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the last straw – part one

Posted in autism, behavior, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 27, 2010| Leave a Comment »

“What a long, strange trip it’s been…”  ~ The Grateful Dead

If there’s one thing I’ve learned this past week, it’s to never say you’ve bottomed out…’cause there’s always more bottom beneath the ‘bottom’ where you think you are.  There’s always more edge to the cliff you think you’re hanging onto.  At least there was for me.

Let’s see if I can account for the time I’ve been gone.  On Friday at 1:30pm we had a team meeting at CPS office downtown; M watched Jonah for me while my mom, my dad, Andy, me, and various representatives from Jonah’s school and benefit offices met to brainstorm options for my family.  After more than two hours it was determined that I could place Jonah in respite care for the weekend – a private home where a local couple would care for Jonah from 10am Saturday until about 7pm on Sunday.  Then, so the plan went, we would meet again on Tuesday (the 26th) to determine a more long-term course of action.

On Saturday morning I was nervous but I dropped Jonah off at the private home as planned, where this very kind lady took Jonah’s overnight bag, booster seat, his special ‘blankee’, some of his favorite DVDs, and my list of instructions and details.  The lady and her husband take in foster kids all the time, including developmentally disabled and fetal alcohol syndrome children – in fact they had 3 or 4 of these kids in the home when I came – and she assured me that Jonah’s violent behavior was nothing she couldn’t handle.  Jonah took to the environment gladly, not clinging to me or seeming upset when I left, which made it easier.  I thanked her, she hugged me, and I left.

I whispered a Hail Mary under my breath and headed straight to Colonie Center mall with M to get an eye exam and new glasses at the one-hour shop.  Because Jonah is always grabbing at my glasses I figured I could use my old pair as a spare.  I bought two pair – one regular and one sunglasses – and then M and I ate in the food court.  The whole time I felt very strange, not needing to worry about running out of time before I had to pick Jonah up, and I kept fighting the urge to call and see how he was doing, even though it had only been 2 hours by then since I’d dropped him off.

After the mall M and I headed to the grocery store to shop.  Halfway through the store my cell phone rang – it was the lady providing respite care.  She explained I’d need to pick Jonah up – that it wasn’t working out.  They’d taken a car ride in their big van to ‘leaf peep’ when, without warning, Jonah launched himself at their foster child, an infant with cystic fibrosis, and scratched his face up pretty bad.

Four hours, he lasted.  Four hours.  Shaking, I hung up, purchased the groceries in my cart, and headed over to get him.  I apologized profusely to the woman and was heartsick at the sight of the baby’s scratched and bleeding face.  I gathered Jonah’s things and signed some paperwork while M put him in the car.

Then we headed to my house, but before we got there, Jonah attacked again from the backseat.  He couldn’t reach us but I was a frazzled mess so I called Four Winds to do an over-the-phone pre-intake screening, an option that had been mentioned at the CPS team meeting on Friday.  They told me there were no beds but my case would be reviewed on Monday.   “But what can I do until then?” I asked, desperate.  They told me to call Mobile Crisis, so I did.  Three policemen and a caseworker from CDPC  (the Capital District Psychiatric Center) showed up about 15 minutes later and we got a police escort to their crisis unit.  When they got Jonah out of the car to walk him inside, he launched an attack so violent it took 3 policeman and M to hold him down.  Four times he attacked before they could even get him in the door.  Like someone on PCP, my 55-pound boy kicked, bit, scratched, and fought with superhuman strength.  Finally they got him into the ‘safe room’ (literally padded with rubber walls, with only a mattress and blanket inside it) and dosed him with some Risperdal.  I held it together for a while and then paced the halls, crying in anguish and frustration and helplessness.

Jonah in the safe room

We literally lived in the Children’s Waiting Room of the CDPC crisis unit for the next three days and nights.

Part two to follow…

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chip by crack by piece

Posted in autism, behavior, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 21, 2010| 4 Comments »

I have been exhausted; too tired to think or type down any thoughts that may have sifted through the sleepiness.

On Tuesday Jonah’s school had a half day, so I had to pick him up at 11:30am.  I dreaded it.  When I arrived he’d already had attack incidents at school but I’d just bought that kick-ass harness contraption so I knew he’d be safe in the car.  It is a sickening, saddening, surreal feeling to be afraid to let your child out of his safety harness for fear he will attack you.  But I was too chicken to have Jonah in the house with me alone.  So I literally drove him around until M met me at 3pm to take him to a doctor appointment I’d made for him (almost all the respite/services/ placements/ programs I’m applying for require a current physical).

After I picked him up from school, at Jonah’s request, we headed to Voorheesville to see the trains.  Here we had the first real test of Jonah’s new safety harness, when for no reason he flipped out and tried to launch himself at me.

It is a weird thing to reach for your camera at a time like this, but I feel so journalistic now that it’s a natural instinct.  You can see that although the harness kept his torso back, his legs were free to kick.  Of course I’d thought to remove his shoes, but bare bony ankles hurt too.  After I took the picture I got the hell out of the car and watched, shaking, as he BAM BAM BAM-ed his foot against the console armrest.  I quit smoking almost 10 years ago but it was a smoke-a-cigarette-and-get-your-shit-together moment if there ever was one.

I’ll be looking into a leg/foot restraint next.  After he kicked himself out of energy, by some miracle of miracles, we saw four trains – two at the same time – and Jonah was once again happy.

Then we visited a drive-thru and went up for a ride through Thatcher Park.  Jonah was calm but I knew it could change at any time, for any reason, and the whole time I’m thinking this is ridiculous.  I can’t live like this, afraid to let my child out of the car until I have help.

Finally M and I took Jonah to the doctor and he was pretty good, though I was kind of a wreck.  After the physical and the shot Jonah needed (which didn’t elicit a freak-out attack, like you’d think it would), M took Jonah to the car and I stayed behind to talk to the doc.  Doc came in, pulled a stool up to me, and said “I’m going to say something that’s going to sound horrible, and I’m sorry. But I think it’s time to investigate respite placement for Jonah.”  He explained that I am not going to be able to handle this, emotionally or physically, and that it wasn’t safe for Jonah or for me, or for my mental health.  So I nodded numbly and got some information from him about who I’d need to talk to, and then I left.  Within hours I had a second opinion from my favorite doctor on the planet, and he told me the same thing.

So I considered it.  I thought about it and I cried over it and I had nightmares of it.  On Wednesday, when M could not be with me, my cousin Brian came down to stay with me and Jonah (and he got to witness a mid-level attack on me, too fast for him to stop, which mangled my glasses yet again and gave me that bonus good ol’ “nose smashed into the brain” sensation) until M could come back to help.  I just have to keep someone with me, all the time.  All the time.

I  keep someone with me

and I remind myself to breathe

and I have crying jags that won’t stop

and I have moments of power and strength

and I keep hoping, and feeling the hope crushed, and hoping again.

and it’s breaking me down, all of this, and chip by crack by piece I have come to the place I am today, where I am investigating temporary overnight respite homes for Jonah….to keep him safe, to keep me safe, to keep me from losing my mind altogether and being of no use to either of us.

I do not have help this weekend.  I had to drive Jonah to school this morning (because I’d forgotten his harness at after-school program the day before and they won’t let him ride the bus without it) and then I realized halfway there I’d also forgotten his book bag with his lunch in it – and then on the way he launched another few attacks at me — kicking, screaming, thrashing — and by the time I got to the school, my nerves were so frazzled that I actually called the school on my cell from the front driveway and cried to them to please send someone out for my son and a social worker out for me.

They came and collected Jonah, and in the social worker’s office I asked her tearfully to please help me find some kind of respite care before the weekend.  Please.  As unimaginable as it is going to be to walk away from a home where my son will be for however long he needs to be there, I need this.  Now.  Please.  So she started leaving messages, and so did I.  My father helped me a lot today; we picked Jonah up from school and took him back to the doc for the results of his tine test and my dad stayed with me until M could come back.  I heard back from the social worker and someone from CPS but only to say they were trying.

I am still waiting.  I have one more day until the weekend; I have to believe they will help me tomorrow.

I’ll call and badger and beg if I have to…

Or I don’t know if I am going to make it.

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we’re all in this together

Posted in autism, behavior, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 18, 2010| 3 Comments »

Today Jonah had a ‘3-incident’ day but it’s still less than usual and it was at school, thank God and thank Wildwood and thank his teachers, who are equipped with safe rooms and hold techniques and lots of trained, caring folk to cope with my boy.  (I’d be such a poor special ed teacher, crying like a little girl pushed by a bully every time some kid bit me).

And I never thought I’d love a Monday so much.

Today Jonah was very good at after-school program — and hallelujah the 5-point car harness thing I’d ordered for him came in, so I picked it up at lunchtime.  It looked like kind of a complicated contraption; when I got back to the office, I handed it to co-worker/handyman/mechanically inclined S and asked him to put it together for me.  “Did you even try to do it yourself?”  he asked me.  “Well, no,” I responded sheepishly.  “Then go try first, like a big person!” he half-mocked.

So I did.  I installed that hundred-and-fifty-dollar contraption in the car my own self, and walked upstairs all proud, and S asked me “now don’t you feel empowered?”  and yeah, I had to admit, I did feel empowered.  As if some kind of Superwoman emerged from the ashes of a broken, busted-up, scared little girl.  (If you count installing a car harness to be a superpower).

And Jonah acquiesced nicely to being secured in the thing, so we proceeded to go see his beloved train.  He laughed and giggled the whole way — I kept catching my breath and holding it, forgetting to breathe, almost, thinking:  really?  he’s really happy? and it made me so glad to have my boy back – my sweet, humor-filled, loving, fun, precious little kid.

When the train came he clapped and shouted with joy:

…and then we were rewarded with another train, and when we got home Andy’s mom had dropped off a yummy casserole and m m m for Jonah, and my lovely friend K delivered me a delicious apple sage pork chop dinner with mashed potatoes and stuffing, with amazing desert and candy treats besides – even golden chocolate moneycoin (especially for Jonah).  Sometimes I can see how life works, once I decide I am determined to love it again, come hell or high water…how, as Sara Crewe said in A Little Princess, “The worst never quite comes…”

Jonah was good all night.   Another co-worker, B, had kindly given me a little moneycoin bank for Jonah, and the kid played happily on the floor with it, letting out big shrieks of joy (that maybe would have annoyed the crap out of me two months ago but today sounded perfectly awesome).  Then he ate some of his grandma’s casserole, and took a bath, let me help him brush his teeth, and went to bed, all like a very good little angel of a boy.  Whew.  Hooray!  I am grinning ear to ear, almost crying from the amazing wonder of it all.

I ask for help and am getting it.  I push through and am rewarded with days like today.  Thank you, thank you, thank you I tell God in the same mantra of the help me help me help me from the other day.  I appreciate this day.  I appreciate it even if it is only one day of respite.  I appreciate that others are also dealing with awful things and hellish days and long, empty nights.  That I am not alone.

That we are all in this together.

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the cops and the crisis center

Posted in autism, behavior, trains, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 18, 2010| 6 Comments »

“I caught a piece of the sunshine, put a little hope in me
But after the flood raged, there’s nothing really left to see
But I was not done, or beat, the violence was a source of strength:
Not everything is always just as it seems…”

~ Guster

I gave Jonah his pill right off the bat Sunday morning and warily waited to see what kind of kid the world was going to deal me this day.  Attack number one came early; we were sitting together on the couch watching Thomas the Tank Engine when he turned sideways suddenly and kicked me in the face.  I jumped up to avoid further injury and held him on the couch until he quieted, then we counted down together and he seemed okay.  (I think I’ll have a bit of a shiner though).

I guess I got a little squirrely.  I knew I wouldn’t have help until early afternoon at best and I was tired of being afraid.  I decided that even though the new 5-point harness I ordered for our car didn’t arrive yet, I would secure him in the car seat with the shoulder strap, tight, and lap belt too, and pull the driver’s seat up as far as possible.  I figured he’d be safe and I could just drive him to see the train and wherever else, anywhere else, just to eat up time.  He did get to see the train but he was cranky and seemed really light-sensitive.

He asked: car ride? …so I decided to take a familiar loop through Altamont and back around to Voorheesville.   Very suddenly and without provocation, Jonah unbelted his seat belt (which I thought was too far away for him to reach) and launched himself at me, grabbing a chunk of my hair and my glasses, which went flying.  I can’t see to drive without them, so I pulled over abruptly.  Quite automatically, without much thought or premeditation, I found my glasses, got out of the vehicle, closed the door, walked to the front of the car, pulled my cell phone out, dialed 911, and blubbered out the story of my Lifetime TV movie life to the dispatcher.  I’m afraid to drive, I said.  I’m afraid he’s going to make me go off the road and crash, I cried.

Passing motorists gaped at the sobbing lady on her cell phone.  Soon I was surrounded by three emergency vehicles (I told them no ambulance was needed, thanks anyway) all filled with people who wanted to help me but seemed confused as to where to take us exactly.  The whole time Jonah was in the car and pretty calm.  I thought maybe they’d think I was nuts, he was so calm — I wasn’t sure they’d even believe me — but I had teeth bite marks from yesterday and a brand new puffy cheek to prove I was indeed, I guess, a ‘battered mom’.  Finally they put Jonah, car seat and all, in the back of a cruiser and I followed them to the AMC/CDPC crisis center, where a doctor talked to us briefly and I called my friend M to come and meet us there.  I told the doc I thought I could handle things with M’s help; they fed Jonah another dose of clonodine, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, and a nuclear-orange colored drink while he watched Toy Story and I rested on a bench, closing my eyes, focusing on breathing.  In, out.  In, out.

“…so take a breath and step into the light….everything will be all right…”

~ Guster

He stayed incident-free once we got home, and my friends P and Mx kindly dropped me off some yummy cider, pie, and black soda.  After I put Jonah on the bus to beautiful, blessed Wildwood School, I’m going to bring the cider and pie to work, heat both of them up, sit at my desk, eat, drink, and smile from the complete respite of it all.

Sweet, wonderful work.  Marvelous Monday.

Bring it on.

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on the ocean

Posted in autism, behavior, Uncategorized, tagged on October 13, 2010| 7 Comments »

“On the ocean…
I think we’re taking on water…
the storm is on the way,
but I will hold on anyway.”
~ Guster

This is a ridiculously tough post to type, so please forgive any type-os.  I doubt I’ll be editing this one.

I’ve got enough of my mom in me to want to avoid “airing dirty laundry,” as she would put it.  But we’ve reached rock bottom here and I should at least explain why I haven’t been around to post.  Because I just put Jonah to bed and don’t have enough energy to tell the whole tale, I’ll present a Reader’s Digest version of our tumultuous time on the ocean…

This past weekend Jonah had a very rough time behaviorally.  A VERY ROUGH TIME.  On Saturday he threw a toy from the backseat and hit Andy in the head while he was driving.  Andy’s response was way over the top, without a doubt inappropriately so, and I had to take Jonah away from him.  After going back and forth with Andy over the phone – I wanted him to take a break and leave the house for a week or so; at first he refused – Andy decided to check himself in to a hospital.  This was Monday, I guess.  I am so frazzled.  I forget what happened which day.  I don’t know what order things happened in, or how we got here, or how this is became my life.

Jonah continues to be in “random attack mode” and since Monday I have gone into “taking care of business” mode.  I have taken many steps to mitigate the behavior and ensure our financial, emotional and safe survival, including applying for home behavioral support services, getting Jonah on a low dose of clonodine, arranging for a special harness seat on the bus, making a myriad of appointments and phone calls to schools, doctors, agencies, and coordinators to arrange for services so I can still go to work and care for Jonah as well…

…things I took for granted are now huge considerations.  How to go to the grocery store.  How to go to my therapy appointments.  How to sleep.  Eat.  Breathe.  Remain sane.

I’ll go into award-show mode now.  I’ve won nothing but nonetheless am on the podium and have just been called to give credit to those who so deserve it:  I couldn’t have gotten through this weekend without my cousins D and B, who dropped everything to stand by me & get me through this; they’ve helped with Jonah, incurred injury after injury from his attacks, and pulled me up from the waters that threatened to drown me.  My mom has offered her home, also suffered injury at the hands of my out-of-control son, and come to my aid to help even when I am stark raving bitchy.  My dear friend M has stuck by me through so much – rearranged his whole schedule to ensure my safety and ability to cope.  My dad has been very supportive.  My boss has been fantastic.  My friends are caring and there if I need them.  My cousin Brian is ready to jump to help me with whatever I need.  Even the people I supervise at work.  I am grateful.  I am grateful.  I am so incredibly grateful.

This is a trial by fire if there ever was one.  Andy and I had already decided to separate, but I hadn’t said anything just yet; now I may as well tell that too and get it all the major shit over with in one post.

Sorry if all the dirty laundry is stinking to high heaven.  I hope the meds and behavior supports and whatnot serve to bring my sweet boy back.  I hope Andy is getting the care he needs and is okay.  I hope I can keep it together.

If you’re the praying sort, I could use some of that.

We’re staying afloat…

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red barn?

Posted in autism, behavior, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 9, 2010| 3 Comments »

Today has been a very hard day for Jonah behaviorally and I don’t feel like talking much about it.

The fact that it’s the 8th anniversary of my best friend Gina’s suicide doesn’t help. She’s been gone almost as long as I knew her.  Of course I can’t wrap my mind around her being “gone” at all, let alone for that length of time.

Time mystifies me.

In spite of my drama, it is absolutely deliciously crisp & autumn-gorgeous outside. And I have a list of good things that have happened today:

Jonah got to see two trains.

We went to grandma’s house, where Jonah pooped on the potty and got some black soda.

Jonah asked for red barn (a favorite landmark he enjoys passing by on car rides) and he got red barn.

My mom bought me a delicious turkey sandwich.

Jonah and I are listening to Guster’s brand new CD, Easy Wonderful, as much as possible, over and over.

Sometimes when he whines and yells incessantly from the backseat, I drown him out:

I was down for the count
Without any real way out
In this new submarine
Like the whale of Jonah’s dreams

What if I should rise up
From several fathoms deep
A scar on my soul
And a humbling tale of the world
That swallowed me whole…

swallowed me whole…

~Guster

 

 

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93.5% sugar free

Posted in autism, behavior, swimming, Uncategorized, tagged , , on October 7, 2010| 4 Comments »

It’s almost funny that my not-so-clever tag-line is “Autism, sans sugar coating,” because I actually do sift a liberal amount of sugar about.  A lot of the events and anecdotes I write about here are moments of cute, silly, Reader’s Digest-quips, between hours of struggle.  Fear. Overwhelming helplessness.  Jonah’s screaming, followed by our collective silence.  It’s been so long since I’ve experienced any life even close to normal.   But this blog is not a diary, and I didn’t come here to complain.

I don’t want to be a self-pitying person.  I try to focus on what is endearing.  But fuck it.  I can’t bring you into my world and then only show one side of it.  I don’t want this to be a happy little vapid blog that doesn’t say much of anything of any use.  I know other families are struggling like this.  They’ve got to be.

I know I am not alone in feeling like my son and I are societal pariahs, and I know other people must look forward to winter too, so they can hibernate in finished basements and empty malls.  At least I believe these things, if I can’t know them.  It makes me feel better to believe them.

Day after day, entry after entry in the dreaded school-to-home log book.. his sweet teacher trying valiantly to euphemize attacks and aggression with happy faces about the 5 minutes of the day when he was actually good.

He missed the school apple-picking field trip this week because he was so bad on the bus.  They took the rest of the class and one teacher went back to the school with him.  This is why I don’t try many outside “normal kid” activities.  Jonah’s not the nice little developmentally disabled boy on the SAFE (Sports Are For Everyone) softball team.  He can’t wait – softball is, almost by definition, waiting – and he’s not interested anyway.

He’s not the kid who will happily play at the birthday party at Jeeper’s.  He’s the kid in the very rear of the building, running up and down concrete steps leading to the emergency exit door.  He’s not even the kid who swims in an organized class, because he wants to get in the water and back out again at will.

He’s not any kid I ever dealt with
or handled
or loved
or feared
or was amazed by
or cuddled
or played with
or was depressed by
like this.

Some days we are worn down to barely functioning humans, Andy and I, trapped in this world we can’t navigate.  There is no barometer, no compass, no captain.  We don’t speak of it much because it always feels like there really isn’t anything to say.

Today Jonah attacked the bus driver, the after-school program coordinator, and Andy.  I got home before Andy and Jonah, and when they came in Andy was driving Jonah before him into his bedroom where he pinned him down on the bed.  I went to an eyeglass store so they could bend Andy’s mangled glasses back into wearable shape; Jonah had twisted the frames in the midst of his kick-hit-scratch-swat fest.  We’re tired.

Did I mention we are tired?

Pulling into the driveway after having Andy’s glasses fixed, I saw a fat rainbow:

and some floral-blooming sunset clouds:

And in the midst of my heart-pounding hand-shaking anxiety, I stopped to take pictures.  I had to.  I bring the camera everywhere.

I have to let all the beauty fill me

at every opportunity.

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knock knock knock?

Posted in autism, behavior, sensory stuff, Uncategorized on October 3, 2010| 1 Comment »

“Knock knock knock”?  Jonah asks me.

This is not the beginning of a joke, but a request.  He is asking me to knock on his head.  I knock three or four times on spots all over his noggin; he giggles and says “fast!”  So I knock faster, using both hands to create light little rhythms.  Jonah loves to be knocked on the head – what can I say?  Knick knack paddywack.

He also loves other kinds of sensory pressure.   Some folk on the autism spectrum are really sensitive to touch and can’t tolerate certain textures or pressures, but Jonah craves them all.  He wants to cuddle so close that he melts into the shape of you.  He wants tight squeezes and massaging pressure on his shoulders, neck, and back.  He wants to reach out from the backseat of the car and gently place his fingertips on my shoulders, sometimes pulling as if to gather me closer.  Sometimes if he is freaking out in the car, I calm him by pressing my hand on his knee.  (This technique got us from Cape Cod all the way back to Albany when Jonah had such a hard time keeping it together after vacation).

“Huck?  Huck?” he asks every time he’s done something wrong and wants to get back in your good graces.  It’s his unspoken apology, overused and often insincere.  You’re not sorry, you little shit, I think sometimes. You just want  a hug.

Worse is “up up up?” –  meaning he wants me to pick him up and carry him, usually from the car (where he has just flipped out) to the house (which is where he’ll end up, specifically in his room).  But this is where I draw the line.  The kid is eight and a half, for the love of God, and though he’s thin and lanky like his mama, he’s still at least a good 50 pounds and liable to break my back.

So I walk heavily, practically limping, Jonah hanging and clutching onto me; I’ve grown a massive, screaming tumor from my midsection and my mission is to deliver it inside.  It’s like we’re playing that three legged race game at the elementary school Olympics.   So, mushed together in a human blob, we walk as one up the stairs and into the house.

Where he’ll likely ask for a hug – and later, once he’s calmed down, “knock knock knock?”

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…then comes Jonah in the baby carriage

Posted in autism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 26, 2010| 4 Comments »

Jonah’s got your usual assortment of ride-on toys:  bikes, scooters, wagons.  My mom even bought him this newfangled thing called a PlasmaCar.  You put your feet up on the toy and it’s propelled along, somehow, by steering and body movements alone.  As described on its website:  “It’s like magic, but you don’t need to be a magician to get it to work. The PlasmaCar is a mechanical marvel that makes use of that most inexhaustible of energy sources, kid-power, by harnessing the natural forces of inertia, centrifugal force, gravity, and friction. It’s so easy to operate; all it needs is a driver and a smooth, flat surface.” The PlasmaCar may be magic, but Jonah doesn’t know that and no amount of demonstration has helped him.  He just puts his feet down on the ground and scoots along on the thing.

We keep all these ride-on toys in our enclosed back porch, where Jonah’s play usually involves carefully arranging the placement of each toy.  Sometimes the construction of a village (in and of itself) is his play:  wagon over here, bike right beside it — angled just so — and the PlasmaCar tucked behind them both.  Even when he drags one out to actually ride on, the ride is always systematic and ritualized:

He’ll arrange the ride-on toys, select one, propel down off the step from the porch to the ground, and travel along our long, straight driveway next to the brick side of the house.  Make a sharp left turn at the walkway and stop at the steps to our front door.  Stand up and turn the toy around. Get back on.  Make sharp left turn and continue down to the edge of the driveway.  Pause.  Turn and travel along the side of the house to the porch area again.  Walk the toy up the step and back onto porch.  Close porch door.  Open porch door.  Steer toy toward the step.  Propel down off the step from the porch to the ground, and travel along our long, straight driveway next to the brick side of the house, etc.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.

Some of Jonah’s ride-on toys are outgrown Big Wheel type things that we keep around because Andy babysits a toddler once a week.  We’ve even got a baby stroller in there, and yesterday, for some reason, this was my 8 1/2 year old’s ride-on toy of choice.  He’d never ride in the damn thing when he was stroller age, which gave me a little flare-up of annoyance at such belated interest, but I was generally game.  I  figured he’d let me push him up and down the driveway; I could push him fast, make quick turns, and we’d have fun with it.  But Jonah insisted on going solo, propelling the stroller with his long big-kid legs.

Here he is at the end of our driveway, preparing for the Flintstones-style foot walk-ride back down the driveway.  I’ve ceased to be embarrassed by his many public eccentricities, so this didn’t really phase me; I figure we might even be entertainment for our normal neighbors.  But when he parked the stroller back on the porch, tucked both feet up on its footrest, stuck his thumb in his mouth, and gazed squarely over at me, I had to laugh at the unspoken challenge:

Yeah, I like the stroller.  Whaddaya gonna do about it?

He’s such a punk.

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m m m

Posted in autism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 23, 2010| 2 Comments »

I bought a small package of M&Ms yesterday at the grocery store – one of those impulse buys you make in line while reading front covers of rag-mags featuring things like Snooki’s latest antics and Kate Gosselin’s hot new bikini body.   I never take Jonah with me to the grocery store…haven’t done it since he was a baby.  Andy brings him along on occasion, but since he claims he does not physically tie Jonah to the grocery cart, I can only deem this a minor miracle of the same magnitude as my dad taking Jonah along (not once, but twice) to Catholic Mass while the child sat quietly through the whole hour.

I barely believe these stories, but there they are.

At any rate, the stupid little bag of M&Ms has been the bane of our existence ever since.  When I got home from the store I put the bag on the counter, not thinking much of it.  Jonah’s superior candy radar scoped it out almost immediately, though:

“Skittles?”  he asks me, mistaking my bag of M&Ms for the similarly shaped multicolored treats.

“No, these are M&Ms.” I tell him. “And they’re mama’s,” I add rather meanly.

“m m m?”  he pleads.  He has not been a very good boy this day.  He was screaming at school and he hit a teacher, then was a mess at the after school program too.  I am barely in the mood to feed him dinner, let alone candy.

Finally I get him to eat something dinner-like (he has been really good lately about eating raw veggies dipped in some kind of dressing) and then I stingily offer him two M&Ms.

“What color are they?” I ask.  “s’orange,” he replies as he gobbles them down.  Then:  “m m m?”

I give him two more, again playing the color game.  Then, to avoid any further dilemma about M&M distribution, I tip the small bag and pour the rest into my mouth and down the hatch.

“m m m?”  he asks me again.  “No more,” I say.  “Sorry, boo.”  After a while he allows himself to be tempted away with the promise of playing with moneycoin downstairs.

He obviously hadn’t forgotten about it, though.  This morning when Jonah woke, he came in our room, climbed into bed, and loudly announced:  “m m m!?!”

Next time I buy chocolate I’m hiding that shit.

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