Feelings......

There are times, when living with Apergers syndrome is exhausting. Married to it, mother to it, daughter to it, you think I would be pretty much on the ball and 'get it' by now. For the most part I do, I really understand H's inability to understand emotion, Isaac's inability to speak to people, Seth's inability to accept that there are indeed opinions that differ to his ( What? How so!) My dad's dislike of hugging and demonstrative shows of affection were touching to me and ignored.
I have adapted remarkably well to my bizarre life and we muddle along quite pleasantly,usually.
Of late, Seth's attitude has become increasingly irritating to me, he has always been way ahead of the game and so at 7, he is ( to himself) an adolescent, he behaves as though puberty is behind him and speaks as though, just like a real teenager, he knows it all.
*yawn*
I have tried various methods of explaining to him that he is 7, he is a CHILD and as such there will be times when he is going to have to obey instructions that he neither likes or even understands. I have failed miserably. Lately I find myself sinking into a pit of apathy, I feel my weary head switch off as it tells me that it is tired of smashing itself against the unrelenting brick wall and oh, please just ignore him, let him whitter on and on and try to make stupid me understand why HE IS RIGHT! The mother in me panics and says " SOPHIE......He will be another SOPHIE, You are doing it again and you will have to face all that again but this time you will be OLD and he is SO smart and you will be TOAST! Stop it now.....do it NOW, save yourself and HIM."
So we try again and sometimes we get somewhere and sometimes, we don't.
Today is H's birthday, tomorrow is Isaac's birthday ( I am so booooooorrrrrrrrrreed with the birthdays will they be over soon, will they?) As always money is tight and H, bless his heart could care less about birthdays and so we can ( and do, yes we do) skip the presents and the boys make lovely cards that he actually opens because they are made, if I were to buy cards, I would find them in the unopened envelope behind the sofa, weeks later ( because I don't move the sofa every day and sweep, this post will be full of confessions, you may take notes and hate me for them later, there's a doozy coming really soon) I stopped buying him cards, I fought for a long time and gave up, he doesn't like cards unless they are homemade and poorly spelled.
He loves a good dinner and a splendid dessert ( rib eye steak, garlic mushrooms, salad and trifle for dessert, Happy birthday, all was perfect)
Isaac is 7 tomorrow, sunday, which could pose a problem because we don't do so many things on sunday and we do do some other things like go to church.
So we decided that the Isaac fun would be today. He could choose what we do. He wanted to go to a local pizza cafe for lunch, aha! thought I, if daddy takes him, we kill 2 birds, or even 3, with one stone, cheaper than everyone going, special because the boy gets a one on one with daddy and daddy gets to have a treat on his birthday too.
Great plan except Isaac, while no-one was looking made himself and then ate a pile of Peanut butter and jelly on toast....at 11am.
I am doing the best job at stretching this out, could be a long blog post, to make up for the days I have fudged by with pictures and youtube clips.
Back to the drawing board, I know, bother the rain ( relentless and beginning to feel personal, shall be taking affront any day now) why don't we tale all 3 boys to a brand new indoor play place. Cages of safe play climbing stuff and a table for mummy to sit and read and not have to clean up later, splendid.
Off we went, leaving daddy to have a whole afternoon of Olympics and a nap and whatever he chose.
I took snacks, we bought fries, bought a jug of juice and all was well.
They played long and hard....really really hard.


Yes, that hard.

Isaac and Eli would come over every now and then and refuel. Seth..no chance, food and drink to Seth are an aside, when all else is done, he eats what he needs to get through the next bout and off he goes again, he isn't about to interrupt the important stuff, like dodge ball with big kids in a cage with a real ball for something to feeble as food.



We stayed 4 hours and were thrilled when we saw that Gemma was there with cousins Sam and Joey and Jamie, who is 15 months and so wicked you could eat him on toast.


Jamie don't play with the babies, he has big brothers and he would escape the baby enclosure and make a bid for freedom every 3 minutes ( making me so happy to have huge big boys of 5, 6 and 7) Gemma would drag him back and put him with the toddlers in the safe bit and he would scale the wall and dash for fun again...at one time he was in the big boys basketball spot, right next to the front door and I swear he stood, face pushed against the netting, chewing at the net like a hamster trying to eat its way out of its cage!
Anyway, after 4 hours it was time to come home, Isaac was ready, Eli was ready and Seth started. He was hungry, well he did n't EAT any of the snacks or fries of treats and so NOW was the time to buy him some, now...right NOW. He didn't want to put his shoes on, he didn't care if it was raining ..SO?? SO?? Why should he put his shoes on, is he a girl? IS HE?
Well, all this was taking a long time, in a crowded place, that was hot and humid, after 4 hours of being there, after 4 hours of sleep.......on and on he want while I tried to reason with him, by now, well we were outside and it was REALLY raining and he still had no shoes on and still, yes still he was trying to get me to answer him. And I did. Indeed.
For that fleeting moment I forgot that he i s a 7 year old, he made me feel as mad as I could possibly feel and I do this thing where I shut up, I bite my tongue, I breathe deeply, I count to 300, I hum in my head and then.....well sometimes the devil makes me do it.
" Well..AM I A GIRL?"
"No, you are an idiot"
Yes, I said it and not in my head. To the 7 year old, right as a happy family with nice children and a patient mother walked past.
Oh bloody hell.
We drove home ( after he had asked me if MY mother would EVER have called ME such a thing and I had told him of course not because I would never have been so rude to MY mother etc etc)
I dropped him off with H because darned if I was taking him to buy dinner.
All the way around Asda ( whose manager called today to offer Sophie a JOB a real JOB and we aren't even thinking about what she is going to say about the Lime green uniform of a non flattering nature because its a JOB and she will have MONEY and she will even have to give ME some ! ) I was burning with shame and imagining how on parenting boards all over England people will hear about this mother with the sweet pixie little boy who was so CUTE and just walking beside her and she called him an IDIOT..for REAL, what would YOU have done? Would you have stopped her and told her how she was damaging that poor little soul for life?
I imagined how he was probably sitting in a dejected heap at home, in the hallway or even in the outside toilet, heart torn asunder because his mother....you get the picture. Anyway I knew what I had to do and I could turn it around and use it as a learning tool.
When I got home and found him on the sofa, with a plate stacked with all manner of delicious things, watching the Olympics ( anyone have a bent fork I can poke my eyes out with?) I asked him if I had hurt his feelings when I called him such a mean name.
The look on his face said it all.
What.are.feelings?
That's the root of it all. HE doesn't get feelings at all, when he does what he does, he is, in his eyes, trying to make me understand how things are, see it all HIS way because that is the ONLY way. There is nothing personal in it, he isn't trying to crush me, he doesn't get any of that. He is right.....he thinks it is his job to make me see that and he has no idea of the right way to put his opinions across.
What a huge task.
I have no idea where to begin to teach this boy that there are ways and means and it DOES matter how you speak to people, it does matter that in life, we must think of others and accept that there are times that we will have to do things we don't like, we cannot have it all our own way. For now we will be spending more time together, his world revolves around H, they discuss everything, they are one and the same mind....he is very rarely disrespectful to H because he sees him as important and worthy. Somehow I have to get him to see me as more than the maid who strokes his head at night time.
Small steps and huge prayers.