It’s all Fun and Games Till Someone Loses Their Mind

TWEET: How do you make every teacher and kid within a 50 mile radius happy at 5:30AM while simultaneously making every parent weep? SNOW DAY!!!

That’s how the day started. And life was fine…

Thing One headed back to his bedroom to pull up Google Earth, his newest obsession, while Thing Two took to the bathroom to set up today’s Lego universe, as seen through the eyes of a 10 year old, still in Pull-Up’s, slightly verbal autistic boy.

I amused myself on Twitter, joking around with a few friends about this and that and some such nonsense, including an upcoming trip to Las Vegas, that I will, in just a few hours, begin to think can't possibly come soon enough.

At exactly 11:32 AM, I was staring at the alarm clock on my bedside table and praying for something to happen. ANYTHING to shut him up. Thing Two, at that point, had spent an entire hour screaming in my ear, poking and cajoling me, physically and emotionally.

“Mommy, Jake, Jaxson, Grammy, Grammy’s car, seatbelt, Walmart Store, Lego Jungle, Singing Mickey, Gamestop, McDonalds. I wuv… Mommy, Jake, Jaxson, Grammy, Grammy’s car, seatbelt, Walmart store….”

On and on and on and on and on… repeating the same thing over and over and over until I found myself on my bed in the fetal position with my fingers jammed in my ears, eyes scrunched closed and humming loudly enough to get his voice out of my head.

For the first, let’s say, thirty minutes of this tiptoe through Hades, I would like a huge dollop of credit for the patience I was able to exhibit.

“No, honey. Not today. No store today.” I said it as many ways as I possibly could, very sweetly and calmly, interspersed with portions of time where I ignored him completely - going about my daily routine of laundry and dishes, with him trailing behind me as I continued to hope the broken record would finally skip to another song.

He was on a roll. It was as far from a “normal” tantrum as one can possibly get. Because I can’t reason with this child. He doesn’t “get” words of reason, with the possible exception of “NO!” which I finally screamed - having done everything else I could possibly do, starting with TRYING to reason with him - hoping it would be the one time he would understand - “Mommy can’t go to the store today. The roads are icy and even if they weren’t, Mommy doesn’t have enough money today… and even if I did, I’d have to use it to pay the phone bill, not buy you another set of Legos to add to your ever-expanding collection…”

Reason. Ha! The universe mocks.

I knock, knock, knock on his little head. Nothing’s getting thru. So I try ignoring him, closing myself in the bathroom until he breaks in to join me - because we don’t have locks on ANY of the interior doors in the house. Locks? Are you crazy? Two autistic kids live here. The last thing I need is to have to crowbar either one of them out of a room they’ve barricaded themselves into with a lighter and a four pack of generic toilet paper.

Okay, so Thing One wouldn’t do that, but that’s totally within Thing Two’s modus operandi.

So, I’m in the bathroom and he’s at my feet and he’s whining and crying and it only takes ten minutes of this sheer hell to realize that the acoustics in the bathroom - coupled with his hysteria and the decibel level of such - is not conducive to me retaining a sanity level that is greater than or equal to a sanity level necessary to keep me from being carted off to a padded room somewhere.

For a moment, I laugh - the horrible guffawing of the clinically insane - as my mouth waters for a few moments in that goddamned padded room. I bet it’s quiet in there… and at this point I’d take ten seconds of silence over a ten minute orgasm.

I flushed (at least I got something done while I was in there), stepped over Thing Two and escaped to my bed, where I burrowed under the covers. Unfortunately, he burrowed right along with me.

I tried the finger to lips, “Shhhh.” A gentle cue for him to SHUT THE HELL UP BEFORE MOMMY LOSES IT!!! - one I’m certain he understood. But, then come the tears. Tears in earnest, as if I’m torturing the kid because I won’t take him to Walmart. He doesn’t understand. He’s not getting it. And there’s not one goddamn thing I can do about it but ride the tsunami of dysfunction till he tires out or I have a stroke - whichever comes first.

And he’s poking me. Non-stop poking. This is not the hard, barbed, LISTEN TO ME poking at this point, but the very gentle, almost-a-tickle poking that says, “Please give me some attention because it seems, Mommy, that you’re not understanding my wants and needs and all I require is a little understanding.”

It is so sweet and so sad and so damned absurd… and if the little guy only understood that I completely understand his wants and needs, but his wants and needs, at this precise moment, juxtaposed against my particular wants and needs, seem to be at loggerheads.

I need him to stop touching me.
I need him to be quiet.
I need a cigarette - which I cannot have because I’ve recently quit - ironically, for my kids because if it were only me I had to worry about, I’d gladly smoke myself into an early grave while enjoying every menthol-y drag on my road to emphysema.

Poke, poke, tickle - he continues his non-stop refrain, quiet, soft and accompanied with tears, and it is worse than the screaming of earlier: “Mommy, Jake, Jaxson, Grammy, Grammy’s car, seatbelt, Walmart Store, Lego Jungle, Singing Mickey, Gamestop, McDonalds. I wuv… Mommy, Jake, Jaxson, Grammy, Grammy’s car, seatbelt, Walmart store….”

I lay there thinking about my flippant early-morning tweet and how the universe is a sarcastic bitch, (and how I could probably put this torturous situation to good use by inventing something similar as an effective form of torture for our government to employ on “enemy combatants”) when I start to laugh. It’s so over-the-top, having gone on almost two hours, so ridiculously, morbidly horrifying, that I’ve now reached that point where there’s nothing to do but laugh.

So I laugh, taking a brief few seconds to GROAN LOUDLY in frustration, then continue my hysterical laughter of the insane…

Then, it happens. Thing Two stops, the record skips to another song and suddenly he’s in the living room and I’m on the bed alone and I’m not quite sure how I got there, or what I did to make the bad thing stop, but it has stopped.

I close my eyes and do some yoga breathing I picked up somewhere, who the hell knows where because I’ve never done yoga in my life, and would most certainly risk pulling something vital like my aortic valve if I did.

When the coast seems clear, I tiptoe over to my computer and jot down this rant - which will never get properly edited because there are only so many hours in the day…

“Mom, look. Mom…”

Now, he’s at the computer, watching some Lego video on YouTube and pointing to something he wants me to help him build. I smile wanly and nod as he pulls the huge box of Legos into the living room.

Then, I sit down next to him, dreaming of a day, 79 days from now, when I will have four consecutive days to do whatever the hell I want to do …and I assure you, whatever happens in Vegas, it won’t include Legos or Walmart or me being screamed at or poked.

…and for 4 days, life will be fine.

Angst and Autism…

Last night Jake came out of his bedroom sobbing and handed me the above letter...

Let me digress and set this up for you...

This week we all had a great time at the beach, as well as going bowling and to the arcade with his cousin Max, (who is visiting for the summer) but it seems Jake is starting to think about Max returning to Florida when summer vacation comes to a close. He’s also experiencing a surge of hormones mixed with teenage knowledge that has him feeling self-conscious, unhappy and unsure of almost everything he does.

When Max first arrived, Jake quickly realized they didn’t necessarily like to do the same things they did when they were much younger. It also became glaringly apparent that the vast chasm between the neuro-typical boy and the non-neuro-typical boy had become even more vast. Where, when they were five, his cousin just laughed or dealt with all of Jake’s autistic ‘quirks,’ now Max found it harder (and sometimes frustrating) to understand where Jake was coming from. His up and down moods and acting out.

With high-functioning autistic kids, often their behavior manifests itself in what would normally look like rudeness or tantrums. The key is being aware of where these behaviors come from - in Jake’s case, his fears and feelings of being ‘less than’ other kids his age.

Jake has few friends because he has trouble communicating with others. He doesn’t immediately understand how other people think and feel, and often his reactions to them seem impolite or off-putting, even though it comes from a place of not ‘getting’ the other person. Autistic people are often socially inept because they are very literal thinkers. Jake only understands how his mind works and has to be told how others feel - unlike most of us, who can suss out the meaning of an emotion based on body language or facial expressions. In essence, most of us take for granted the things that autistic people have to learn, rather than innately know.

Jake’s sudden morose mood culminated in him writing me a letter to express his feelings. He sat while I read it, waiting patiently so we could then discuss it:

[TRANSLATION of the letter above in case you can’t read his writing]

Dear Mom,

When Max leaves I will be sad
because I will have no friend.
I decided I don’t like my friend
Cody because he thinks of life
with no meaning. I’m also sad
that when you die I don’t
know what to do. I will be very
sad and I just can’t live without
you because I will not have
anyone to love and follow orders
and keep me safe. I’m just
soooo sad right now and I don’t
know what to do. I love
You very much Mom

Love Jake

This is what you’d call a truly heartbreaking parenting moment. What do you say to your fourteen-year-old kid when he tells you he’s afraid of what will happen to him when you die? How do you make it better for him so that he doesn’t spend every day of the rest of his life obsessing about existential things like heaven and hell? Not to mention not-so-existential things like his future well-being…

I got him calmed down by telling him that he was tired from all the activity of the day - doing my best to make light of such a huge topic, so as not to further alarm him - but in the back of my mind I kept thinking, He’s right. He’s worried about the same things I worry about. This kid is just smart enough to understand the frightening aspects of life, but not pragmatic enough to push them to the back of his mind like the rest of us do when we know something is out of our control.

His daily inner monologue is a perfect storm of fear and confusion that ultimately creates a tsunami of angst for someone already suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder.

I get choked up thinking about my kids’ futures. It’s my biggest fear as a mother. I think Jake could make it if he could rid himself of his debilitating fears and insecurity. He’s an odd little duck but he might be able to trundle through life, bobbing and weaving much like his mother does on a daily basis.

Jax is another matter, altogether. He’s blissfully unaware of even the existence of social ineptitude. He’s on a stage of his own and we’re all bit players, coming in now and again to offer clothing, shelter and affection. Jax is barely verbal and even though he’s making great strides, at almost ten years old, he doesn’t understand basic concepts and is able to speak, but only enough to get his needs met - and even then, only to those who understand his ‘language.’ He’s unaffected by social mores or his lack of appropriate actions because they do not exist within the context of the production he’s starring in. They don’t exist for him yet, anyway. I almost hope they never do. What you don’t know exists can’t hurt you… as much.

Some days, I think Jaxson is the lucky one. He is able to skip through life without the kind of worries that plague his older brother.

But one day I won’t be here… and neither will the rest of their family. Who will take care of my adult children when they’re unable to take care of themselves? There might come a day when I’d have to realistically consider a group home. Even writing those words make me shudder because calling this a last resort is a vicious understatement.

There isn’t a horror movie in the world that’s as frightening to me as wondering where my children will end up when I am no longer around. I’m certain I’m not alone in this fear because it is something many parents of disabled children have to deal with. But on a personal level, it feels very isolating. It is my cross to bear and it will never go away.

So, tomorrow I will continue to laugh and take everything in stride, shoving the worry into the depths of my mind - that special place I reserve for things that are mostly out of my control. But today I worry…

… and spend a little quality time in the bathroom, longing for the days when a nice bong hit could fix anything.

Not Just a Mama: My Pen is My Sword and it is Rarely Sheathed

My mother tells me when I was a shy little girl in kindergarten, I wrote a story about a gumball machine, comparing the little round balls of varying colors to people in the world. I'd share the poem with you, but Susan isn’t exactly the scrapbooking kind of Mama - no hoarding of precious little memories for her. I'm guessing she read it, smiled, then rolled something into the tiny piece of paper and smoked it.

It was the 70's, after all.

I should note, my mother is the type of mother who would, years later, wake me with a three a.m. phone call: "I just had the best idea for a porn movie!!" What followed was a three hour trip to a local store the next day, where I was horrified to find the toy dolls made for young girls looking suspiciously like whores. Out of that shopping adventure came a three page script for a movie that could only be described as Barbie-Porn, and would years later come back to bite me in the ass.

Mom and I were working on a film project with learning disabled students at the local elementary school when the school administration became aware of Making Porn With Mom. (catchy title, right?) Well, apparently someone thought to look up our production company name and not only found my blog, but also my Internet Movie Database Listing and my cache of YouTube videos. The whole thing left me with a raging case of the runs, but frankly a simple Google search before we spent a year working with the kids might have been a good idea. Alas, they dropped the ball, not I. I was merely doing what I always do.

I have spent almost forty years reading and writing and I've learned to speak out when I have something to say. As a ten year old Catholic School girl I checked out The Diary of Anne Frank and it made a huge impact on me because I related to her. I was about her age. I could be her. I could rage against the horrors of a life lived in secret. I, too, could be remembered long after I was gone.

I asked for and was given a diary to record my own juvenile thoughts. My entries were decidedly less awe-inspiring than Anne's.

July 9, 1978

Dear Diary,

We went on vacation and it was nice, except there was a strange smell in the VW van the entire trip from something Mom and Dad were smoking. She said they were ‘herbs‘.

(note to self: look up the definition of herbs)

At the Grand Canyon I was surprised that the railing to keep you from falling was so small. Resi ran right up and swung from it, but I stayed back. I don't know why but suddenly I thought one of my family members might push me over the edge. Could that happen? I don't think any of them are THAT crazy, but the idea would not leave my head, so I stayed back while they all looked.

(p.s. I do not trust them.)

Then we went back to the campground and while Mom and Dad took a nap, Resi and I played with two brothers named Nick and Roger. Roger asked me if I knew what a ‘blow job' was.

(note to self: Ask Mom what a blow job is.)

~*~

July 12, 1978

Dear Diary,

My parents are horrible, horrible people. I must be adopted!!! Resi asked Dad what a blow job was and he said "What the hell?" and his face got all red and he pulled the VW van over and got out. I hid under my pillow in the back seat and cried, so Mom told me and Resi what it was. My parents are GROSS!! She said when two people love each other, they do certain things. I said "Gross things..." and she said, "Come back and tell me how you feel about it when you're thirty." I told her she was going to hell and so was Dad. Resi just asked if she brushed her teeth after. My sister is so stupid. I hate my family!!!!!!!!!!! ...And I am stuck in this van with them for three more days.

At that point in my writing life, what I was regurgitating was a plethora of unmemorable material which could only qualify as melodrama. Sappy, unrequited love story type of stuff that even now causes my lunch to take a sudden u-turn, heading back from whence it came. (READ: Kind of like anything that appears on Lifetime Television for Women.)

Next came my dark period. I cannot recall what these stories were about either, except to say that after reading some of them, my father had one comment: "Jennifer, must everything you write be so maudlin?"

I had to look up maudlin and thus began another unfortunate chapter in my writing life: my obsession with the dictionary and thesaurus. ...which spawned my poetry phase. It was not pretty, but in my defense, I thought everything was supposed to rhyme.

Today, as a writer, often my job is to put a spotlight on life’s sores. So, if I have something to say about how today’s dolls look suspiciously like streetwalkers - and choose to do that through a satiric Barbie Porn - I’m going to do it.

Just like I’m gonna write raunchy song parodies with two writer friends and assume people get that I’m not singing them to my thirteen and nine year olds.

If I have something to say about former President Reagan and his treatment of AIDS in the 1980's, I’m going to shout it from the rooftops in the form of a short film entitled Macy’s Wait.

If I don’t like what my government is doing, I’m gonna have something to say about that as well, hopefully providing a little entertainment in the process. (READ: Waiting for Karl Rove--Come on publishers, you KNOW you want it!)

And if I want to volunteer my time to help a class of learning disabled children on a project that helps them not only learn the art and fun of writing, but help them gain self-confidence, I’m going to do that too. Until such time as I’m told I’m no longer able to because somehow what I write about or film is unseemly when juxtaposed against working with special needs kids.

Bump that, my friends. I’m not just a Mom. I think there’s an inherent danger in being all autism, all the time. Or all Mommy, 24/7. I’m a woman, a writer, a mother, a sister, a wife, a daughter, a citizen of the world - and so much more. I refuse to make my life all about the one thing in my life (autism) that takes more effort and attention than the rest of those other areas. That would not only be unfair to me, but would be extremely unfair to my kids.

They’re more than their autism. They’re amazing, profound, funny, delicious little creatures that deserve better than to be summed up by a medical diagnosis, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be the person who shoves them into a box.

By all means, stay in your box if that’s where you feel most comfortable. But don’t concern yourself if someone else jumps out of theirs, bends over and takes a crap on it, douses it with lighter fluid and watches it illuminate the sky.

To each his own.

I am one person with many facets, each one as important as the other. I don’t believe one facet negates another. For me, it’s as simple as that.

If this is the one thing I manage to pass on to my kids, then my job here is done.

A Good Son

Two days ago, Jake decided he simply must get rid of his uni-brow. Let me just say, it’s not a debilitating, socially unacceptable uni-brow. It’s the uni-brow of a half Puerto Rican, half pasty-white kid. Sure, he could use a tweeze—but he’s twelve. Must we begin those types of cosmetic rituals already? I just got the kid on deodorant, for Christ’s sake!

(see blog titled: Discussion Hygiene)

The un-brow discussion went on for over an hour. After outlining the two acceptable ways in which I could rid him of the pesky hairs between his eyebrows, he decided that waxing was out of the question, as well as tweezing. He even mentioned they both seemed like torture.

Yes, my sweet. Welcome to a woman’s world!

“I can shave it!” he exclaimed.

“Do NOT even think about shaving it, Jake.”

“Why?” he whined.

“Because, you could slip and look like your Nanna did for over a year. She accidentally shaved too much and then panicked and shave them both off. She had to draw her eyebrows on, and when they finally did grow back, they were never the same again.”

“Yeah, that’s funny.” He laughed.

“Not if they’re your brows, it’s not.” I sipped my mocha latte and decided I needed to put all of the Bic Shavers® in the house on permanent lock-down. It was going to be inconvenient when I needed to shave my legs, but probably better safe than sorry.

He sat quietly for a moment, pondering Mario from the (Mario Sunshine© craze) on the computer screen.

“I could be careful. I won’t slip, Mom.”

“DO NOT DARE SHAVE YOUR EYEBROWS!”

“But Mom, Mario doesn’t have a uni-brow.”

Ugh! Jake wants to be Mario. It’s bordering on pissing me off at this point.

“Of course he does. He's Italian. But he's a CARTOON so you can't see it. He's got a penis too, but you don't see that either, do you?"

“Mom, don’t say penis.”

“Fine, don’t shave your eyebrows, and we’ve got a deal.”

Another recent conversation involved a note I received from his teacher about him being insubordinate:

Jake wouldn’t pick up his hand sanitizer in class when directed to do so.

Mrs. D


“Jake, why wouldn’t you pick up the hand sanitizer if it fell on the floor?”

“It was all leaking and gooey. I didn’t want to touch it.”

“Um, yeah—it was leaking HAND SANITIZER, not raw sewage. Geeze.”

“I wanna’ be home-schooled.” Jake says this on a weekly basis.

“Yeah, that’s not gonna’ happen.”

“Why not?”

“Because, Jake. The one thing you really need as an autistic person is to learn to move around in the world with other kids and adults. That’s more important for you than the reading and math and stuff. If I home-schooled you, you’d never leave the house.”

“I like that idea.” Jake brightened only long enough to hear my retort.

“I don’t.”

He constantly tells me he just wants to be normal. Normal, normal, normal. If I could purchase some normal for the kid, I would have done it long ago. But normal can’t be bought, stolen, or cooked in the oven. If this normal business is going to be the death of me, Jake’s obsessions and compulsions are going to be the death of him.

“I had weird dreams last night, Mom.”

“What about?”

“Mrs. Faber was wearing pajamas at school.”

“Yeah? What did they look like?”

“I don’t remember. But I was doing the wiener-tickle thing…okay, okay, don’t say anything I don’t want to talk about it.”

His nightly questions about legendary creatures, whether or not the doors are all locked, and the validity of heaven’s existence have begun to take an alarming turn:

“Mom, would you or Dad ever push me off a cliff?”

“No, honey. Why would you ask that?”

“Mom, you were right. I think I need to get medication for these bad thoughts in my head. I just want to have a normal brain. I don’t want to ever hurt anyone, but I was in the shed playing with my sword and shield and suddenly I got the bad thought that I might throw it at my Dad or Bob. It devastates me, Mom. I have guilt in my heart. I’m sorry I didn’t turn out to be the kid you wanted.”

Oh God… My poor baby.

“Honey, you’re even better than what I imagined when I was pregnant. You’re sensitive and you talk about things that other kids would not say out loud.”

“I’m sorry I’m not the best kid I could be.” Jake wasn’t crying like I felt like doing. He was simply apologizing for what he presumed were his shortcomings.

“Jake, please understand you’re the best kid any mom could ask for.”

“Even with my autistic brain?”

“Yes, in fact I love your autistic brain the most. You’re the best kid, ever.”

“What about Jaxson?”

“Him too.”

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, buddy.”

“Are you sure I’m the kid you wanted me to be?”

“You’re much more than any kid I could have ever imagined. I love you just the way you are.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you.”

“You never disappoint me, Jake. You try very hard, every day. Harder than any kid I know. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah, I do have to try pretty hard every day.”

God, but I love that boy…

Son-Of-A...

We’re having more scatological issues in my house. Yes, dear readers, the shit hit the fan, yesterday. Not literally, but bad things are happening and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to ride out this excremental tsunami with my sanity intact.

For the past few weeks, Jaxson (8 year old, barely verbal autistic boy, for those of you NOT following my life like a rabid All My Children or American Idol fan) is having more toileting issues.

I thought all the feces drama was behind us when he took that first ca-ca on the toilet, and even recorded it on his digital camera for posterity! Yes, brotha’ I’ve got it on film! Filmmaking is his newest obsession and no less than fourteen digital video cameras have paid for it with their lives. One after the other have met their demise as Jaxson runs around the house capturing his tomfoolery digitally before he plays it back for his own amusement, eventually putting the camera in the toilet or under the running tap.

So here’s how it looks on film:

The long wait as his plaintive stare takes up the entire video screen, while the camera sits on the edge of the bathroom sink, facing him. The look of revelation in his widened eyes as he peeks from the camera to the contents of the bowl beneath him, then back to the camera with his brow furrowed, wondering if what he’s just done is something he might want to repeat. Him wiping himself with a look of disgust before tossing the soiled toilet paper and standing to pull up his undies before flushing.

“Gotcha!” he proudly exclaims as the turd disappears into oblivion with a loud flush.

Life was good! I finally had two autistic kids who were wearing real underwear! Poop has played such a large role in my life, I was glad to see it go; like killing off an unneeded member of a TV series once they’ve worn out their welcome, and then some.

Nicolette Sheridan on Desperate Housewives comes to mind. (I never watch the show, I’m just assuming.)

Anyway, things were going well… until smells started emanating from Jax’s bedroom. Smells that only belong in the restroom, and even then aren’t particularly welcome. But I’ve got strategically placed Renuzit Air Fresheners® in my bathrooms, six in each ( okay, that’s a wild exaggeration…but not by much) so at least there’s a faint aroma of powdery-fresh-scent hovering over the oppressive stench of shit.

But I panic when I begin to smell those ‘aromas’ in other rooms in the house. I start getting Vietnam-esque flashbacks of Jax tossing dirty Pull-Ups® over the fence as daily gifts to a former neighbor, or cleaning the ass of my twelve year old with Aloe-Scented Luvs Baby-Wipes®, or hours of sitting on the bathroom floor, sobbing, trying to get either of them to evacuate.

So, here I am, smelling those smells, not only when Jax flies by me on the way to the refrigerator, but every time I pass his room in the hallway. A quick inspection of the room leaves me with no answers, so as he runs past me again, I grab Jaxson’s arm, tuck a finger behind the waistband of his Fruit of the Loom® undies and take a peek inside.

Yep. Houston we’ve got a problem, all right. He’s not wiping well. Or, should I say, not at all, based on the golf-ball sized chuck of excrement I notice flattened between his ass-cheeks.

The other egregious violation of my sanity that has been popping up is the fact that I’m finding dirty underwear all over the house. Under the sink, pushed into the back of closets, in his underwear drawer spending a little too much quality time with the CLEAN skivvies. Behind the TV in the living room, under my bathroom cabinet…I’m like a human bloodhound, sniffing my way to a trail of stinky underwear.

For two weeks this has been happening.

My assumption, up till now, was that Jax was having problems wiping, so he’d put on another pair, and then, when he realized there were skid marks, or skid pebbles on said undies, he’d remove them and fetch a clean pair. Whereby, the underwear itself is becoming sort of a faux toilet tissue; cleaning off a bit more of the ca-ca each time he changes them.

I am literally buried under a four foot mound of dirty underwear and have taken to washing a load of undies a day. Three boys live in my house. Three penises to trickle pee-pee on my toilet seat, three booty-holes to leave skid marks. That’s us: Three Men and a Lady. Well this lady had patience once upon a time, but that patience is worn threadbare-thin.

So, back to yesterday—yes I know I’m waxing and waning, but give a girl a break! Everywhere I go, it smells like SHIT!

So after I drop the kids off at school—while Jaxson complains the entire way that his tummy hurts and I ignore him, thinking he’s manipulating his way into staying home because it’s the first day back from their spring break—and as soon as I get home, I put on my latex gloves, grab some plastic bags and assume the position: Scat Detective.

As God is my witness, I will get to the bottom of the newest smells wafting from Jaxson’s room. I check the closet. Nope. Check his drawers, nope. I pull all the sheets and covers off his bed and wash them. Nope, still smells like shit.

God Help Me! I fall to my knees and sob for a little while, as Sugar, my Australian shepherd licks away my salty tears. “Where is it? Where is the smell coming from?”

The dog has no answers for me, so, I decide the room has just soaked up Jaxson’s daily funk. I will scrub the walls, clean the carpet, bleach the entire room down. I start to sing as I begin to move the furniture out of the room, “I’m gonna scrub, scrub, scrub that stench right outa’—”

Woah, Nellie!

At first I wasn’t sure what the clump of brown substance stuck to the ceiling was. As my eyes trailed downward, I saw numerous small, brown smudges at the seam where the walls meet in the corner of his room. This smudge-trail leads downward to where Jaxson’s TV sat atop a caddie-cornered dresser.

A tiny whiff of discernment blew across my subconscious, but as the human brain is wont to do when something so horrific, so painful, so unbelievably disconcerting is about to sink in, I turned a blind neuron and wouldn’t allow my sub-conscious to pass the information along to my conscious mind.

There is no way. There is no way what I think is happening, is actually happening. If it is, I am turning in my keys now. It’s over. Mom has officially left the building and I’m going on permanent sabbatical.

I held my breath as I leaned over to peek behind the television, not because it smelled, but because I had that feeling you get as you sit in a packed theater and the only African-American cast member in the horror movie is slowly making their way down the stairway to the darkened basement, alone.

“No!” the audience screams! “Don’t do it. Do not open that door!”

And then I saw it. Or, saw…them. A pile of brown nuggets in various sizes on the carpet behind the dresser. I looked up at the faint smudges on the wall, and back down to the carpet.

Flinging poo. He’d been flinging poo. Which meant the poo would have been in his hands first, a prospect I am still unable to process. From his hand, it would have to sail through the air, hit the wall, and then fall into the convenient space behind the TV/dresser in the corner of the room.

This newest series of unfortunate events will most likely cause me to go back on the Lexapro I was so fond of—until the co-pay went up to fifty bucks and I decided feeding the kids was more important than my mental health.

Obviously we’re not over the scatological hump in my house. It seems, either Jax is saving his excremental offerings for a later day, or he doesn’t like sitting on the toilet. I have no idea what’s going on in his mind, because verbally he can’t tell me.

So, he’s using his actions to show me he’s got an issue. Now, it’s up to me to figure out the ‘why’ of the ‘what’.

Why is he flinging poo? Why did he have a hysterical meltdown when I found him—later that day after I spent hours cleaning up the shit behind his TV—holding a handful of shit, just about to hide it under his Spider Man chair?

Why did he freak out when my husband held him down and I cleaned his ass with wipes, then forced him to wash his hands with anti-bacterial soap?

Why…why…why?

It’s always about the why, and I’m getting tired. I need a vacation. I need to have a hot, steamy affair with someone who will do exactly what I say at any given moment and not talk back, scream, or fling poo. (If I’m listing my wants, I feel I should be specific, here. God’s got a wicked sense of humor.)

I need control because my house is quickly spinning out of it.

I need a nap.

I need a pedicure.

I need a maid.

I need someone to deliver me a mocha latte every morning and say to me, “Have a good day” and mean it.

I need to take a bath without being interrupted.

I need a full day without worry, without anxiety, without the stench of poo.

I need a house that consistently smells fresh as a daisy. Apparently, I want to exist within the confines of a feminine hygiene commercial.

Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s asking too much.