The following all happened in 35 minutes. I share it so you can too can experience these moments of joy. (Also, I’m an oversharer, so what else am I supposed to do?)
For those of you new to my life, Gideon is ten (at the time) and profoundly autistic. He is very limited verbally and also a strategic mastermind whose superpower is pretending to not pay attention while waiting for you to not pay attention.
7:00: My husband and I send our darling children upstairs with their respective electronic devices so we can do our twice-a-month marriage counseling via Skype. (We’re fine. But we have lots of stress in our life and we’re basically total opposites so it’s good to talk about stuff with a referee, er, therapist. You know what I mean.) Now, we ask the kids to play upstairs during these 45 minutes. Normally, ignoring me for 45 minutes isn’t a problem but when I NEED them to do it, they suddenly have to tell me about what they did in school three weeks ago, how they can’t find the one toy they must have and haven’t played with for two years, and also that the cookie they had after dinner didn’t have as many chocolate chips as their brother’s cookie.
Finally, we get settled.
7:11: Wherein Legos begin to rain down the stairs. That’s because Gideon got bored and he found his brother’s latest Lego builds and he casually (and with no small amount of joy) tossed them down the stairs, one at a time. Gideon’s life philosophy relies heavily on finding joy in breaking things.
7:12: Ben discovers Gideon breaking his Lego builds. Ben is 11 (at the time) and our middle son. 7:12:30: I pass over the laptop to my husband (remember our counselor can hear all of this) and go upstairs to redirect Gideon and calm down Ben. 7:13: Once upstairs, I discover a) Ben almost crying because of his broken Legos (just FYI—living with an 11yo boy is basically like living with a teenaged girl except they get emotional over Legos and Minecraft), b) sometime in the last hour, Lucy the Puppy (you may remember that she was adopted by my loving family while I was out of town for a week) has pooped upstairs, and c) Gideon has stepped in aforementioned poop and now has trailed it across the room to the top of the stairs in his LEGO-throwing fest. 7:15: I calmly (okay, not really, but I was quiet because again, the counselor can hear ALL OF THIS) calm down Ben, wipe off Gideon’s foot, force him to clean up the Legos, and then stick him in the shower. I tell Ben to sit on our bed and “keep an eye on Gideon.”
7:20: Back to therapy. I think a glass of wine might be more effective at this point but…eh, whatever.
7:25: I hear loud thumps on the ceiling. Foolishly, I ignore them. Ben would tell me if something were wrong, right? RIGHT?
7:30: Wrong.
7:32: I head back upstairs because Gideon’s been in the shower a while and Ben hasn’t said a word. I discover my sweet angel baby Gideon got bored. So he took lids off all the shampoos, conditioners, and body washes. (Which, side note, look at those fine motor skills. Occupational therapy is paying off!) He then dumped the contents of said bottles in the bathtub, thereby relieving the entire house of stuff to wash our hair and bodies. The thuds were the discarded bottles being tossed on the floor.
7:35: I get him out of the tub. Make him clean up the bottles, help him dress and put him into bed. I’m pretty sure the therapist heard me yell this time. So we might be going to twice a week sessions after this. (I’m kidding. Probably.)
And that is approximately 35 minutes in the life of our family.
You’re welcome.
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2 responses to “35 Minutes of My Life”
Wowza. Never a dull moment with kids, add autism for extra challenges
Aunt CC says. Write the book. Sign your name. Erma lives!