You are Mommy

“What signifies knowing the names, if you know not the nature of things.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

Ben and I were walking into the grocery store last week.  He loped along beside me in signature Ben gate, clutching my right hand with his left.  I could feel the thumb he’d plucked from his mouth sliding through my palm.  “Hup, hup, hup!”, he called as we walked.  We selected our shopping cart and I lifted him up and into the front seat.  As I buckled him in, he grabbed my face in his hands and gave me a big unprompted kiss.  “Mwwwaaaa!”

I wrapped my arms around him and then brought my forehead to his. “Who loves you?”, I asked him, initiating a practiced banter between us.  “YOU do!”, he replied.  “How much?”, I asked.  “Sooooo much!!”, he completed the drill.

“YOU do!“, I replayed his words in my mind as I pushed the cart along.  I wondered, curiously, does he know my name?

“Hey Ben, who loves you?”, I ask again.

“YOOU do!”, he bellows, supposing it’s a new game.

“Who’s YOU?”, I ask.

“Huh?”  His response is appropriate.

“What’s my name?”, I clarify.

“Maaah-uh-meee,”, he guffaws.  “You’re silly.  You are Mommy!”

Of course!  How could I forget.  I wake up to a chorus reminding me each morning – “Mommy!  Mommy!  Mooooomy!!!”

My ‘name’ precedes 90% of what is said throughout the day.  “Mommy!  Can I – “  “Mommy!  He —-!!”  “Mommy!  I want…!”  “Mommy!  I need…!”

And follows a good portion of the remaining 10%…  “Please Mommy!!”  “Help me Mommy!!”  “Where aaaaree you Mommy!!”

The boys compete in an ongoing shout out of Mommy and it’s variant, Mom, from sun up to sun down.

*

But there has been one sweet voice missing from the choir.

Grayson is working on her own timeline in most facets of language development, including the purposeful use of names.

There was a time when we yearned to hear the word Mommy or Daddy.  Even once.

We waited.

We listened.

We prompted.

Hopeful exclamations, typical of new parents, followed us from infancy into toddler years.  Saaay Dada!  Saaaay Mama!

Drops offs and pick ups with therapists and teachers, times of Hello’s and Goodbye’s, were laced with opportunities for a break through.  There were Pre-therapy prompts – “Say Bye Mommy!!”- I’d wave and smile, unfailingly, poised and ready for the moment I knew would one day come.  And there were Post school day prompts as teachers gestured toward me – “Look, Grayson-  who’s there!!”  IIIIIt’s ________ !”  I’d kneel to her level with arms wide open, smiling, eyebrows raised – ready again.

Grayson’s language came along, and eventually we did start to hear Mommy and Daddy.  It was music to our ears.

But  it always came in the form of an echolalic response to our promptings.

“Say Hi Mama!”, I’d sing.  “Hi Mama”, she would repeat.

“Look, Daddy’s home!  Say Hi Daddy!”  “Say Hi Daddy”.

The words were there, but the meaning was still lost on her.

Nonetheless, it was progress and we were happy for it.

*

While we have seen dramatic changes in Grayson’s language over the years, her use of names has been slow in coming.

She very rarely uses her brothers names.  And when she does, for the most part they have been interchangeable.

So have Josh and I.

We read a story to her every night, say prayers with her, and then say “Goodnight Grayson”.  We prompt her response – “Goodnight _____”. The pause is emphatic and we supplement it with a physical cue (usually a touch to the shoulder).  “Goodnight Mommy!”, she will complete the ritual and it’s lights out.  If she is not paying close attention, I may hear “Goodnight Daddy!” or Josh may hear, “Goodnight Mommy!”  She is affectionate and intensely connected with us, but titles – our names – have seemed inconsequential to her.

Until lately.

Over the past several months, we’ve had a new voice piping up in the choir.

We’re being summoned.

A high pitched Mooommy! has joined the ranks and vies to be heard.

Her requests are prefaced with a specific and loud address, by name. “Daddy!  DAADDY!  You want to make a bee-hole in the tree?”

Unprompted,  preferences and dismissals are communicated, by name.  “You want Daddy read a story?  Goodnight Mommy!!”  She gets it right.

It seems that something has clicked.

And she’s got us wrapped around her little finger.

Mooommy!!!

Daaaddy!!

That’s all it takes.

With these words, we’ll offer up the moon.

Loca

“I know right now you can’t tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me
I’m not crazy”  ~ Matchbox 20

We barely made it to the bus stop in time this morning.

Grayson’s bus, which usually arrives after Mark’s, was early.  We scrambled out of the truck and I helped her pull on her backpack.

We walked together along the sidewalk past two little girls and their mother, waiting with everyone else for the big bus.  The girls were Grayson’s age.  They are from Mexico.  I heard one turn to the other and say, “Aqui viene la loca”. 

Here comes the crazy girl.

Grayson skipped happily by, unaware of the slight.  I gave her a hug and waved her off.

Then I walked back to the girls and their mother.  Retracting Mama Bear claws, I set my own frame of mind for the discussion we were going to have.  The girls are sweet.  I don’t believe they meant their words to be hurtful.  Grayson is usually marching to the beat of her own drummer.  I could see why they might draw the conclusion they had.

“She’s not crazy”, I tell them in Spanish.  “She has autism.  That means that her brain works differently than yours, and it is harder for her to talk and play the way you do.  So she does things her own way.  She is very smart, and she is a nice little girl.  If you are patient and understanding of her differences, maybe one day you will be friends.”

I waited, hoping my rusty Spanish was clear enough for the message to come through.

The girls were attentive and pleasant, their round brown eyes taking me in.  I liked them.  I hope that they might reach out to Grayson one day.

Their mom responded right away.  She spoke quickly, also in Spanish; it was hard work following her – she began with an apology on behalf of her girl, and offering that perhaps her daughter meant that the small bus was crazy, not Grayson.  She offered what she knew about autism – she was surprised to hear that Grayson had autism because she hadn’t observed many of the stereotypical behaviors that many kids who are more severely affected have – she seems normal.  She offered sympathy – it must be very hard for Grayson and us – having a child with special needs is difficult.  She offered empathy, speaking of her own family and their differences in adapting to a new country and culture when they arrived 9 years ago.

The big bus came and went.  The bus stop, once milling with children and parents was empty now, but for us.

We talked a while longer and with a warm departing gesture, typical of Latinas, we went our own ways.

Tomorrow morning at the bus stop, there will be 3 people who understand just a little bit more.

One at a time, this way, we hope to build a foundation for understanding and acceptance on a larger scale, and a kinder world for our kids.

Questions

Grayson’s new behavioral specialist was coming over.

Driving home with the boys, I prepped them for the meeting.

“When we get home, there will be someone new coming to the house – “

“Who! Who! Who! Who’s coming over?!”  They all wanted to know.

New someones who come to our house are unknowingly entering into a one-seat auditorium for a talent competition among our boys.  “Her name is Miss Keri.”, I said.  “She’s not coming to play today; she is coming to talk with me for a while.  Her job is to help Grayson.”

“So she’s coming over to get rid of Grayson’s autism?”, said Mark.

get – rid – of autism.

get rid of it.

the simplicity of the notion took me for a moment

“How’s she going to do that Mom?”

the answer is a canyon between autism and a broken arm, a cold, a scratch.

“Well, buddy, most people don’t get rid of autism.  They just work really hard and figure out ways to live with it.”

“You mean Grayson will always have autism?  Even when she’s a grown-up?

I consider the question and its implications.  We are wading into new waters, for him.  “I don’t know Marco, but yes, I think she probably will.”

“Well”, – his tone was incredulous – “I can’t imagine how that is going to work”.

Brutal,  Innocent Honesty.

me neither, some days, I think to myself.

To him I say,

“Grayson learns new stuff all the time, just like you.  She does many things now that she couldn’t before, like getting herself dressed, reading and writing, and making her own breakfast and lunch.  She’s working really hard learning to talk more and listen, and she’s figuring out how to play.  So we don’t know how things will look next year, or when she’s a grown up.  She’ll be much different than she is now.”

“Okaay”, he said, I thought I detected a hint of skepticism, but it was overridden by faith in what I’d told him.

He was quiet for a minute and I braced myself for what he might come with next.

“Well then”, he concluded, “when you’re done talking with her I know she’ll be interested in the Top 10 Most Extreme Survivors of the animal kingdom.  Like Cockroaches – Mom, did you know that cockroaches can live up to 10 days without their head?”

Autism was on the back burner.  I glanced in the rear view mirror; his nose was fully scrunched, eyes wide, waiting for a response.

I was relieved to hear a question with a simple answer.   “No way!”

“Yes way!”, he said. “Now that’s extreme!”

Miles

“I have climbed several higher mountains without guide or path, and have found, as might be expected, that it takes only more time and patience commonly than to travel the smoothest highway” ~ Henry David Thoreau

I long for the day when Grayson and I can hold a real conversation.  

At 7 1/2 years old, she has come a long, long way.  She has language.  She speaks in full sentences.  She asks and tells.  She sings and laughs.  We do not take these things for granted – she has worked very hard to get here.

But we’ve never really talked.  She struggles to tell us how she feels.  She has a hard time answering questions.  She rarely shares observations and thoughts.  Language for her is still primarily a means to an end – a tool for acquiring things she wants or needs.

We have a foundation.  Grayson is smart.  She has the ability to speak and the vocabulary to converse.  And there is so much more inside of her than meets the eye.  I have seen it.  I’ll do what it takes to give her the tools to one day share it on her own.

We’re going to learn to talk together.

*

Today was rainy.  I pulled on rubber soled slippers and ran out to the bus stop to wave off Faith and receive Grayson.  She ran toward me, zigzagging purposefully through each puddle along the way.  Slosh, splash, slosh, squelch. She dumped her backpack in a puddle at my feet and moved to push straight past me.  But I put my arm out across her chest, steadied her, and leaned in.  “Hi Grayson”.  “Hi”, she whispered, pressing her body into my arm and toward the front door.  ”Would you like to make some cookies?”, I asked.  She always does; I pose the question anyway, it’s a minimum for a conversation and the toll for her to pass. “Yes!”, she answered.  The bar lifted and she was off in a beeline for the baking cabinet.

I followed in her muddy footprints and sat beside her at the counter .

M:  “Grayson”, “What did you do in school today?”

G:  “You hanna good day at school”.   a script.

M:  “Honey what did you DO in school?”

G:  “I went to school.”

M:  “What did you LIKE in school today?”

G:  “I like Cowboy Cookies.”

I sat beside her close but not too close and waited.  Rephrase… try again… don’t overwhelm her.

M:  “Grayson, what was the best part of your day at school?”

My words hung in the air between us.  The silence would be painfully awkward between most two people.  She seemed not to notice.  But maybe she did.  Does she know I’m waiting?  Does she remember I asked her a question?  Hellooo?  Try again.

M:  “Grayson, what was the best part of your day at school?”

G:  “I had fun at school.”  scripted.  Maybe try something more specific…

M:  “Did you make something today?”

(silence).  Maybe she’s annoyed.  I am annoying.  Too many questions.  I’m getting annoyed with myself. But I’m not quite ready to give up.

M:  “Honey, who is your teacher?”

G:  “At school.”

M:  “Yes, at school.  What is your teacher’s name?”

G:  “Grayson.”

M:  “Your teacher honey.  Your teacher’s name iiiiiss  ______ …”

G:  “Miss P.”

M:  “Yes!  Yes, that’s right.  Your teacher is Miss P.”     “Good job.”

We’re done here.

I retreat to collect my thoughts.  This is hard.  So many things that come along naturally with typical development are just plain hard for her.  She is blazing her own trail and it’s going to be longer and steeper than most.  It is going to take more time.  More patience.  More effort.

We’ve got a long way to go.

I remind myself of the changes we’ve seen lately.

I remind myself of where we started and where we’ve been.

We have come so far.  She has come so far.

The day will come when she and I can sit and talk together.

We will get there.

And on days when the road ahead seems long,

it’s good to look back.

Selective Ignorance

“Selective ignorance, a cornerstone of child rearing. Parents should sit tall in the saddle and look upon their troops with a noble and benevolent and extremely nearsighted gaze.”  ~ Garrison Keillor

Josh and I are fairly laid back as parents.

We didn’t start out that way.  Round and browned with Grayson, I remember propping up “How to Train Up a Child”, and “The Strong Willed Child”, against the slope that was my belly.  We had a plan.  A darn good one.

Our kids would be well mannered, well behaved, obedient, and good natured.  We would have a schedule.  When we altered it, on occasion, our kids would roll with the changes seamlessly.  Josh and I would be Ward and June.  Even tempered, wise, ordered, running a tight ship on smooth seas.

*

I have noticed over the years that there seems to be an inverse relationship between the number of kids we have and

a) the rigidity of our parenting plan, and

b) our degree of reactivity to behaviors and events in daily life.

With Grayson, we stayed on task for a year or so – determined to to stick to the plan, unaware that she came bearing a motherload of wrenches to toss our way.  Then Mark was born.  We struggled to juggle two kids at once and the plan loosened up a bit.  With John we mellowed still more.  And then Ben arrived and we had 4 kids under 5 years old.  At this point, we began to look like Hippies in our approach to parenting and life in general.  “It’s all cooool“.

Over the last several years, we have developed a tool essential to our own survival.  A slight adaptation of “it’s all cooool”, we considered “it’s mostly cooool”.  But then went with Selective Ignorance.

With Mark, John, and Ben, this sometimes translates to “letting boys be boys”.  Energetic, Loud, Physical.  They like to rumble.  We may step over them nonchalantly as they lay in a tangled, squirming heap on the floor.  We may look the other way as they line up to pee off the back deck.  We’re okay with John leaving the house in fire boots and a knight’s helmet.

As new parents learn to distinguish the various cries of their babies, we know our boys’ screams.  The majority of them fall into the ‘mad’ or ‘frustrated’ category.  They are most often the result of a perceived injustice or standard altercation among siblings – sometimes we intervene to mediate or coach them in resolving conflict.  Other times, we leave them to settle their differences on their own.  I might call out words I recall very well from my own childhood, “Work it out between you!”. If Josh is around, we might turn to one another in a scripted dialogue reserved for these times…

“Did you hear something?”

“Nope.”

“Me neither.”

With Grayson, selective ignorance tends to translate to “pick your battles”.  If we were to pursue every infraction with her, we would spend the majority of our time in correction mode.  So we pick and choose.  She is a nudist.  If we are in the community, we are usually insistent that she keep her clothes on.  In the comfort of  home, we may look the other way.  She also has a finely tuned radar leading her to everything muddy, slimy, dirty and disgusting.  If it’s not a health hazard, I’ll usually bite my tongue and save my words for the bigger dragons she totes home on a regular basis.

We are, in many ways, the nonchalant parents we said we’d never be.  We sip coffee in LaLa land while friends leap out of their chairs with the crashes and bangs that sound from the next rooms.  Neighbors clutch their chests as they spot Grayson swinging upside down from a tree branch high outside their window.  Grammy and Grampa’s heads spin as muddy kids fly by left and right, wielding swords and without pants.

I get it.  Our meters have been recalibrated.  Our parenting M.O. is a far cry from the Cleaverly approach we had in mind going into this.  But it works for us.  We’re on our toes enough to avoid injuries (most of the time).  The kids seem well adjusted and happy (for the most part).  And we’ve managed to remain sane and enjoy life in the midst of the semi-controlled, semi-ignorant chaos that is ours.

Student Parent

“Anyone who has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new.”~ Albert Einstein

July 24, 2006

Ben was due.  Josh had returned early from a 7 month deployment to Afghanistan – thankfully – safe, and in time for Ben’s arrival.

I was in the hospital for a late routine appointment and got the news that we’d be checking in.  It was D-Day.  I called Josh, who was home with Grayson, Mark, and John.  It would be a couple hours until he could get there to join me.

So I called Carla, my friend and lifeline for years while Josh was deployed.  She was there before I knew it, keeping me company through the check in and get settled process.  This was our fourth child; I was pretty mellow.  Carla – supremely, highly intense to begin with, was blazing a trail pacing back and forth across the room while we waited for Josh.

Our nurse walked in.  She was very young and visibly nervous.  “Hi, I’m Jeannie and I’ll be taking care of you today.”  She came to the side of the bed and began to fiddle with a tray full of instruments.  “Okay now”, she kept her gaze fixed on the tray.  “Time for your IV.”  She picked up a tube and then a needle.  And then a different tube, and a thingamajig and a bigger needle.  With an awkward laugh, she told us that she usually works at such and such hospital, and the equipment here was so much different.  I figured she was a student and waited, feeling the heat of Carla’s watchful eye as she came closer and stood protectively at my side.

I started to feel sorry for Jeannie.

Minutes passed, and she made her selections from the tray and approached me, needle in hand.  Not a fan of watching the process, I looked away.  poke, pinch “Wooops!”, she said.  Not exactly what you want to hear, but better now than later.  I glanced back over and she saw her fidgeting again with stuff on the tray.  Red splotches began rising along Carla’s chest and throat.  It’s okay, don’t worry, I willed her to stay calm.  She’s extremely passionate and an unbelievably talented basketball coach - I’ve seen what happens when she gets fired up.

poke, pinch “Wooops!”

poke, pinch “Wooops!”

Jeannie was struggling.  She had tried 3 times unsuccessfully to start an IV.  Carla was on the far side of the room now, with her arms crossed tightly, containing herself, sort of.  I’d decided to give it one more try before suggesting we take a break.  I said a little prayer for Jeannie, gave Carla a wink and a thumbs up, and turned away to wait for the final stick.

A choir of angels sang over us as the needle hit its mark.  Jeannie looked exhausted; relief washed over her.  Carla’s fists began to unfurl.  We’re good, don’t worry, I gave my taped hand a slight raise in her direction -”See?”.

At that moment, Jeannie stood from her wheelie chair.  Her clipboard caught a loop of tubing as she stepped away - ripping the IV from my hand.

It was a bloodbath.

Carla flew 8 feet in one step, her hands on her head, her mouth dropped to the floor.  “YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!!”

Jeannie was white as a sheet, a stark contrast to the bubbling river of red running from my hand to the sheets and puddling on the floor.

Uncharacteristically calm, I grabbed a spare pillowcase and pressed it to the back of my hand.  “I’m fine, don’t worry”, I spoke over Jeannie as she mopped up blood from the floor and frantically searched cabinets in the room for fresh sheets and a new hospital johnnie.  “I’m so sorry”, she stammered.  She was mortified.  “Maybe I’ll just go get my supervisor”.

“No, it’s okay.  Let’s try again.”, I said.  The story would have a happy ending.

And it did.  Jeannie pulled it together and found a vein right away.

We didn’t see her again that day, but I’ve thought of her over the last few years.

*

We’ve been where she was.

We are student parents.

We fiddle with our instrument trays, taking time to select which tools might be appropriate for which child.  Hoping we get it right.  We have stuck and missed.  Tried and failed.  We have been nervous and have felt incompetent.  We work to hold it together.  We hope it seems that we know what we’re doing.  But there have been occasions where our facade has cracked or crumbled, exposing us for what we really are – just doing the best we can.

The boys are typical patients.  Different from one another, but generally predictable.  We pull back the curtains, examine, assess the issues at hand, and treat with relative confidence.

Grayson is an extra-ordinary patient.  We face additional challenges in making decisions on her behalf.  We spend more time hovering over our tray, selecting some tools, leaving others behind.   Her veins are never where we expect them to be.  She refuses to stay still most of the time.  And it’s hard to explain to her why she should.

Like Jeannie, with all of our kids, we’ve missed a stick or two.

Like her, we learn from those that have travelled this road before us.  Our own parents, our grandparents, respected friends.  They teach us, support us as we step up to assume the roles they have trained us for.  They are there for counsel and advice.  They still care for us, even as we care for our own.

We pray that we won’t yank a tube along the way.

That at the end of the day, our children will have received all of the love and care they need.

That they will be healthy and strong,

That they will know joy in its fullest forms,

and that we will have done all we possibly can to equip them for all that is in store in their futures.

They are our students and our teachers.

We all have a lot to learn.

Even Keeled

“When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us.” ~ Margery Allingham

John is even keeled.  Though he has a twinkle in his eye, he is mostly on the quiet side, an observer, cautious, measured.  He thinks things through before he acts.  He is an outlier on the in-house excitability scale, calm and reserved (as is his father) in comparison to the rest of us.

In the midst of waves and winds ever swirling round his brothers and the tornado that is his sister, John somehow manages to keep himself anchored in the eye of the storm.

But today he is having a D A Y.

The early morning is crunch time here.  We’ve got a little over an hour to get everyone up, bathed, dressed, breakfasted, and out the door for school.  I count on Grayson and Mark to give me a run for my money most days.  Grayson can’t seem to sit still and is often anxious in the last minute perfectings of her own morning agenda.  Mark is wired, and a master at provoking his siblings.  I know it.  It’s part of the morning drill.  Ben can hold his own.  He is often on the receiving end of Mark’s shenanigans and his shrill protests are routine.

John is lured into the chaos sometimes, but he is rarely the instigator.  Today over breakfast, he boldly stepped up to usurp Mark’s role.  Snatching, mimicking, needling, mischievious, he was at the root of an uproar at the table.  “MOOOOOMM!!!”, the choir played.  Gah!!  No fair!!  Enemy forces are multiplying and I’m all alone!!    Fire the cannons!! “Hey!  No lunch desert!!”   Fire two!! “No Noggin dot com!!”

It took all I had this morning to make it through breakfast.  We piled into the Suburban and headed out to catch the bus.  I eyed a naughty stranger in the rear view mirror.   What was that all about??

*

Mark and Grayson hopped on their busses, we waved them off, and it was just the little boys and me.  I treasure time alone with one or two of our kids.  There is more of me to offer, moments of quiet, and time to really know each other.

We made our routine stop at Starbucks.  The boys picked out a table and we sat together, their small hands wrapped tightly around hot cocoas, mine cradling a morning cup of sanity.  The waters seemed to be settling.  I chalked up the early morning to a fluke.

But it wasn’t.

Storm clouds gathered and burst over our next stop.

Sunoco.  I pulled in to Power Vac the truck.  John spotted an abandoned toy monkey next to the trash can beside the vacuum.  He scrambled out of the truck and claimed it as his own.  “Hey!  Look what I found!”, he exclaimed.  I glanced at the monkey – broken, dirty, yucky.  “No honey, we’re not keeping that”.  And the dam burst.  He kicked and screamed and cried and flailed.  He could not be reasoned with.  What in the world?!

We finished our business and called a time out on the morning.

Straight home we went and up the stairs.  I sat beside him on his bed.  “What is going on buddy?  Why are you behaving this way?”  “I wanted that monkey.”  We went back and forth a few times.  It’s hard, at four, to pull together words to explain complex feelings.  So we just sat together and I held him, rubbed his back and ran my fingers through his hair.  I could feel his body relaxing.  “Mom?”  “Yes?”  The clouds were clearing; I braced myself for a profound revelation. “Can I watch Sci-Q?”  okay – “Sure.”

We walked down the stairs together, our differences behind us.  I set him up in the throne – an old Pirates of the Carribean fold out camping chair, tucked a soft blanket around him, and turned on the TV.  The screen flickered and a familiar tune played “…we put it in our notebook and it’s Whooo’s Clues?  Bluuue’s Clues!!”… “Noooo!!!  NOT BLUES CLUES!!”, Imposter John roared and simultaneously flipped backwards  in his camping chair.

Stunned by the fall, he lay back on the floor, cushioned by a soft rug and the blanket he’d been tucked in.

Stunned by his outburst, I stood staring down at him as he lay there.

Our eyes met, and the silence was broken with rising belly laughs.

.

With that, the spell was broken.

My even keeled, mellow Johnny was back and the rest of our day was welcomely uneventful.

We’ll hope for the same tomorrow.

Explosion

“As in an explosion, I would erupt with all the wonderful things I saw and understood in this world.” ~ Boris Pasternak

 

It’s Saturday morning.  O-dark-thirty. 

SMACK!  In a sudden and rude awakening, I jolt upright and come face to face with Little Bear.  She has colored, cut, and taped fuzzy brown ears to her forehead.  A label, crookedly attached to her chest announces her latest identity – b e a r.  I raise a hand to my own forehead, fingering a jaggedly cut paper firmly affixed above my brows.  “Grayson, what am I?”, I ask groggily.  “It’s a brown hat!”, she replies.  Seemingly  satisfied, she runs away.  I flop back on a pillow, pull up the blankets, and snuggle back down.  It’s cold.  And it’s Saturday. 

WHOOSH!  It is minutes later.  She’s back and in one quick move she’s flipped back layers of blankets and sheets.  Exposed now, in thin jammies and a crumpled brown paper hat, I sit up.  “You want a blue shirt!”, she says, emphatically, her face inches from mine.  “Okay”, I manage, straightening to offer her my chest and stomach.  She is holding an 8X10 sheet of paper – one side covered in small rolled pieces of blue masking tape.  The other, cut and colored to replicate a blue apron.  She plasters the paper to my chest.  We are creating the character cast from Nickelodeon’s Little Bear.  I’m the Mama. 

She stands before me, scrutinizing, evaluating, primping, perfecting.  “You see a Mama Bear!”, she declares.  I pass.  She takes off.

“Johnny!!”, she is calling.  “Johnny!!  You want to make a duck!!”.   Johnny is a duck this morning, a yellow triangle taped to his back side, a label on his chest.  d u c k

Later, we’ll laugh to find Josh manning the Saturday morning skillet - a spatula in hand, two fuzzy brown ears taped to his forehead and letters on his chest – b e a r - confirming his role in the day’s play. 

Mark and Ben wait in the wings for their assignments.  Soon, the casting call will be complete.  Then, this show will close and another will open.   

*

A light bulb went off for Grayson.

This week we have been living an explosion of pretend play. 

We have been the Backyardigans – antlers, antennae and propeller caps taped to our heads. 

We have been “Higgly Top Heroes”, pizza boxes and h i r o  labels pressed to our chests. 

We have been monkeys.  b l u e  m o c e  and r e d  m o c e .

We have been JoJo and Veggies and Little Einsteins. 

  

At night, we read stories. 

• “Little Sal followed her Mama over blueberry hill”, we say.  “Little Grayson followed her Mama over blueberry hill.”  We stand corrected. 
• “Once upon a time, there were three little bunnies.  Rosie, Posie, and Dozie chased fireflies in the – ” “Marco Bunny!  Johnny Bunny!  Grayson Bunny!”.  We amend. 

*

Swept up in a flood of fantasy, it seems that Grayson is making up for lost time. 

Josh and I offer ourselves freely.  We are coaching the boys.  Hey, this is a really cool time for your sister.  She is learning how to play!  We can help.  They are good sports, submitting themselves along with us, waiting expectantly for their assigned roles.

In the midst of a storm of creative energy and excitement, Grayson’s fuse is short and she is very easily frustrated.  A piece of tape sticks to another.  Her depiction of an owl does not come out exactly as intended.  “EEEEWW!!  Your tires are STUCK!!”, “III’m STUCK!!” she screams.  And screams.   Exasperation and anxiety plague her as she works. 

But she refuses help. 

She is spunky and determined.  Tenacious, independent. 

Messy, loud, demanding, unpredictable, and full of energy. 

She is moving, moving, always moving. 

Two steps forward, one step back, and then a leap and a bound. 

   

This week, on the heels of 2 stormy months fighting to hold ground, we stand witness to the latter.

A bright, explosive awakening in Imagination, Exploration, Pretend, Play,  and Self Discovery.

 

Make All Better

Grayson kicked Johnny in the head tonight. 

Often times, autism comes along with a variety of sensory processing differences.  In Grayson’s case, her body demands a high amount of deep pressure and movement in order to organize her central nervous system.  We do what we can to offer her the input she needs each day.  At home, she has a rock wall in her room.  She jumps from furniture and stairs.  She does gymnastics several times a week.  She has an intensive sensory program at school and opportunities throughout her day to bounce, climb, jump, and swing.  And she has a pull up bar that hooks over any standard door frame.  She loves to swing from it. 

Tonight, she hooked the bar in a doorway in the hall.  She was in a full force swing when Johnny happened by and they collided hard. 

Johnny was startled and hurt.  I scooped him up and held him on the couch while he cried. 

Usually, when someone is hurt, Grayson carries on with her own activities and appears indifferent.  If she is at fault, we facilitate an apology.  She will supply the prompted words – “I’m sorry!” and then she is off running. 

So tonight I was surprised when she immediately dropped from her bar and ran to the couch where Johnny and I were sitting. 

“Don’t cry Scarecrow!”, she said.  She stood by him and brought her face close to his. 

“It’s okay Boots!”, she added.  She looked awkward, like she didn’t know what to do with herself.  But she clearly wanted to help. 

“Grayson, pat his back, like this”, I said.  I showed her.  She copied. 

“It’s okay Boots!”, she said again, “It’s okay Grayson!”, and finally, “It’s okay Johnny!”. 

Her brow furrowed, and she leaned in again.  This time, she wiped his tears with her hands.  It was an incredibly tender gesture coming from her. 

And then she ran off. 

I leaned in to Johnny and whispered my own thoughts in a shared moment with him. “Hey buddy, do you know how special that was?  Do you see how she was loving you?  She was trying to make you feel better!”    He got it too.  I had watched the interchange between them – they had both seemed unsure, treading on new ground in a place they had not been together.

And then suddenly, she was back. 

She had a band-aid in her right hand.  She squatted beside him on the couch, and carefully stuck it to his head. 

“Make all better!”, she declared. 

And she did. 

She Lied

lie

– (lī) verb//:  to speak falsely or utter untruth knowingly, as with intent to deceive.

One of the cardinal sins in our home is lying. Josh and I bring down the hammer when we catch our kids in a lie.  It has happened from time to time with each of our boys.  But we have never caught Grayson, because she doesn’t lie.  She has never told a lie.

Until now.

On non-sports days, 4:15 is “rest” time at our house.  Ben usually naps, while the big kids have 45 minutes to play together in the basement playroom, or upstairs in their bedrooms.   Lately, Grayson has been fighting the process.  She loves to bake and draw pictures on the main floor of the house, so she’s been trying to sneak up or down when it is rest time.  She’s stealthy – I see her scooting down the stairs, one at a time, quietly.  When she sees me catch sight of her, she makes a dash for the baking cabinet.  “Grayson,”, I’ll say, my voice thick with warning, “It’s rest time.  Go back up/downstairs”.  She will race off then, shouting a few choice expletives my way - “Eeee!  Eeee!”  “Goooeey Geyser!!”

On Monday, she got a new idea.  “Mommy!!”, she called down the stairs, “You need to make a pee-pee!”.  “Okay Grayson”.  We have established that she is allowed to come down the stairs during rest time to use her preferred potty on the main floor.

Only this time, she came down the stairs, and guiltily, deliberately ran past the bathroom and straight to the baking cabinet.

For a second, I was thrown off.  But then it hit me -

SHE LIED!!

The significance of the lie trumped the broken rule.

Lying is an advanced cognitive process.  A child who is planning a lie must recognize the truth, intellectually conceive of an alternate reality, and then convincingly sell that new reality to another person.  Lying also requires empathy, the ability to understand and suppose what someone else might be thinking or feeling.   Empathy is a particularly slippery sucker for most people with autism.  This week, Grayson got her hands around it and held on.

*

Though it may seem grossly unjust, we are holding back the hammer.

In yet another unexpected adjustment in our parenting plans, this week, we are partying over a deception.