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.

Suspicious of His Penis

“I’m suspicious of my penis. I don’t trust it,” my fourteen-year-old autistic son, Jake, mumbled from the passenger seat.

Sigh. There are so many things about that statement that trouble me.

Along with toileting issues, “weiner” issues are a recurring theme in my household. Jake’s nine-year-old brother would rather poo in his undies than hover a single butt cheek over the commode. He’ll go in his underwear, thank you very much, then proceed to knead the PlayDough-like load with his hand (through his skivvies). (I’m pretty sure I don’t have to tell you people what kind of smells, as well as hygiene issues arise from this kind of behavior.)

If Jax is my problem pooper, Jake is my problem obsesser. If it can be obsessed about, Jake will obsess about it. (See my blog post:” I’m Going to Heaven, Right? )

Jake’s penis is also a constant source of distress for him. In my upcoming book I Wish I Were Engulfed in Flames, I have a chapter called “Tickling the Weiner. ” I discuss how I came to know that Jake found out “tickling his weiner” was normal. The doctor who gave the discussion in health class said so, and all was right with the world (briefly) when Jake got off the bus that day.

Other, more troubling things, were covered in Heath Class this year, but I won’t bore you with all the rape and oral sex talk. (If you’re interested in middle school sex-ed and what it (disturbingly) consists of these days, see my blog post: "Let’s Talk about Sex, Baby")

So, Weiner Tickling, OK. Check. I try not to form a mental image of my fourteen-year-old autistic kid, in his room, doing whatever fourteen-year-old boys do, because if I - blech… Ugh, no thanks.

But these changes in Jake’s body are very disturbing to him, hence the first line of this blog, which he uttered this morning on the way to school. Jake has sensory issues. He doesn’t like the feel of paper in his hands, or the sound a pencil makes when he writes on paper, or the dry sound of someone touching paper. Stop to consider what a fucking ticking-time-bomb this kid has to be on a daily basis, at school.

Paper, pencils, not to mention, he’s very sensitive to sounds, is grossed out when people eat, and gets particularly rattled by certain smells. I imagine the pubescent sights, sounds and smells are unbearable to Jake; kids in the lunchroom eating sloppily with open mouths, loud cafeteria, hallways and (aneurism-inducing) gym class, and the natural funk of five-hundred middle school kids.

Now, add to this, all of these new “feelings” he’s experiencing south of his naval, and you can see how his school day might seem more like being sent to a third world country and expected to immediately assimilate.

I shudder to imagine Jake’s internal monologue. Probably something like, “Help! Me!”

Also, his sensory processing disorder translates these “feelings” that might be considered tingles to the ordinary teenager, into something more closely related to pain. Jake gets one new “twinge” and he’s off on a crying jag - standing, pants around ankles, in the bathroom, with an ice pack or sopping wet washcloth on his private area. These new sensations can freak any teenage boy out, but for an autistic boy who obsesses about everything, it’s more akin to expecting something really painful or freakish to happen any minute - like his penis falling off, or Pop-Rocks® spontaneously shooting out of his “penis hole”. (His phrase, not mine.)

It’s not that he’s actually experiencing pain (I’ve had him checked by a doctor - everything’s working fine), it’s the apprehensive, debilitating “What if?” that plagues him.

God bless this kid. Truly. I’ve got my own hang-ups, but if I had to constantly worry about my vagina falling off, or gummy worms sliding out my who-ha - well, let’s just say I’d be taking copious amounts of prescription drugs.

It’s at moments like these that I truly need people to know how much MORE autistic people have to deal with than the rest of us. How much stronger they have to be than the rest of us. How special they are, compared to the rest of us.

Do me a favor. Today, take the time to tell an autistic family member or friend how inspiring it is that they are able to navigate waters most of us would drown in. Type “autism” into the search engines of Twitter or Facebook, make a new friend, and let them know that they are seen, heard and appreciated; that the extra mile (or fifty) they trudge daily isn’t lost on you.

Or just plain tell them they’re cool. I assure you - the effort won’t go unappreciated.

~*~

Let's Talk About Sex, Baby

Oh boy. It would have been more funny if it hadn’t left the poor kid traumatized for life. And yet, it was all I could do to stem the tide of giggles threatening to explode from within me and wash over Jake like a tsunami of parental dysfunction.

The topic for today: Sex, via a study sheet from 7th grade Health Class. Let me remind you that Jake is thirteen years old, autistic, and riddled with OCD. He’s smart, overly sensitive and worries over everything to an infinite degree.

I pulled out Jake’s homework file and began quizzing him on his vocabulary words in preparation for his health test. It became immediately clear that he had a handle on the True/False questions as far as sexually transmitted diseases were concerned.

Quite a conundrum, then, that when I asked him to define sexual intercourse, he seemed to draw a blank. So while he knew, for instance that, ‘some STD’s are very dangerous; a few can permanently damage or kill you’, he didn’t actually understand how someone would get the STD in the first place.

“Jake, what does sexual intercourse mean?” I asked nervously.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what sex is?”

We’d briefly covered the whole ‘how babies are made’ a year or so ago, but apparently Jake hadn’t put together the fact that penis + vagina = baby (or anything else, for that matter). They’d also covered the topic at school last year, via one of those ‘Your Maturing Body’ movies. But Jake doesn’t even like the idea of discussing kissing, so it’s somewhat of a touchy subject. We’d also previously discussed matters of which we Catholics refer to as ‘self-abuse’. He’d been duly informed that ‘tickling his wiener’ was completely normal and wouldn’t cause it to fall off. It was touch and go there for a while, but after what I assume were many private trial runs, and his penis remained firmly attached, he’d stopped obsessing about it.

Now, with his vocabulary list clutched firmly in one hand, I proceeded to give Jake a nuts and bolts description of sexual intercourse using one erect finger and a hand curved into a little circle.

“So…” I concluded, using as many of his vocabulary words in the sentence as possible, “…this is the penis (finger) and this is the vagina (hand in a little ‘o’) and a Mom and Dad have sex like this and the semen comes out of the penis when the Dad ejaculates, and there is sperm in the semen.” I was about to explain that the Mom produces an egg and when the sperm and egg meet, a baby is made, but he’d already put his hands over his ears and started whining.

“Oh my God! Stop. I don’t like Health Class. I want to take Spanish. When does Spanish class start?” Jake’s face was in full-on panic mode, while my inner sadist was hopped up on Red Bull and ready to rumble. I am proud of the fact that I was able to keep it under control, letting only a minor chortle escape.

“Not until the end of the semester, Jake. Calm down. This is a perfectly natural thing.”

“No, it’s gross! And now I don’t know why someone wrote on the bathroom wall, SEX RULES, because it does not rule, it’s GROSS!” Jake turned his back on me and sat in a nearby chair. “Only weird people do that.”

“Jake, I hate to tell you this, but if your Dad and I hadn’t done it, you wouldn’t be here.”

Jake mumbled something I didn’t catch, slumping down further into the chair. I took a deep breath and looked over the rest of the vocabulary words. Next on the list: clitoris.

Are you kidding me?!

Listen, we’d only minutes earlier discussed the definition of foreskin and circumcision - before we got into the whole STD thing - and he wasn’t happy about the fact that I’d let the pediatrician lop off a part of his penis he never knew he had. He found it pretty disturbing, but managed to assimilate that information and move on. If the whole sex thing had him freaked out, I was sure it was unwise to venture further into female pleasure.

Even though the definition on the study sheet seemed rather banal…

Clitoris - The part of the female genitals that’s full of nerves and becomes erect. It has a glans and a shaft like a penis, but only its glans is on the out side of the body, and it’s much smaller.

…I can assure you that this definition - should I have chosen to explain it - would have left Jake thinking I had a tiny penis, and that wasn’t something I was comfortable with. I made an executive decision to skip it. In fact, we skipped a few, which didn’t bode well for his future test score, but at that point I felt the need to pull him back from his horrified, trance-like state, rather than try to explain things that I didn’t think the kid was even remotely able to process.

I nudged him around to look at me and after a few moments of obstinate silence, we went over a few of the easier words like erection. I used the finger again for a visual aid.

Jake cringed.

Unfortunately, when we got to buttocks, the politically correct Mom in me felt it necessary to elaborate on the fact that not only man and women had sex, but also men and men, as well as women and women. Don’t judge me! Anus was one of the vocabulary words so the discussion naturally progressed! Also, we’ve had the homosexual discussion before - when Jake was six, in fact - and asked if a man could marry a man. I’d used age-appropriate language, but he knew the basics. (I will also note that the vocabulary list alluded to oral and anal sex in the definition of sexual intercourse.)

“So, not just men and women, but also men and men can have sex, and when they do, a man can put his penis into the anus of another man.” I held my breath.

“Oh, come on! Be serious, Mom.” Jake groaned.

“I’m serious, buddy. That’s how gay men have sex. It’s nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. Nothing about sex is bad as long as both people want to do it together.”

“I’m never doing it. NEVER!”

“Well, that’s up to you, but I’m pretty sure you’ll change your mind one day.”

The thing is, I don’t really know if Jake will change his mind one day. Any sort of physical intimacy, shy of a hug or a peck on the cheek, makes him uncomfortable. All I can do, for now, is give him the facts and hope that one day he comes to a better understanding of sex, love and emotion. There will certainly need to be more discussions to follow, but all in good time.

I’m just thankful he’s only got about four more weeks of Health, and then he’s on to Spanish class.

Hola Jake. ¿Cómo estás?
(TRANSLATION: Hello Jake. How are you?)

Bien gracias. No vamos a discutir el sexo de aquí, ¿verdad?
(TRANSLATION: Fine thank you. We won't be discussing sex in here, right?)

What I'm Willing To Do To Get On The Amazing Race

I have one question. Where are all of the Reality-TV-Worthy oddballs - people we can really sink our teeth into? If I were on The Amazing Race, I’d want to compete against a pair of nuns, two gay guys who argue like an old married couple, an Italian grandmother/granddaughter team who have to be ‘bleeped’ every fifteen minutes because they have naughty mouths, a magician and his dimwitted apprentice, a sheep farmer and his wife, brothers who own & operate a sex toy manufacturing business in New Jersey, an old nudist couple who have trouble keeping their clothes on, a biker couple, two politically incorrect humor writers (my friend Kat and I could cover that base) and a pair of karaoke rappers.

I think the producers need to spice that show up, so my friend Kat and I are going to apply. I’m told that show needs an injection of humor. I don’t watch reality TV much, but since Kat asked me (begged, actually) to apply to be her partner on the show, I started taping episodes in mid-season.

So, I watched last night.

What I’m seeing already concerns me. I don’t look like any of the contestants, and for me to watch an entire season of this show, I’d need more than what they’re offering.

So, Kat and I are willing to help them out in that regard. I think a menopausal woman and her erratic sidekick (the mother of two autistic kids with a penchant for discussing her hemorrhoids ) would be a welcome addition to the show.

When I told Breadwinner (the husband) what I was up to, he was pleasantly supportive, though I’m pretty sure his left eye started twitching, ominously. He asked, “How long would you be gone?”

I said, “A week…or twelve.” I’ve never been away from the kids for more than the time it takes to do my grocery shopping, so it would also be an adventure for him. He’s a good father, but he’s not exactly tuned in to the delicate balance required to deal with two autistic kids on a daily basis. I’m not sure he’d even be able to get them both ready for and safely delivered to school. But for a chance at winning a million dollars, I’d do just about anything and cheerfully make Breadwinner suffer for it.

Let him deal with scat-a-licious undies, bedtime rituals, and Jake’s asking him, “I’m going to heaven, right?” like 759 times a day. Besides, I’m pretty sure it’s his turn. I need a vacation.

What would I do, you ask, to get my hands on that cash? Anything they ask. (Is the whole casting couch thing still a reality?) I will run till my big bazooms give me black eyes - and still keep going like the Energizer Bunny - I will eat anything but a cockroach, I will jump out of an airplane (with a parachute) I will tongue-kiss a sweatshop owner in Yemen (I’m hoping to go to Yemen. I like the way it sounds when you say it.) I will run topless through the middle of town singing Ricky Martin’s “Shake your Bon-Bon”…I will do a great many things and the stuff I won’t do, I’ll force Kat to do.

That’s what partners are for. Stay tuned for blog updates on our Amazing Race effort.

I Love My Snuggie®

Okay, I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for those as seen on TV products. Now that proclivity is leaking over to my kids.

Jake put a Criss Angel Mindfreak Magic Kit on his Christmas list; his resolution for 2011 is to learn to levitate.

Then, on Thursday when I took Jaxson in to school, one of the little girls we see going to class every day had a Pillow Pet®.

As soon as Jax saw it he started to sing: “Isss a piw-wo, isss a pet. Iss a piw-wo PET!”

(TRANSLATION: It’s a pillow! It’s a pet! It’s a pillow pet!)

Perhaps I should consider cutting down their television time, because it’s getting perilously close to Christmas and the advertisements are coming fast and furious. Jaxson screams out his requests during every commercial break and because those appear at intervals of every seven minutes or so, I find myself screaming, “We’ll see!” about eleven hundred times a day.

(Please don’t do the math or you will be able to accurately extrapolate the amount of time I allow the kids to watch television and, frankly, I don’t need your judgment—silent or otherwise.)

Anyway…my favorite ‘as seen on TV product’ is the Snuggie®. I used to be ashamed to admit I actually bought one, but now I am an unabashed card-carrying member of the Snuggie® contingent. My friend Kat Nove teases me about it with the same regularity as an octogenarian whose first meal of every day consists of bran cereal and prune juice.

She asserts my Snuggie ownership says a lot about me. I assert she can take her assertions and shove them into her Texas-sized boca grande. I will no longer apologize for my Snuggie-love. Snuggie keeps me warm on frigid Michigan nights as I watch Dexter or Glee. Snuggie is machine washable—the importance of which can not be underestimated in my household. Snuggie is soft and cuddly when I add a capful of lilac-scented fabric softener to the rinse cycle.

Snuggie is my friend.

My only complaint is that Snuggie is ‘backless’, meaning it’s basically a fancy hospital gown with longer, plusher, sleeves. I know, I know… it’s supposed to be sort of a lap blanket, but the thing that would make it perfect would be to sew two Snuggies together at the seams:

Snuggie II: The Ultimate Schmatte

Sales would go through the roof if they invented Snuggie Ulti-schmatte. Every Jewish, Italian and Puerto Rican septuagenarian (and I) would be lined up to get one.

So, get on it, Snuggie people. My ass is cold.

If you’d like to see what Kat Nove has to say about the Snuggie (and more) , check out her v-log post:


And now your moment of absurd Zen:

Snuggie Parody

The Sound of Music

Nine year old Jaxson is a music aficionado. Never mind that he’s just learning to put a complete sentence together. Music, it seems, is the great equalizer - no matter who you are, race, religion, sexual orientation, left brained, right brained, pea-brained, autistic or not, it’s one of the few things in life we all agree on. Content, perhaps not, but I’ve never met a person that wasn’t somehow moved by music.

Shaken, stirred, encouraged, befriended, buoyed, comforted; whatever word you choose to associate with how music affects you, none among us can say music doesn’t do something to that inner part of our souls that only being touched by harmony and melody can.

Jaxson is able to associate the track numbers on the CD’s loaded into the car stereo with his favorite songs. I can load up to six disks at a time, and once he hears the first few notes of any particular disk, he remembers his favorites by number.

With camera in hand (because he films on the way to school most days) he shouts out his requests from the back seat.

“Seven, Mom!” That would be Sunny Side of the Street off Willie Nelson’s Stardust Album.

…just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street.

I had an Erasure disk loaded this week and he simply had to listen to Drama over and over:

…one rule for us, for you another - do unto yourself as you’d see fit for your brother…

If I’m listening to Ringo Starr, he loves Six O’Clock:

…I don’t treat you like I like to treat you. Every planet in the sky’s in your eyes…

That one always chokes me up because it could be the soundtrack of our relationship. (He and Jake are my Venus, my Mars - my little Mallomars!)

Jaxson loves Rufus Wainwright’s Movies of Myself:

…start givin’ me something, a love that is longer than a day, stop makin’ my heart say something that it doesn’t want to say…

And to my utter delight, the child loves The Beatles. Because this is something I share in common with my own parents, I get a little misty every time he yells, “Three, Ma!” ( Maxwell’s Silver Hammer )

“Seven, Ma! Hurry!” he happily requests. ( Here Comes the Sun )

But only once has he ever tried to sing along to a song. I will never forget that day. It was one of the most miraculous experiences of my life, particularly because of the song in question. For some reason, the child - out of nowhere, mind you - started singing The Beatles’ Because, giving voice to the sounds and lyrics he’d heard so many times before:

…because the world is round, it turns me on…because the wind is high, it blows my mind…love is old, love is new; love is old, love is you…because the sky is blue, it makes me cry…

My children blow my mind, their amazing brains turn me on, and their ability to connect to things in a way that I cannot imagine—well, it makes me cry. Whatever your preconceptions are about autism, make no mistake: while my boys might not be making the SAME connections you or I are making, they’re making their OWN connections. To music, to people, to things they taste, touch, smell, feel… and our differences, however significant or insignificant are a daily reminder that there is never one way ( or right way ) to experience anything.

Every journey is unique and we should all remember to be happy for the simple privilege of life and the little miracles we experience along the way.

With that, take a moment to enjoy one of those little miracles - The Beatles, Because.

De plague, de plague!!

Sick kids in ‘da house, so I’m not much for blogging this week. That whole snotty, gooey, hacky-cough while I’m trying to sleep has really harshed my mellow.

I will post a couple of social stories because I’ve had some e-mails from readers wanting to know what they look like. Actually they’re so damn cute! I save them since his teacher usually laminates them for me. Probably because it’s harder for him to rip them that way when he‘s not happy about the content.

First, here’s what his daily schedule board looks like: (each kid has their own)



JAXSON’S SOCIAL STORIES





I think I’d like to have one made with regard to ‘sickness etiquette’. It would read something like this:

When Jaxson coughs in Mommy’s face or wipes his snot-ridden hands on her mouth, Jaxson will cause Mommy to run to the nearest anti-bacterial dispenser in the house and douse her face as if she’s been given a dose of the plague. That is NOT GREAT. When Jaxson covers his mouth when he coughs and then washes his hands that is GREAT. When Jaxson is home from school sick and Mommy doesn’t have time to write that is NOT GREAT.

“How ‘bout a kiss, buddy?”

When I picked Jaxson up from school yesterday, I asked how he did that day. I always ask and then I hold my breath and hope for the best.

“Great. He was a little squirrelly for a while. Anytime we change something up he gets tense. Oh, there is something…”

Then his teacher walked over and told me Jax was chasing boys around the playground and when he caught them, he kissed them. “Yeah, we may want to figure out a way to get him to stop doing that.”

I had to laugh. Social story, perhaps? I love social stories. The teacher prints up these one page ‘stories’ that involve pictures and symbols to explain a teaching moment to the child that might not otherwise understand the lesson if given verbally without visual cues.

I know where the behavior comes from. Jax loves Popeye. We have DirecTV and he records episodes and watches them over and over. Popeye says it to Olive Oyl all the time and Jax has taken to saying it. Sometimes he grabs my face and says, “How ‘bout a kiss, buddy?” and then lays one on me. I think it’s cute. If chasing boys and kissing them is the worst faux pas he commits at school, I’m fine with that.

His father wasn’t as charmed as I after I relayed the story to him. Bread Winner said to Jaxson, “Don’t kiss boys, kiss girls.”

“Don’t tell him that!” I chastised. “He’s not supposed to be kissing ANYBODY. Kids pass around germs! Plus it’s not socially appropriate to be kissing his peers in a school setting. He needs to respect personal space.”

Bread Winner leaned in again and whispered to Jax, who was wriggling in his arms because he was being tickled. “Only kiss girls.”

I groaned. “You know, sometimes you’re not very smart. I could care less if he’s kissing boys or girls.” Bread Winner gave me an upward eyebrow and I silently said my standard prayer for at least one homosexual child.

You gasp?

Well the thing is, in his young life, my elder son, Jake, has done, said and asked more than a few questions that leave his not-yet-burgeoning-sexual-preferences up in the air. I want to make sure I’m open to all options so he knows that he, too, can be open to all options.

When he was five Jake asked me, “Mom, can a man and a man get married?”

I’d been cleaning up the back porch while he played on his swing set and I stopped sweeping, resting my chin on the end of the broom handle.

“Well, yes they can.” Because I knew he wasn’t asking if two men could go down to the county courthouse and obtain a marriage license or civil ceremony certificate, or move to Canada and marry without the Jesus freaks stoning them on the way in. He wanted to know if two men could live together, love together, and have a family. So I believe I gave the appropriate response.

“Is that weird?” he asked, sitting in the swing, using a toe to dig in the dirt.

“No, nothing’s weird if you don’t think it is, honey.”

“But is it normal?”

“What’s normal?” I asked, wondering how he defined the word.

“Mom! You know what normal means!” He’d become irritated, because Jake only likes to deal in facts. Black or white, right or wrong, his mind left no room for the possibility of fluidity in any circumstance. Yes or no answers should be given whenever possible, and as far as he was concerned, the world would be a much easier place to navigate if everyone conformed to that notion.

I can’t even remember now how I’d defined normal. With Jake, there were always these discussions that left me feeling anxious and slightly nauseous. Not because of the content, but because I was always afraid I might say something that would come back to bite me or him in the ass later in life. I wanted him to make his own choices; about sexuality, about politics, about religion, about people in general.

But his most recent questioning on the topic, at age twelve, now led me to believe that I couldn’t win for losing.

“Mom, can I read your book when it gets published?”

We were en route to school, and damn if I didn’t already have to deal with a hot topic.

“No, honey. It’s for adults.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s about a young boy who leaves home when he’s seventeen and lives in New York for twenty years before he returns home.” The book in question was Far From Happy, a novel I’d recently signed a contract for publication on. My first published work.

The protagonist was a male hustler.

“Is it like your Macy movie? With the boys kissing?”

Yes, in fact. Macy’s Wait was a short film my mother and I had recently completed, and apparently he’d seen me editing the video, though this was the first time he’d mentioned it.

“Well, sort of. The boy is gay. Remember when I told you what gay means?”

“Yeah, that’s gross Mom.”

I had exactly nine minutes before I dropped him off in front of his middle school and I used every second of it explaining the facets of the word tolerance and how I didn’t actually like the word, because it presumed that there was something that needed to be tolerated about another individual and I preferred to believe that we are all equal and beautiful because of our differences and no matter who someone is, or what they believe, love was never wrong and it was nobody’s place to judge someone else for who they loved.

As we pulled into the parking lot, I finished with this, “Now, you understand that some men love men, and some men love women, and some women love men, and some women love women, right? And any of those combinations is perfectly acceptable. It’s okay that you would rather kiss a girl, but—”

“—eeeew, Mom! That’s even more gross!” he hissed as he opened the car door, grabbed his backpack and looked around to make sure none of his classmates had heard the end of the conversation.

When the car door slammed and I pulled around the circle, I was shaking my head; no closer to an answer about my own child’s sexual preferences. It seemed, at the moment, kissing anyone was gross.

And that was just fine with me.

At any rate, a gal can dream. In my version of future paradise, Jake will be the eccentric, homosexual Dog Groomer to the Stars, and take me with him on his international travels.

Jax—because he’s just recently become verbal—traipses around in my dreams, multi-lingually. He not only speaks perfect English, but goes on to master Spanish, French and whatever they speak in Yemen, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

Yes, my dreams include one kid escorting me to Broadway shows when I’m seventy, and the other, my personal translator while I experience a bit of long overdue globetrotting. I’m not saying they have to do these things, just that it would be a nice repayment for my maternal efforts.

But, as someone very smart once told me, hope in one hand and crap in the other—see which one fills up first.

Ten Minutes to Wapner

You’ve all probably seen Rain Man. Dustin Hoffman’s character was inspired by real-life autistic Kim Peek who could read eight books a day, taking ten seconds to read each page, devouring two pages simultaneously, his left eye reading the left page and his right eye reading the right one. He had an unbelievable memory and knowledge of rote facts. But, here’s the interesting conundrum: throughout his life he still needed 24-hour care. Despite his amazing mental agility, his motor skills were limited and he needed help with things like dressing himself and combing his hair.

The movie wasn’t necessarily a bad depiction of someone with autism, although neither of my kids can count toothpicks if they’re dropped on the floor, or perform other entertaining party tricks. And I’m here to tell you if they could count cards, I’d be the first one to hop on a plane to Vegas and figure out a way to exploit the situation to my financial advantage. But my kids aren’t savants. Most autistic people aren’t - only about 10% of people on the autism spectrum have savant skills.

So for that reason, the Hollywood portrait painted wasn’t entirely realistic with regard to most people on the autism spectrum. But it told an engaging story and illustrated some things rather well:

The Ten Minutes to Wapner thing was very realistic. I can hear Jake saying that, only it wouldn’t be about The People’s Court, it would probably involve Pokemon or Mario or some cartoon character on one of his shows. “Mom, it’s coming on in five minutes. Mom…only three more minutes, HURRY!”

Oh, Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

The movie also hit the nail on the head about things like having to eat specific foods a certain way, or requiring a certain brand of underwear, lest the wearer might, say, lose their shit (pun intended). Jake is a boxer kind of kid and he’ll go commando before putting on tightie-whities. If it’s a school day and I haven’t gotten to the laundry fast enough, obviously commando wouldn’t be an appropriate option. So, yeah - that would be a bad start to what presumably would be a bad day. Needless to say, I try and stay on top of the laundry situation in my house.

People on the autism spectrum are often restricted, rigid, and even obsessive in their behaviors, activities, and interests. When this rigidity is challenged, in the form of making changes to their rituals and structure, challenging behaviors (AKA: tantrums) may arise.

The thing to remember with autistic children is that the behavior is not on a vindictive or malicious level. They are not trying to blackmail you emotionally because what’s happening - from their perspective - has to do with them, not you. Autistic children are completely without guile. They have no understanding of concepts such as passive-aggression or manipulation. Autistic persons’ reactions are simply their reactions to whatever stimuli they’re being confronted with. Unlike some neuro-typical children, their actions are not a conscious way of getting something they want. In fact, they’re probably not even aware how their actions are affecting you. That’s something they often need to be taught along the way, rather than simply ‘getting it’ from your behavior, facial expression or body language.

For this reason alone, I wish everyone had a touch of autism.

Jake can’t lie. Seriously, he can’t tell a lie. It’s like a tic for him. He’ll get right in the car after school and give me a laundry list of every bad thing that he might have said, done, or encountered that day. He’s unable to move forward until he’s sure I’m completely aware of anything that might have been considered inappropriate. Then he feels better. If I ask him a direct question, even though he MIGHT try to keep something from me, he’s got absolutely no poker face, and the moment of silence is quickly followed by him coughing up the truth, however uncomfortable it makes him. This might very well be the coolest thing about him, from a parenting perspective. Well, that, and the fact that he can’t abide cursing, which he regularly calls me on, as well as fellow students. Yeah, I imagine that goes over really well with the ‘normal’ kids. (Actually I know it doesn’t because he was recently bullied for it.)

Just interacting socially can be draining for someone who can’t read facial expressions, isn’t verbal and doesn’t understand many things involved in social interaction, like reading body language. It’s like trying to get something from someone who is speaking another language. So pile that on top of any changes in the structure of their life and you should expect the guano to hit the oscillator, my friends.

Although their routines might seem strange to us, they serve a purpose to the autistic person. After all, routine itself isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I go grocery shopping on the same day of the week each week, simply because it’s convenient. If I wait longer I will run out of something. If I go earlier, I may have too much of certain items and then they go bad before I can use them. Ritual and routine help us feel secure and safe within our environment and makes the world around us more predictable. Too much unpredictability and uncertainty can lead to stress, more so with autistic people.

When these rituals and routines are interrupted or changed, the reaction you might get could well seem to be disproportionate, but you must remember that the autistic person who you are interacting with may have communication problems and doesn’t understand the reason for the disruption of their routine. Even Jake, who is a teenager and very verbal, is extremely literal. Try using things like sarcasm, irony, metaphor or pun on him and what you’ll get in return is a blank stare.

Jaxson and Jake both have issues with change. Jaxson, for instance, is unable to come into school and unpack his backpack and put his items into his locker like the other six children in his class, until his teacher comes out of the classroom and greets him in the hallway. He won’t let me leave until this happens. As soon as his teacher comes out and Jax sees her, I can leave. But if I try to leave him with his fellow students to unpack his backpack, he whines and pulls at me. It is how things went on the first day of kindergarten, so now if I try to change it up, he freaks out. This doesn’t bode well for the day - which is swiftly approaching - when he has a substitute teacher.

The ASD teachers want children to become more independent, thus tending to certain chores at school by themselves, without the aid of a paraprofessional or teacher. They need to be able to do things, like walk down the hall without holding the para-pro’s hand or change from their snow boots into sneakers in the winter, all by themselves.

This is all grand, but when something ‘new’ comes up - something out of their normal routine - this can throw an autistic child off, terribly. The way to try and change this is to regularly change-up their routine, at home and school. To toss them something unexpected and get them used to navigating change. Needless to say this isn’t always fun and so far I haven’t seen it actually work. You’re bucking their internal sense of order and it doesn’t go well. But as a parent, I still need to try, because life is messy and full of changes. The need for a detour often arises.

Shit happens.

But, try relating that concept to an autistic child and see how far you get.

Sensory Stew

Picture this:

You’re locked in a speeding car at night, racing down the highway at breakneck speed. It’s the middle of summer; you’re hot, uncomfortable and sweaty. There are sirens wailing outside, and there’s a baby with a stinky diaper next to you, screaming. The interior car lights flash on and off, blinding your senses. The radio is turned up full blast to heavy metal music. Nobody is driving; you have no control.

Now you might have an idea of what it’s like to be autistic on any given day.

You are expected to deal with this, and get through your normal daily routine without exploding. You are expected to listen and follow directions; you are expected to thrive. One after the other, sensory arrows are being shot at you, only your mind is unable to process them in any meaningful way. All noises are translated at the same level, none being relegated to background noise.

Every sense is heightened, over-stimulated.

What must it feel like for them, all of these bothersome things festering in the mind of the autistic child, clouding anything brighter from shining through? Jake, my 13 year old, can’t stand the way paper feels and at school this just has to be nerve-racking. Book pages turning, graded papers being passed out, notes shuffling between hands at every desk; the sensory minefield he has to wade through daily is something most people can’t even remotely relate to. Jaxson, my 9 year old, doesn’t like loud noises or clothing. Yeah, I said clothing. As soon as his feet hit the front doormat, he’s pulling off his clothes. He’ll wear them when we go out and all day at school, but at home he’s a little guy runnin’ around in his skivvies. I have no idea what it is about them that bothers him, but he just doesn’t like being dressed. I buy all cotton, everything loose and breathable, cut out all the tags—still, he prefers life sans clothing. Who am I to begrudge him?

His home is his castle just as it is mine and I want him to be comfy there.

Children with sensory issues must do what other children do throughout their day at school and in daily life, but they’ve got the added burden of wading through an often debilitating sensory assault as they do it.

In my opinion, that’s what makes them a little stronger than you and I.

Below is an example of a Sensory Stew and how Jaxson dealt with it. (READ: His 2007 School Christmas Pageant. Damn my kid is cute! )

Are You Sure I'm Not an Alien?

Jake popped his head out of his bedroom with an inquiry. “Mom, you’re sure I’m not an alien, right?”

“Pardon?” Oh, here we go...

“I mean…you remember seeing me come out of your vagina, right?” he asked, scratching the little furrow in his brow.

“Honey, it’s not something I’m likely to forget anytime soon.” I was trying to concentrate on The Rachel Maddow Show and knew if this little tête à tête went on for much longer, I might as well forget about enjoying her take on the wackadoo mid-term election campaign ads. Since Ms. Maddow is one of my few guiltless pleasures, I don’t like missing her show.

“What does that mean?” His brow wrinkled further as he tried to process my last statement.

“That means I was in labor for eleven hours with you - three of which was actual pushing. And the experience left me with the gift of little hitchhikers in my butt.” I know when I say things like this it will only serve to drag the conversation out further, but for some reason I can’t stifle the urge to shut the hell up.

“What?!?!” I’m pretty sure it was the ‘little hitchhikers in my butt’ that now had his attention.

“Never mind. Suffice it to say I have a very vivid recollection of pushing your melon head out of my who-ha and leave it at that.”

“What’s in your butt?”

“Forget it. Nothing…” Bad Mommy, Bad!

“What about Jaxson?”

“What about him?” What were we talking about, again?

“Do you remember Jaxson being born - because he’s kind of weird.” This from the kid who regularly bathes in anti-bacterial hand sanitizer.

“Yes, I remember it, though he was a month premature so he slithered out like a lizard. You paved the way for the little guy so he didn’t have as much work to do on the way out.”

“So you remember us both being born?

“Yes, Jake. Now go finish watching your show. It’s almost bedtime.”

...and Rachel is back from commercial break.

“Okay, thank’s Mom.”

“You bet.” Possible OCD crisis averted.

~*~*~*~*~

>TODAY’S VIDEO ENTRY:

Jaxson's Developmental Evaluation and First Day of School

Dissecting Jake

My son Jake has OCD. In fact, since hitting his teens, he’s practically teeming with hormones and his obsessions have multiplied; like the explosive acne that is sure to follow. For Jake, it materializes in the form of rapid-fire questions that he simply must get answered before he’s able to move on to the next thing.

If he can’t wrap his head around something, he will be asking about it all day.

Well, last week he spent an entire school day obsessing about a frog.

When he plopped into the passenger seat and I pulled out of the school parking lot one afternoon, this was the first thing he said to me:

“I lost a square today because of a frog.”

Losing a square, in the context of his world and classroom, means he got a warning. Squares on the whiteboard, used as visual cues, keep track of how many warnings each student in his ASD classroom has, and once they loose three, they get lunch detention.

“Okay, tell me about the frog.” This ought to be good, I thought. I immediately conjured that Looney Tunes episode where Michigan J. Frog kept making a fool out of his owner. Every time they were alone, the frog would hop out of its box and sing, “Hello my baby, hello my darlin’, hello my ragtime gaaaaaaal…” But whenever the guy tried to show someone his singing/dancing frog, it would just sit like a lump and croak.

“I saw these two high-school kids kicking a frog and I wanted to go rescue it but Chris said that we should just tell Mrs. D. and—”

First I needed to acquire some context. Frog? Where? Inside the building? So I interrupted - which he hates - and found out this happened immediately after I’d dropped him off, earlier that morning. The high school and middle school are attached by a library, so the middle school kids have to pass the roughhousing high-schoolers in order to get inside the building. Apparently the little amphibian hopped too close to the wrong crowd.

“Well I think Chris made the first appropriate choice this morning,” I said.

“But I wanted to hit those stupid kids and rescue the frog and bring him inside.”

“First, we do not hit. And messing with high school boys is asking for trouble. Second, we do not bring any animals of any kind into the school building. Ever. Do you understand?”

“Yes, but…”

“No buts. Your friend Chris did a good job giving you advice this morning. What would you have done with the frog if you brought it inside? Where would you have put it?”

“I was gonna take it to my science teacher.”

A giggle started to bubble up from somewhere inside me. The sadistic giggle of a mother about to shine the ugly light of reality across the face of her innocent autistic child. “Uh, Jake… What do science teachers typically do with frogs?”

He looked at me but hadn’t put two and two together to equal formaldehyde… yet. That would require a bit more prodding on my part.

“Do you know what dissect means?” I asked.

Jake’s eyes widened considerably. “Oh no! I wouldn’t want him to dissect the poor frog! I dissected one once and now I have guilt about it.”

“I didn’t know you dissected frogs last year.”

“I didn’t. I dissected one by myself. In the basement. When I was ten.”

The LOUD RECORD SCRATCH in my head was immediately followed by a laughing jag that was so boisterous, Jaxson - who was sitting in the back seat playing his DS - raised both hands and yelled, “Guys, guys…CALM DOWN.” (Yes, very clearly. His speech is coming along quite nicely!)

Because I’m getting over bronchitis, I coughed up half a lung, grabbed the antibacterial from Jake - who is on constant on germ patrol - and managed to swerve back into my lane.

“Oh Jake. I love you. But why did you dissect a frog? And how did you kill it, or was it dead when you found it?” I didn’t even want to ponder what implements of torture he’d used.

“I dissected it while it was alive.” Jake mumbled. “I won’t go to hell, right?”

The other half of my lung came up, and out came the hand sanitizer, again.

“No, honey. You won’t go to hell. But you won’t be dissecting any animals outside of science class anymore, right?”

“I’m NEVER dissecting ANYTHING again! I have a passion for animals now.” Jake yelled.

I sighed and wondered how that would go over when the fetal pigs came out in science class in a few years. I remember them being particularly gnarly.

The morning after what will now be referred to as The Frog Incident, I had a meeting with the school psychologist, speech therapist, behavioral specialist and a few other regulars - just for a check-up on Jaxson‘s progress. (Which is rolling along splendidly, I might add!)

But, the first thing on the agenda - because the same staff treats both of my kids - was, “Did you hear about the frog episode yesterday with Jake?”

We had a nice chuckle and I learned a bit more about the story. Like, as soon as he’d entered the building and rushed to his ASD room, he relayed the frog story to his teacher, who promptly took him outside in order to see if they could locate the frog and put Jake’s fears to rest. I think she hoped they’d find the little bugger alive and well and that would be that. I can only imagine what would have happened if they’d encountered a pile of frog pulp.

The school psychologist arrived soon after to head up the ‘social interaction’ class. This is where Jake and his fellow socially inept brethren learn about conversing with others, discuss personal space and facial expressions, and other things that you and I might take for granted. As she exited her car, she saw Jake pacing up and down the sidewalk, watching his teacher look for the frog that would remain on his mind for the rest of the day because the frog would never be found.

And that’s the story of how a frog caused Jake to lose a square.

Today's video--The beginning of our journey...Moving to Michigan and all the changes for the kids.

STAY TUNED! for the next blog post which will include a video showing Jaxson's first developmental evaluation and first day of pre-school in the Early Intervention program.

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.

Tales of a First Grade Drama King

Today’s offering: Five minutes of film shot by Jaxson Lopez. (*compiled and edited by Mommy)

Watch carefully and at times you’ll find the little director wanna-be has purpose, intent and motive written all over his face.

My job: I’m just the gal who fishes cameras out of the toilet and waits for the next shoe to drop, because one always does—and they’re never Prada or Manolo Blahnik, they’re Ked’s, Crocs, and Dollar Store flip-flops.

I'm Ready for My Close-Up!

It should come as no surprise to anyone, given my filmmaking proclivities, that I’ve had a camera in the faces of my children from the moment they sloshed out of my who-ha on a tidal wave of amniotic fluid. (Well, Jake anyway. Jax didn’t slosh, he sort of slithered out.)

At some point, I fully expect Jaxson to take over in the filmmaking arena, given he’s now prone to carrying his little video camera wherever he goes. He's presently got three cameras, but I'm sad to report at least a dozen have previously lost their digital lives due to his early experimentation with the toilet and running water. (It's a pricey hobby, but when my kids show an interest in something, I do my best to support them.) Thankfully, Jax has finally come to understand that SD cards and cameras do NOT mix well with liquids.

Now the little guy spends his time putting together movies with his Buzz Lightyear and Woody action figures. Let me just say, as a director he's quite the little task-master. If I don't get a line right, he lets me know it. And I can't tell you the surge of joy I got the first time he said 'ACTION!'

Today, I’m posting a 14 minute short film from the longer version of Every Journey is Unique, a documentary about autism that I continue to work on.




My hope is that one day I’ll have footage showing their progress from toddlers to adults and since I have a mini-filmmaker in my midst, hopefully Jax will add some of his own footage one day.


He already uploads his masterpieces into the editing software on my laptop and even tries to make rolling credits at the end. I say tries, because he’s got the words CAST and THE END down, but everything else in between those words is written in his own language. But I give the kid credit, he can even score his films with music from my own personal files. Willie Nelson’s version of Sunny Side of the Street and Ringo Starr’s Oh My My are among his favorites.


Jake, being the thirteen year old that he is, scoffs every time I pull out the camera, but that’s to be expected. He’s had his fill of my cinematic endeavors by this point. He did star with his cousin Max in an early movie (a really BAD early movie) entitled Toyzilla, though. He was seven at the time.


UPDATE: By the way, as of this writing, the boys will have successfully completed their first week of school and I’m ecstatic to report they’ve both done extremely well.

Won’t you join me in doing a little happy dance? VICTORY IS OURS!

I Hate School

(This is the back to school face.)

T-minus six days until my boys go back to school.

Next Tuesday is going to be rough. When you know there’s a good chance you’ll be physically dragging your 77 lb. child into school on the first day, and probably for many days thereafter, it makes it hard to rise to that giddy level of ‘Back To School’ elation that plagues the Wal-Mart and Staples commercials for two months every year.

In fact, those commercials aren’t even advertising the products I need.

“Now, for a limited time, when you order your HoverRound-Up™ - invented for the little second grade cherubs in our midst who have to be rolled into school like Hannibal Lecter - you’ll get the Mommy-Nerf®, squishy full body armor, available in sizes up to XXL. If your Lil Tyke punches, bites and kicks when they’re anxious, this product is for you!”

Perhaps I should start drawing up some prototype schematics.

Thing One and Thing Two hate school. (Try and look at that like a Seussical reference, not a totally inappropriate one.)

I’d like to say I’m one of those parents who is relieved when my kids go back to school - happy to enjoy a quiet house and do my chores before partaking of a few hours of uninterrupted writing time. This is not the case. I worry when they’re not with me. As soon as the alarm goes off on day one, up and until the last day of school, I spend most of my life waiting for the other shoe to drop in the form of a call from school. Either Thing Two is acting out and three para-pros have him pinned to the floor, or Thing One is obsessing about one of the fifty-two thousand things he obsesses about on a daily basis - like his penis falling off - and they can’t get him into class.

It’s heart-breaking, gut wrenching, toilet hugging stuff. The ‘I Just Dropped My Two Autistic Kids off at School Diet’ consists of lots of coffee and a fair amount of time on the john.

Yesterday, we (Mom and I) went to register the boys for school and Thing Two lost it before I could get him out of the car. He doesn’t even want to look at the elementary school building, never mind go in for five minutes while I fill out his forms. Because Thing Two is not very verbal, (but making great strides!) he can’t say: “Mom, I’m frightened and I don’t know how to deal with this.”

There is no ‘talking him thorough it.’

After the parking lot meltdown, the hallway meltdown and the library-slash-registration-holding area-meltdown, we got back into the car fairly unscathed, only to have Thing Two melt down while we waited in line at the middle school for Thing One to get his picture taken for his school ID card.

Mom remained with Thing One (who was also over-stimulated and stressed) while I cajoled Thing Two out to the car, a guerilla maneuver that ended with two sweaty, slightly mauled and out of breath people - one adult, one child.

God bless my little Thing Two. He’s terrified. And it’s not like I can say, “Okay, honey, just stay home with Mommy.” Man, that would make things easier. But, kids have to go to school and I fear if he can’t pull it together, there’s no telling where he’s going to end up. I want to make something better for him that is out of my control. So I round up the troops, talk to the psychologist and pediatrician, make a plan, and hope everything comes out in the wash.

Till then, my ass spends plenty of quality time on the toilet. Luckily I’m reading a good book.

But, then, there are other moments. These truly sweet gifts that make everything a little more okay than they were fifteen minutes earlier. In the evening, after the chaotic day, Thing Two had settled down and was giggling as he made his Buzz Lightyear fart on his Woody action figure - and, of course, filming the process with his video camera.

Thing One looked at his brother and said:

“Mom, he’s just trying to find his place in the world, isn’t he?” Sometimes Thing One says something so profound, I want to cry. And these little gems stand out because most of the time he’s saying things like:

“Mom, say stupid monkey butt fart.”

“No.”

“Say it!”

“Honey, please…”

“Mom, please, just say it!”

“Stupid monkey butt fart.”

Farts are the great equalizer in my house.

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…

Lemons, Lemonade and Shit Pebbles

This morning, Jaxson did something that left me gobsmacked. If you read the previous posting, you know that the little autistic-ragamuffin recently went through a poop-tossing phase. (1)

I feel it important to illustrate another aspect of his recent ‘savant-ness’, so as to ensure my readers understand that there are brilliant spots of clarity and overall extraordinary bliss-ments (blissful moments) that also happen on a daily basis.

It’s Saturday, quite windy and nippy (nipply) outside, so we’re all hanging out in the living room doing our own things. I’m busy writing something with my brilliant soul-sister slash side-kick , Kat Nove, so my ass is planted in front of the computer. I assume her ass is similarly planted, as we speak. (I don't know for sure because she lives in Texas, poor thing, and I'm in Michagan. The Gods wisely decided to plop us millions of miles away from one another, lest we get up to general trouble-making and decide to take over the world.)

But, I digress...

Jaxson grabbed a black Sharpie® (2) and sat down next to me with a spiral notebook. I didn’t pay much attention to what he was writing, but when he trundled off to his room to play video games, I bent over to retrieve his scrawled pages.

…well, suffice it to say, I had a moment.

Below is EXACTLY what’s on the two pages he filled with cute second-grade boy penmanship:

Jaxson
Mom
The boy
kicks girl
wins
boy stands
Kicks

Obama
Biden
www.barackobama.com
A boy
Stands
Jaxson
Mom
Mo & the g

Okay, let’s stop for a minute and take a deep, cleansing breath before we continue. (3)

WTF?!?!?!?!?!

Is it just me or are there some actual phrases that make sense? And what is the kid trying to tell me with all of the Obama/Biden ACTUAL WEBSITE address information? (4)

It only takes about three seconds for me to start putting the pieces together. There’s no way he’s just free-associating thoughts and writing them down. He’s eight years old. He can’t even know who Barak Obama is!

I look around the room and it all starts to come together. His pages from school are neatly lined up on the table; activities where he’d been asked to fill in blanks and write phrases next to pictures. For instance:

The boy stands.
The girl kicks.

Okay, so mystery number one, solved. He’s copying things from the pages. Still, the handwriting looks good!

As I continue to scour the living room, my eyes light upon the Obama/Biden sign I’ve kept prominently displayed on my wall. (5)

So, like Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects, the kid has culled tidbits from his immediate vicinity to tell his story. And what is his story? I think it’s this:

“Look Ma, I can write!”

Well, good for him! So he’s not a savant and won’t be counting toothpicks at a glance like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. So what? Who needs a toothpick-counting kid? My kid is writing PHRASES! He’s looking at a picture and putting actual words together, correctly spelled, to form coherent thoughts! Hot damn, life is a mini-miracle!

The moral of today’s story is this: When life hands you lemons(or shit pebbles), you CAN make lemonade (???)! (6)

I’m going to color my hair now. It feels like a 'Hot-Tamale-Red' kinda’ month! Yes, people—I’m feelin’ myself today!

_________________________________

FOOTNOTES:

1- For my concerned readers, I will happily note the phase seems to have momentarily subsided—along with my suicidal thoughts!

2- It’s possible that later I might find the alphabet scrawled all over the bathroom walls in his handwriting and it will permanently and indelibly be part of the general ambiance in said bathroom. That, coupled with the 6 Renuzit Air Freshners®, and the regular stench of ca-ca ensures I will now and forever be considered a sad commentary in the manner of “You know you’re a white-trash hot mess when…”

3- By the way, his handwriting has dramatically improved. It’s legible, and even sits on the college ruled lines quite nicely, albeit his letters are two lines high. But it looks damned good!

4- He’s a frigging genius, that’s what he’s telling me!!

5- Yes, the website is, in fact, written on the bottom of the red-white-and-blue sign that once proudly sat outside my house in order to torment my redneck McCain/Palin loving neighbors. It was torn down three times, and every time I put it back up. Now, it will forever be part of my living room décor.

6- I don’t know where I’m going with this little analogy, but you get the general drift!

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.