bibliomom

While researching some of Temple Grandin’s books, I found a review that began:

During the first year after my son’s diagnosis, I read thirty-four books on autism (I catagorized them according to personal account, family account, clinical study, education & intervention method).

Yeah, so that apple-not-falling-far-from-the-tree thing?

Maybe it’s just my own personal experiences and (what’s now) years of noticing which of my kids’ “autistic” traits show up in various relatives in various forms. I have no way of really knowing what’s going on with this parent, but seriously – even I couldn’t tell you how many books on autism I’ve read, nor have I ordered them with such detail.

Nope, not me. It’s unnecessary when I already spend hours researching books and reading wiki posts before I buy something.

Besides. I just shelve by subject. Alphabetically …

“Mom - I need to learn Spanish.”

“What? Why do you need to learn Spanish?”

“Because … I want to be … in the world travelers club. And I need to know a language.”

“Um, okay – any particular reason you picked Spanish? Did you talk about it at school?”

“No - I just need to learn Spanish.”

“Okay. But you see, Mom doesn’t speak Spanish. Mom took French in school. What do you think about learning French?”

“I think … ”

“Yes?”

“I think you better hurry up and learn some Spanish.”

When my daughter was four (and very into Dora and various other pointing and clicking activities) she came running into the room, buck naked.

Hardly a rare occurrence, even now, but I was really trying to clamp down on it at the time.

“Oh, my goodness!” I said, in my best mom voice, “You’re all naked! Climb up here on Mama’s bed and I’ll put some clothes on you.”

After picking her up (so she couldn’t escape) and prompting her for cooperation, she suddenly stuck her hands out wide.

“The girl is naked,” she announced in her best tv commentator voice, “Click here to put clothes on girl.”

What do you say to that? Do you laugh, cry or just be happy she’s talking?

I think I did all three.

The summer is over and my house feels all kinds of empty. Messy, but empty. Bug’s off at school all day, so it’s just me and Monkey most of the time. This contrast is all the sharper after the crazy, crazy summer we had. Two nieces and six to nine spare kids flooded my house bringing the noise and chaos only a large group of kids can bring and leaving joyful memories and exhaustion in their wake.

Of course now that I think about it, even if I had all thirteen at the same time, that’s not really that many. I don’t think I did – even my new car only seats seven – but my memory’s a little hazy. One thing I *do* remember is the times when that small herd of kids felt like a hundred.

One memorable day, I confiscated the game controllers and shooed the herd towards the room where the lego tsunami had come to rest.

“But I’m hungry!” one child protested. “Hungry! Hungry! Hungry!”

“But I’m thirsty!” my little Bug chimed in, “Thirsty! Thirsty! Thirsty!”

As they continued to chant, “Hungry!” “Thirsty!” in perfectly pitched repetition, I had to take a firm grip upon my tongue in order to keep from yelling back, “This is not Autism Hour!”

But of course it was. The boy is an eleven year old with Aspergers and my own little Bug is also firmly on the spectrum. They’re both extremely high functioning, but spectrum is spectrum. And no matter how smart, clever and funny they are, it’s a rare day that they let you forget it. In this case, the party trick of repeating the same word or phrase over and over with exactly the same timing and intonation – in unison, for the love of heaven! – was what did me in.

I sheepishly told T’s mother of my near slip up and she absolutely cracked up.

“I love it!” she said, “I’m going to use that, okay?”

So all you spectrum moms out there, let’s celebrate Autism Hour – those times when your spectrum kid just seems to go out of their way to remind you that they absolutely, positively are not neurotypical. And never will be.

And let’s celebrate both kinds of days – those when that one child can make you feel like you’re caring for a hundred, as well as the days when you realize a million neurotypical kids could never take their place.

We’ll laugh even harder when we realize how often it’s the same day.