There on the chair, right there!

I stumble into the kitchen early in the morning and trip on a crayon. It is the soft fall of the not truly awake enough to hurt oneself, variety. I feel around for my dislodged glasses in a state of temporary blindness and befuddlement. I should have large neon glasses to aid me, instead of the apparently invisible pair that I invested in. I notice the unusually dirty skirting boards. I look more closely. My nose is about to scrape the wood when I dart back in shock. A mouse hole! I scrabble around on the floor checking my skirting boards. There are so many! We’ve been invaded by an army of mice, an infestation no less. I grab a wooden spoon and poke tentatively at the hole. How strange? The hole isn’t a hole at all, it’s solid. I touch the hole with my finger tip. Definitely solid. I look closely at the little grey archway, a cartoon mouse hole, or rather, many, many cartoon mouse holes. I step on my glasses. Well they were wonky anyway. I arrange my glasses and go for a closer inspection. There is also a small grey toilet cartoon, mouse sized, as well as a lamp. The lamp is the clincher, I know which nocturnal child to blame. I start scrubbing my skirting boards in-between gulps of tepid coffee. Washable markers indeed! What a nerve!

Within half an hour I have eliminated half of the invaders and the kitchen stinks of bleach. My eldest son appears, he is in a dither, “hey mom something’s freakin me out, kinda.”
“What is it dear.”
“Er, come wiv me.” He leads me by the hand to his sister’s bedroom. She lies sprawled on the bed, still wearing her dressing up outfit. “It’s just dress up dear, nothing to worry about.”
“I know but it’s kinda scary, er is she a witch or something?” We look at the black curly wings protruding from her back. “I think it’s some kind of fairy outfit.”
“I know but it’s kinda freaky when it’s not Halloween.” This is no longer a two and a half speech delay for my eight year old, it’s something else entirely. We leave her to slumber and trot back downstairs. Our steps stir the little one who comes skittering down after us like a can on a string tied to a car's bumper.

In the kitchen both are horrified but for multifarious and different reasons. The artist is incensed at the destruction but unable to articulate his outrage as he pinches his nostrils. Bleach. The other one recognizes that we are under siege.
“I do not like mouses!”
“There are no mice dear, really, these are just pretend mouse holes. See! I can wash them off.” I scrub to demonstrate, but they’re hard work to remove.
“No. I don’t see. Where are the mouses?”
“Mice dear. There aren’t any.”
“Where are the mouses? They are in the houses, er, the house, er home, er here?” His little brother picks up on the rhyme, guffaws with laughter and spins off chanting “mouses, in the house es, mouses, in the house es, mouses, in the house es.” I foresee the day ahead of me.
“There aren’t any mice in here and anyway, even if a mouse came in, we have two brave cats to protect us.”
He looks at me dubiously as I continue to scrub and push my wonky glasses back up my nose.
“But we had a mouse before, one time.”
“Good remembering. Yes, you’re right we did have a mouse but that was over two years ago.” Fancy him remembering that? Fancy him telling me about it! His little brother spins back into the picture, “you must leave them, dey are dah jolly good joke dat is funny.”
“Really!” I would like to point out that at this moment he is in the minority.
“Yes! Dah mouse come in, he run at dah hole and go boink on his head, fall down.” He is delighted at his wit. I am less so.
“The mouse come in?” squeaks his brother.
“No dear. A mouse hasn’t come in, it’s a joke, his joke.” A bad joke. We are in the midst of this cycle when spouse appears to see what all the commotion is about. After a couple of repetitive cycles he’s up to speed and in the loop.
“Oh well you don’t have to worry about that. We have two cats remember?”
“Mum is already said that.” Good grief is this the same child?
“Good, so we’re all on the same page then. So really the only reason we had a mouse in the first place was because Jasper caught him and brought him inside for you as a present!”
“Jasper! My old cat?”
“Yes. Do you remember him?”
“Jasper bringed the mouse into the house!”
“Yes.”
“But mum said that cats stop mouses coming into the houses, er house!”
“Well yes, that is true but………” He runs away screaming.

We debate how to proceed.
“I didn’t know he was afraid of mice?”
“He isn’t, or rather he wasn’t, but he certainly is now.” The volume of screaming subsides.
“I wonder if he’s always been afraid of them but never been able to tell us before?”
“Maybe?” I’m uncertain if he’s stopped screaming or is just so far away now that I can no longer hear him.
“Maybe the price of speech is more OCD?”
“What a trade off!” I think of the many years I have spent moaning about how different they are.
“I wonder if there’s a modern day equivalent of the Pied Piper of Hamlin?”
“I assume you only want to get rid of the virtual imaginary mice?”
“Well he’s always had a thing about bears.”
“And faces.”
“What percentage of his inexplicable meltdowns were caused by fear about something or other, but he wasn’t able to tell us do you suppose?” I hear another blood curling scream and the thunder of size two feet charging towards us. On arrival he leaps into my arms, wraps his legs around my waist and clutches my neck, “it’s freaking me out man! There is a huge spider in dere!” The adults exchange glances as we collectively feel the floorboards reverberate. He clutches me tighter, a stranglehold as I carry him to the front door. Outside I point across the road, “it’s just a jack hammer dear, they’re digging up their driveway.” I wonder how long it takes to dig up a drive way as I carry my quaking son back inside? “They’re, they’re gonna dig up our house too?” he gasps.
“No dear, there’s nothing to worry about.” I squeeze him tighter as the ‘no carrying under any circumstances’ campaign dies again.
“They are strangers? How can we tell if they’re bad guys?”
“Um..”
“Do you think they are…. burglars? Are they gonna come and steal me?” I see tears welling up in his eyes as he nibbles the edge of the band aid on his finger. I notice that I am trembling too! Probably just insufficient caffeine intake?

Help!

No Compass

Now do feel free to stop me at any time when you’ve had enough, as I do have a tendency to go a little off track on occasions. I won’t be in the least bit offended as I’m well versed in social blunders of this kind. When I first meet someone new, I have a inclination not to mention children, mine or anyone else’s. Do I behave in this manner because I am ashamed? You’d be justified in that opinion, but you would be way off. Unlikely as it may seem, seeing as how I am a Brit, on the contrary, I like to think that I am being considerate to that person. Unless you, the listener, have unusually enhanced social skills, then if someone that you meet, such as me, tells you that they have a couple of autistic kids in tow, that might prove to be a little bit of a stumper. What is the appropriate etiquette when receiving such a piece of information?

I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that whatever the person says, they at least, feel that it was wrong.

Now I am sympathetic to their plight and that is why I keep mum. [translation = don’t let on] As it turns out, after all this time, it doesn’t really matter what the reply is, as I’ve heard most of them, some of them many times and I can honestly say that I am not in the least bit offended any more. I feel sorry for you, the receiver of the information, because hearing this piece of information makes you feel uncomfortable.

It’s a tricky one though, if I leave it too long before I mention it to you then it can be even more of an unpleasant or disconcerting surprise.
I know that you’re just dying to know what the most common reply is? Well, sorry to disappoint, but generally the one that happens most often is an ‘oh!’ and a combination of a shifty eyes and a weak smile, followed by either a lengthy pause or a rapid change of subject.

But this isn’t really my area of expertise, seeing as how I hale from yonder small island, where ‘body language’ merely refers to rude hand gestures and there are no such things as social skills, merely rules, a hierarchy and a sense of decorum at all times. Now if my autistic children were hoping for a leg up [translation = advantage] in the realms of social interaction, then they basically drew the short straw. Since I’m out here, in Jolly Old California, rather than back there, at least I have the advantage of understanding the not so subtle messages that I exude. The tight face, stiff upper lip, brow frown and rigid shoulders, tell every one to keep their distance without me having to utter a single syllable. My diction may be first rate, my enunciation second to none, but that won’t get me very far with an autistic child because my facial expression doesn’t match my message. If you have a face like a poker, you are wasting your time trying to communicate with them. You need an animated face, a cheerleader’s movements, an Italian’s hand gestures and a tone of voice that is arresting. Without these tools you are wasting your time, you won’t even get their attention let alone permit a message to transmit.

Yes, when dealing with an autistic child, whilst it pains me more than you can ever know to admit it, two particularly loathsome American terms come to mind; ‘in your face’ and ‘on your case,’ because ‘would you mind awfully’ and ‘ when you have a mo’ just don’t cut it. Fortunately, learning to be a ‘citizen’ out here has conferred far more benefits upon me than the mere permission to work.

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.

Intolerance

Personally, I do not suffer from this affliction. I have the patience of Job. [translation = coming as I do, from a country renowned for their love of their fellow man, as evidenced by their tendency to seek out new lands and colonize them.] British people are well known for their non-judgmental attitude towards all matters of high import. Whilst they also have a tendency to nit pick about matters too petty to mention, overall ‘British’ is synonymous with tolerance. [translation = a consensus of opinion]
“But I hate dah sweet potatoes!” he bleats. [translation = an improvement of 50 decibel yelling, indicating a capacity to wheedle. {sub translation = much higher functioning level of communication}]


“But they’re so good for you, full of vitamin C and a true American food.”
“I am an American?”
“Of course you are.”
“But I fort I wuz dah Californian?” [Translation = how come he can pronounce the ‘State’ perfectly, but there’s not a dipthong within ear-shot = the ‘th’ sound]?
“You’re both, Californian and an American, aren’t you the lucky one!”
“I fink I am a worldian. A universian. A galaxian.” [translation = I wish I hadn’t taken this route.]
“Anyway, the point is, that you need to eat them for all their Vitimin C.” [translation = pronounced ‘vit- i- min –SEE’ = UK, as opposed to VITE eR mn SEE = US {sub translation = say them out loud and you’ll hear the difference, give it a try, think ‘monarchy,’ visualize a glittering crown on your head and then speak, and again, but louder this time] Digression over.



“But I hate intimacy!” he blurts. [translation = I didn’t even know that he knew that word?]
“Not ‘intimacy,’ ‘vitamin C!’”

So it’s not just autism, not just the speech delay, merely an accent that makes
communication so bumpy.