Well, spring is here and all of earth's creatures are twitterpated.
The yellow rumped warblers are chasing each other through the air
while conducting stunts even the bumble bee's would be envious of. The
squirrels are acting ... well squirrely, chasing each other in circles
around the tree trunks. And the husband and Chet are outside cutting
wood and making "Cornhole" ... but that is another story. Yes, my yard
and home looks like a scene straight out of Bambi and everyone is
twitterpated, including my 16 year old, autistic son, Sean.
Sean is going through a bad time right now, so I was shocked to see him
walk through the door with a grin ear to ear. I asked what was going on
and he informed me that he asked a girl out. I looked around for the
pretend friend, then he giggled and told me this was not in his head.
For those of you who have never lived with an autistic child, you
need to know that what goes on in their lives out of your site ... is
a mystery. And those hours at school, will forever be mysteries. They
will not, nor in many instances cannot, share what happens socially
while they are gone. They might yammer about how a pencil would not
sharpen properly that day, and how the shavings fell wrong but they
also might leave out the fact that a girl was kidnapped at gunpoint
from the school (true story). Despite the everyday questions,
conversations, and visits to the school, so help me, never have I heard
of this girl, "Lexi" before. I know exactly what she wore today, how
her hair hangs, how wide she is, and how pretty she is. But I have no
idea what her last name is or what color her eyes are.
I sat and listened to adorable little stories about how Sean ate potato
chips for lunch, how fast he ate them, and how he ran up to her in the
lunch room to say hi. Next was where he walked, what class he went to,
and then how a boy came up to him and what he said about Lexi. My teeth
are now gnashed down to stubs from listening to every single action,
facial expression, and conversation he had with everyone BUT Lexi,
leading up to the real point of the story ... how Sean asked her out
in the library at the end of the day. Autistic people don't do well
generalizing. You are never gifted a picture. You do get are hundreds
of pieces of a puzzle dumped in front of you and its up to you to put
it together, plain and simple. This was no different. But at least this
was cute and not about some virtual world experience he had just had or
what Naruto said today.
Feeling like the most skilled dentist in the world pulling teeth,
I worked through a list of questions about this girl to find out
something about her. Anything. Much of the time I had to think of
alternate ways to ask Sean so he'd understand what I was looking for.
This drug things out even further. My great PI work has revealed the
following: she is in 9th grade, she rides his bus, she likes the
library, she lives nearby ("you turn right at the end of our street and
it's "that way"", he says ::head hitting the desk::), she likes the
poking game, she talks a lot, she is fun, she is pretty, she is Sean's
width, she has dark, long straight hair, and her name is Alexis. I kept
asking what they talk about ... what she likes to talk about, what her
hobbies are, and what she likes to do. "Random things", was the answer.
"I don't know" was the answer to everything else. I asked what they
have in common, as in what will they talk about together and do
together aside from "random things".
"Nnnt, well Moooooooom, she likes ferrets! I know she really, likes
animals and especially ferrets, so we're good."
Well holly shmolly aren't we just fantabulistic. As my niece loves
to say now, "it's glorious". Everything is "glorious" now, evidently
that is the new word kids use today. But I'm left with the glorious
possibility that she could be a drug addict, an ax murderer, and like
to listen to Manson, but it's all "good" because, by God,... she likes
ferrets. Glorious.
Wolfy
[Posted in FML 5924]
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