After a long career in the Navy, my parents decided to buy a house and remain in one place.
It was a three story terraced Victorian house and I loved it before the ink was dry on the contract. At the back of the house, leading to the tiny strip garden, was what my mother called ‘the conservatory.’
The conservatory was a four foot square arrangement of glass and wooden shelves, an entrance way or exit, a distance of three paces. The previous owners has neglected to remove some of their plants from this area, predominantly "cacti." They were a dull grey, with lots of prickles but otherwise quite unremarkable, apart from the single startling iridescent "bloom" stuck on the side like an afterthought. I stroked it to make sure that it wasn’t plastic, as the 1970’s were the heyday of fake flowers. Although my mother was keen to clear the place out, the cacti were reprieved.
Her delegation of duties had me hooked on responsibility.
I was immediately derelict in my duties as I trudged off to boarding school. I certainly would never have survived without water for three months, but cacti are so much more forgiving. They thrive on neglect. My arrival home was their rainy season when I would drown them with attention for a couple of weeks.
“Wear my gardening gloves,” my mother would advise, but I was of the filthy species of child. They were too big for pudgy little hands, far easier to dive in with naked digits. The huge prickles were easy to avoid. They broadcast their dangers. It was the little fuzzy ones that were my downfall. Their deceptive fur would burrow little barbs into the flesh to leave hairy fingertips. Easy to see but impossible to remove with stubby nails.
All these years later, it seems that both my girls have the same filthy gene, the ‘climb a tree,’ ‘dig a hole,’ ‘am I really plastered in chocolate?’ gene. My eldest son is graduating to the same genetic heights but climbing is still a struggle, as co-ordination of body parts is a challenge. We should all have been born with a coating of Teflon.
My youngest son on the other hand, lives life with as little use of his hands as is humanly possible. Tactile defensiveness, or how things feel, means that he will go to great lengths to avoid touching anything. He tucks his hands in pockets or armpits, clasps them behind his back out of danger or protects his fingertips in his mouth. They are all default positions for hypervigilant people.
We have been in this particular groove since the beginning. I might call it desensitization but it still looks like torture from his perspective. Time and maturation have helped but it’s a predictable path. In earlier times we worked to persuade him to write in shaving foam with his finger, buried plastic dinosaurs in sand, sunk Thomas in a washing up bowl full of suds, hid Pokemon in playdough and used any number of other devious means to tempt those fingertips into our tactile world. We should not discount the psychological cost of such treatment. How does the average three year old feel when you pour cement over their precious security blanket? For me, to witness his terror was offset by his determination and instinct to rescue despite the personal pain. It's a question of balance and I think I was off kilter.
These days he’s more malleable and sometimes he surprises us with his bravery. He’s also learned to adopt his own safety strategies to help him cope with the onslaught. We own more woolen, cotton and disposable gloves than any other family in a five mile radius of our home. He’s more willing to use tools, even though they’re difficult to manipulate because it means that he is saved from the agony of touching something worse.
They’re nothing if not inventive, children that is to say.
“I am need!” he squeals at no-one in particular.
“What do you need dear?”
“More.”
“More what?”
“More armour.”
“Armour?”
“Yes I have be one but I be need more nine.”
“Nine what?”
“Nine armours.”
It's always best to expect the "unexpected."
We all make associations all the time, where we connect one event or set of circumstances with another. I associate the arrival of Summer with sun burn, turning puce and spending many a happy hour peeling off strips of dead snake skin from my arms. I associate the holidays with Christmas pudding, hidden silver shillings to break teeth and a visit to the dentist. Some of the connections we make are faulty but they’re hard to shift once they’ve been experiencing. We learn through our unique experiences.
Teaching autistic children can be difficult because their motivations differ so greatly from the average child. It is because of this that frequently we need to use motivators that many other parents disapprove of quite strongly. Most people are on board with giving a child a piece of candy for successfully conquering potty training at a young age, commonly under 5 years old. These same people are less convinced by giving an older child an M&M for putting on one sock, ineptly. I suspect that it’s the back story that’s missing.
To read more click "here."
Some bloggers have sitemeters.
Some bloggers check their sitemeters to see who is searching what subject, if they are brave.
Occasionally I am brave and check. What follows are three pieces upon subjects that three people researched via google. This is the second topic.
Caressing
I wonder what the searcher wanted to know? For current purposes I shall assume that we are in the realm of touch.
I have two different perspectives to offer.
My older son often appears impervious to pain.
My younger son is on a different spot on the spectrum. Any touch by anything is ‘felt’ almost before contact, especially the area above his shoulders. It is as if he has a force field around him,
To read on click "here"
As some of you may know, I also write at "Trusera" now and after lengthy negotiations with "Rosie."..........
If I knew then what I know now, there are many things that I would change. This is far from a complete list, merely a random selection.
1. I would have negotiated with my other half, .......to "read more"
“A floor plan? You don’t know anything about architecture do you?”
“What I know about architecture could be written on the back of a postage stamp.”
“So why to we have a picture of a floor plan then?”
“Just think of it as a map, put you in the picture as we go from A to B, so you can get your bearings.”
“Fair enough. We start at A?”
“The sitting room, but we never really use it. It’s just an extra piece of space like a corridor.”
“Why am I interested in this?”
“Because he can’t go in there.”
“Why not?”
“Because it smells.”
“Dare I ask what it smells of?”
“We don’t know. We can’t smell it. I know! Maybe we should start in E, the half bathroom.”
“He can’t go in there because it smells?”
“Spot on.”
“Bathrooms often smell.”
“This is before it’s even been used, first thing in the morning.”
“Maybe you need a cleaner?”
“It’s the trash can that’s in there too.”
“Maybe you should empty it?”
“I empty it every day and wash it once a week.”
“Can you smell it?”
“No. However it doesn’t really matter because he can’t get into the smelly bathroom because you have to go through the smelly utility room first.”
“Your utility room smells too?”
“Yes. That’s where I put the cats’ bowls of food.”
“Ah that can be stinky.”
“It’s dried and it’s usually empty first thing in the morning.”
“Sounds like he’s safer in the kitchen.”
“No can’t go in there, or rather……he can run through it very fast.”
“Your kitchen smells?”
“Sometimes I forget to turn the dishwasher on at night, or it’s not full enough to turn on. Inevitably I’ll have to open the fridge at some point, which means all those mixed stinks will roll out in a cool, all enveloping wave.”
“Hmm you make it sound so……unattractive.”
“Indeed.”
“Do you think he has an over developed sense of smell or something?”
Something like that. I don’t know if he has more sensors or whether the sensors are calibrated too high?”
“It’s hard to imagine, but it sounds all too real.”
“At least he can tell us about them now.”
“True. So it’s only the little one.”
“Yup. Tell you what, I’ll give you a little ‘for instance.’”
“Right.”
“Strawberries.”
“Love em. The taste, the smell, their appearance, everything about them spells summer.”
“What about if they’ve been in the fridge overnight.”
“How do you mean?”
“Have you ever opened the fridge door, wondered what is that terrible smell, discovered the strawberries and commanded you nose to re-adjust itself so that you can smell the lovely strawberry smell instead of the stench?”
“Er….no……I can honestly say that you’re completely on your own on that one.”
“Ah well, worth a try. How about this one? I put some all powerful perfume on the skin under your nose, above your lip.”
“Which perfume?”
“Eau d’Anchovy.”
“Yuck, are you kidding me?”
“Nope, try it! See how you function, whether you can concentrate, whether it’s possible to eat or drink, if you can enjoy any of the things that you usually enjoy when you can’t get rid of that all pervasive stink.”
“So……if I ever come visit, I’ll bring my own peg.”
“Free to all comers!”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I may just need to go take another shower now. See you next week.”
"Cheers."
By the by, "Amanda Baggs" made a superb video about how some people's sensory systems differ. You may well have seen it before but I think it's due for another airing.
I chat to my "chum" via e-mail, about our families and how their reactions are so pivotal to our own well being. The issue of the extended family, as opposed to the tiny autism unit has great repercussions. Unless families are geographically and perhaps psychologically close, it can be difficult to translate the message, to explain how autism impacts the day-to-day minutiae of life. What hits home for me, is her reference to the fact that we, as parents, give the impression that "we’re coping."
It puts me in mind of a visit home to England, over a year ago now.
Because we were in England there was the inevitable dose of rain. My youngest son does not ‘do’ rain. Rain is a curse from on high to torture the tactile and sensory challenged child. For many an autistic child, their emotions are either off or on, there is no degree of grey.
Thus is was, that we made a trip to the aquarium. I was armed with enough umbrellas and rain gear to fit out a small army unit but as the miles clocked up on the car, the anxiety rose exponentially. He watched the rain from within the safe confines of the car, agitated and quaking in anticipation of the possibility that at some stage in the near future he might have to venture forth and exit the car.
If you say to someone, anyone, ‘he just doesn’t do rain,’ it is hardly surprising that this fails to translate. There is nothing like witnessing ‘he doesn’t do rain,’ to get the message across more poignantly than mere words can describe.
We arrive at the crowded car park, a pay and display type. Their father leaves to fight with change and a queue at the payment machine. I am left with three small children and my elderly parents. They slowly adjust buttons and tweak umbrellas, as I attempt to gather the children. My daughter knows what’s in store, jumps out of the car and hares over to her dad to avoid the fall out. Her traffic sense abandons her in the rush, but luck is on our side, as an unsupervised 8 year old dashes across the traffic to the safety of her father’s side. My eldest son tumbles out of the car a little like how you fall out of bed first thing in the morning, drowsy, befuddled and uncoordinated. My parents wait patiently for our group to reassemble so that we can move as one party.
My son continues to bumble about between the cars oblivious to traffic and the rain. All he needs to do is stand still but instead he lurches around like a badly strung marionette with a novice puppeteer. I have never been certain whether car journey’s disorientate him or whether his gyroscope takes time to calm down, but the net effect visually, is a drunken sailor. I speak to my father in a tone that I have never used before, “hold him!” My father blinks, uncertain whether I am talking to him or a stranger. He steps to one side to block his escape, but it’s not enough, “hold onto him! Hold his hand or his arm!” My father is even more startled but tries hard to clutch the moving target.
Everyone waits in the rain. Minutes tick by. I submit to peer pressure because I am spineless to the core. My mother stands nearby as I begin the last hurdle. I open the car door where my youngest son is curled into a small ball in the foot well of the car. I slip my hands under his arms and around his chest to lift and extract him. He immediately starts to scream and flail struggling to find a purchase. I can feel my mother flinch as she takes another step backwards to make way. He clings to the door frame as my grip slips to his waist. His legs kick violently and try to push me away but I am stronger than he is. I uncurl his fingers with one hand whilst holding the spoon position with the other arm. As the last finger tip is unfastened we catapult out of the car. Now the whole world is witness to a full level ten meltdown, a roiling ball of flames in the pitter patter of raindrops. He is puce in the face, slick with snot and furious tears of the fearful. Passersby cannot help but look. The tantrum of a toddler in the body of a six year old in beyond comprehension. His desperation is palpable.
All of this was completely predictable. For some reason, cushioned in my extended family unit, I had failed to acknowledge or prepare for the inevitable, as if some magic wand would whisk it all away so that we could pretend to be an ordinary family on an ordinary day trip. I cannot fathom the depths of my own guilt, that I could hoodwink autism, that I could delude my parents, that I could subject my whole family to another public display of humiliation, that I could torture my son in this excruciating manner.
He flips into a tip toed rain dance before scrabbling up my body like a monkey. His arms are around my neck, his legs encircle my waist as his head buries itself in my sternum. My mother leans the umbrella over us both but he is so frenzied the absence or presence of rain is completely off his radar. His screams lower to growls as he chews the neck of my T-shirt, a coping and self calming gesture. I can see my father’s grip on my other sons arm, tighten as he twirls like a limp, damp, spiraling tissue, the dog entangled in the lead.
The eye of the storm passed as we stood in the drizzle in the car park. Of the many people who observed us, the cloud of disapproval was pierced by a few pairs of eyes. Those eyes belonged to people who could not identify what they were looking at. I imagine that they had a visceral response to seeing a child is such obvious distress but were unable to to see any evidence or cause of the harm. I could see their hesitation, the need to step in an offer help and yet the innate knowledge that everyone was out of their depth.
I wait for either of my parents to speak, as I catch my breath. I see spouse and my daughter gallop back on their return journey. I find it ironic that I spent the majority of the car trip lecturing, in far too much detail, why the ‘no carrying under any circumstances campaign’ was so important. Fortunately, no-one mentions my monologue. “Is it…is he……are they……always like this?” she asks softly. I look at my mother, her face is a study of concern and compassion. “Well, you know……” I smile, as I cannot bear her vicarious pain, “there ain’t no rain in California.”
p.s. In case you are worried that some autistic children can never adjust to 'weather,' I can assure you that with a carefully orchestrated desensitization plan, over time and frequent exposure, I am confident that this is another hurdle he can overcome, just as we are enmeshed and make progress with the 'outside' campaign.
Of course we knew immediately.
At 11:45 and we were pleasantly weary after far too much good company and more than a drop of wine.
The baby sitter left, almost scurried and there is was, right next to the three toothbrushes, right next to the coffee maker, obvious and white and large and unused and still folded. He legged it upstairs and I pouted at the pull-up. Another baby sitter crossed off the list, another load of laundry coming my way.
When he reappears I can hardly see my knight in his non-work attire, as he is a mobile laundry pile, covered in six feet of soggy duvet, sheet, mattress cover, pillow, pillow cover and duvet cover, a royal flush.
“Is he alright?”
“Ooo yes. Happy as a Lark, soggy as a………very soggy person.” It is late.
“I’ll put the first load on and go and wash him then.”
“Already done.”
“Really?”
“Clean as a whistle.”
“Sleeping bag?”
“Done.”
“Last visit to squeeze out the last drop?”
“Absolutely. ‘Two wets beds for one child in any one nightly period, not to exceed 12 hours is no longer permissible’ campaign! Done and dusted.”
“Oh well. In that case ……”
“Sleep,” we chorus.
The following morning I wake late and skitter down the stairs at 6:20. My youngest son sits on a cold plastic stool with a chrome stand. He shivers, nak.ed. I suspect that the metal conducts no heat in either direction. I grab a soft, fleecy dressing gown to wrap him up. “I am dah goosebump!” he announces.
“Yes, you do have goosebumps dear.” I rub hug him.
“At night I am bin dah ghostbump.”
“Really? Was it scary last night?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you scared lovey?”
“Dah ghostbumps are like dah dark.”
“Why was it dark?” This is the child that sleeps with the main light on all night because we are determined to ruin the planet and warm the globe single handedly.
“No light.” I think. I am certain that I shared this fact with the baby sitter. We are all familiar with the cliché, ‘I was so scared I wet myself.’ It is not a comfortable thought. In this case is it probably too much of a leap. He might well have had an accident anyway. Why else would he wear a pull-up? My psyche is more comfortable with the latter. To think of my son, in the dark, in his familiar home, whilst we are out galevanting, makes me too uncomfortable. The cliché has to be balanced and weighed against the other cliché, ‘I laughed so hard I wet myself,’ but of course that one doesn’t apply. If bladder control is a known issue, it would be wrong to read too much into such an incident.
“Dat woz dah worst pull-up in dah world ever!”
“How do you mean? You weren’t wearing one anyway.”
“I am knowing dat! But dah pull-up can not be holding dah flood.”
“Flood?”
“Yes I am bin wet all over. I am dah drown.”
“Were you drinking water from the bathroom?”
“Yes! She din say ‘no drinkin,’ she sayed ‘no light.’ So I bin drink dah water to make me brave…..in dah dark.”
“The water makes you brave?”
“Yes. I bin fill my body wiv dah brave water…....in dah dark.” Until now I was unaware of the magical powers of water. I remember that 4 years ago we had to turn off the stop cock under the sink, to stop people drinking water all night long. We also fitted a timer to the main light. 45 minutes to fall asleep and adjust. Every 45 minutes throughout the night, one of other of them would ‘awaken’ and reset it for another 45 minutes. The beds were always wet. Then the timer broke due to consumer misuse. I remember that we turned the water back on again over a year ago, when that ‘behaviour’ was extinguished.
It was probably the longest period of parental insanity that we endured. They didn’t have so many words then. We didn’t recognize the difference between the two competing sources of meltdowns. This was merely another cause of our bewilderment. It would appear that the laundry and light nightmare was entirely of our own making. Wet beds, wet boys, wet weary tears, mainly mine, the self pity variety. A long dark age. We became hermits, living a cloistered life.
Kindly friends would make suggestions – ‘take a break, go away for a week.’ Sure! Could you sleep in one room with your family with the lights on all night? What holiday establishment doesn’t charge for ruined mattresses? Could we buy fourteen pairs of pyjamas to get us through the week? Is it part of hotel policy to change the entire bedding on two beds daily? Camping would be cheaper and solve the light problem, but the laundry! Does any family have 14 sleeping bags? It’s an exaggeration of course, but only approximately.
No. No-one understood, least of all the parents.
Did they drink the water as a chance cure? They certainly weren't thirsty. When did it flip into on OCD kink? How did drinking water protect them from the dangers of the dark? Did one copy the other or did they both feel the same way? How does being full of water help? If you're hyper-vigilant about attack during your sleep, it is easier to remain awake if your tummy is sloshing around with gallons of liquid?
“I am dah big, I am dah round, I am dah brave…..in dah dark.” A little water balloon, fit to bust. Maybe I should write the baby sitter a 'thank you' note afterall. She helped us see the new light and maybe lighten the laundry.
I take my youngest autistic son to the supermarket with me. [translation = grocery store] To say that such an errand was akin to punishment, would be an understatement, but I am out of options today. Like most children, shopping is one of his least favourite activities, [translation = me too!] but malnutrition is but one missing meal away.
I have carefully chosen an alternative store. This alternative store, has one overwhelming advantage over it’s competitors, one that the store owners are probably blissfully unaware of. The shop has electric doors, which are the bane of many a parent’s life. [translation = they’re open, they’re closed, hop in, hop out, get in the way off all customers who arrive or leave, as they are invisible, chortle merrily throughout]
However, in this particular sanctuary, the electric doors have foolishly been located in close proximity to the produce section. [translation = fruit and veg] Few things are as obnoxious as fruit and veg, to my son. The stench of produce is more than sufficient to curtail his door activities, or at least that is what I am hoping.
The produce department has long been an area of fear and dread because periodically, water sprays down upon the lush vegetation, a mist of glistening droplets. Whilst for most people this adds to the enticement, for others it is a deterrent. [translation = sensory] Should you see a small child scream and run for cover amongst the boxes of green bananas under the tressel table, clearly he is a hooligan on a quest to trample fruit. Or even a larger child for that matter.
I have only three or four items on my shopping list. I encourage his help but he will have none of it, nor will he touch the list. He won’t touch the small piece of favourite yellow coloured paper, because it is paper. [translation = tactile defensiveness, but we’re working on it] Additionally, my list is hand written and fails to meet his standards of cursive letter formation. [translation = I imagine that he would find fault with the copperplate of monks too]
I nearly trip over a basket that some idiot has abandoned in the middle of the aisle. Why do people do that? The inconsiderate nature of the general public never ceases to amaze me! My son chortles, “Elliot is idiot, Elliot is idiot, Elliot is idiot.” His scripting is right on target, which is excessively irritating. [translation = many speech delayed children use clumps of words that they collect from here and there. More often than not, the spirit of the phrase is accurate, like a dart.]
To distract himself from the pain of shopping, he reads every label aloud, loudly. This innocent pastime engages him as he bolts around with his arms folded across his chest in a protective gesture. He startles and jumps at things that I am unable to identify. [translation = hyper-vigilance] In the dairy aisle he fondles eggs and cooes gently at them. Strangely, eggs, any eggs, are always soothing to both the boys. It is as they have magical powers, even though neither of the boys eat them. This is the calmest 7 seconds that we experience.
He queries labels and harangues me with questions with every step. For every step that I take, he takes ten, rushing around in the style of a skateboarder. I choose my last item. [translation = grab something that looks vaguely like what I want and hurl it in the basket] “We are done?” he sparks.
“We are.” He accelerates off in a tail spin to the bakery department to choose his treat. [translation = task completion and reward time, for holding it together for 12 minutes]
He skids to a premature halt aghast at the view. I look at the cakes and notice that each set has a hand written label. [translation = it would appear that the bakery does not employ monks] He covers his mouth with his hands and bounces on the spot. [translation = a dilemma of the tallest order, how to look at the cakes and yet screen out the offensive labels?] He agonizes for a few more moments before a bolt of spare bravery comes to his rescue. He takes one long single step, very slowly, to bring his body close to the glass. He stands rigid with his arms close to his sides and his eyes closed. He breathes slowly and deliberately. When he’s ready, his eyes snap open and absorb the cakes.
“What is it?”
“What is what dear?”
“Petit?” Oh dear, a new word, a foreign word. Do I want my son to learn foreign words at this juncture? Other than "Brioche?"
“It means ‘little’ dear.”
“Why it is four? Why it not three?” [translation = his current favourite number]
“It’s the name of a cake dear, "petit four," means little cake. It’s French, a different language.” [translation = actually it means ‘little oven,’ but I didn’t know that at the time] He mouth starts to move, he puffs and blows like a steam engine pulling away from the station.
“Dat is dah most stoopidest…….”
Oh dear. A level 8 meltdown ensues to the horror of all the surrounding shoppers. At six and a half, he is too large to be rolling around on the tiled floor screaming. There are too many feet and too many table legs for this to be safe. I have no option but to scoop him up and retire to edge of the wall.
Seven minutes later he has still not regained the power of speech, but he is able to lift an arm to point. I follow where his index finger indicates. The sign on the cakes reads ‘Large Petit Four.’ For him, to have ‘little’ and ‘large’ in the same description, on the same label, is too much of a contradiction for him to be able to fathom or tolerate.
I decide to give it best. [translation = admit defeat] I leave my basket of four items un-purchased. I carry my son, limp, exhausted and ever so slightly damp. [translation = ignore the rule about ‘no carrying under any circumstances’ = another campaign failure] Surely there must be something edible in the freezer at home that I can unearth? I sneak one of the cookie samples for him as compensation. [translation = and pray to the basket collector to forgive me my idiocy]
Recently, someone, probably 'anonymous,' implied that I might indeed be losing my grip on my rather tenuous sanity. Should you care to share your own opinions on this vexing matter, please comment upon whether I really do have a "screw loose."
I feel that Obsessional Compulisve Disorder gets a bad press. General opinion would have us believe that the behaviours that manifest themselves as a result of this condition, are immutable, whereas this appears to be very far from the truth.
With luck, it soon becomes apparent what these kinds of behaviours are for any one individual. Whilst they will play havoc on your daily life that’s not the end of it.
Having identified the issues and developed coping mechanisms, you may feel that all is well, that you have achieved ‘steady state,’ or equilibrium. Although they’ve not been eliminated, they’re under ‘loose’ control. This may lead the unwary parent into a false sense of security.
I hoover [translation = vacuum] with the thoroughness of an American dental hygienist, prior to the arrival of the new sofa. I am careful to wind the cable back neatly on completion, so that it is all ready for next time, especially when ‘next time’ may be only minutes away. Due to the inferior engineering standards in America, I threw caution to the wind, and purchased Superhero Hoover. Although I am mathematically challenged [translation = thick as a brick] even I managed to work out that the annual expenditure on a hoover to replace the broken hoover, was not a sound investment.
I find it interesting to note that for the past few years, I was prevented from using this domestic appliance when junior was in the vicinity. The noise would send him into apoplexy. Hoovering at night seemed like a solution. It wasn’t, which meant that this domestic job was limited to junior free hours only. Since he was the youngest, that was infrequently.
It just goes to show how far we have progressed, into a whole new era really. As long as I warn him first, get the eye contact, hunker down on bended knee before my six year old, he grants me permission to hoover. Now, having given him this warning, ‘mister clean’ has sufficient time to go and was his hands and then hide in his room. Curiously, he no longer hides from the noise. Instead he hides himself from the mental image of the contents of the hoover cylinder.
I knew it was a mistake to tell him that most of the dust was really skin cells, but that’s progress for you.
Well what do we think about this concept? In a nutshell! It’s a right pain in the bottom, or more accurately, in the finger tips, especially the preferred hand’s index finger, the imaginary balloon that encompasses his head, from the shoulders up, and particularly the mouth, both exterior and interior. That is quite a high percentage of body to avoid.
I mean, if you have to be a wimp, why can’t your sensitive spots be located somewhere more convenient? How about in-between the shoulder blades? Not much traffic there. That would be ideal, especially if you are male and won’t have to fiddle with bra closures later in life.
Who could have arranged this design fault?
Who can I complain to?
Where do I send the relocation request?
There again, it’s not just the sensitivities themselves, more his reaction to them, or rather the over-reaction. I’d be happy enough to deal with reasonably articulate objections; “mother dearest, I’d just like to mention that this new T-shirt has several flaws that I’d like to draw your attention to, in the hope that you will be willing to assist me in minimizing, not to say eliminating, their annoyingness.” I would also readily accept the American version of the same request, since we are a bilingual family: “Hey mom, ken yer fix this T-shirt? It’s really buggin me!” Though why insects feature quite so prominently in American conversations, is quite beyond me. But I could deal with that. No problem, only too happy to help. But no. Instead of a logical treatise, we have a fit of the screaming ab dabs.
[translation = …….I await your input?]
Part of the problem is the misleading label. The ‘tactile’ bit, might suggest that you are defensive about things that you touch. This is true. To ‘defend’ yourself, you simply do not touch things, any things, ever. However, there is the flip side – things touch you. You can defend yourself from things that want to come and touch you, by explaining that you would prefer not to be touched. When the non-verbal become less so, and begin to be more proactive, you can see this clearly demonstrated, when he takes the stance of a question mark and screams expletives at the wind that is ruffling his hair. Difficult to explain to the casual onlooker, but we’re used to that in any case. Perhaps he should be renamed Canute?
There again we are trying to keep
away from monarchical
references now that we are citizens.
At least I know that not 'all' of him
is similarly afflicted!
