Mishmash

It's spring. The garden is loving all the rain we've had this year. Lochlan is hilarious. Azadeh has ups and downs.

Lochlan is so curious about everything. He especially wants to know what kind of animal that is, what it eats, and what sound it makes. We were in Elk Grove, and the sign has the words "Elk Grove" in big letters, a tree on the right, and a fairly small elk in the corner. But he was like, "What is that animal?!" As soon as we got home, he got his dad to play him videos of elk making noises. Tonight on the way home from dinner, he told us he was going to ask his dad to play it again. "I will ask Dad to show me the video of the elk making the elk noise to call the other elk family to come over there!"

We've had some really rough moments and some real bright spots as well. Friday night we said we were going to a restaurant near the house. Azadeh complained -- we go there EVERY NIGHT. (We've been about three times in three months.) I suggested she get a different menu item than usual, maybe a burrito or quesadilla. She said "yeah, okay." Five minutes later, we were all walking down the street when she realized we were headed for that restaurant. Long story short, she had NOT been listening to me and was NOT okay with going there. But she's a kid, right? Sometimes you have to suck it up when your parents make decisions. Well... Not for her. She got to the corner where the restaurant is, turned around and ran home. That sucked. Losing your autistic nine-year-old, even briefly, on a busy street is not enjoyable at all.

But for the rest of the weekend, she was actually pretty cool. She made a daisy chain yesterday. Today she joked with me as I tucked her in.

Some other bright spots come in the form of other people.

I'm -- kind of strange? Like, I really enjoy other people's company and I like to spend time with folks, but I'm sort of equally happy to be a loner. A couple weeks ago I went to Asha Urban Baths, and I went alone and took a book. There were four gals there hanging out with each other, doing face masks and taking selfies. It looked fun. It occurred to me that since my bestie moved away, I really don't do girl time stuff anymore. But I do have a friend in town that would have gone to the baths with me. I just... I guess sometimes I find it too much work to reach out, coordinate times, plan around other people's schedule. And I don't mind being alone, so it ends up that if I do stuff like that, I do it alone fairly often.

Anyway, it's also kind of hard to reach out and ask for help and make connections. But this month has been sort of a banner month for that.

First, I asked Dad (Mr. Bowsaw to you) if he'd help take Azadeh to karate one day a week, because I just couldn't make it work with her therapy schedule and Lochie's nap. He was willing, and although the first two weeks, she refused to go, after that, we talked with her about a schedule that worked better, and now they've been going quite happily.

Second, and also schedule-related, the ABA people are forever asking us if we want to bring Az to their clinic. Well, she LOVES the clinic (my impression is that they mostly do art), but it's pretty far  away -- a twenty minute drive in good traffic on a stretch of freeway that often has bad traffic. But then a girl in her class started going, and now the mom and I coordinate. I asked if she might want to have me take the girls out there and drop them off, and she could pick them up and bring Az home. We've done it three times now, and it really makes it easier. Yesterday I almost picked the mom some flowers, but then it turned out we were going to drop the girl off at another friend's house, and I didn't want to be weird.

Also recently, another girl joined Azadeh's karate class and the two of them bonded instantly. We invited her to the birthday party, and the two of them are fast friends. Well, the mom sort of hinted to me one day that they "might have some of the same issues." Then she texted me to say that she hoped I'd talk to her on the phone, because the girl was just diagnosed as autistic. We agreed that she'd text today to figure out a good time to call. Well, she didn't text all day, so after 4, I texted her and said I was around, and if she was feeling awkward, please don't, because we all need allies. She called immediately and we talked for about half an hour.

So, you know, some stuff gets harder and some stuff you find solutions for, and reaching out for help and cooperation, and even reaching out the other way, to offer help, can feel pretty good.


One last thing. I learn new stuff about her autism all the time. On spring break, we went to Old Sacramento, and while we were up on a ramp looking at the water and the bridges, we heard a horn. The passenger train was coming! We sat down to watch. But as it actually rolled in, still blowing its horn, and now the sound of the engine and the tracks, she got visibly irritated, then mad. She yelled at no one in particular, "WHY IS IT MAKING ALL THAT NOISE! SOMEBODY STOP THE NOISE!" And I realized right then that she had done things like that for years and years. Suddenly angry, shouting at people who couldn't do anything about it, asking questions with no good answers... In the past I had always thought, "Geez, kid... you know better than that! Stop shouting at people! What the hell? You KNOW a train is going to be loud." But that day it dawned on me (SO LATE, I KNOW!) that it was part of her sensory processing issues that come with autism. Ever seen a non-verbal or limited-verbal autistic kid start rocking back and forth covering his ears because of a noise? Yeah... that is what my kid was doing, except she expresses it as anger and shouts. How had I never seen that before? In the beginning of this paragraph, I said "her autism." Because as they say, you meet one person with autism and you've met one person with autism. Hers is uniquely hers, and sometimes it's hard to recognize her behaviors as typical of autism, but they totally are -- you just need to be looking at it hard to realize it. (Like her "stims" -- I had literally NEVER heard of "vocal stims" until I saw this video, when I felt like I was having one of those "Shoulda had a V8" moments. I was like, Man, I guess we shouldn't have spent 6 years telling her to quit making that weird noise!)

Okay, yeah. So... up and down. Elk noises. Reaching out. All good.

"She's autistic."

...Is something I almost never say. I mean, I'm not ashamed of it, and I don't mind talking about it, but on the other hand, it's not anyone's business, particularly, outside of our loved ones and her teachers.

If I'm singing along with Billy Joel in Trader Joe's, no-one needs to know my whole back story. They can either figure it out (my story is I have completely undiscriminating tastes in music and no shame) or ignore it. Same when my kid is making weird noises or screeching "WHAT'S MAKING THAT SOUND?!" You either have enough experience with autistic kids that you already know, or you think she's ill-behaved and you're judging me and I don't give a single fuck.

But I did say it today. It felt very unfamiliar to do so.

I took the kids to the child care center at the gym. I initially thought I might just work out, but I saw that a yoga class was starting, so I went back to the child care center to tell them where I'd be in case they needed me. (This is a very minor lie -- I was also checking up on the kids, but whatever.)

The woman in charge said they were both fine, and "Your daughter is so funny! She was like, 'I don't usually like humans, but I don't mind spending time with babies, I guess.'"

It paused on my tongue for just a second, but in that second I decided that my kid saying she doesn't like humans might, in fact, be worth an explanation, especially to someone providing her care. It would help make sense of her, a little.

I know it helped us make sense of her, a little.