March 01, 2010 @ 13:29

“There’s a sort of greatness to your lateness.” Fi

“Thanks.  It’s not achieved without real suffering.”  Charles, Four Weddings and a Funeral

I completely flaked on my own quote.  But not for lack of things to say.  I’m afraid I was slapped in the face last week by something.  And I let it get me down.  But I’m back up again.  Thanks.  I’ve always been jealous of those people who are not slightened by the idea that “not everyone can like you”.  Those people who walk around all casually secure and firmly seated in their uniqueness and not bothered one bit by what wagging tongues may be saying about them.  Suppose it is somewhat related to what I had to say.  And here it is . . . 

The quote:  “Never put a sock in a toaster.”  Eddie Izzard

Puppy is becoming more and more of his own little man every day.  He mostly seems to be sailing along about two scant years behind his peers in social maturity.  Some days he is a tight little ball of uncontrolled boy.  Sometimes that is happy boy.  Sometimes it is something more like a cornered animal.  Not very often, but it’s there.  But what I am finding is that he is, even when he is out of sorts, happy.  There are things that set him off.  But they are no more frequent than those of a typical child.  He is however, a mystery to those who don’t know him.  What sets him to spinning is not typical. 

Being interrupted, whether it’s while arranging a line of trains or something less fun, like homework.  He just won’t process what you have to say to him until you let him finish the train.  Or his sentence.  Or his drawing.  He’s like a little computer.  If you ask him to run too many programs at once, his processes will be compromised. 

The way loud noises frighten him, even when he knows they are coming, causing him sometimes to double over cringeing, hands cupped over his ears, as if in physical pain. 

The way he will walk into a room and address its occupants as if they were only staged there, like a set in a play, awaiting his entrance for all action to begin. 

And none of these actions are contrived.  No bids for attention.  No manipulation.  No passive aggression.  He is a blank slate in those areas.  He is innocent of those drives.  He is guileless.  He is actually happier with no audience at all.  He will play alone for hours.  Content.  And this is where my mind has trouble adjusting.  Where I am afraid he is lonely, he seems to be complete in himself, with little need for companionship.  Although I am grateful for the way he does seem to love me, Bear, and a handful of our friends and family.  I am coming to understand that love, for him, is very different than others might define it.  Emotionally we are so different.  Where I may be filled with emotion during a hiking trip, over the beauty of it all, he is more likely counting the steps it takes to reach the path’s end.  While I may be excited over the first ripe peaches of the season, he is annoyed to be pulled away from his projects and made to eat.  Where we may be emotional, he is factual.  So we struggle with how to raise him to be healthy and happy when we are still figuring out how he defines his happy.  Healthy, however, we are getting better at. 

I had a friend who used to tell me all the time that there was nothing wrong with him.  In that tone.  You know, that tone that says, “There’s nothing wrong with that boy that a whippin’ wouldn’t fix.  You are just a bad mother.  If he was mine . . .  “  The woman was right.  And also dead wrong.  There IS, in fact, NOTHING WRONG with my boy.  But there is definitely something different.  This is our daily challenge right now.  That we are different.  And that our educational system does not embrace different, not as a general rule . . .  You know how they want all of our kids to be neatly sliced white bread.  But sorry, my kid is a sock . . .  So when all of that is the norm, and we are not.  And all of the classes and schedules and programs are built around making toast, here we are with a sock.  I am so very grateful to the school district we live in.  They have gone above my expectations, and even my hopes, for what public school was going to be like for Puppy.  We have teachers that are engaged.  Who are not put out at being asked to work a sock into all the toast.  We are coming towards the end of our second year.  Another year of social blunders and embarassing stories.  But at the end of the day, maybe they aren’t embarassing.  Because why would a sock feel judged in all his socky glory about not being good at becoming toast? 

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 1:29 pm and is filed under Autism?, Real life . . . no, really . . .. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.