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Archive for August, 2010

fizzy lifting drinks

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 11, 2010| 1 Comment »

When Andy went to pick up Jonah from after-school care today, Jonah was hysterically crying.  The dreaded log book told us he’d done pretty well in camp today, and he did okay at the after-school program too, at first, but then there was a rapid deterioration; the staff told Andy they think Jonah has a headache.

Funny how I was just blogging yesterday about how sometimes I wonder if he’s sick or hurting and can’t tell us.

So when they got home, I gathered Jonah in my arms on the couch for some snuggle time, and immediately he tried to cop a feel (one of his favorite things to attempt; did I nurse him too long?  I didn’t think 15 months was excessive) which I brushed off with a firm no.  “No boobie,” he announced, evidently in agreement, placing his arm instead around my neck.

I decided to distract him with his all-time favorite scene from one of his all-time favorite movies, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which we just happen to have recorded on the DVR back around Christmastime.  For some reason Jonah adores when, near the end of the movie, Grandpa Joe gets all up in Mr. Wonka’s grille, challenging him to give over the lifetime supply of chocolate for Charlie, and Mr. Wonka, not to be outdone by an old man who has spent the last 20 years in bed, becomes equally enraged.  Jonah knows (and can recite) this screaming-match of a scene by heart, and usually it makes him laugh hysterically.

Mr. Wonka: You STOLE fizzy lifting drinks!  You bumped into the ceiling, which now has to be washed, and sterilized, so you get NOTHING!  You lose! Good day, sir!

Grandpa Joe: You’re a crook!  You’re a cheat, and a swindler – that’s what you are!  How could you do a thing like this?  Build up a little boy’s hopes and then smash all his dreams to pieces?!!  YOU’RE AN INHUMAN MONSTER!

Mr. Wonka: I SAID GOOD DAY!!

Usually Jonah would say more until I’d rewound & played that scene at least ten times or so…but today it didn’t do the trick at all.

After a few minutes of cuddling and TV, I asked him if his head hurt.  “You need head medicine?”  I said, walking into the kitchen to look for the liquid Children’s Tylenol.  Jonah followed me.  I had just poured myself a cup of water with ice and put it on the kitchen counter, when he walked over and picked it up.

“Head meh-sin?”  he asked.  Before I could answer him he took the water, walked to the sink, leaned his head over, and poured the whole icy cupful on his head.

I couldn’t help but laugh at the poor boo.  He got his head meh-sin (and some Tylenol too) at any rate, and doesn’t seem too much worse for the wear.

As long as he stays away from the fizzy lifting drinks, I think he’ll survive.

P.S.  After I finished this post, I checked the news online. The guy who produced Roots and Willy Wonka died today.  Weird.

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the dreaded log book

Posted in echolalia, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 10, 2010| 1 Comment »

Bad day for the J-Dog at Wildwood’s Altamont summer camp.   He hit, he whined, he needed to be restrained, and he incurred “several” time outs, according to his log book in which the staff communicates these things to us.

I have a secret:  I hate opening his log book. I hate the hope I feel that they will tell me he was so very well behaved and did or said or accomplished something really cool…and I hate knowing those kind of log book entries are exceedingly rare.

Every morning, I kiss Jonah goodbye and say “you be a good boy today, okay?” and he usually parrots “good boy?” like it’s a question he’s asking me: who and what, exactly, is a good boy?

I know there’s a better than even chance he won’t be a “good boy,” and I feel helpless to change it.  When he’s home, Andy and I can banish him to his room for “quiet time” for as long as necessary.  We feel more in control because we can offer immediate consequences and positive reinforcements too.  Without being right at camp (or school) with him, it’s hard to really get to the bottom of what’s going on when he has a “bad day.”

I often worry he might be hurting or sick and unable to articulate that, so he acts out as a result.  (I’ve never heard him verbalize a physical ailment, whether it be a tummy ache, a head ache, or anything else, aside from him whimpering “eye hurt” after his eye surgery in the spring).

Then I worry that I am making excuses for him.  Then I worry that he’ll just get bigger, and stronger, and more aggressive, and we’ll be bruised and broken by the time he’s a teenager.  I don’t like to think about it, so then I worry that I’ve just got the ostrich-mom-with-her-head-in-the-sand syndrome.  I just really don’t know, and then I worry that I’m too uninvolved in changing that, in figuring something out, in knowing something about what is going on and what to do about it.

After this week, Jonah has 3 weeks of break between summer camp and school.  It is without a doubt the most difficult 3 weeks of the calendar year for us, especially for Andy, who will take the time off from his part-time construction work to care for Jonah during the days while I work.  I used to be the stay at home mom, but Andy and I switched roles in the fall of 2007, so now I earn most of the moneycoin, and Andy is Jonah’s primary caregiver.  I admit Andy is better at it than me.   He’s more patient and a stronger disciplinarian too, hands down.  They won’t be handing me the Mother of the Year award any time soon.

So Jonah carried his behavior home today, bringing a whole new definition to the word obnoxious.  The respite sitter was here tonight (thank you to both the sitter and our local Catholic Charities for providing the respite) but Andy and I still have to shadow her, intervening when Jonah gets angry or loud, guiding her in how and when to give “time outs,” and, tonight, changing the 4 or 5 poops he did in rapid succession (none on the toilet, though we sure did try), so by the time the sitter left, our whole house stank to high hell, and now we’re very tired, and neither of us feels well, and we are collectively very cranky.

Bedtime is fantastic. After we put Jonah to bed (and thankfully he goes to bed well), I get myself settled with a book and a black soda, and I can relax for what seems, many days, like the first time I’ve had the opportunity all day.

Then I get to sleep.

Bliss.

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moneycoin

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on August 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Charlie Babbitt: Does Raymond know how much money he’s inherited?

Dr. Bruner: No, he doesn’t understand the concept of money.

Charlie Babbitt: He doesn’t understand the concept of money?  He just inherited three million dollars and he doesn’t understand the concept of money? Wow, good work, Dad. I’m getting fucking poetic here.

~ Rainman, 1988

– – –

Like Rainman, Jonah doesn’t understand the concept of money.

But boy does he love a good handful of change.  It’s one of his favorite playthings.

“Moneycoin?”  he pleads, standing on our bed and trying to reach over to the dresser to retrieve whatever assorted pennies and quarters have accumulated on top.

“Moneycoin is…open for business!”  I shout, giving him a handful of assorted coinage.  He drops his precious moneycoin in a small Tupperware container and shakes it, then gleefully tosses the whole works into the air; like game show prize money it rains down on us.

Jonah rolls moneycoin along the wooden floor in the hallway.  He spins moneycoin on the living room coffee table.  He clutches moneycoin greedily in tight fists: a miser gone berserk.

At any given time in our house you could probably collect twenty dollars of moneycoin from behind furniture, between couch cushions, and under beds.

Here moneycoin is ubiquitous, much to Jonah’s supreme satisfaction!

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open for business

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 8, 2010| 3 Comments »

“Grandma is open for business!”  Andy tells our son in the fake-bright voice of exasperation.

He is telling Jonah that yes, we can go see grandma now.  Jonah understands that when something is open for business, he can have it.  When it’s closed, he can’t.

Anything can be open for business or closed – including people (like Grandma), cookies, his scooter, cranberry soda, the TV, the Rensselaerville Falls, or even something that really is either open or closed, like an actual store.

Jonah loves his grandma almost as much as she believes the sun rises and sets on her only grandchild.  Only two things stand a chance at trumping her on Jonah’s request list:  go-see-train and swimming, and even among those prized temptations, grandma usually wins out.

Jonah is eight and a half.  He has autism, and for him, and our family, that means he speaks only in small phrases yet can somehow sing entire songs (usually by Guster) verbatim.

It means children are largely obstacles to Jonah, things to move past or get around, and adults are providers of hot dogs, car rides, games of chase, and “mem-a-made” (lemonade).

It means he will pee pee on the potty when bribed, and will (only very recently) squat and squirt out a tiny poopy on the potty when promised a coveted “black soda” (any kind of cola).  At all other times he wears pull-ups, requiring frequent and oft-stinky changes.

It means he drives us to distraction with his repetitive requests (“Outside?  Outside?  Outside?  Wanna-go-see-train?  Grandma?  Outside?”), but he endears himself just as repeatedly every time he nestles in for a big huge “huck.” (hug).

It means that until he was eighteen months old or so, we had very little idea what the hell was wrong with our kid but we knew that something strange was definitely afoot at the Circle K …yet we kind of dismissed autism as a possibility because “those kids just sit in the corner and bang their heads against the wall” — and, well, our son was so bright, loving, and engaged.  Couldn’t be autism.

It means sometimes there are Saturdays when by 10am I am already “all done” with the weekend and wishing I could go back to work instead of pulling my son away from a crowded playground because he won’t stop shouting “penis!” and all the parents are glaring.

It means I have been drawn inexplicably and unwillingly into a world where surreal is the norm and life is sometimes simply pushing through one minute at a time – sometimes excruciatingly, sometimes hilariously.  Sometimes both.

It means all of this and more, and for this writer, it is high time to write about it.  I was supposed to maybe have a blog on our local daily newspaper’s website, and the editor over there seemed initially interested in my proposal to do so, but now after weeks have gone by, he has yet to answer either (A) my follow-up voice mail or (B) my follow-up-e-mail-regarding-the-follow-up-voice-mail, and I don’t feel like begging the dude.  Plus they’d probably censor me, and fuck that.

This blog, then, about and in honor of Jonah Russell, is “Open for Business!”

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