[Originally written 12/14/2008]

My son and I went to France and Spain earlier this year, it was ‘magnifique’ and ‘fantastico’ and all those other descriptive Latin-based terms.   

Everywhere we went I heard ‘Arrete!!’ (Wait!) ’Silence!’  (Quiet!!) ‘Attendes-Moi’ (Wait for me!)! Even if I hadn’t known a lick of French I understood the connotation of the words.  They came from moms; slathering sunscreen on her charges frolicking on a beach on the Mediterranean or the tired mother on the three-hour-delayed train to Paris trying to keep the kids occupied even though she’d run out of Euros for snacks, or the woman holding the hands of three (THREE) boys under the age of 6 attempting to cross a busy Parisian street.  Overhearing these exchanges struck me as the ultimate universal bond of mommy-hood: the ‘losing it with the kids’ in every language under the sun!

The ultimate memory I have is of the woman assisting her elderly mother across the street.  I can imagine the woman telling her elderly mom: ’Arrete!’ ‘attendes-moi’, and so forth. 

‘Tres amusant’ how situations reverse.

Mom and daughter, Paris

I may have written in here before about my youngest daughter.  She’s been a tad bit difficult since the age of three.  She’s now seven and we’re daring to breathe a sigh of relief. 

‘Tad bit difficult’ is the understatement of the millennium. 

We have the local exorcist on speed dial.  We put a cross on her forehead when she goes to sleep.  The whole family is scared to ask her to do anything, as they don’t want to risk her head spinning around. Seriously, scary. 

 She’s never been truly violent, but there has been episodes where the screaming continued for hours, and hours, and hours, over something as simple as giving her the wrong cup with dinner.  We were walking on eggshells never knowing what would fire up another ‘fit’. 

Coming from a long line of psychiatric studies, and the fact that any child psychologist we’ve approached said they were too busy to help, we’ve self-diagnosed her as having a form of Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  ‘ODD’ is another handy acronym in the ‘ADD.’ family.  It doesn’t help that the acronym spells out an unfriendly adjective.

My dad once said that since she’s the youngest, she has to be the loudest to make herself heard.  She definitely conquered the ‘loudest’ child, if that was indeed her goal.

Spring back to present day.  Recently we got a note from the after school program offering ‘free counselling’.  My husband and I looked at eachother and said at the same time ‘What’d she do NOW?’  We found that the she was merely the first child to get the notification, and we shouldn’t have been so paranoid.  Her sister, and the other kids received the same notice within a few days.  We eagerly signed her up. 

I explained to the counselor-in-training, about our issues.  She was quiet, and I expected her to put me on hold while she called that exorcist that we’d become so familiar with.  She did talk after a minute and said she was up for the challenge, and they’d get right to work!

It’s almost a happy ending–my youngest daughter hasn’t had a full-blown temper tantrum in the eight weeks of her counselling.  She’s been somewhat pleasant to her siblings, and sometimes accepts events that are out of her control. 

We still have that exorcist on speed dial, just in case.

I’ve been lying on my stomach out in the hall for awhile now listening to Adam read himself to sleep. He’s gone through The Little Engine that Could, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and is now rolling right on through The Cat in the Hat. He “reads” with perfection, missing not one phrase, page or word. His voice inflection might make him seem a natural for the stage. Those who didn’t know better would call him to the head of his class tomorrow to lead his friends in the daily story.

It is amazing, uplifting and heartbreaking all at once to be out here on the other side of his door listening to my six year old storyteller. How I ache to go into his room! How I want to push through that door, even though it’s supposed to be bedtime and encourage and share his experiences with the world that is opened up once we learn to read!

I can’t. I can only sit and listen. I think I can I think I can I think I can I think I can…I hear his sweet voice as I lie motionless, still as can be in the outside hall. My 6 year old, my baby, is reading himself to sleep.

I can’t share this with him because to push open his door, to interrupt his world right now, to even make a sound that would let him know my foot might cross his no fly zone would at best ruin the moment. At worst it would send him into tearful hysterics and delay the whole bedtime thing for Lord knows how long.

So I will sit on the other side of the door, listen, and not dare disturb.

And that my friends, is a slice of autism.