B. comes to visit

Trains
Glass
Landmarks


Yellow
White
Pink


Water and Leaves

This past Friday, my 8 year-old autistic nephew came with his dad to spend the night at "Uncle Jeff's" in "Midtown City". He is "highly functional", which in the special ed world seems to mean "he can learn and reason and laugh and smile and make jokes and brush his teeth and hug and love Star Wars like every other 8 year-old little boy, but is still somewhat unpredictable." To me, it's more like he has super-A.D.D. You never know what is going to grab his attention; and certainly just because you want his attention doesn't mean he's going to give it to you.

He doesn't throw tantrums, but if something upsets him, it's difficult to distract him from it or reason him out of it. If he doesn't like the noise from a thunderstorm, you can't convince him that it's okay and he shouldn't cry. If he wants to give someone a hug, you can't convince him that touching is okay, but not with strangers. If he wants to play with a toy that some other kid has brought into a restaurant...well, you get the idea.

I don't know if T.V. is a blessing or a curse, but in B.'s case, parking him in front of the boob tube or the computer does hold his attention and keeps him out of mischief and has even increased his vocabulary and taught him whole conversations. A BBC.com program taught him to say things like "I need a vehicle" when he doesn't want to walk the rest of the way home. Some random cartoon has taught him to yell "Yippee!" each and every time he jumps into the pool. If something scares him or if he just decides to tune you out, he will cover his ears and repeat one of these conversations with himself. It makes him both exasperating and endearing.

So, Friday night at Uncle Jeff's was spent jumping into the pool ("Yippee!"), eating pizza ("I want a pizza that's round, like a circle, with tomato sauce, cheese, and pepperonis"), and watching "Return of the Jedi" ("I love Chewbacca"). Saturday was spent at the train exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

After he and his dad left, I no longer had to check for him picking up stuff, or leaving food sitting on the sofa, or popping something into his mouth, or just wandering out the door. I got to go down to the pool and sit and relax and talk with all the adults about work and taxes and politics and homelessness and other grown-up stuff.

Sigh.

I jumped into pool, screaming "Yippee!"