Because it is December, temperatures climbed to the near 60℉ mark.  I wouldn’t have expected any less, to be honest.  Just as I am willing to embrace the season (removing the Thanksgiving decor and the autumnal trimmings with no hesitation at all,) I go out wearing a heavy jacket that, between the time I entered the library at 10:15 a.m. and exited at 10:45 a.m., I didn’t really need.  The mortifying experience of a galloping hot flash at the Friends of the Library book sale was nothing compared to the realization, once I hit the great outdoors, that I was not going to get the blissful relief of a significant blast of cold air.  December, of course, is the playful month that will toy with me until it’s ready to settle in and dump a mile of snow on top of us.

As we entered the grocery store, J saw the Christmas trees and Dada walked over with him to say hello.  J loves walking past and running his fingers through the branches.  Tomorrow we are going to decide exactly where in the family room we’ll be placing the tree so that I can prepare the space and clean everything before bringing a tree home next weekend.

This afternoon we tackled the string of lights on the kitchen balcony.  I had originally asked Dada to take care of this particular project and, after a hasty ten minutes outside, he declared it done.  In the meantime, I went to the garage and retrieved all the storage containers with Christmas decorations in them.  I sorted through a much smaller amount of ornaments than we had in the past.  Not long ago I announced that I was minimizing Xmas hoopla, and this was what was left.  All that is left in the crates, after careful re-distribution through the house, are ornaments for the tree.

Zelda the Hellion Cat and Miss Pipa encountered inflatable Snoopy.  Zelda was bold, but easily spooked if I so much as jostled the almost five foot tall Snoopy, his head decorated with a Santa’s hat.  Pipa, on the other hand, navigated the whole street-level of the house staying as far away from the ‘giant’ as she could.  First she observed from the stairs, then she hugged the wall all the way to the balcony, where she sat for several minutes possibly plotting a route to get to the living room without approaching the Christmas beagle.  By the time I was done tortu…playing with the cats, I stepped out on the balcony and laughed until my sides hurt…

No musicality at all.  The lights were strung in such a fashion that I told Dada, as I removed them and started over, that the neighbors would assume he had been drinking heavily in the middle of the afternoon.  ”Isn’t there anything other than fixing them that will take care of it?,” he asked.  I answered sure, I could always hang the wreath lopsided so that people would assume that it was just that the balcony was about to collapse.  At that we both laughed, me with an “I’m so clever” lilt and he with a “very funny…NOT” lilt.  From the stairs he called out “maybe I’m going for a Dalí effect!!!”  I called out “well, do YOU want to deal with The Critic when he comes up and sees your handiwork???”  The thought of J supervising the re-stringing of the lights was enough for Dada to realize that a quick intervention on my part was necessary as J would likely wait until it was dark to disapprove of the whole thing…

At the first hint of Xmas being ushered into our household, J took out his new Christmas CDs.  We’ve been serenaded by Rod Stewart all afternoon.  Mind you, I love Rod as much as the next person, but when you’ve been listening to Let It Snow!  Let It Snow!  Let It Snow! all afternoon it doesn’t quite have the same effect as when you listen to, say, Maggie May or You’re In My Heart.  Hot Legs would have been a welcome change after the twenty-fifth Let It Snow!  Let It Snow!  Let It Snow! play.   Thank goodness, at that time J switched to another album and we were relieved to hear that the version of Santa Baby he was going to fixate on was Eartha Kitt’s and not Madonna’s.

With that the tail end of the year has started wagging.  We happily head into the thick of Christmas, with the tree coming in next Sunday and the Twelve Days starting shortly thereafter.  From now until then, I will be avidly working on getting J’s iPad (which is now in our possession) fully ready for him to simply turn it on and get going as soon as he receives it on the Second Day.  (A side note on this, if I may: LORD!  I have HUGE fingers!  I cannot, for the life of me, handle the thing without changing the screen when I least want to; there are so many apps for Autism that the research I’d done before picking it up last night has proven helpful, but not authoritative.  I have crossed some things off the list and added others that I want to research further. This gives me less than two weeks to get J’s iPad ready for him, so I have homework to do.)

Anyway…I smell dinner, and -at this moment- it is neither a scary nor warning smell so I’d better go to take care of it…

Hello, December…and away we go!

“Oh, that was just ’cause Dada was here to wake him up this morning!”

From the back of the bus, the shuffling of J’s feet and a loud DADA!!!!!!! followed by a giggle…

What a lucky, lucky bunch of people we are!

Long after the lights in his room had been turned off, I could hear him happily giggling and singing with anticipation.  Our conversation on the way home from the bus yesterday afternoon was all about how Dada would be the one waking him up for school.  In all honesty, I did not take the exuberant peal of joyful laughter and the spontaneous “let’s hold hands and SKIP all the way home!” personally.  If I had, I would have cried then and there.  The fact of the matter is that I, too, was very excited about Dada returning from his trip.

Because he got home long after the kids had finally petered out and succumbed to sleep, Dada didn’t see anyone other than me until this morning.  As usual, he crawled out of bed and made his way to the kitchen, quietly, to have some orange juice.  A few minutes later, I heard him make his way back up, saw the light in the hallway turn on and, lo and behold, J welcomed him with open arms and a bright smile.

The sounds of the house are the ones I’ve come to expect.  The look of the house (a pair of shoes lazily resting by the door, keys jumbled on top of a shelf, a hat dangling on a hook) has returned to “a family lives here,” as opposed to “a family is waiting for someone to return so they can go back their usual lives.”  J, who loves me and puts up with me kindly, was so happy this morning as he ate his breakfast that he hummed all the way through it, smiling up at Dada every time he saw him out of the corner of his eye.

I am happy.  I am not being facetious.  I really am happy.  I am happy that we can function as a reduced troop, but even better when we’re full-force.  I love being all present, and accounted for.  I love that shaving cream smell now clings to a towel I’d just put out yesterday.  I love that the bed looks like two people slept in it rather than like I slept in it and migrated to Dada’s side because I missed him.  I like that, at midnight, Dada said “how about a grilled ham and cheese sandwich?” and we both marched down to the kitchen, made a snack and then sat in bed, chatting away while we ate.  I am happy that I can do all that is required of me when I am alone, but that I have someone to do it with the rest of the time.

J was very affectionate this morning before he left for school.  I think he might have suspected I was upset about the “Dada’s back!” joy he was displaying so openly.  As I helped him with his jacket, I leaned in and whispered “oh, I am SO happy that Dada is home!”  J smiled back with a knowing look in his eyes.

Over coffee, Dada was telling me how happy J was while waiting for the bus.  I said “of course!  He didn’t have to walk down the hill in the dark.  He didn’t have to sing while waiting.  You are the natural companion for that activity.  He considers it J and Dada time.”  I explained that, while it was not at all problematic walking and waiting with him so very early and so very dark in the morning, I lack whatever quality makes the wait special with Dada.  ”It’s like playing golf,’ I said, ‘if I go with you, it sort of takes away from the experience.  You’d rather do it with your brother.  There is a rhythm, a texture, a quality that is unattainable when I’m there.”

So we are back to our prime condition.  All the relationships are in their normal course.  Dada is mornings and I am afternoons, together we are evenings.  TGG and Dada have their viewing of Walking Dead scheduled for this evening.  J and I will work on our puzzle.  I will sleep with my foot resting on Dada’s leg, and he will alternate between taking my blankets and piling his and mine on top of me.

Life is good.  As George Sand wrote: life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.  Indeed.

In the face of such enthusiasm, I had to ask myself (as I trudged back home in what was not any lighter than fifteen minutes earlier when we climbed down) if I am that tedious and boring.  (Don’t answer, please.  If ever there was a rhetorical question uttered it was that one.  Seriously, please refrain…)  It seems that J would rather brave a walk to the corner in the cold, dark morning than spend the whole day here with me.  If memory serves correctly, I only liked staying at home “sick” when everyone else was gone, so this might be yet another sign of so-called normal adolescent behavior on J’s part.  I am only hoping that he does feel better and we don’t have to go through the same rigmarole tonight.

***

Nearly nine P.M. and, from down the hallway, I can hear J laughing and giggling at only he knows what.  Previous to his bath, he regaled us with a whispered-whistled ditty that seems to be his own original composition.  Not only does it sound original, it is obviously a “happy” song.  He was putting his laundry away and I was in the bathroom filling the tub when I first heard it.

Now…I was watching Ghost Hunters while having tea this afternoon and, somehow, I ended up leaving the same channel on until I came upstairs.  The whisper-whistle gave me a start.  I didn’t know where it was coming from and, my brain addled by a show on -of all channels- SyFy wrapped around my brain and made me turn around, eyes so wide open I thought they were going to bug out…

Serves me right that it was J with his little song and his merry giggle.

Now it’s time to get ready for tomorrow morning and another trek down the hill.  After worrying about his sloshy/stuffy nose and his slightly elevated temperature last night, J was perfectly fine at school all day.  The only problem he had is the frustration he feels when he wants to put his sandals on the table while he switches to boots.  At home and at school we’re modeling that footwear goes on the floor, but J just wants them on the table.  There is collective frustration, but I’m hoping to find some way to get him to comply with the “no shoes on the table rule.”

I am tired.  J feels better and I feel worse.  There was tickling in my throat last night that kept waking me up.  I had no tickling in my throat during the day.  Dada won’t be back until midnight tomorrow.  That puts the full-blown symptoms of the cold that I seem to be harboring (on the down-low for now, of course) kicking into full swing by…oh…11:59 tomorrow night?

Yes.  That’s about what I figure!

]]> http://myteenagerisautistic.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/the-sloshy-nose-gallops-again/ Wed, 28 Nov 2012 02:56:03 +0000 Lola BG http://myteenagerisautistic.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/the-sloshy-nose-gallops-again/  

Because Dada is traveling, J’s cold has returned.  Well, no, that’s not the actual reason why it decided to make a comeback.  Let’s say that Dada being away is the feather that decorates this whole thing and makes it extra special.  I think the cold decided to come back because it’s been colder than it had been last week (when J started getting better,) it was misty-snowy/snowy-misty and cloudy all day, and J marched home sans chapeaux from the bus.

I admit that, as we were slowly making our way up the hill, I could hear my great-aunts clicking their tongues and saying “Ave María, nena…don’t you know that if your head gets cold you catch a cold????  How many times do we have to tell you not to go out in the sereno?”

Let me take a moment to explain sereno because it is a concept that has long stumped many a person who meets me, hears a reference to it and then receives a shrug and a “you know…sereno?”  Sereno is a mysterious substance that is a combination of cold air that isn’t really cold and wet air that isn’t wet enough to be substantial and…well…felt.  It’s not mist.  No, please, don’t confuse it with mist.  In fact, it’s a lot more mystical than that and it is such an elusive substance-that-isn’t-a-substance that my great-aunts (who were warned about it by their aunt who was warned about it by her aunts and so on possibly all the way back to the time when our family converted from being Jews to being Catholic so they didn’t have to leave Spain in 1492) would simply say “vas a coger sereno” (you’re going to catch sereno) as if some sort of horrible fate awaited out there.  Sereno could happen at any time of the year: the hottest evening in summer, the middle of a drought, during a hurricane if you happened to step out of the confines of a tightly secured space…

I have spent YEARS not believing in sereno and thumbing my nose at it.  This task was easier and more rewarding when I didn’t have children who, for some inexplicable reason, would be sick for no apparent reason after being “exposed.”  I have tried to rationalize it, but I’ve discovered that the sereno effect usually grabs hold of whomever is exposed to it when a) all the cold medicine is expired, b) the doctor is out of town, c) urgent care closed for the night two minutes ago, d) it’s a long weekend or one of those weeks with a holiday in the middle of it when everyone leaves and you can’t reach them, or e) the routine has been re-established after a brief alteration and you really don’t want to deal with a sudden jarring of your peace and quiet.  Thanks, I’ll take “e” for the win!!!!

J’s nose is not the most delicate feature on his face.  It is a sturdy nose.  It is far from elegant, but it is a good-looking nose that adds character and some humor to his handsome face.  J’s nose is also not properly trained to blow mucus out and requires highly-trained mom to retrieve whatever is in the farthest depths of his sinuses so that he can breathe.  J with a stuffy nose, with sinus congestion of the kind that gives a mere mortal a headache, turns into a 200-plus pound version of Jennifer Beals doing her thing to Maniac in Flashdance.  I have tried to explain that windmill-arms and quick-as-lightning stomping isn’t conducive to me doing the job properly, but we all know that J is not interested in those details.  Menial they may be to him, but I still have to try to persuade him to stay put and let me decongest his nose.

The thermometer has been taken out of its case, and it says that he has a bit of temperature, but not enough to warrant running.  He is tired, and so am I.  He is congested, but that has been, on and off, the case for the past week.  It’s just a cold, I know, and I really shouldn’t worry about a little nasal congestion.  The thing is that I know he hates missing school when he thinks he’s fine.  The other thing is that he has a lot of gas because he’s breathing through his mouth.  The third thing is that he won’t turn off the fans (which we’ve TRIED, trust me…I don’t know what else to do to convince him that it’s not helpful in the least.)  The fourth thing is…he feels miserable and it shows.  Miserable J, especially when it’s because of something that I could have possibly prevented by insisting that he put his hats on walking home this afternoon, is something that crushes me.

So…I had TGG take down the PECS for BACKPACK and BUS, and searched for the phone number for the bus driver (and didn’t find it, thank you…I could have SWORN I had it programmed into the phone, but NO!)  I left a voice message for the teacher.  I applied a thick layer of Vicks to every body part that might benefit from it (don’t ask…that’s another Puerto Rican thing…Vicks…on the soles of the feet, on the bridge of the nose, on the chest, on the neck, on the back…) and gave him medication to help the congestion go away.  J looked at me like I am the worst vile betrayer known to mankind, and I tucked him in and told him I’d do my best to send him to school tomorrow…

Dada called shortly after this, and I poked my head into J’s room so he could hear Dada’s voice and say GOOD NIGHT.  (For the record, he sounded like a goose.  Even Dada told him that: “poor J!  You sound like a goose, baby boy!”)  J sniffled loudly and hoarsely said BYE, dismissing the caller and the person holding the phone.  I took the phone into TGG’s room and put Dada on speakerphone.  ”What happened?  He seemed fine this morning!”  TGG didn’t miss a beat from his Minecraft game and said “yeah, you’re right.  He was all happy and feeling better.”  I said I thought he was better when he got home from school, and right about the time we were going to make dinner his nose started to sound like what a lava lamp looks like.

It was then that, in unison and without a single shred of sarcasm in their voices, Dada and TGG said “SERENO!!!!”  And somewhere up in the cushiest clouds up in Heaven, my great-aunts (and their coffee klatch of generation upon generation of aunts) started laughing…

The same cannot be said about the stuffing, the gravy, the mashed potatoes, the cranberry sauce, the home-made rolls or the blanched asparagus.  Only the chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting is also flatly refusing to disappear.  Tonight we’re having beef stew.  I don’t think any single person in this household could enthusiastically nibble on another morsel of turkey.  Of course, I could be wrong…Dada has been known (being one of five sons) to make a sandwich out of anything that is left in the fridge; it’s a survival thing.  I have done all I could to make the turkey interesting after that first oooh-aaah impression, and after that second instance in which one simply MUST HAVE a leftover-turkey sandwich.  By the time we re-created Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday evening (with the same gusto that Civil War re-enactors apply to their exertions on the field,) TGG was asking if there wasn’t anything else and J was pushing the turkey around as if thinking “didn’t I eat you last night and why are you back on my plate???”  The only one with stars in his eyes was Dada, but that’s because -again- being one of five sons, he gets enthused about any meal that doesn’t involve competitive serving.

Last night’s enchiladas got a warmer welcome, but that’s because no one can not not be enthused about anything that has green chile on it, inside it and around it.  The turkey was an ingredient, the green chile was the featured player.  J, who loves the smell of chile but doesn’t enjoy the taste or texture, looked at his turkey quesadilla as if thinking “again?  What are you?  A zombie?  A vampire?  How many times do I have to get rid of you before you actually go away!!??”  The look of relief on his face when he saw me take out stew meat from the freezer was priceless…

This is the thing about Thanksgiving: the concept is lovely, the meal is fantastic, but the repercussions of the hyperbolic poultry are too long-lasting to be enjoyed all the way through.  While you’re putting away the leftover turkey after your done with THE meal, you want to keep picking at it and nibbling while making yummy sounds.  The next day you might hum happily while you’re building your sandwich; that evening, you’re still a little excited about a small portion of the components gathered on your plate, but by the third day -while your mother is trying to figure out how to disguise the leftovers in a way that makes them appealing- you are aware that that’s NOT a girl-bunny, it’s really just Bugs Bunny wearing the creepy girl costume.  It makes me wonder how we managed when we used to roast a twenty-three pound bird, and I guess it’s just that the tryptophan sort of erases your memory…it’s Thanksgiving, you know you ate turkey for a whole week, but the details are fuzzy…

The chocolate cake is another problem.  I swear to you I’ve had cake…four times?  So has Dada.  (Don’t judge us…it’s good cake.  Made-from-scratch cake.  Yes, that sound you hear is my hips creaking as they widen…)  The cake seems to not have diminished in size at all.  And we haven’t skimped.  We’ve served generous slices of cake.  So has TGG.  J hasn’t been interested.  (He’s in a no-cake kick.  He’s also in a no-ice cream kick.  And the mac and cheese -after a six or seven month respite- are back on the menu.)  Still, there is the cake…still half of it left.  And it wasn’t a large cake either…two layers of 8″ rounds.  That’s it.  No more.  No matter how much you eat, its shadowy hulk is discernible through the plastic dome of the cake-carrier thing.  I don’t know if it’s like one of those lizards that starts regenerating a tail after you chop it off, but even J has slowed down to look at the shadow.

Dada travels tomorrow and is back on Thursday.  These are the days when I don’t cook as much as I usually do, and I don’t eat as much as I usually would.  It has been documented on previous occasions that I don’t quite know what to do when the man is not around.  The days just don’t seem full enough, not that I don’t have things to do or that J and TGG don’t occupy my time fully.  I just seem to get done with the business of moving around the house doing stuff earlier than I would when Dada is here.  I don’t really watch TV (unless it is while folding clothes) or have anyone to talk to…well, I can talk to J, but he thinks I’m a nuisance and listens very politely for a while and then shoos me out of the room with a smile on his face.

The only thing left for me to do from Tuesday to Thursday night is clean the house and finish fine-tuning the Christmas details.  This weekend we have to work on our wrapping paper because J has started to -quite boldly- reorganize the coats every time he opens the coat closet.  That is: he’s gone by color, by owner, by texture…all while standing on his toes and humming so I don’t hear the rummaging sounds.  We can tell he’s starting to think of Twelve Days because yesterday, when we went to the store for some last-minute household items, he made us drive our shopping cart past all his favorite sections, and he slowed down, smiling broadly and demonstrating how good he was being about not asking for anything.  The three adults exchanged looks and smiled at each other, and TGG announced -as I used to when he was little and acted in such an obsequious manner- “that egg wants to be salted,” an expression often used where we come from.

J is ripe for Twelve Days, and he’s also curious about the contents of that coat closet like he hasn’t been in a long time.  Maybe I should just hang a picture of leftover turkey in there?  Maybe that will distract him until next Monday, when I can start wrapping things????

By the time we left the house, bundled for the weather and with books for the library, we were a happy band of people.  J, as usual, insisted on music as soon as we started the car.  TGG leaned back and watched trees roll by through his window, happy to not be at work on this cloudy and cold day.  Dada, his hat firmly planted on his head, smiled like one who hasn’t had three consecutive days without work lingering in the back of his mind in a while.  I was just happy to be out of the house and keeping such company.

I have to admit that when students are gone, the dynamics of town alter significantly.  The streets were empty thanks to a combination of the weeklong school holiday and the weather.  We wandered about freely, and decided (quite on-the-spot) to drive through to the cemetery.  I always tell Dada that for one who doesn’t ever want to be constricted in a box in a hole in the ground, I sure like the feeling of peace that permeates a graveyard.  The truth is that I wanted to see what the cold weather and the demise of autumn have done to the trees.  I was not disappointed.  It is a well-known fact in this household that I love naked trees even more than I love fully-clothed ones, and it was a nudist colony out there.  J didn’t want to get out of the car because of the cold (there is that bench he loves to sit on,) but he didn’t mind lingering while I took pictures.

And then we came home…

The rest of the afternoon could be compared to spools of thread comfortably settled in their niches.  The cats curled up on our bed; J curled up on the couch; TGG curled up in front of his video game; Dada curled up with his laptop (I believe he was in a campaign somewhere in the Mediterranean, but I wasn’t really paying attention…he has won World War II so many times now that I can hardly keep track.)  I walked around lazily observing every being in this household.  I curled up between Dada and the cats, and I nearly fell asleep watching the snow flutter past the window.

The truth is that November does this to me.  I slip into pensiveness.  I don’t know if it is so much that I’m looking back on the year that has unspooled and lays jumbled behind me, or if I simply start November thinking of Jo March’s birthday (because Louisa May Alcott -and her father- were born on November 29th and she assigned this birthday month to Jo.)  November is the month when I think too much.  November is the month of reluctant melancholia preceding the hopeful joy of December.  Bach isn’t helping matters, by the way, and I’ve decided to steer clear from my initial musical background and switch to Vivaldi instead.

The month is hardly over.  We still have almost a whole week and other occupations to keep us busy before we surrender to December and the end of year chaos.  There have been hints of a discussion regarding Dada’s few days off the week of Christmas.  Most of these have involved pajamas, light meals, movies, jigsaw puzzles and the same kind of laziness that has invaded the premises with the colder weather.  The looks given to the fresh supply of Christmas trees on offer outside the store were longer than they had been so far.  We have floated the idea of a Christmas card, and suggestions are being offered (though not yet in earnest.)  Christmas is around the corner, but we seem to be walking towards the corner a little more slowly than others.

This is true of all of us, but not in the same degree for J.  That young man takes longer to hang his jackets in the coat closet than he should.  He is trying, without putting any obvious effort into it, to discover which of the boxes full of as-yet-unwrapped presents, belongs to him.  I know this is one of the reasons why he keeps either taking out the vacuum cleaner (which is not needed at the time) and putting it away (when I still need it.)  Yesterday I hinted strongly at putting a bell on the door, and I heard a sudden click and a shuffle of J-feet towards the garage.  He doesn’t really have to “dig” for anything as I don’t overdo the concealment of packages, so I’ve announced -quite clearly- that I have finished shopping and will not shop for anything else if the things in the closet are discovered, identified and appropriated.  Coal, I’ve said, is what people will get…and THIS is mining country, by the way.  Not hard to come by coal!  Proof that the threat has worked is that J hung his coat with his back turned to the closet when we got home earlier this afternoon.  I am thinking the first weekend in December is the perfect time to work on wrapping paper as a craft project.

At the library we found a Christmas crafts book and J is excited about the projects in it.  Since Dada has to travel this week (from Tuesday to Thursday,) the evenings will feel a little longer and we will have to occupy ourselves with projects.  Tomorrow, book in hand, J and I will spelunk in the crafts-materials closet and locate all the things we will be needing.  There is a certain appeal in pipe cleaners that J cannot resist, and I don’t think I need to explain that anything having to do with stamping paper with a potato into which a design has been carved is enough to keep him occupied for at least an hour.

Tomorrow morning, however, comes the best news in the whole wide world: the BUS and BACKPACK PECS get to go on the board for a whole solid week.  After a week of sinus congestion, vaporizers, cold medicine, thermometers randomly inserted into ears, lessons on how to blow one’s nose…J will be over the moon with joy…

Let’s see how we fare walking down to the corner at 6:15 in the morning while Dada is gone, and slipping and sliding if it snows.

The mess in the kitchen is not only self-renewing (or seems to be,) but it is also spectacular.  While the rest of the human population of the household is currently fighting off waves of much-desired tryptophan-induced laziness by cleaning the mess I left in my wake (art isn’t easy…,) I am sitting up here happily playing “not my job” while I finish the wine left in my glass.

Call me a coward if you will, but I have one more mess to make and I am gearing up for it: chocolate cream-cheese frosting for my husband’s last-minute
“best chocolate cake ever” recipe extracted from a cookbook he often looks at and seldom uses.  Because this is a house where we are avid subscribers to “food porn,” finding a recipe usually takes a great deal of effort, a lot of backtracking and the use of post-it flags.  There are books that look like they are wearing Joseph’s Technicolor Dream Coat…or whatever it’s called.

J thoroughly enjoyed his dinner.  The turkey, of course, because it’s poultry and it was juicy, but mostly the home-made rolls because they were plump and warm, and we hadn’t made a successful batch in a few years.  (High-altitude baking…a hit or miss thing…oh how glad we are that we are a lot lower now!)

We are expecting the possibility of snow tonight.  I am hoping it is mild because I owe the library one book that is due tomorrow, and I have yet another that I managed to read between going to bed last night and stealing chunks of time here and there today.  I am not looking forward to snow except for the opportunity it will provide to test the famous coco-mats I ordered to prevent us from slipping and sliding our way down the hill.  I am hoping that they work as promised, but if they don’t at least they didn’t cost me an arm and a leg.

There you have it.  Another Thanksgiving is done and we forge ahead into the holiday season.  Dada travels next week (which is a tremendous source of stress for me,) and J goes back -hopefully completely freed from his cold- to school on Monday.  We did this a day later than the rest of the world, but we did it with a great deal of joy and, modesty joyfully tossed aside with a great deal of enthusiasm, quite tastily.  The cats will enjoy their bit of turkey as much as we enjoyed our discreetly portioned amounts (we cannot eat so much that leftovers are not left over,) and we got to spend the day together and happy, barely stepping on each others’ toes.

Of course, it is nearly seven P.M., and J wants to do laundry and there is a double-boiler waiting for me to melt chocolate…the day is far from over.  The gratitude is never in short supply (even if it can be a little grudging at times.)

On to Saturday…

The weird, lazy people in 145 lingered over coffee and in their pajamas, shaking the spiderwebs of leisure some time around noon when they decided that there were things they could do to not appear completely careless of the holiday.  J made cranberry sauce.  I lined up recipes and ingredients.  Dada emptied trash bins all over the house and made busy with a few minor chores.

By this hour, our appetizers for this evening are ready (mini-quiches of three kinds that we whipped up on the side of a larger spinach, mushroom and Swiss for tomorrow morning, pigs in blankets with sweet chili dipping sauce and bite-size pepperoni pizzas for J) as well as a free-form dessert tart with mascarpone and chocolate chips.  If you’re going to wait for turkey until tomorrow wait in style, we say around these parts.

J has been helpful and happy all day.  He has kicked Xmas tunes into high gear, maybe because the neighbors seems to have taken all their decorations out.  Of course, the day isn’t just about turkey and shopping (which, much to our chagrin, seems to have started in earnest earlier this year,) it’s about gratitude.  Here are the things we all agreed we’re grateful for:

1) No boxing gloves.

2) Being able to take J anywhere with the same rate of success that other parents experience.

3) J’s Ceramics class that makes him so happy.

4) A steady income that keeps us sheltered, fed and safe.

5) Each other.

6) The blasted, annoying, irritating, overwhelming, rambunctious cats.

7) Our health…fractured though it may seem at times.

8) J…after all, he is our center, our pilot, our raison d’être.  A lot that wouldn’t make sense otherwise, makes sense and seems right because of J.

9) TGG…what a sense of humor and the absurd that kid has…how did we get so lucky?

Go forth and enjoy your evening, night, morning, afternoon…whatever it is wherever you are.  I am going to rally my young kitchen helper to make yet another mess in the name of family togetherness, and bite-size pizzas.

It’s good to be me…it’s good to be us.

Let’s face it: the whole wave of “make your baby smarter” products didn’t really do much to move children forward, but it definitely improved the bottom line for some merchandisers.  That J jumped on that bandwagon thanks to school was terribly disappointing.  The teacher enthusiastically told me “look at that!  Your son is listening to Beethoven!  Where else would he get that chance????”  Once I recovered from wanting to assume the crash position, I -more outwardly composed than I felt on the inside- said “at home…he loves Mozart and hates Tchaikovsky; Mahler makes him cry, and Chopin is cathartic to him.  He also enjoys Brazilian music and Gregorian chants.  I’m assuming there isn’t a Baby Einstein that can trample on those for us.”

Call me a snob.  (No…seriously…go ahead.  Take your time.  I don’t mind.  I know I’m a snob.)  I don’t think dumbing things down or making them twinkly and sparkly helps make children more open to them, it simply makes them twinkly and sparkly.  Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak (in my humble opinion) didn’t “talk down” to kids…they simply talked to kids, and kids listened and understood.  Read Jabberwocky out loud to any kid and they’ll soon be mesmerized by its cadence, its language.  Try to do it with a cutesy voice…it doesn’t quite work.  Read Horton Hatches the Egg and give Mayzie a Southern drawl.  Kids LOVE that.  Play Pavarotti singing La Donna è Mobile from Rigoletto to a four year-old and you’ll soon see them trying to lip-sync and emoting, having the time of their lives.  I know Baby Beethoven has some merit, but…why not display a little faith in the kid and play the real thing?

At home, Baby Beethoven became the thing J listened to when he was sick, miserable and in a regressive phase.  No, I’m not imagining it…Baby Beethoven and his cohorts usually brought out things like not making it to the potty on time, wanting to suck our soda from the carpet, grunting and crying rather than pointing.  No sooner would J get sick and whiny than Baby Beethoven would come out of its hiding place and set the mood.

I say this because, for the past few days, J has been sitting downstairs and I’ve up here, on the third floor, listening to him through the baby monitor.  (Yes, my back is still giving me grief and, no, he doesn’t want to come upstairs.)  As I go about the slow business of doing my morning chores (peppered with ouch, ugh, yelp and eek here and there,) I have been followed around by the signs of doom.  You might call them “the Baby Einstein videos.”  Dada and TGG both cringed when they heard that, and I can’t blame them.  It’s not the videos themselves (heaven help me, no…I can’t blame this on the stay-at-home mom who came up with this idea.  I’m sure her heart was in the right place,) but rather what J associates with them: a classroom full of autistic kids who were subjected to Rosetta Stone as a learning tool when they could barely figure out what they were supposed to be doing with that, and then being rewarded with Baby Einstein while the aides took a much needed break.  A kid who at home had his pick of composers, bands, singers and instrumentalists cannot have related clink, whir, spin and bells with a reward.

At this moment I can hear my son listening to NPR and alternating with his iPod and CDs.  So far we have traversed the vast musical territory that encompasses Verdi’s Rigoletto, Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries,  Mumford and Sons, Lena Horne, Blossom Dearie, Vince Guaraldi, The Black Keys, and Bow Wow Wow.  In the middle of bouts of sneezing, a coruscation of joy arises.

I don’t tell you this purely as criticism of the so-called “child friendly” adaptations; I’m sure that these products have introduced many a child to classical music in the same way that toy pianos and xylophones made some us bang away happily thinking we were “making music” while our parents reached for the gin.  I simply would have preferred if, for a time, we had not been subjected to Baby Beethoven and Baby Mozart when Disney (Baby Einstein‘s parent company) did it so much better.  Fantasia is, to this day, a shining example of combining child-friendly with actual classical music played as it should be.  During the Forties, Disney produced a solid catalog of musical compilation movies that actually helped introduce many a kid (who either saw them in the theater or enjoyed them years later in The Wonderful World of Disney as vignettes) to different musical genres.  Both J and TGG are avid fans of music they first heard from these videos, and that experience has helped expand their musical tastes to encompass just about anything.  (I type this as Hendrix starts floating up the stairs and curling around the banisters…)

The music, in a nutshell, tells me that J is feeling better and that tomorrow will be an improvement on today just like we’ve moved forward from the state of demanding misery we experienced yesterday.  I am saying this because, among the pile of DVDs he carried down to the basement with him, J has Melody Time, Make Mine Music, The Three Caballeros (in which “Os Quindins de Yayá” always elicits inspired and spirited dancing), Fun and Fancy Free, and Saludos Amigos.  It’s bound to be a varied musical selection today, and unless Mahler trots out and brings us down, we should be fine.

Yeah…J’s feeling better on this Baby Beethoven-free morning.  And, quite frankly and in spite of my aching back, so am I!

While Dada shaved and got ready for work, I planned out the next hour or so…read a little, doze off a little…  It sounded heavenly and I was REALLY looking forward to it before having to face the rest of the day, and the vaporizer, and the cold medicine, and the up-and-down-the-stairs, and…you know the rest.

As Dada headed down to the kitchen, and I followed in his wake, gingerly navigating each step, I noticed J’s light was out.  ”Oh, how sweet!  He’s put himself back to bed for a little while longer!,” I said, my heart full of blind joy.  No sooner had my feet landed on the kitchen floor, the distinct sound of Goofy learning to dance (or something along those lines because we all know that Goofy took all sorts of animated lessons during the post-War era,) grabbed my ear and pulled me to the next set of stairs.

“Yep,” Dada said, “he put himself back to bed alright!  Downstairs!  On the couch!  With the big TV!”  I sighed.  Foiled.  Again.  Story of my life.

The day since that moment turned into a constant flow of NOSE (with the appropriate vocabulary surrounding the request, of course,) NOODLES, WATER, MOVIE, HELP, PLEASE.  Zelda the Hellion Cat has finally been accepted into J’s world.  No, correction…Zelda is now tolerated in J’s world.  He knows that PLEASE will trigger the poor cat’s reflex of running into the garage, or that one of us will scoop her up and take her away.  The amount of time that he allows her in his presence and the proximity he permits to his personal space are improving vastly; J will even pet her -not in the most tender of manners, but we can’t expect a sudden change of heart, can we?- when he feels so inclined.

It is now barely eight o’clock and, after a bath, medicine for his cold symptoms, Vicks Vapo Rub, clean pajamas, a shave and a haircut (not in that order,) J gathered up all his movies and his Slinky and returned to his room.  The vaporizer and thermometer followed closely behind…not self-propelled, of course.  The already-tired adults had to make an additional trip to finish bringing J’s safari gear up to his room.  After tucking him in, and making sure that the vaporizer was loaded with both fresh water and fresh solution, we were unceremoniously ejected from J’s kingdom.  I hope he sleeps all night, but I hope I sleep all night even more…

There you have it.  Thanksgiving is still on track, but with certain cautions in place.  The usual Thanksgiving Day trip to the movies is postponed.  The turkey is discreetly defrosting in the refrigerator.  All the lists are ready for handing out and mobilizing the involved parties.  I am hoping against all hope that we wake up to less congestion and no fever tomorrow, and that J feels more energized and less demanding (and not just more energized to be more demanding.)

The weather has been overcast and warmer than this time last year, but there is the possibility of snow in the forecast.  I am sure that by the time it does snow and get colder, J will be feeling much better…and I will be starting the misery of my own cold.

That’s why I’m the mommy.

I am exhausted and my nerves are frayed.  And it’s only Monday.

No, I don’t know WHERE he caught this cold.  I don’t even know WHEN he started showing signs of  having a cold.  As far as I can tell, J’s cold sprung fully formed from some mysterious source, and we’ve been dealing with the congestion, moodiness, whining and demands since then.  J has managed, for the first time in a long time, to set the bar very high for the next male in the household who is sick.  Not only has he been whining and complaining, he also has managed to be completely arrogant and forceful about it.

I have walked down to the Frozen Tundra at least fifty times today.  Every time I go down there, I turn off the fans.  Every time I go back upstairs, J turns the fans back on, and it goes from a pleasantly Mediterranean climate to the closest thing to an Ice Cap I’ve ever experienced.  If you think I’m exaggerating, I will tell you the following: I’ve considered wearing a sleeping bag to sit down there with him.

So the tug of war over the fans has been one part of the equation and J’s loud demands for CLEAN NOSE NOW have been another.  As the mother of an autistic individual it is quite obvious that I will clean his nose, but only after he says PLEASE and uses MY in the sentence.

CLEAN NOSE NOW.

What was that, J?  

CLEAN NOSE NOW.

HMMM…I didn’t hear a PLEASE in there…

CLEAN NOSE NOW.

Still not hearing it.

(Roll of the eyes.)

This would go faster if you use a whole sentence.

CLEAN NOSE NOW PLEASE.

Is that any old nose or a specific nose, J?

(Roll of the eyes.)

CLEAN MY NOSE NOW PLEASE.

That’s more like it!  Thank you, J!  Good asking!!!!

I’m sure by that point he wished he was well-versed and highly skilled at blowing his own nose so he could do it in my direction.

So that’s the lay of the land here in J-ville.  The child has been steamed, vaporized, medicated, pampered, annoyed, fed, watered, made comfortable.  The mother needs a shower, a good night’s sleep (which isn’t happening because, let’s face it, we don’t really conk out when they’re sick, do we?,) and a young man who is feeling a lot less congested in the morning.  Mother also needs to figure out how to turn off the fans so that J cannot turn them back on when she’s not looking.  No, persuasion won’t work.  Using the chains to turn them off from the actual fan’s body won’t work either (who do you think I parent?  This is J we’re talking about…if I remove the chain, he’ll MacGyver his way out of that!,) and the only alternative that is seeming viable at this moment is just killing the fuse for the downstairs.  No, I cannot do that…well, I COULD, but that wouldn’t really solve my problem, would it?

I leave you for now.  As inviting as the idea of sharing J’s cold and having someone pamper me while I whine seems, I know I’d just catch the cold and be forced to pamper myself.  Seeing as I can be such a nuisance, I’d really rather not…

Wish me luck…I’m going to need it!

In preparation for this sojourn at home, I went grocery shopping today.  Had I mentioned that the chest freezer in the basement was empty?  Had I hinted at the utter lack of J-friendly snacks?  For that matter, had I mentioned that even Dada was looking at me as if I’d dropped the ball on grocery shopping?  All these things are true.  TGG’s willingness to fill his car to the gills with shopping bags (he who always worry that I might bust the suspension -melodramatic, I know- with an excess of weight) and an even more enthusiastic willingness to unload the car and help me sort and put away things.

The only thing I could think of to un-pout J on the way home was to mention “hey!  Did I tell you I went grocery shopping???”  From pouty to bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed was a matter of a split second.  If he had walked any faster his pants would have fallen off.  (Had I mentioned that J’s pants now just basically fall off?  Not in the morning when he first puts them on, but by the time he gets home we’re three steps away from a wardrobe malfunction.)  With eagerness and alacrity seldom seen when the prospect of being at home for nine consecutive days is weighing him down, J sprinted up the slope (which was thankfully dry) and made his way to the pantry.

The hug he gave me took my breath away.  Not only was it sudden, it was quite tight…it literally took my breath away.  I don’t think I’ve heard him not hum or sing (there were rather loud and lusty fa-la-la-laaaas a while back) all evening.  Dada, who tends to get a quick dismissal when he gets home (because J is the commander of when to change into your at-home clothes and has little patience for dilly-dallying,) got dragged to the pantry to be shown the treasure trove of food.  You’d think he’s been starving since the last time I went, two weeks ago.

In the middle of all this excitement about the continuous prospect of being fed, I checked J’s comm book and was happy to see that he is currently on his third Ceramics project at school, and that the first project was carefully packed in his bag.  Very gingerly, I took out the bag and slowly unwrapped the many layers of paper.  I tried to get J involved in the act of recognizing his work, but he was standing in front of the cheese drawer in the fridge humming Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love to a variety of milk-based products.  Once in a while, in the middle of another layer of paper, I’d hear a happy yelp that indicated another discovery in the refrigerator.

At the end of several layers of paper there was a lovely container with a lid that fits it perfectly.  On the front, J had put musical notes that he painted in red to contrast with the chocolate brown of the rest of the piece.  It might be a simple project made by J at school, but to me (and to Dada who visited the living room to admire it as soon as he arrived, and before he was dragged to the pantry) it is the equivalent of vase from the Ming Dynasty.  The top fits perfectly and J’s name is very carefully etched into the bottom in his own handwriting.  J was unassuming about this achievement.  I pointed out how lovely it is and how beautifully it fits in with our decor, and he shrugged humbly on his way back to the pantry.  A happy yelp I heard seconds later (as I dabbed at my eyes with the sleeve of my blouse) indicated that he discovered I also bought cereal.  I had left it in the bag, on the floor…he had not yet seen it.  My popularity soared.  I soaked it up…after all, I will go back to being tedious ol’ mom by Tuesday morning at the latest.

When I finally managed to extricate my son from the rhapsodic embrace he was giving the new bottle of detergent I brought from the store (yes, laundry is a passionate pursuit for him,) we went upstairs and changed into our at-home clothes.  Dada called to ask me if I wanted to go to Sam’s this evening and finish the shopping.  Yes, in spite of my best efforts, there is a list of precisely ten things that I have to acquire before everybody and their mother descends on the store tomorrow.  J was sitting at the counter sorting produce with a smile on his face.  He counted lemons, limes, tomatoes, onions, potatoes.  At one point, the look J gave me was so tender and so warm that I wondered if there’s a Hallmark card for such an occasion.

“Nah,’ I told Dada as J started putting away the bottles of sparkling water, ‘I don’t know if J can take going shopping this evening.”  Dada asked if J was ok, and I had to tell him he was MORE than OK…he was positively giddy.  ”I think he would consider it an embarrassment of riches to have put all these groceries away, organized all these items, discovered all these goodies and then be taken to get more.  He’ll be confused.  He’ll think we’ve moved up Christmas, or something along those lines.”

All in all, I’m pretty sure I earned a break after my efforts this morning.  Not only did I go shopping, but I actually did it wearing grown-up clothes.  I wore tights, a skirt, boots…I even put on some lipstick.  I used coupons.  I didn’t forget anything.  I wanted the nest to be ready for the eaglet extraordinaire to enjoy his nine days of vacation.  I am ready for a rest…some relaxation…an easing into the rest of the nine days…

and this would explain why, big smile on his face, J handed me a clipboard as soon as I sat down and put my feet up.  And, yes, he kissed me and patted me on the head…

Let the Fall Break commence in earnest!!!

But, then again, they say the pear doesn’t fall far from the tree.  I don’t often admit this, and I might forget I’ve admitted it now after a few days go by, but the truth of the matter is that I am organized and I hate myself for it.  J is a good reason to be organized, but J has very little to do with why I ended up making a list of all our books that I then entered into a spreadsheet.  He has very little to do with the fact that I’ve also said I’m going to alphabetize said list because right now it’s merely -get this…it’s a lulu- merely divided into the cubes that the books occupy.  Yep, you read right…out of 65 cubes in shelving units, I numbered all of them and then -while J grinned happily through the whole sordid affair- walked around with a clipboard jotting down titles, authors and the kind of binding the books have.  Oh…I also made a diagram.  J was rolling around on the floor laughing about that one.

I was very surprised to discover (and this was what initially prompted this project) that we only have FOUR titles repeated among the lot.  That makes less than .60% of our books.  I was relieved to realize that I haven’t been building a library over multiple copies of the same book.  I also discovered that only 30% of those books are Dada’s which means what you think it means…I’m the book hoarder!

Our public library has a lovely book sale every other Saturday and every Tuesday; on the first Saturday of the month, books are 50% off and with our Friends of the Library membership we get an extra 10% off.  On Saturday mornings we turn into children in a candy store, and I’ve found myself not grabbing this or that book because I don’t know if I already have it.  Now I know for sure what I have and what I don’t and, let me tell you, my taste in books is all over the place.  J found it pretty amusing to hear me groan whenever I ran into a title that I was self-conscious about.  (No, I won’t mention any of them…just be forewarned that I am officially a nerd and I need to lighten up…)

With Christmas, yes…CHRISTMAS!!!…a little over a month away, we are in full swing with the shopping.  TGG, for example, went on a shopping excursion this evening accompanied by Dada.  There was a lot of giggling, a lot of bags rustling and a lot of shhhhhhhh as they walked in and dispensed with their coats.  I shopped for several things this morning…yes, books…that’s what I mean by things.  J is aware of all this activity and is opening the hallway closet (where all things mysterious and wonderful hide until they are wrapped and the Twelve Days begin) and giggling as he shuts the door quite quickly.

Next week J is on holiday from school.  He gets all week off for Thanksgiving, and he has already made it clear that the living room is his.  Today, on the way home from the bus, I mentioned “J!  Today is Thursday!  Tomorrow you’ll go to school and it will be Friday!  Then Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday…(I did this all the way home…signing and speaking so that by the time we got to the door, it was Sunday again) you get to be home and THEN you go back to school!  (Scrape, scrape of the boots…swoosh of the sliding glass door)  What are you going to do with all those days off????”  J immediately walked in, leaned on the sofa and smiled as if to say “well, WHAT do YOU think, lady????”  Point taken…

As we walked up to his room to make him comfortable (and to close the curtains,) I mentioned my clipboard and his binders full of movies.  J stopped in his tracks and looked at me as if I’d not learned a lesson from my recent bout with hyper-organization.  ”Hey, you have a LOT of movies, and we can make sure we get them all organized for you!  Just like when you sorted your Legos by color????”    Thunk thwack went the boots into the closet.  ”With Twelve Days coming…more movies!!!”  Swoosh, plop went his shirts.  He stopped to look at me quite thoughtfully and then walked to his shelf.  J ran his fingers over the binders and then told me to leave.  Ok, I thought…this is not quite done.

The rest of the afternoon went by placidly enough.  We smiled politely at each other as we met on the stairs, crossed paths in the laundry room…the usual drill.

As soon as I sat down to relax after cooking dinner and leaving the kitchen ready for the cleaning crew, J walked up to me with a big smile.  Not having my glasses on made me squint as he handed something over…

A clipboard.  I guess I’m on the job again…

This one…yes, this one is all my own doing…

I am his mother.  I love him dearly.  This doesn’t prevent me from telling him when he’s horribly wrong or when he’s being a pity-party planner of the highest order.  I’ve petted his bruised ego as much as I can, but I won’t go farther than is absolutely reasonable.  Yes, his manager was unreasonable and not particularly blameless in the way things panned out (my husband the HR expert was appalled and saddened that his own company would handle things so poorly,) but TGG has to look inside and find where he went wrong.

So this week I am bad mom, unkind mom, why-don’t-you-ever-see-it-my-way mom.  I’m not popular this week.  The world, in fact, isn’t popular this week. TGG is doing his best Eeyore and, you know what?, that’s totally fine by me.  He’ll eventually snap out of it.  Growing up (even when you’re technically and chronologically a grown-up) is a painful, uncomfortable process.

J is another one who is going through another growth spurt.  Every time I stand next to him, he seems to be taller.  His facial hair is growing back faster between shaves.  Anne, Minnie and Daisy aside, the dude’s becoming a…well…grown-up?  He’s going to be 18, after all.  Once more we are going through phases of “please, sit here and keep me company” and “what are you doing here?  Go AWAY!”  I consider one a time to relax and bond, and the other one is my aerobic exercise for the day.  My lower back is currently confused…it doesn’t know if it’s going to get to unclench or if it’s going to be put to the test by helping me bolt out of a room.  I have also discovered that standing on the corner (even with layers of fleece vest, long-sleeve thermal shirt, jacket, scarf, hat, gloves and so forth) feels colder this year than it did last year.  It’s not that the temperature is any more unkind than it was then, it’s that I’m getting old and tend to feel it more.  Such is the way of life…

So J needs to figure out that it’s ok to need us now and not later but then again later still yes, and we need to be ready for all these alterations in wavelength.  TGG needs to do what we all hate to do: look inside and figure out where WE have work to do.  Self-improvement, self-analysis chafe like coarse grit sandpaper, and we resent having to do it, but it’s the only way we grow.  As I mentioned to him this morning (while he sulked majestically,) and it isn’t easy to verbalize: when my first marriage broke up in 1998, my ex-husband was completely to blame because of his personal shortcomings; fourteen years later, I shoulder a lot of the blame and have moved on being -hopefully- a better wife this time around.  It’s easy to say “well, YOU suck,” and very difficult to admit one is not particularly honky dory, but what makes you grow up and acquire wisdom is admitting one sucks, too.

Why is it that we all, at one point or another, think that we’ve fallen behind in the race to figuring out who we are supposed to be?  TGG is pretty sure that his whole life is passing him by, and I keep reminding him that 21 is not old at all, that most people his age are still pondering the possibilities.  I also mention that older people do the same thing, that we all want to find something within us that will reinvent us somehow.  Back home we have a saying: it’s like raining on wet soil…my speeches, monologues, soliloquies, calls-to-arms, encouragement…they’re ineffectual at this point.  He has to work through this himself.

I am still lingering on the edges of everything.  I am vigilant and ready to spring into action.  I can no longer provide people with band-aids for their boo-boos or kiss a scrape away or sing Baby Mine from Dumbo to make them feel loved.  I’ve just got the recourse of patience and steadfastness…  The band-aids, kisses and singing were SO MUCH EASIER!!!!

Dada and TGG were at the movies when J seemed to complain about his tooth.  It is important to say “seemed to complain” because J doesn’t really complain about such things in the usual fashion.  There is no hemming or hawing, there is no sighing or yelping.  A full-fledged complaint from J involves curling up in a corner, crying and hitting his head, so the “pressing a finger against a cheekbone” is merely an indication that something should be looked at, and I did…out came the flashlight, and J made his half-assed attempt at cooperating.  Half-assed means that when other kids say AAAAAAAAAH, J says ah.  You have to be quick and have excellent vision, otherwise you will have to observe from a distance and ascertain severity through the Scientific Method.  Empirical proof will be scant…and it will cost you money to get any more than you can gather from the ah.  

Dada and TGG had been so giddy and enthused (as if they were children on a sugar-high) when they left to watch Skyfall that I felt bad about telling them to stop and search for liquid Tylenol.  Nothing deflates the joy and machismo of having watched “the…BEST…Bond…EVER!!!!!!!” like “your kid might have a toothache.”  Liquid Tylenol that is not geared for children is hard to come by, and none was found.  We spent the whole night waiting for a complaint to issue from J’s room, but instead we got an early morning expedition to the basement (after coming to close our door so he could sneak away “undetected) to find cereal.

Since J’s mood was good and he was not complaining, we set off to the mall.  Our plan had been to leave home at nine in order to be there by 10:30.  The best laid plans of mice and men, as usual, went awry and we didn’t leave home until almost ten.  Finding a parking spot once we got there was a chore we had forgotten how to do; lest we forget, it has been 8 years since we frequented a flourishing, active, actually-populated-with retailers-and-customers mall.  That everyone had to use the restroom was an added level of difficulty.  We ended up parked in the farthest spot of an unpopulated area, a matter that was moot when we left an hour later: cars had accumulated around us quite quickly.

We used a different entrance than the one from the previous visit.  No sooner had we stepped in that J, walking at a fast clip towards the restrooms, noticed The Disney Store.  He didn’t slow down; he didn’t stop; he didn’t give any indication that he had any plans of going there.  After regaining our composure post-hour-and-a-half car trip, Dada and I retrieved Imogene (and took her back to the car,) while the kids had an early lunch.  We then all went to Sears to find pants for TGG.  J waited patiently.  J waited happily.  J waited until we said “ok, we’re done…let’s head home!”  J then took control of the situation and steered us towards The Disney Store.

People were looking at us.  J’s giggling, as I’ve mentioned, is contagious.  J’s boundless enthusiasm, it must be pointed out, tends to suffuse everyone.  Strangers were watching us and joining in with J’s giggles and bounces.  I don’t just mean little kids who saw him and started hopping about saying things like “mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy!!!!”  I mean also adults who looked at J and felt compelled to smile; this was not the awkward smile that is elicited by seeing an oddly garbed person acting in an inappropriate-for-his-age way, but rather the “I don’t know why I’m suddenly feeling happy” smile that gives you a little spring in your step.

J made his way, giggling and bouncing all the way, to the back of the store where he suddenly stopped and turned around slowly, taking in the wonder of it all.  If you’ve never been to a Disney Store, this place is rafters to floors “Disney-threw-up-in-here” chock full of merchandise.  There isn’t a single Disney Princess, Disney character, Disney movie that isn’t represented.  Many years ago, J fit into the Disney pajamas and the Disney slippers…he has grown way past that, of course, but…Disney plushes are for EVERYONE!!!!

Up on shelf, looking demure yet sassy, sat Minnie Mouse.  J’s finger pointed up and a collective “oh, no, no, no…no way, you’re out of your mind” issued from the three grown-ups that were envisioning an altogether too big plush being crammed into J’s bedroom for no apparent good purpose.  J’s shoulders slumped and his lips pursed.  As if activated by springs, all three adults moved about the store floor pointing out more viable options: a new thermal cup, smaller plushes…  Everyone, of course, was looking at price tags.  The only thing more expensive than The Disney Store is a Disney Park, but not by much.

Then we found it: 2 for $22!!!  We pointed the display to J who, leaping like a ballet corps member in the middle of The Nutcracker, approached the shelves and found Minnie Mouse, albeit dressed in pink.  Nothing else appealed to him.  No Dory, no Grumpy, no Woody, no Mater…nothing.  We looked around desperately, and then we found another one: 2 for $16!!!!  Smaller, of course, but still…there was Minnie Mouse, dressed both in pink and RED!!!!  Bingo!!!!  And, a little further back was Daisy Duck!!!!!!  SOLD!!!!!!!!

I don’t know what the cashier thought.  I am sure she wondered if we were making these purchases for some birthday party we were attending.  J grabbed the bag, thanked her profusely and, laughing like a person who’s just discovered something fantastic, bounced out of the store.  We didn’t look back.  We just got in the car and, through the rearview mirror, observed J looking into the bag to make sure that, yes!!!, he had Minnie and Daisy with him.  He sang along to Katy Perry’s Firework, Madonna’s Borderline, The Eagles’ Hotel California…and he hugged the shopping bag.  As soon as we got home, he bounded up the stairs and introduced Minnie and Daisy to Ann, who had been left sitting in the middle of his bed earlier that morning.

He’s off to school now, and he’s left his harem behind.  Ann sits in the middle and slightly above the other two, and Minnie and Daisy are flanked by boxing gloves.  We know it’s weird.  We know it’s odd.  We know people don’t get it.  What does this mean?  I don’t know.  I’m just glad he’s happy.  I’m just glad he takes Ann, Minnie and Daisy to the basement, sits them on the couch next to him or the rocking chair facing him, and they keep him company.

I am guessing, then, that we -the grown-ups in the household- are just as weird and odd and hard to understand as J is…

So be it!

This weekend’s mission (outside of retrieving Imogene from the Apple Store) is to work on getting J to count to 30.  Yes, I am asking for trouble.  J already says things 20 times before being satisfied that he got his point across…this is an exercise in patience for the rest of us.  However, I cannot let our wish to not say NO or YES more than 20 times in a row get in the way of progress, can I?

The reason why I’ve decided to spend the rest of today practicing counting to thirty in ASL is because of yesterday.  No sooner had the bus dropped J off at around 11:30 that he started his BURGER request.  TGG, who is young and still learning to fine-tune the patience, was gripping the steering wheel quite tightly by the time we got to the fifth BURGER.  I said it would take more, and I would count them out for him so he’d know when to stop.  BURGER.  “Six and yes.”  BURGERBURGER “Seven and eight, and yes.”  A minute elapsed.  BURGER.  “Nine…yes.”  And so forth…even in quick succession I counted them individually.  BURGER.  “Twenty.  You’re done.  Yes.”  Two minutes later: BURGER.  “That’s 21, you’re cheating.  We’re not starting the count from scratch.”

We had hit a snag.  There was traffic.  Noontime traffic.  We got to fifty BURGER and leapt out of the car in search of fresh air and freedom from repetitiveness as soon as we reached the store’s parking lot.  J was so enthused about the prospect of getting the much-asked-for BURGER that he didn’t realize he was hatless.  He was hatless when he got off the bus, hatless in the car, hatless in the store, and hatless at the burger joint where (thirty more BURGER later) we got their lunch.  He was even hatless when he got home, changed his clothes and sat down to eat…at this moment he realized he’d left his hats in his backpack in the trunk of TGG’s car, and that’s when he asked for them.

The fact that J fixates on a word is not the most enjoyable thing we can deal with, but it does convince me that I need to work on numbers 21 through 30 this weekend.  I’m hoping he will negotiate that that’s the amount of times he’s allowed to repeat a request before one of us faints or runs out of the house (or car) screaming.  I think we can find a happy middle ground.

I didn’t mention the hatlessness to him.  I didn’t want him to suddenly feel “naked” and “exposed.”  TGG and I exchanged a look, and TGG walked around with his keys handy so he could run to the car in case the hats were needed.  We didn’t really celebrate this hatless outing until Dada got home from work, and we then kept it very matter-of-fact.  J is working on letting go, and we want to encourage him, but we don’t want to pressure him with our approval.  Does that make sense?

I will, hopefully, have my computer back up and running by Sunday, but -strangely enough- I have not been plagued by any urgency to stay connected.  The Election Night news we caught on TV and as soon as a winner was declared, we climbed into bed and went to sleep.  Miss Zelda is the only one who truly misses the iTunes covers flashing through the screen when the computer is idle…she thinks it’s intended to entertain and taunt her…

Less than two weeks until Thanksgiving…I am wondering where this year went to and I’m starting (in hindsight) to see traces of its movement.  But I’ll get to that another day…the year is quickly being spent, but it’s also not quite over yet.

Tuesday was a no-school day due to the Presidential Election.  J didn’t understand the whole exercise of democracy, but he was game for entertaining me and keeping me away from the internet and the news updates.  Today, J came home early due to a power failure at school, and he’s been game for entertaining me this time around, too.  In a nutshell, we’ve done a lot of laundry, cleaned the kitchen several times over and looked through a pile of old magazines to identify any items he knows.  The only problem we encountered was a print-ad for toothpaste that shows a woman with glittery blue lips…J looked alarmed, and I had to explain that it was because of the “cool mint” flavor.  He looked at his own tube of toothpaste for such a long time before brushing that I wonder if it had anything to do with the print-ad.

Still without a computer, but Imogene is ready for pick-up and will be home on Saturday.  I am expecting to be fully operational by Sunday…

While I’ve been typing this, two windows I didn’t request opened because the cursor moved over a task bar…I also have had to go back and re-type several words because other words ended up wedged in the middle…

I’m running out of time to get this done before Dada’s laptop decides to take over like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey…I miss Imogene…now THAT’S an awesome computer.  It doesn’t really give me trouble…it’s not like Apple didn’t warn me that it might conk out.  Windows…well, Windows tends to be more troublesome…once in a while it freezes, it jolts, it does whatever it wants to and you can’t really

All this translated into J going to the mall.  After a little over an hour in the car, we arrived at the first “real” mall we’ve been to in over 8 years.  Oh, we’ve been to “the mall,” but the malls we’ve frequented over the past eight years have been partially stripped of stores, equipped with very limited quantities of restaurants at the food court, and sad looking groups of people wandering aimlessly about as if looking for stores that used to be there and no longer are.  Today we arrived at a “real” mall, and J was over the moon.

Apple Stores are seldom empty, or so I’ve been told.  This one was no exception.  A sea of people milled about looking at new items and we patiently stood waiting for our tech to be available.  The same computer that on Friday morning refused to work turned on immediately and worked normally in the presence of a qualified Apple Genius and while surrounded by its peers (all things beginning their names with “i.”)  Long story short, Imogene is having her perhaps faulty hard-drive replaced and I am slumming it with Dada’s laptop until then.

Long story short: I got a text message from TGG informing me that J was exuberantly happy at the food court.  That we have to return there next weekend to retrieve Imogene will be an embarrassment of riches for him.  I, having remembered how claustrophobic the mall makes me, am not particularly thrilled to go back.

Yesterday, Saturday, we went to the last open-air Farmers’ Market.  We bought winter squashes (which will become soup this week,) and a few other items.  The weather caused by Sandy limited the amount of stalls open so we counted our blessings and moved on to the library book sale.  First Saturday is 50% off at the used book sale.  We walked out with a Friends of the Library membership (another 10% off from our purchases) and a mountain of books for 13 dollars.  After that expedition, we went to buy another bookshelf for J to put together on Tuesday; Election Day is a no-school day so I am preparing to entertain my darling boy with another project.  We need more space for books, and J needs something to do; a happy confluence of circumstances, I would say.

The weather has turned to colder temps, and we are all leaving the house with layers of shirts, sweaters, jackets and such.  As we know, we’ve had a taste of snow already and, though it irks me to admit it, my adventures sliding down-slope have left me with a crick in my back.  I had ordered a pair of Stabilicers from L.L. Bean for J, and now I’ll be purchasing some for myself.  If you don’t know what they are, this is the gist of it: they are slip-on spikes to wear over your shoes…they help you navigate snow and ice.  We need three more sets.  We also need more Tiger Balm.

That’s the gist of the weekend.  J is happy because the “real” mall was made available to him, and I am waiting for Imogene to heal from her condition.  Dada’s laptop isn’t my friend (a lot of empty e-mails get sent…don’t ask why as I’ve yet to figure it out,) so I will do my best to keep you up to speed until Imogene comes back.  If I post something and it’s empty, blame HAL’s spawn…it doesn’t like me one bit…

You may ask yourself WHY I am bringing this up?  Yesterday, between J and I, we proved that Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation is fact.  No, we had no doubts about it to start with, but since it was basically inevitable that asses, knees and hands would encounter the ground more than once, we figured we’d give a scientific spin to the whole situation.  In fact, we actually went through a whole bunch of Newtonian laws between the home and the bus stop (twice for me, thank you) and between the bus stop and home (three for me, thank you.)

Today, on the way home, J eyed the slope (the Slippery Slope of legend, it seems) with suspicion.  I persuaded him, not without a great deal of effort, to take a wider turn and use the kinder, gentler slope.  I’m sure the construction workers, who know us by now, found some humor in my over-emoting as I demonstrated how un-slippery this part of the slope is.  When we succeeded climbing the not-at-all-steep slope, we looked like Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay must’ve looked…and I know this is hyperbole at its best, but you have no idea how J took it yesterday when he fell (he was unharmed.)

While we made it up to the deck safely and J knows it can be done, a) there was no snow on the ground, b) there was no ice on the ground, c) the grass was wet, but not sopping, and d) the wooden stairs that sit between two buildings and don’t get sufficient sunlight in winter are not a practical way to get home either.  In fact: we are doomed to slip, it’s just a question of where, and The Slippery Slope seems the gentlest of all options.

The lay of the land is this: our street is flanked by a long, steep street on the northwest side and by a short, even steeper street on the east.  Parallel to us runs a flat street that lies below our street level (if you’re getting lost with this explanation, my apologies, I’m not very spatial…I’m more spastic.)  From that parallel street to our back deck is The Slippery Slope…I’d say it is a ten-foot climb.  The stairs between buildings have approximately 27 steps and 3 landings…this would not be a problem if, when it’s iced over, we didn’t risk falling on something harder than dirt covered with ice and snow.

If you have an autistic kid you know that ANY trip to a medical facility is ten times more traumatic than with a neuro-typical child.  When you tell a neuro-typical child that “this will only hurt for a moment and I promise you’ll feel better after,” they will forevermore know you lie like a rug, but they will eventually understand that the alternative (copious bleeding, unset bones, etc., etc.) is far worse than the horrors of emergency medical care.  An autistic kid will forevermore remember the awning of the building where the chamber of tortures is located and, on cue, will start screaming in horror when you mention the words “hospital,” “shot,” “stitches,” “X-ray,” and so forth ad nauseam.  We know this (and learned it the hard way) because we once took J for some immunization shots and, for as long as we lived in that town, we could NOT, under any circumstances, drive down that street with J in the car.    Time and maturity, thank goodness, have somewhat allayed his fears and we can now drive past the hospital as many times as we want to with nary an incident, but going IN requires thoughtful preparation and persuasion.  Since this is the status quo when you have an autistic kid, the very idea of any sort of injury is abhorrent to us, and we avoid them like the plague.

My husband (that long-suffering man) barely uttered an uh-oh last night when I said “look what I found in this catalog!!!”  He refers to these as my “most scathingly brilliant idea” (in honor of dear Hayley Mills’ character Mary Clancy in The Trouble With Angels) or “using mainly spoons” (in honor of Mike in Monsters, Inc.) moments.  He has resorted to simply to making the sign of the cross and waiting for the other shoe to drop.  ”No, no!  Look!  It’s a coco fiber runner!!!!,” I said, enthusiastically.  Once I convinced him (invoking the laws of physics and J’s difficulty in accepting things like crutches, casts, stitches, and invasive medical care in general) that I wasn’t trying to “upholster and carpet the neighborhood,” he grabbed the catalog and shrugged his approval.  I was about to briskly remove myself from bed when he gently reminded me that, while my heart was in the right place, a cold, windy, rainy night when children don’t come out to trick-or-treat in spite of an abundance of candy available in every home with a porch light on was probably not the best moment to go out and measure how many mats I need.

I find it disturbing when he is right and can anticipate my intentions.

So…while I am still in the incipient-most-scathingly-brilliant-idea stage of this potential course of action, I will consider and research some more before committing to upholstering and carpeting any portion of The Slippery Slope.  Yesterday, though, when J landed firmly on the ground and let out a horrified scream (more because his beloved flannel-lined green cargo pants got wet and grassy than because he was hurt,) I considered all the horrible implications of either one of us getting hurt.  My hyperactive imagination doesn’t help…I can clearly visualize all sorts of accidents and injuries so vividly that it will make my blood curl.

On second thought, maybe I can go out there NOW and measure The Slippery Slope????

Bundled up against the elements (of which the only truly active one was the cold temperature,) we stepped out through the deck and onto the lawn.

That’s when J decided it would be fun to pull me downhill while feigning distress.  I thought he was falling when, in fact, he was just walking fast and dragging me along.  The slope, mind you, is not a long one…it’s not very steep either.  I, however, had visions of fractured middle-aged hips and traction while, all in one confused jumble, I was having the time of my life.  The ten-year-old me wanted to scream “more, more…let’s do it again!!!!”  We were, however, out there for a valuable reason so I had to refrain.  On the way back, I was tempted to skate down the hill once more but I decided to do the mature (and hip-saving) thing: into the house I came and started opening windows to air out the place.

Yes, in the past hour and a half, I’ve aired out the house, straightened up all the small messes that constant habitation cause and surfed channels until I realized that, because I am home and can watch TV uninterrupted should I choose to do so, there is absolutely NOTHING on.

I don’t know how many trick-or-treaters we will get this evening.  I am pretty sure the turnout will not be affected because kids+candy+weather still amounts to “I want to go out dressed in a flimsy outfit because people give me FREE CANDY!!!!”  It makes me think back to TGG’s last Halloween costume from childhood (right when he decided he was “too old” to dress up)…I’m sure there won’t be a single Legolas (with blonde wig and all) in the bunch…but I can dream, can’t I?  So many ninjas last year, and zombies…sigh…

In any case, if the treat bags go unclaimed, they are ALL going to work tomorrow with both working men…I refuse to have a house full of candy.  It’s bad enough that I have cookies…

Back to my book I go.  After all, J will be home at 3 P.M. and that’s merely five hours away.  Time is precious…

Off to the kitchen for a cup of tea, a couple of cookies (which I KNOW I should not eat, but they’re my hips and there’s snow on the ground and I need all the help I can get if I fall,) and my book…

Have a happy and safe Halloween…

The In-House Groundhog has determined that the cold weather is here to say, and that any rumors of and Indian Summer later in the week are not only unjustified, they are downright risible.  While last weekend he complained when I tried to remove the screen curtains from the door frames that give access to the great outdoors, today he assisted in their removal.  While last week there was very little enthusiasm when a pumpkin for carving was mentioned, today he smiled broadly when we returned from the grocery store with a sizable orange gourd-like orb.  In spite of the cold air and breeze (43℉ or 6-ish Celsius,) and the constant drizzle, TGG has decorated our doorway with “spiderwebs.”  J hasn’t so much as batted an eyelash to stop any preparations…

I know J has accepted, nay…AUTHORIZED, the cold weather because this morning he stopped in his room, cozily relaxing, until nearly nine.  He had followed me downstairs at six to get his medication, and turned on his heels to go straight back to bed.  In summer this is not something we do voluntarily…we have to be bribed to return to the cocoon.  Today, smiling and quietly hopping up the steps, he went back, climbed into bed and turned off the light.  We suspected that, perhaps, it was just the rain that persuaded him to do this, but this afternoon he has welcomed us into the living room where I sat reading and Dada sat working at the computer for a whole hour while J clapped and giggled through the same Christmas carol over and over again.  Blankets were offered; lamps were lit.  He welcomed us into the warm glow of his preferred area, and he pointed out how cozy we were and then how miserable it looks outdoors.

Our new camp stove works well.  It is also light enough that, in winter, I can bring it up to the kitchen balcony if I need to…which I hope I won’t.  I confess that I am relieved we now have it because when Dada travels, if we have an outage, I can still cook.  I walked around the pantry this morning and we are well provided for in terms of canned and dry goods, but I have a few things that I need to add to my shelves before winter comes.  We have been told (not unkindly) that our first winter here was unusually gentle.  Having grown up dealing with tropical storms and hurricanes, I don’t take prepping for emergencies lightly.

I am happy to announce that J has made peace with Zelda.  It came about rather unexpectedly.  By peace, of course, I mean that J has lost any apprehension he felt about dealing with the cat.  Not only does he now call her by her name (which, in his vocabulary, is signed as CAT but using the Z movement,) but he also feels empowered to tell her to leave his room.  For some reason, she loves his room; if the door is open, she will immediately dash in there and head directly for his little battery-operated fiber optic lamp.  J plays with this lamp for five minutes every night, and Zelda does her best to play with it as often as possible during the course of the day.  She knows its operational state involves illumination, and she has yet to experience it that way up close.  Today, after changing his sheets, J saw Zelda dash into his room and he followed her; there she was, parked in front of the lamp.  J politely said PLEASE to her, and then looked at Dada as if to say “hey!  She’s not playing fair!!!”  Dada said “J, she doesn’t understand PLEASE so you just have to shoo her!”  Out came Slinky, Indiana J’s best friend, and this propelled Zelda from the table to the bed, where (in true Zelda fashion) she plopped down as if all her bones had turned to liquid.  J said PLEASE and whipped out Slinky, and Zelda looked at him with her big yellow eyes.  She wouldn’t move.  J, knowing that we wouldn’t be of much help, then leaned forward and smacked the mattress quite firmly, and this startled Zelda enough that she dashed out of the room.  The smile on J’s face was priceless.

I am hoping that the weather doesn’t cause school to be cancelled.  I don’t think this will happen unless the wind downs trees or a major power outage takes place.  The only other thing that might affect the schools is flooding or the river rising to a menacing level.  To get to J’s school, the bus has to go over bridges that span tributaries of the much larger, navigable river.  Snow could pose a problem, but so far we’re only hearing snow showers and well-above freezing temperatures.

Time to go back to the “tundra.”  J has been doing laundry all day and is happily waiting to get everything cleared out of the laundry room.   We are watching for drips there, as usual.  I am sure that the ceremonial carving of the pumpkin will take place some time after dinner, which means that some time BEFORE dinner, J will have to take his bath.  He does this every year…he gets clean to get dirty, and then he goes back and bathes again.  I have to persuade him to wear his boots when out from tomorrow on; I don’t mind if he carries his heavy sandals to wear IN CLASS, but he must wear the boots to go out.  This might require great diplomacy.

I leave you now.  The coziness of the tundra beckons.

J, who doesn’t remember dear ol’ hurricane Georges too clearly, is oblivious to the reason for all the activity around the house.  He is enjoying every minute of seeing stop and ponder, stop and discuss, stop and reorganize.  As long as we have what he might require in the case of a prolonged power outage, J is happy and calm.

That the weather has proven to be a fickle mistress should surprise no one.  After a summer that basically scorched our brains to a crisp, we entered a lovely autumn that decided it wasn’t ready to take hold and, this past Thursday, we experienced temperatures in the low 80s (or mid  to high 20s in Celsius.)  J didn’t quite get why I’d not let him wear shorts, but since he couldn’t find any in his closet, he was ok with this.

So…they tell us that the wind will give us a run for our money (even this far inland.)  They tell us that it will rain copiously (2 to 3 inches or 5 to 7 centimeters) in one day.  They tell us that it might snow.  How does one get J ready for these complications?  He knows weather, but he doesn’t understand the repercussions of weather.  I’m sure that he is far from remembering that hurricanes cause the power to go out and that the power is necessary to run all the things that normally entertain him.

We have batteries.  We have his portable DVD player.  We are making sure that the iPods are charged and that we have batteries to run his iPod dock.  We have bought a nice camp stove that we’ve placed on the lower deck so that we can cook properly and not have to resort to canned goods only.  We bought an extra tank of propane gas.  Do you wonder why J thinks all this is a party about to happen???

When he last experienced a hurricane it was a direct hit to where we lived.  It was a direct hit in more ways than one because the hurricane and its aftermath put the finishing touches on the crumbling of a marriage.  TGG remembers this clearly.  He has, thankfully, understood that weather and marriages don’t necessarily destroy each other.  The stress we are feeling preparing for the inconveniences of this storm hasn’t caused more than a couple of “wait, I thought you wanted that here and not there…” between Dada and I.  TGG remembers no running water, no electricity, canned food and a host of other unpleasant things.  J probably remembers the I.V. he needed when he got sick and had to be taken to emergency.  Other than that…

TGG has taken it in his stride in spite of the disastrous developments of yesterday.  The long-distance romance was peremptorily finished (via e-mail) by the other party.  Between noon and seven o’clock at night, he went from sadness to outrage to disbelief to frustration to anger to sadness and to resignation.  That J walked in, “felt” a disturbance in The Force, and became the most solicitous and affectionate brother a 21 year-old dude would ever not want fawning over him when he’s handling a broken heart turned out to be a pretty good thing.  TGG redirected and was soon watching The Flintstones with J; it might not be the best salve for a broken heart, but it does put things in perspective when you realize Fred needed foot-power to move his not insignificantly sized vehicle.

It has been a week of successes and setbacks.  In other words: it has been a run-of-the-mill week.  J is now coming home with his hats in his bag and walking all the way into our home bareheaded.  TGG is nursing a bruised ego and a broken heart.  I have had to figure out what I need from the store more times than I care to admit…especially since it has resulted in several trips that I could have smooshed into one if I’d been more willing to take my time to prepare a list.  Dada is now the happy and proud owner of a camp stove that will augment our “summer kitchen” and make it all the more versatile in summer.

So…there you have it.  Sandy, that scatterbrained storm that can’t quite make up her mind, is going to make us miserable for a while.  J’s Halloween party at school might be affected by this, but they got all 20 lbs (a little over 9 kg) of dog biscuits baked and packaged on Friday.  Wednesday’s trick-or-treaters might not appear or might appear drenched inside their pirate, vampire, Power Ranger, ninja, princess costumes.  We’re ready for them…and wondering how to give them respite from the rain when (or if) they turn up.

Now I will leave you so that I can go get supervised into running yet another load of laundry.  J’s participation in all the preparations has been limited to telling us what to do and helping carry heavy things.  He gets a kick out of easily lifting something that will leave me with my tongue hanging out and trying to catch my breath.  As long as J is in charge, I’m sure we’ll all be fine…

We have marshmallows and The Flintstones…who can complain under such circumstances?

Hence the crick in my neck and the ache in my back…

And today is a short school day.  J will be home in a little over an hour…and I am in pain.

My discomfort is alleviated by the fact that J was truly happy and sociable last night; he giggled, played and horsed around with Dada and I (TGG was working a 12-hour.)  The spontaneity of his desire to play caught me off guard…so my discomfort is also being alleviated by a thermal-wrap on my shoulders, Tiger Balm on my lower back and some very thoughtful breathing…I know I have toes, I just cannot bend far enough to see (let alone TOUCH) them right now.

Am I happy with the outcome of last night’s efforts?  Yes, of course.  If you discount the fact that I am sore today, climbing over furniture to play with J was absolutely worth it; I cannot sustain this level of physical activity without  acknowledging the aches and pains attached to it, but I am not sorry we took a more free-wheeling, roughhousing, fun-filled approach to getting J to get up off the couch and be silly.

It helped matters that J came home from school feeling very happy.  He bought a school sweatshirt, see…and it is quite nice and he is very happy with his choice of color.  Taking advantage of his good mood, I worked on keeping him occupied without him realizing that that was the whole purpose.  His snacks were parceled out  little by little and I was very clear and consistent in reminding him of what was in the snack box and when we were having dinner.  At the time when I anticipated he would be coming upstairs looking for a snack, I served his plate and invited him to sit down.  He ate some, in a good mood, and said FINISHED.  Very well, I said, on your way then.

Dada started cleaning the kitchen and I went downstairs to entertain J by folding laundry.  He was watching a Disney video with the language set to French.  There is nothing funnier for that kid than seeing mom trying to lip-sync to something she knows nothing about.  In the afternoon I had been very successful at lip-syncing to one song he was fixating on, and he enjoyed that plus the somewhat wacky choreography that I came up with at the time.  (OK, try to imagine a somewhat exuberantly-shaped, high-pitch voiced, middle-aged mother lip-syncing to Joss Stone’s rendition of I Put a Spell On You while balding, nerdy-looking Dada plays air-guitar a la Jeff Beck…you’d laugh too, wouldn’t you?)  We ran to Dead and Gone by The Black Keys and J was happily clapping along to the beat, and we all did yoga together.  Are your muscles starting to cramp up????

So by the time I started the laundry-folding while lip-syncing to When You Wish Upon a Star in French,  J was primed for silliness.  Cue The Big Bad Wolf.  I play a mean Big Bad Wolf.  I do the piggy voices and get into the whole thing with my entire body…huffing and puffing included.  J’s belly is the door to each piggy’s house…enough said.

J has always liked to play “count to three and ROAR!!!!”  He knows we’re behind the couch…he can see the tops of our heads, but he always laughs hysterically when we jump out and say “ARRRRRRRRR.”  We did this enough times to get tired and feel achy, but at the end of all this J was actually holding out his arms and asking for hugs and kisses in the most affectionate way…

I can live with this…I just need to make sure I don’t run out of Tiger Balm…

I am exhausted.  Not only am I exhausted, but after spending a very productive, calm, relaxed and cooperative day, J decided (like clockwork, mind you) to throw another tantrum in the middle of dinner.  What was the buzz word?  COOKIE!  And back to the rigmarole: COOKIE, NO, COOKIE, NO, thump thump thump, GO TO YOUR ROOM, stomp stomp stomp…and my dinner was cold and my anger was hot by the time it all blew over and peace was restored.  No COOKIE, but it took all I had to not go through the roof.  (Yep, being the grown-up sucks!)

This morning I crawled out of bed at 5:15 and spent a while packing the snack box.  I also set aside one Rice Krispies Treat so that it is what I now refer to as “the wild card snack.”  If J eats his whole dinner and doesn’t throw a tantrum, I will factor in the rest of the day before considering giving him this snack.  I will not give him this snack if he so much as grunts at me, but it will be there if he earns it…  I am working on SNACK TOKENS.  Yes, yet another wild goose chase from yours truly…

According to J’s teacher, he is not giving them any trouble at school.  Of course, he is reserving it for me…how lucky am I? This is how lucky I am: J knows that, regardless of his mood or his intentions, I will be there.  If he wants to scream, kick, giggle, bonk his head, to be hugged…there I am…  The problem is not so much that J knows this, but that Dada and TGG know this, too.

Herein lies the problem: I can’t be the only one.  One of J’s greatest problems is that, in spite of how gregarious and open-minded he is, isolation is intrinsic to his situation.  That his isolation is mostly resolved by engaging in activities with mom is not easy for a teenage boy.  The same people who point out to me that being a guy and hanging out with mom is mortifying are the same people who don’t understand why hanging out with THEM would be awesome for J.  ”But dudes don’t really hang out like that!,” TGG informed me, quite earnestly.  J is not just a “dude,” I said…he’s a very special kind of human being.  He doesn’t adhere (and this is not news to anyone) to the same rules of “dudedom” that other guys adhere to…he doesn’t even adhere to the same social rules the rest of the world follows!!!

I explained all this, still het up from my kerfuffle with J, to Dada and TGG who -because they heard the loud voices, the stomping and the arguing- decided it was the best moment to give the kitchen a thorough cleaning.  I made them stop.  I made them stop and look at me.  I wanted them to actually pay attention.

It’s not pleasant when J feels like a tantrum is the “way to go.”  I can tell that this has been a conscious decision on his part when a smile suddenly spreads over his face as we sit staring at each other, my attention definitely and unequivocally focused on him.  At that moment, I know what he’s doing and why…I can’t condone it, but I understand where he’s coming from.  This, however, has to stop, and I can’t be the only person in the house who stops it.  This has to be a concerted effort.

“But I don’t know what to do with him!!!”  Oh, pish posh…

The problem, I explained, is that we all worry too much about how much fun the activity is and not about how much J appreciates the interaction.  ”I had him sweeping the garage and cleaning the litter boxes, for crying out loud!!!!  And he was HAPPY!!!!  He was dancing and singing!!!!  He was hanging out with another human being…didn’t have to talk to me, didn’t have to look at me…I was there and he was busy…BINGO!”  My husband and son look at me like I have sprouted a horn in the middle of my nose when I say things like this…

The truth is that in a family with Autism nesting in the middle of it there will always be one person who bears the brunt of it all in greater proportion than the others.  As a general rule, the person with Autism will feel like one person is more in tune with them than all the others.  No, it’s not that this person loves or understands them better, it’s just that there’s a stronger sense of “ah, there you are!  I was waiting for you…” involved.  Mind you, the “ah, there you are!  I was waiting for you…” might come with a screaming fit attached, but this doesn’t invalidate the connection I’m talking about.  TGG can make J engage in physical activity with more energy than anyone else; Dada can get J to leap with joy towards the car…I am the go-to person for everything else…  I don’t resent this role, but I understand how it can become too much for J (because I’m his mom and he’s a teenage dude, and that’s mortifying) and for myself (because there’s only one of me, after all…)

I am exhausted.  Emotionally exhausted.

Things, however, will get better…that’s why we’re here…