My Autism Insights

Insights from the perspective of a typical mom of a not-so-typical kid.

&
 
  • Subscribe!

  • Join Me

    Add to Technorati Favorites Join My Community at MyBloglog!
  • Blog Catalog

    Recent Readers

    View My Profile View My Profile View My Profile View My Profile View My Profile
    Health Blogs - Blog Catalog Blog Directory
  • Autism Support

    Join Me at The Autism Support Network!
    Powered by WebRing.
  • Awards

    My site was nominated for Best Parenting Blog! My site was nominated for Best Health Blog! Nano 2008 nano 2008 Lemonade Award Photobucket Inde Sapien Choice Photobucket Universal Light Photobucket
  • Stat Counter and Sitemeter

Oct 20 2008

Manic Monday: Bite

Asperger's, autism, blogs, conflict resolution, Manic Monday, Memes, noteworthy, parenting, practical strategies, sleep, special needs

 

Prompt by Mo at Manic Monday .

The bite of cold air pierced my spine as I stood at the bathroom doorway watching a silent child staring back at me.  He took a drink of water and then waited.  I knew the look on his face, calculating, looking around me toward my bedroom.

Oh no you don’t, mister, I thought.  I wrapped an arm around his shoulder to lead him back to his own room, but he tried to dodge.  But I’d anticipated the reaction, so I got a grip on him and got him back into his room.  He promptly curled into a ball on the floor, not wanting to get back into his own bed.  It was 1:30.

Got him back to bed, still freezing without my robe on, and he didn’t want the light off.  I learned that the stupid CFC bulb we put in his ceiling light doesn’t work on a dimmer, so I plugged in an extra night light, told Gus to go back to sleep, and got back into my own cooling bed.

I should have been glad - he woke me from a nightmare about water mains all over New York City breaking and causing massive flooding. If I’d stayed asleep any longer, there would have been a tidal wave for sure.  That’s what happens when your downstairs bathroom springs a leak just before dinner.

I lay in bed, listening to the thumping of my own heartbeat, not soothing, just loud, and eventually drifted back to something resembling sleep.  And wouldn’t you know it?  I wouldn’t have expected inspiration to bite me in the brain stem at that hour, but it did.  It was a weird stream of consciousness thing going on, but I came to the conclusion that Gus’s sleep problems started about 6 months ago - when I changed his room around!  Duh!  Of course that would have disturbed him!  If this sounds like middle-of-the-night brilliance, also consider that I started thinking that I’d arranged the furniture in a way that didn’t work with feng shui.  It was 2 a.m.; cut me some slack.  So, I decided that if I am ever going to get a full night’s sleep again, I will have to put the room back to its original state.  Then I went back to sleep.

For half an hour.

I heard a door open then slam shut again.

Damn.

The light was on and he was huddled back in the corner on the floor.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

“Yes.”  Talking was good; now we could get somewhere.  “It was about a man with a sting ray tail for a face.”

Uh huh.  I’ve often heard that Aspies don’t lie.  Someone should tell Gus this.  It’s not that he doesn’t lie, he just really stinks at it.  I knew he was making up Sting Ray Face by the little half smirk at the right side of his mouth.

I coaxed him back to bed and then asked, “Would you feel better if we moved your room back the way it was?”

His face was a sun rising over the mountaintops.  “Yes,” he breathed in relief.  Who knew?  I promised to do it today.  And then I was graced with three hours of unbroken rest.

To an Aspie, change is not always good, even 6 months later.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Sphinn
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Mixx
  • Google
Possibly-related Articles:                                        (auto-generated)

11 Responses to “Manic Monday: Bite”

  1. Autism Insightson 20 Oct 2008 at 2:56 pm edit this

    Gayle: Thanks for the comment. I think lots of kids would be disturbed by rearranging the room; not sure if they’d still be disturbed after such a long time, but perhaps.

    Corina: The room is now back almost the way it was. When he comes home I’ll let him decide where to put everything else.

    Marla: I don’t know why it took me so long to think of this - must have been the sleep deprivation :-)

  2. not4ureyes2con 20 Oct 2008 at 11:19 pm edit this

    awww poor little guy. I love change but when I do move my furniture it keeps me up as well. I lay in bed looking around at how everything is different because I’m so excited and happy that there was a change. =)

Trackback URI | Comments RSS

Leave a Reply

Some Today.com contributors may have received a fee or a promotional product or service from a manufacturer for promotional consideration, while others receive no consideration at all. Each contributor is responsible for disclosing any such promotional consideration.