The Attack of the B-52’s

When we bought our house, one of the features listed was a built-in intercom system. An intercom is one of those things that, in theory, sounds wonderful but in actuality ranks right up there with a central vac system on the list of "features" that are never used.

I cannot recall a single occasion when the doorbell has rung and, instead of walking to the door to answer it, I have walked the other direction to the intercom panel in the kitchen to press the button and say, "HELLO?" What really is the advantage? If I then hear the voice of someone I do not want to see, I have just given away the fact that I am home. If it is someone I actually want to let in the house, I then have to walk to the door anyway. It just seems like an extra step.

We do, in fact, use the intercom but not for the intended purpose. I don't think that the inventor of the built-in whole house intercom envisioned the parents of a child with autism spying on him, but that is what we do. We have the "monitor" button pressed in David's room so that we can hear what he is doing at night. He does not really have a problem with wandering, but I do worry about him leaving the house and the intercom is the first line of defense because we can hear if he is up. Strike that—I can hear if he is up, because I seem to be the only one in the house who can hear, or who pays attention to the noise, that constant backdrop of activity in David's room.

I must admit, I do get tired of trying to read my book, watch a TV show or write while trying simultaneously to pay attention to but also to tune out the noise from David's room. I guess that is the price of peace of mind.

Last night, however, I almost ripped the intercom system out with my bare hands. David has been sick and has not been sleeping well and since I can hear every cough, sneeze and sniff, I am tired. I was sound asleep when at 1:00 a.m. I heard the song "Love Shack" by the B-52's blaring in the house. It couldn't have scared me more if an actual B-52 had just flown into the house. It must have actually catapulted me out of the bed because I swear that by the time I woke up I was already standing in the door of the bedroom. I thought the noise was coming over the intercom, so I ran to David's bedroom thinking he had turned on his radio, but that was not the case. I ran back to our bedroom to check Michael's radio, when I finally realized that the intercom radio was turned on, blasting music throughout the house and probably through the outside speakers, as well. Sorry neighbors.

I went downstairs to the kitchen control panel to discover that David had managed to program the intercom system to have the radio turn on at precisely 1:00. A.M. I didn't even know it had that feature. I turned the lights on, spent several minutes pressing buttons in an attempt to figure out how to disarm the monster, ate a brownie (I could rationalize it at the time) and then climbed back into bed.

"Did you hear that?" I said to Michael who seemed singularly unconcerned about the attack of the 80's party music and he replied, "Hear what?" When I explained what had just happened, he laughed because he hadn't been able to figure out why that song had been going through his head.

Our Daily Discourse - Getting All Emotional

One of the concerns, when you have a child with autism, revolves around emotions, both the appropriate expression of emotions the ability to recognize or empathize with emotions in other people, called theory of mind.

David seems to be able to understand my emotions pretty well, although I have noticed that he often moves my hand away from my mouth when he looks at my face, particularly when we are cuddling in bed in the morning and, evidently I have a habit of covering my mouth I am sure in a subconscious attempt to protect him from my morning breath. It is as if he cannot really read my emotions from just my eyes and likes to look at my whole face before he smiles and talks to me.

Very recently, I have also noticed that he is starting to tell me how he feels. “I mad,” he will sometimes say. A few days ago, I scolded David because he kept turning off the TV while Andrew was watching a program. He looked up at me, his chin quivering, tears welling up in his eyes and announced, “I cry now” before he buried his face into my sweatshirt.

The Round-Up

David turned six years old in November and is completing a year of Kindergarten in a special education classroom. Next year, he will repeat Kindergarten in a general education classroom. Today is the Kindergarten roundup at his school, and I did not attend. Instead, I am sitting at Panera having just finished chatting with my sister.

I did not receive information in the mail about the aforementioned round-up of Kindergarteners. David does not attend our neighborhood school, which is too full to have an early childhood or a special education classroom and probably explains why sometimes we seem to be in a vacuum. I did not attend the Kindergarten round-up last year, either, because it really didn't apply to David since he was not going to be in a traditional classroom. And, we had not been invited. I also did not attend the tea for the Kindergarten mothers on the first day of school because I did not even know about it until I later read about it in the school newsletter.

So, my to-do list for Monday included calling the school office to get the information so that we could be rounded up with all of the other Kindergarteners, but then I had to pause for a moment. What really would be the purpose of going? To take David on a tour of the school that, by next fall, he will have attended for three and a half years? To take a look at the classroom that he already spends some of his time in? Should I pull him out of class for the round-up? Or go by myself and have to explain to people why I am there without my son?

Do I really want to subject myself to comparing David to all the other precocious kids, most of whom are a year younger than David and would be galloping circles around him? Okay, that last question is not really fair. They would be galloping circles around him with their ability to communicate, but academically David would be ahead of many of them, not that any of the other mothers would be able to tell from talking with him.

It was as if there was a prom and I hadn't been invited. In the end, I decided that I really didn't want to go, but it would have been nice to have been asked. Here I sit at Panera, thinking about the first day of school next year. With or without the round-up, David has the benefit of experience and will be much better prepared than many of the other students.

So, I picture David moseying into the classroom on the first day, thumbs hooked through his belt loops, elbows out, walking with legs bowed like he has spent his whole life on a horse. He greets his peers, "Howdy there, partners. This ain't MY first rodeo."

Wordless Wednesday

I often wish I could see the world through David's eyes and I guess this is the closest that I will ever come.  Sometimes I have difficulty deciphering the shots when David has gotten ahold of my camera.  Any guesses?  

Looking down through a naked ironing board.