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Single autistic mother of three awesome autistic kids. These are my anonymous ramblings about life, love, parenting and the rest – emptying my head of the weird, the wonderful and the mundane. Hope you enjoy.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Of speech, circles, musical theatre and an unfeasibly large spider

DS2 weekend this weekend, DS1 at his Dad's. It's been a busy one - he is becoming more wilful by the second! Currently he is sleeping and has a big graze on his nose and forehead from falling out of the back door onto the concrete - that'll teach me to try and get some gardening done. I've finally got rid of the cherry tomato plants that he stands by going 'uh, uh' and pointing at every time he's in the garden. I think he's eaten 90% of those tomatoes - DS1 and I did not get a look in.

He's chosen this weekend to start using words. He opened on Saturday morning with 'emur' for the cuddly lemur in my bed (my lemur note, not the kids - sometimes a girl just needs a cuddly lemur). He then decided to say 'big dog there' to a big dog going down the road, and ended the day with the classic baby utterance 'nana' - for banana, of course. Getting dressed after bath time he added 'next foot there' - which is what I always say to him to put his other foot in his pyjama bottoms. So clearly, he can speak, which is good as I was getting a bit concerned. I went to a friend's on Friday, whose little boy, the same age, has a definite vocabulary of recognisable words he uses appropriately - where as up until this point DS1 would only utter 'bruvva' at his brother, other children and, with a slightly different inflection, at trees blowing in the wind - I have interpreted this as 'flower' but to be honest the difference is imperceptible to the non-mum ear. I can only assume that DS2 picked up on my concern and chose yesterday to tell me that he could use these things I called words, he just preferred to express himself through the medium of song and expressive dance - which he does all the time. I have created a musical theatre baby - somewhat unexpected, but who knows, he could go far...


Talking of which, his comfortable distance from me seems to be 10 meters away and beyond when we're in any open space - particularly when there's lots of people around, just to give me an even greater heart attack. His favourite place to run away is in the school playground, he goes and stands and looks at other families as if he's considering whether he might be better off with them, and then potters off to find something round to stand on. The round thing is his other somewhat challenging habit when we're out - it makes walking along pavements a very slow process. I never noticed how many water access points there were in pavements until DS2 decided to stop on every one, and woe betide me if I expect him to move on before he's finished the required amount of standing on these spots - full tantrum will ensue. His dance teacher completely innocently put out spots for the children to walk along one at a time, which was obviously red rag to a bull to DS2. He was refusing to move from one spot to the next and then just to make me even more proud, started pushing other children off when they tried to take their turn. 'My spots, mummy, get these cretins off them!'

Anyway, the weird thing about the comfort distance in open air, is that if he's at home and I walk into the other room, he comes running in and demands to be picked up. And heaven forbid I should take something upstairs, 'cause then he'll stand at the bottom of the stairs crying his eyes out until I return. I'm sure there is some explanation for it, but I can't think of one that explains why, when he's in a safe contained environment I'm not allowed to leave his side, but once he's somewhere outdoors, surrounded by strangers then I need to be as far away as possible - I can only assume I cramp his style.

DS1 arrived home tonight from a weekend at dad's, no yelling yet but it doesn't usually start until day 2 or 3, so I am all prepared to batten down the hatches should the onslaught begin. DS2 was very pleased to see him and giggled, rocked, danced and sang in his high chair all through tea to let him know - DS1 was very happy, having entirely accepted his brother's form of expression. I was less happy, as obviously all this expression meant that he couldn't possibly stop to eat any substantial amount of food - and why bother when you can always feed mummy dry later?! Strangely DS2 doesn't do this as soon as DS1 gets home - to begin with he just tries to leave, which in fairness he does every time the door opens, and then he just gets on with what he was doing. Its only after a couple of hours, normally around teatime that he notices that DS1 is back and gets excited about it. It really is very sweet.

Got DS1 to go straight to bed tonight as he was, as usual, shattered. DS2 only went to sleep about 9ish, having spent the time after bath playing with his 'vehicles' - a collection of £1-from-the-supermarket wheeled things that I got for DS1 when he was little. DS2 is very attached to these and will spend hours every day pushing them along mostly chairs, occasionally tables and those metal things that hold carpets down between rooms. What with the vehicles and his new found '3rd and Bird'  addiction (DS1 used to be into 'The Wonder Pets' made by the same people, must be a genetic thing then!) I actually managed to make packed lunch yesterday before going out, and cook tea tonight before DS1 came back. Hurray for TV and plastic, how did people parent before such things??

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