My Autism Insights

I’ve often heard the rumor about individuals on the autism spectrum that they have no senses of humor.  I can’t fathom, especially living with my son, where such a notion could come from.  Not only do I find him to have a very sharp wit, but I could say the same of a number of people that I know who are on the spectrum.

From the GRASP (The Global and Regional Asperger Syndrome Partnership) website:

“People on the autism spectrum do not have a sense of humor.
This is one of the least harmful but most ridiculous myths about the autism spectrum. It is probably due to the fact that people on the spectrum often are unable to “get” many conventional jokes, or simply do not find them funny. This is then interpreted as a lack of a sense of humor. In reality, many people on the autism spectrum develop a strong interest in humor, especially after enough jokes are explained to them and / or they develop the ability to understand them independently. The result can range from a downright hilarious individual, who happens to be on the autism spectrum, to someone with an unconventional and perhaps highly original style of humor.

—Karl Wittig”

I am reminded of Gus’s antics last spring as he was receiving his Principal’s Award and he (inches from the principal) grabbed the microphone and shouted, “Is this thing on?” He saw an easy laugh and went for it.  Usually, his humor is a little more understated and deadpan, but no less funny.

Tonight he looked zoned out and tired, and wasn’t responding to anything I was saying to him.  So to see if he was just ignoring me, I started to pretend to hypnotize him.

“You’re getting sleeeeee-py…” I said, wiggling my fingers in front of his eyes.  No response.  Total stillness.  It was as if I were a ghost and he didn’t even see me.  “When I snap my fingers, you will act like a chicken.”  Snap.

“Bawk! Bawk!”

The kid never even missed a beat.  He couldn’t have timed it better if we’d planned it.

No sense of humor?

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard” ~Groucho Marx

image from Wikimedia Commons author: CJ

Yesterday, I spent a rare day out with my sister and left Gus and MM at home with my husband.  On my way to pick up Sis, I called the house to check in (not something I should do when on the highway).  First, the phone rang and no one answered; the second time, Gus picked up.  And here’s where the literal thinking took hold.

“Where’s Daddy,” I asked.   Gus was trying his best to have a conversation with me, but wasn’t modulating his voice well enough for me to hear all his words.  (Note to self: don’t try to comprehend the Asperger’s son while driving through an area you haven’t seen in over 5 years - you will waste lots of gas on wrong turns.) In between mumbles, Gus got distracted, but to his credit he kept coming back to me, “Are you still there?”  That I understood, and wow - way to focus, Gus!  Finally, I asked him to bring Daddy the phone.  The line went dead.

I had assumed that Gus was on the cordless.  (Second note to self: why would you assume anything with Gus?)  Guess again!  In an amazing attempt to follow my very vague instructions, he disconnected the receiver from the wall phone and brought it to his dad in the shower!  He did what I asked, quite literally.  Next time, I should be a little more specific.  Gotta love that he’s following directions, though!

Do you have any amusing stories about a literal thinker?

image by gmbmom on Photobucket

Gus and I have been playing a little game where he pretends to carry me on his back (like I do for him sometimes) and he collapses under my weight.  This came about because I said he couldn’t possibly carry me.

This morning, he took my hands and slung them around his shoulders and tried to start the game again.  When he collapsed I said, “What’s the matter am I too heavy?”

“Yes!”

After a laugh, I replied, “You’re supposed to say, ‘No, Mommy! You’re light as a feather!’”

Then I explained how he should never tell a woman she’s heavy; it would hurt her feelings.

“But some of them are!”

I can’t really argue with that.

I’ll have a more useful post later in the week after I finish with a monster deadline.  In the meantime, feel free to browse this blog & if you like it, why not subscribe?

Have a great day!!

Once upon a time there was a woman named Mrs. Practical, and she had a friend named Stereo.  Stereo had always been a reliable and loyal friend, and so even though he grew old and obsolete (he even still had exposed speaker wires that had to be hooked up and a cassette player) she could never part with him.  He had been with her since she had her first home, and had survived two cats and three moves.  Mr. Married-To-Practical had often wondered why she kept him, but she just answered, “He may come in handy one day.”

Mrs. Practical eventually had a baby boy, named The Boy, who soon came to be nicknamed Destructo.  He was a sweet child, but had the uncanny power to destroy anything he touched, usually with little or no harm to himself.  He was like a living Tasmanian Devil, just without the ink or dust clouds.  At the age of two, The Boy maimed another friend of Mrs. Practical’s: Thirty-Six-Inch Television.  That was when he earned the name Destructo.

As Destructo grew, and the furnishings became shabbier and shabbier, his parents decided to give him a small radio – he loved music.  Destructo did rather well, and the radio lasted over a year, unlike the $80 globe that did not even make the year mark and is not permanently silenced.  Unfortunately, the radio was dropped one time too many and the CD reading mechanism joined countless other items in the black hole of their home.

Mrs. Practical debated.  Music was almost a necessity in The Boy’s life because of his noise sensitivity, but simply buying another radio for him would send a terrible message that he didn’t have to work to take better care of his things.  It was a terrible, hand-wringing dilemma.  Finally, she searched in the cupboard beneath the stairs (which is a perfectly acceptable home for anything that is not an eleven-year-old wizard) and found her old friend, Stereo.  They had a chat.  “Will you do it, old friend?  It will be dangerous.”  But he was a brave stereo, and he agreed to come out of his peaceful resting place to live in The Boy’s room.

All was well for over a month.

But then, at five a.m. one rainy morning, Mrs. Practical heard a crash coming from The Boy’s room.  Mr. Married-To-Practical rushed in.  The Boy was fine, but – Oh no! – Stereo lay in pieces on the ground!  Of course it was an accident; it was nearly always an accident.  But what to do for poor stereo?

Mrs. Practical knew Stereo better than anyone, and with deft fingers she patiently put him back together.  She tested his speakers and breathed a sigh of relief when everything was working.  But when she went to plug The Boy’s headphones back in, she saw with a sad heart that the headphone jack was gone.  They searched high and low – it was nowhere to be found.  Mrs. Practical wrapped up all Stereo’s wires and gently carried him back to her room, otherwise known as Cuba (because the children were not allowed to go in there alone without express, written permission in quadruplicate), where he is currently recovering peacefully.

She is now faced with the same dilemma she had before, and to this day, Mrs. Practical does not know what she is going to do.

Prompt and image from Manic Monday

“The moon’s an arrant thief, and her pale fire she steals from the sun.”

~William Shakespeare

“M-O-O-N that spells…”

~Tom Cullen from The Stand by Stephen King

That spells little thief is what it spells!  I think the coming full moon might have driven poor Gus a little mad yesterday.  More likely he was overtired and had lost what little amount of executive functioning he normally has.

We were having a lovely organic-apple picking afternoon, but by about 3:30 Gus was a bit fried.  We’d been out in the sun for over close to two hours; it had been a long day.  (Yes, I’m going to make every excuse in the book.)  We went to visit some farm animals - goats, chickens, a rooster - which was in itself a little angst provoking because Gus wanted to see the animals, but was also scared.

So there were some kids playing in the area and one of them was the owner of a kiddie car - you know the ones: a motorized 4X4 jeep kind of thing.  Said car was sitting under a tree sans owner, with owner’s caregivers.  You know where this is going.  Gus got it in his head to take the car for a joy ride.  Caregiver 1 and Caregiver 2 said no, stop, blah blah.  I yelled no, stop, blah blah.  Gus gleefully ignored us all and revved that bad boy right up!  Caregiver 1 tried to get in front of him to block, but pfft, he wasn’t stopping.  Dang near ran the lady down.  Then he banked left and tried to make a run for it.  Caregiver 1 almost got hold of the back of the car, but lost her grip.  I finally caught up to him and tried the same thing, but I was afraid the back bumper would break, so I had to grab him instead.  I pulled him out of there like a fisherman with a bluefish.  He thought the whole thing was great fun.  At least he did until he had to apologize and then go back to the car.

Moon madness or overtired?  Maybe a little of both.  There are two lessons to be learned here.  First, pay close attention to your special needs child on family outings.  Gus had been wandering and saying that he was getting tired for a while before we headed over to the animals.  We really should have called it quits much sooner or at the very least given him some down time in the car earlier.

Second lesson, never underestimate that moon madness and don’t schedule family outings within 3 days of a full moon.

So I’ve learned that I have bronchitis , which explains a great deal, like why I couldn’t breathe yesterday.  However, lack of oxygen will not keep me from showing gratitude today!

1. I am thankful for my extended family for insisting that I go to the doctor today instead of tomorrow.  An extra day without antibiotics would not have been the best idea in the world.

2.  I am thankful that Gus has found a sport and a team that he can enjoy and feel accepted just as he is. Yet, I am also thankful that there isn’t a game this weekend because he really needs to recuperate from his illness this week.

3. I am thankful that the music and headphones strategy has so far been working nicely.  Did I mention that when he was home sick on Tuesday, he sat for several minutes writing a story without me having to check on him once?  I set him up, told him what he needed to do, and he did it independently while I helped MM with her homework.  That was an amazing thing.  And the story was pretty funny too!  I found a Halloween writing prompt online, just to give him something to do besides TV watching, and he wrote about a ghost who couldn’t spell ghost (he spelled is gost).  Totally stream of consciousness, totally funny.

Please share your gratitude in a comment and have a healthy week!

image from Jannagraphics

“I am a leaf on the wind…watch me soar.”

Serenity, spoken by Wash…moments before he is skewered by flying debris.

That is one of my favorite lines from the Firefly universe and it creates such a lovely image for me.  Can’t you just picture a bright orange autumn leaf floating gently down from a tree branch, cradled and rocked by a light, crisp breeze?  It reaches the ground so peacefully…all is right with the world on this fine autumn day.  And then some kid comes and stomps on it!  Sometimes things just blindside you.

I’m back to the sleep disturbances, not for any good reason, just being cynical.  Because I can’t really do much else, so I indulge for a moment.

I have an online job that I often do at 5am.  This means dragging myself out of bed at 4:45, no matter what time I went to bed the night prior.  But I make sure to leave myself a few days when I can sleep in (which means until 5:30 or 6 - I’ll take what I can get).  How is it, that my children always seem to know which days I can sleep later, and that they unfailingly choose those days to wake up in the wee hours of the morning?

Friday night we had friends over, but I still made it to bed by 11:00.  We had flu shots and soccer on Saturday, but I could have still slept until 6 and had plenty of time to get everyone fed and dressed to make out 8:00 appointment.  MM woke up at 4; she’d lost her blankets and was cold.  Brought her back to bed, tucked her in, prayed for another 2 hours of rest.  No dice.  Gus was there at 5.  He must have figured I should have been working and didn’t want me to oversleep.  Irony is my middle name, I think.

Seriously, Gus was up because of a stuffy nose & cough - can’t fault the little guy for that.  The same cold brought him in for an early morning visit at 3:30 today.  Couldn’t get mad; I had to let him snuggle in bed with us.  When I can’t be mad, I get cynical, just a little, for a brief moment.  Moment over.

I think I will keep him home today.  Perhaps we’ll look out the big windows as we’re sharing a box of tissues for our runny noses, and we’ll find that bright orange leaf on the wind, and maybe we’ll find a few seconds of serenity.  If we’re very, very lucky, no one will stomp on it today.

Thanks to Mo of  Manic Monday for today’s theme!

We took the kids for flu shots this morning.  I tend to not comment much on the vaccine/anti-vaccine debate within the autism community because it’s no longer an issue for me.  Vaccines did not make my son autistic.  Period.  So we vaccinate our kids and they get flu shots every year, as do we. Not that it should really matter since it’s been shown that mercury does not cause autism, but our pediatrician only uses mercury free vaccines in case anyone decides to question my parental judgement.

Anyway, this morning’s shots were particularly funny.  MM went first, and I have to say she is one of the strongest kids - and I mean her character as well as physically - that I have ever come across.  She had to get blood drawn yesterday and then get poked again first thing this morning.  She didn’t even flinch.  She said, “ouch.” That was it.  No crying, no drama.  I told her she rocks, because she really does.

Then it was Gus’s turn.  Now, he’s been pleading not to get the shot since last night.  When his turn came around, he told the nurse, “Can’t we wait until flu season?”

“It is flu season.”

“Wait, I have to go.  I forgot something.”  The funniest thing to come out of his mouth was, “I have to go!  I have a job!  I’m very busy!”

Even amid all the wrestling we had to do to keep him in the room, that one cracked me up.

As he gets older, he’s obviously getting stronger, but that gets lost on me until I actually have to keep a grip on his wriggling little form.  Wow, that kid is skinny as a french cut string bean, but he is strong!  And of course, the struggling at that point had more to do with not wanting to be restrained and less to do with the shot.  As a matter of fact, he didn’t even flinch when he finally got the shot, almost didn’t even notice.  And then, completely deadpan, “I was very brave.”

Yes you were, dude.  You certainly were.

Remember to get your flu shot, and check back tomorrow to find out about Gus’s first soccer game!

Image and meme from Manic Monday

Aw nuts! Just when I thought I was safe, he was up again!  This time he got up twice!  That’s what I get for rejoicing that I would have several days of not having to get up for work at 4:45 am.  That’s what I get for speaking too soon.

Aw nuts!  Just when I thought I might be able to let him eat cheese, he has a totally unfocused, hyperactive weekend filled with running off and all manner of chaotic behavior.  Was it the cheese or the weather or the moon conjunct Mercury in the 11th house?  Who knows?  But cheese is back on the banned list.

Aw nuts!  Just when I can put him in soccer he decides he wants to play football.  And really, is there any nice way to tell him that if he thinks I’m letting him play football, he’s nuts?  And double nuts, now his sister suddenly seems to think she doesn’t want to play soccer either.

Aw nuts!  I thought I could get out of making our costumes for the Halloween/birthday party this weekend, but I’ve been talked back into it. Let’s hope Pikachu’s tail survives and that Ash’s Pokeball doesn’t get lost.  I think I’ll wear a hat instead of the pink Team Rocket wig.  And that means getting all my deadlines met early so I actually have time to do this.  No pressure.

Four aw nuts! moments and it’s only Monday morning.  Have you have any aw nuts! moments today?

Four things I’m thankful for this morning:

1. I am thankful for babies.  Not mine, but friends’ babies (not to say I’m not thankful for my own, they’re just not babies anymore).  There’s nothing like a newborn to bring back those old feelings of overwhelming love that you felt for your child when he was born (or she).  We had three solid weeks of hell when Gus was born (typical of new parents perhaps), but after we learned what he needed, he was an absolute dream baby.  MM was awesome from the minute she came home - how ironic that she’s the tough one now!

2. I am thankful that Casdok at Mother of Shrek has created a new blog called Faces of Autism that features some really beautiful people.  It’s a wonderful idea and wordlessly silences so much of the negative autism talk.

3. I am thankful that Congress hasn’t yet rushed to bail out the banks because any more rash and stupid behavior by our government might just make my head explode, and who would clean up the mess?

And not a digression…

I’ve been haunted by a thought for a few days now about the DSMIV and how it needs to be updated.  I think a new category needs to be added: MADD - Maternal Attention Deficit Disorder.  I’m only half kidding.  Here is some of the criteria:

• Can’t complete a task like folding laundry without becoming distracted and consumed by no less then 3 others, one of which should take the rest of the day.  Leaves a minimum of 4 tasks incomplete for at least 2 years time at any given time.
• Can’t carry on adult conversations without losing the thread.  Easily distracted by the child hanging from pants leg or skirt.
• Forgetful about daily needs like breakfast, lunch and/or dinner.  Readily remembers and often exists on snack foods.
• Routinely stares off into space similar to someone having a petit mal seizure, but in reality is just falling asleep with eyes open.  This is one of the first symptoms of upcoming MADD and usually presents in new mothers; however, any level of sleep deprivation can trigger it.
• Sends kids to school with no lunch, backpack, jacket, shoes, or any other essential item.
• Often leaves the home in house slippers, forgetting to change into shoes.  Roaming the neighborhood in plaid pajama bottoms is a sign of advanced MADD.

These are just some of the symptoms I see on a regular basis; there are loads more.  MADD seems to be completely environmental, caused by a deadening of brain cells after extended periods of multitasking.

There is probably no medication or cure for this disorder, but perhaps, since the fed is feeling so generous these days, there could be some sort of social service agency set up for people (there are probably some dads suffering from PADD) suffering with this dreadful condition.  Respite services, regular distributions of chocolate and coffee, massages covered by health insurance, and nationwide mandatory nap times would all be good starting points.

Do you or anyone you know suffer with MADD or PADD?   How do you cope with it?  And, what are you thankful for today?

4. I am thankful that my bizarre sense of humor still helps me get through a day.