetheless.



We wait. Soon, all we can hear is the buzz of the spoon and the purr of the air conditioning. A cool breeze sweeps through the house and peace reigns for a few moments.

And in my other "life".......