Real Deal

Jonah just came downstairs as Jesus. Robed in Jedi brown and wearing a silky dress shirt of his dad’s as a tunic (how is it that I don’t have a single nightgown for just such purposes?), he is a very pretty son of God. A little more Mary Magdalene than Jewish carpenter, but heck, you make the best with what you’ve got.

As it turns out, that version wasn’t really doing it for him, so the next time he descends, he looks like this:

Proof that Jesus comes in all shapes and sizes—and has a thing for sweater vests. (It took a lot of convincing to get him Not to wear that towel on our walk; tripping on his way down the stairs helped.) Also proof that Jonah is much less particular about the authenticity of his costumes.  If his imagination says it’s so, it is so. But that doesn’t meant Jesus isn’t real. At compliment time during “closing agenda” at school (circle time for the older set), J complimented Jesus for being in his heart. I’m not sure where he got that terminology, as it’s not the way we generally talk about Jesus at home or at church, but J assured me that he could give Jesus a compliment because he was present (being in the circle is the only prerequisite for getting a compliment): “Mom, he’s in my heart, so he was there.”

Back to the costumes. Let’s talk Gabriel (the boy, not the archangel), who is another bird entirely…

Let’s just say that in the course of a week, the boy has several meltdowns due to a lack of what he deems “realness”—as in, “But I want to dress up as the real Obi-Won Kenobi!…the real Han Solo!…the real General Grievous…” (uh, sorry kid, Grievous is a cyborg; no chance on that one). If G doesn’t match up, component to component, some shifty thinking is in order. The trick is to find a picture On The Internet (because if it’s on the internet, it’s Real) for which I can find a G-approved, authentic, getup. A sampling follows.

Indiana Jones (aka Junior)

Pajama Vader

Anakin the “Redeye” (post-meltdown)

Happy Hat Jagger Man (just because)

The tomorrow that came before

“The tomorrow that came before.”

That’s how G gets across his idea of “yesterday.” His language is like a ring on my finger. A loop of time that encircles the days instead of constricting them to a timeline—befores and afters plotted endlessly on a graph that depicts nothing but what has or hasn’t gotten done. Ah, the preschooled sage:

That’s what he likes to call his “dirty trooper” suit (the name he’s given to his Imperial Sandtroopers, though they’re not half as muddy as this little stinker).

Are everyone’s children as obsessive as mine? Or is this just one of those nerdy Star Wars boy things? He pours over his borrowed copy of the Lego Star Wars Character Encyclopedia, coveting the hundreds of figures he’s yet to obtain or doing his best to configure them with the pieces he’s got. Better yet, he makes up his own figures, like Luke Skywalker-Palpatine-Vader-Trooper or Han Solo-Darth Maul-Imperial Guard-Palpatine-Trooper (as you can see, every figure must have a little trooper and a little Palpatine for good measure). And these aren’t just imaginative names, they’re detailed descriptions representing the checklist of body parts he’s keeping track of in that three-year-old noggin of his. God forbid you put the wrong face on the Snowtrooper (which actually doesn’t have a face at all) or inadvertently use a white hand when it’s supposed to be black. He’ll call you on it. Every time.

Jonah’s currently into homemade dynamite. His most recent rendition:

In J’s mind, if you give it a fuse, it will blow. I admire his thinking and his initiative. He’s turned a couple of discarded plastic nobs (the “batteries”), a glowed-out glow stick (the “blow-up part”), an abandoned plastic tube from what was formerly his air pump rocket (the “shield that protects me from getting hurt”), a juice bottle (the casing of course) and a found piece of weed whacker string (the “fuse”) into an imaginative model, if not a thing of beauty. The part you can’t see in the photo is a wad of masking tape at the end of the fuse inside the bottle casing, which of course is the plastic explosives component.

I am still adjusting to a decaffeinated lifestyle, by which I mean, no caffeine in any shape or form. Wow. Who knew I was so slow? (Don’t answer that Mom or Dad or Cammy.) Who knew I needed a daily fifteen minute nap come two o’clock? Who knew how internally ever-so-slightly-continually agitated I was? I’m feeling the effect of my SSRI in a whole new way, which is to say, I was medicating myself with coffee to the extent that I didn’t really understand the side effects. I’m considering what to do about that, but in the meanwhile will leave things as they are, it being catalog deadline season. I should be much more agitated than I am about getting this thing finished, though I’m also glad not to be. That said, I think I’ll go lay out a few pages before dinner…

Summer Vacation

Here’s the thing about summer vacation: it’s not. Okay, you might take a week (or two if you’re lucky) and travel or do nothing in your own home but read and drink and write and sleep and eat, hopefully with relish, but (I’ve always got a but, don’t I?) gone are the days of our youth.

But summer still feels bright and open to me. I have this theory that the season you’re born into makes you a bit. Summer on a farm means work. You work more then than you do all year. Our farm was small, but I knew about the work. When I was old enough I left for a bigger farm and did some of the things they didn’t need me for at home: truck driving, fence mending, milking, plowing. It occurs to me now that summer’s openness connects me to work in a way that makes me relish it.

So if the days of our youth are gone, at least there’s the possibility that we might gain enough wisdom—really, just a smattering will do—to recognize just what it is we’ve got. Because here’s where I’m at right now: my kids are driving me a little nuts. They need far too much entertaining; or is it just that I’ve supplied them with too much screen time, too many “special” trips and surprises? Or is it that I’m weary of mollifying their every agitation? That hits closer.

Granted, my eldest has spells of (what are to him—and I understand, because I felt those feelings as a child) terrifying anxiety. And summer is great—Swimming! Swinging! Trips to see grandparents! Visitors from Kansas! Visitors from Texas! Saturday every day for three months!—but the lack of a more structured schedule takes a toll. More meltdowns. Behaviors bordering on the obsessive. And regression, I’m starting to see, is always an issue. All kids lose some skills over the summer. Jonah’s loss moves twice as fast. More days than not I recognize that certain areas of his life will be uphill all the way.

And the other one. The other one. Stubborn he is. Recalcitrant. A brilliant player and escape artist and nabber of inappropriate tools. He still puts everything in his mouth. I found him chewing on the DVD player cord the other day. He wants what Jonah has, always. Nothing less will do, and his incessancy can surpass that of his brother. Some days he hardly eats. He lives on limey juice and fruit.

John spoke what I have been feeling, but not consciously acknowledging, for the last week or so—right before Gabriel slipped out the gate and made his way around the block before we found him coming back ’round (Thanks to his archangel, once again. I mean it.):  “I just want to neglect them sometimes.” How’s that for a parental confession?

Because hey, it’s our summer too. And let’s face it, summer’s a whole ‘nother story when you’re a parent. Come mid-July the thought of the coming school year brings coinciding feelings of dread and relief. I love these boys just as they are, right now. I try every day to enjoy their little boys’ bodies and affections, but I wish sometimes they could pee without telling me, or poop without needing a wipe. Or fix their own food and keep themselves occupied (without a screen) for more than five minutes.

I initially titled this post, “Blame the Meds.” But as the day progressed—and it did so for me in a hazy, grouchy, short-tempered kind of way, due in part to two strong margaritas John made me last night, which I’m learning don’t at all mix with my sort of antidepressant (Celexa)—I came to see by simply living through my own dark mood that while the drinks affected the meds, which affected me, it’s still me in here. I’m the one learning and failing to learn how to live with myself, as myself. Personhood is tough, don’t let anyone tell you different. I’m sure I’ve written on this blog more than once that being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but right now, I don’t think that’s right.

I think being a real person is harder. Which is why summer will always be my favorite. I need bright days to rest in, to turn myself inside out in—whether it be through work or leisure. I have a decent understanding of work, but leisure… Sitting still with yourself, letting be (sometimes in the dark) requires not only courage, but also wisdom. I gotta know when to walk away.

Today Jonah asked me (in his attempt to get me to concede that light sabers actually are real and can be made—because hey, if a DK book shows it so, it must be): “Mom, are you thinking wiser yet?” Not quite yet. But thanks for reminding me to work on it.

   [Jonah’s new light saber, made from scrapped shower parts. We call this his Saber Dance. The pursed lips denote the making of light saber sounds.]

 

The Rules

I like being Jonah’s mom. But there can be a lot of rules.

He’s kind of obsessed with them actually. Except, it’s hard to know what the rules are. For him and for us. Most often breaking the rules involves one of us doing something that J doesn’t like. A simple foundering of communication. Like the other morning—John said J could do play dough in his room, which usually isn’t allowed (there’s the dogs and Gabriel roaming about, and the piles of dried-up-dough-specks to deal with). I told Jonah “no” after John had said “yes.” Much screaming in my general direction until John and I conversed (I learned that a drop cloth was part of the deal), and Jonah firmly concluded, “Mom, you didn’t know the Rules!”

Being right or wrong is also a big deal. In every situation, it must be pointed out. If any sort of disagreement arises, it must be decided. My favorite debate ended with J announcing, as I posted previously, “Mom, you’re not even wrong.” It could be about what’s in the package on the front step. It could be whether or not he had macaroni in his lunchbox or a cheese sandwich. It could be the location of where he made his treasure map at school. Say “Mrs. Jennifer’s room” when it was Miss Bridget’s and a high pitched shout erupts—“You are wrong! It was Mrs. Bridget’s!” Okay, okay, just trying to make conversation little man.

The concept of cheating also comes into play. Yesterday Gabriel woke up a little earlier than usual, breaking into Jonah’s morning routine with his dad, which involves (relatively) complete control of what happens with the iPad. Gabriel was incessantly repeating, “Bob, Bob, Bob” (the Builder) and commandeered J’s chair and the Device while J was busy putting on his shoes, which caused J to yell, “Nuh-uh! That’s cheating!” His understanding revolves around whether or not he gets what he wants, when he wants it. Every body struggles with this—kids especially. But it does feel like J’s world is particularly driven by it. I’m guessing it has to do with his innate sense of anxiety about things. (Hattie, a character on Parenthood, gives an honest response to the same sort of behavior in her autistic brother Max. Here’s the excerpt.)

Temple Grandin writes, in an article for Autism Asperger’s Digest, “Rigidity in both behavior and thinking is a major characteristic of people with autism/AS [Asperger’s]…How can common sense be taught? I think it starts with teaching flexibility at a young age.” She goes on to say:

A way to teach flexibility of thinking is to use visual metaphors, such as mixing paint. To understand complex situations, such as when occasionally a good friend does something nasty, I imagine mixing white and black paint. If the friend’s behavior is mostly nice, the mixture is a very light gray; if the person is really not a friend then the mixture is a very dark gray.

Watching J parse out the good and bad in people is instructive, and I think that one day, Temple’s example of mixing paint will come in handy. In movies, especially, Jonah is always trying to discern and label the characters as good or bad. Before he had seen the Star Wars movies, he was totally into Darth Vader. But in his mind, Darth Vader was a good guy. This came out at school when another child in his class wanted to play Star Wars. Jonah naturally chose to be Darth Vader, but when the other boy started chasing him and calling him a bad guy, J completely lost it. He began to cry and yell at the boy. When the teacher asked what was the matter, Jonah said, “But I am the Good Darth Vader!” I’m pretty sure the main reason Jonah sat through all six Star Wars movies was to see the exact moment when Anakin Skywalker made the final move from good to bad. I saw in him a palpable sense of relief when that shiny black mask descended and locked into place. The ambiguity had been resolved. Vader’s position was clear.

I find it interesting, Jonah’s bent toward rules and categories, especially when you consider that one of the primary issues for autistic individuals involves difficulty reading social cues. Intuitive rules of social interaction come hard and can be confusing for him. There’s something in Jonah, something fundamental, that is exploring, even now, how to sort this out. Undoubtedly, the world looks different to him than it does to me. I often wonder how accurate my perception of him actually is. But he’s not peculiar in wanting things to be black and white; very few people are at ease navigating the grey realms of this world.

I wish my thoughts were better organized on this front. I suppose gathering them helps, though I am reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote: “I have come to the conviction that if you cannot translate your thoughts into uneducated language, then your thoughts were confused. Power to translate is the test of having really understood one’s own meaning.” I’ll keep working on it.

In the meantime, Jonah’s drawing of a pirate drowning seems an appropriate way to close. There are good pirates and bad pirates, you know. I’m sure this is one of the baddies.