We Go With Him

A Good Shave

 

Saturday morning, Jim took Charlie to the barbershop (it's 5 minutes from our house) not for a haircut but a shave. At an (actual) haircut a few months back, Jim had had the barber give Charlie little 'cleaning-up' in the mustache/beard area; he had afterwards concluded, the best way to get Charlie a close shave is regular visits in the barber chair.

Shaving is one of those topics I have never wanted to confront. Aside from having no idea how to go about it, the thought of having to put any sort of blade near Charlie's face was simply terrifying. Your son having to shave is a sort of parents' Rubicon, a sign that the little boy is no more.

The physical changes of adolescence have plagued Charlie since he was about 11: Growing, body and facial hair, hormone, acne, and all that. He does not receive any sex education in the sense of learning about the male and female anatomy; it's up in the air what he would absorb from such a presentation. He is learning about safety, security, strangers. We've talked about him 'growing up' and there being lots of 'changes' and tried to be beyond sympathetic, Jim and I having both found adolescence a particularly unpleasant and unhappy time. [16:00, 18 Sept 11: I edited this paragraph a bit to clarify things upon reading the comments below.]

Jim has regularly been using an electric shaver on Charlie's face. Using a real razor and shaving cream is down the line but no one is looking forward to Charlie getting a cut. The electric shaver only gets so close and the barber option seems viable (and it has an added bonus: the more times Charlie does something, the more used to it he is). The barbershop has been very welcoming of Charlie since the youngest, newest barber, Mike, starting cutting Charlie's hair when he was 8 years old. Usually Charlie gets his hair cut by Antonio, a retired school custodian, but he wasn't in the shop yesterday morning and Charlie accommodated readily to someone else shaving him.

Certainly he must feel more comfortable, in a sensory way, with a nice shave. Looks aren't everything, of course, but what can I say -- minus the shadowy mustache and beard, Charlie looks not only less, ah, scruffy, but his actual age (instead of 17 or older, as he's often mistaken for).

After the shave, Charlie had a smiley Saturday. There was a massive tag sale going on in the NJ horse country town near where he and Jim ride on the trail and Charlie wanted only to do five miles. He got in his ride miles at home and was mostly in an easy-going mood all day (minus a few minutes of intense rocking in the car.)

Yes, Charlie and Jim are poised to become quite the regulars at the barbershop.

Growing Up and Getting It: Conversing with Charlie

Charlie couldn't sleep on Sunday: Too excited at the prospect of going back to school after the winter break.

Consequently, he was very groggy at 7.30am Monday morning. But he got up and into the car and he and I headed off to the Big Autism Center in very good order. 

Our wake-up mechanisms are deliberately non-intrusive: Opening the shades to Charlie's room, turning on some music (jazz---Miles Davis---has been a good choice, less so the Kinks). These days, Jim (channeling memories of his own boyhood when he'd be so excited about school the next day! that he couldn't sleep all night) has a very co-sympathetic way of rousing Charlie. As the Mom Who Said 'Time To Wake Up' Once Too Much, I tend to step back and listen to Jim's friendly 'hey pal' and 'you gotta hear Phil!'.

Charlie's older and growing up, highly attuned to 'Dad's this way and Mom's that way.' And I'm glad of it. However little and limited his language and talking, whatever he scores on the standardized tests, Charlie is no 'toddler in a teenage body.' He's a teenager, through and through.

Monday, as Charlie and I approached his school, I expected him to say---in contradiction to his previous days' insistence about getting to school---'no school no school, all done,' or some such. This has happened quite a bit in the past and, after uttering his protest/last-minute anxiety, Charlie usually handles going into school all right. Monday, as we turned into the Big Autism Center's driveway, I caught a glimpse of Charlie smiling broadly in the rear view mirror. He didn't say a word as we drove past the long line of buses and bus-minivans. An aide came right out and Charlie, after making sure the strap on his schoolbag was fastened, went right in and had a good day.

The afternoon at home was good, too. Charlie called for a bike ride and---well, do you think he and Jim went out and pedaled in 28 degrees?

What else have they been doing?

Once home (very rosy-cheeked from the cold), Charlie started calling for the airport. He picked up his iPad and pulled up a photo of an airplane I had found, to use in the social story about my parents visiting. It was just about two weeks ago that we had picked them up at the airport.

And Charlie had put a suitcase in the back of the car Monday morning.

Jim proposed driving to the airport, as 'practice.' 'Airport' said Charlie. I grabbed our coats and into the car and up the Garden State Parkway we went, and round to Terminals A, B, and C.

'Arrivals or departures, Cha, what do you think?' asked Jim.

Pause.

'Airplane,' said Charlie.

In days gone past, we would have found this little adventure more than foolhardy. Charlie then would have expected that, as we were going to the airport, there would my parents be. But last night, as we drove past the baggage claim areas (Jim had chosen to drive us through Departures), I said words to the effect of 'you know, Charlie, you know what's going on.'

And he did. Of course Charlie knew that my parents had just left last week and that they won't be back for a bit---that has been the case since he was a baby. Just going to the airport, just seeing and just talking about airplanes, doesn't mean that Gong Gong and Po Po will show up at Door 4 or whatever.

'Practice,' said Jim again as we were finishing our tour de l'aéroport Newark. 'Home and bedtime.'

'No home,' said Charlie. And, 'no bed.'

Soon as we pulled up into the driveway it was:

'Bedtime.' And, 'no iPad'----a request, or rather more of an order, that we leave it in the car, the better to be ready to drive to school tomorrow.

My Guys

I've been noticing---actually, I've always noted this, since when Charlie was a baby, but it's been especially apparent as Charlie is growing up---that there's a sixth sense of understanding between him and Jim. Circumstances have meant that I've clocked in a great number of hours solo with Charlie and know him quite well. I am the person most likely to figure out what Charlie means when he says "give" (it means a lot more than Webster's says it does, when Charlie uses it). A slight change in Charlie's features, a straightening of his shoulders, and I know what's coming next.

With Jim and Charlie, there's something so tightly similar, in their interface with the world, especially its sensory aspects; in the lag they both have in processing difficult situations; in their both thinking better (if not best) on their feet and when in motion. And, most of all, perhaps: In their deep, below-the-skin love of the ocean.

(For which the above photo provides photographic evidence.)

It was almost 50 degrees at the beach but 35 in the ocean and, while Charlie insisted on wearing his swimsuit and doffing his shirt and jacket and socks and shoes, he didn't go in. We got the inevitable double-takes and "you know it's TOO COLD to go into the water!" from other people, including a couple of wet-suited surfers. 

Sillies, Jim and I said to each other silently via glances, Charlie's not going to jump into freezing cold water. He knows better. And he also knows that, when you go to the beach, you have to be appropriately attired. 

When it comes to the ocean at all times of the year, Dad, and Charlie, know best.

Doughnut Burger

This post is going to be a jumble-potpourri-mishmash of things (sort of like this doughnut burger, hence the title) because too many things are on my mind at the moment.

1) We don't know if Charlie is going to have yet another snow day Tuesday. No word yet from his school as I type this at midnight EST. Jim happened to be near the town where the Big Autism Center is and told me that it is definitely snowing there, and it has started to here (just 35 minutes away).  Am sleeping with my phone nearby to get the news from the emergency hotline post-haste.

2) Having gotten through last week's snow days and a long weekend, "school" is a popular word around here. Yes, we love family togetherness; yes, we absolutely heart school (Charlie most of all), and you can only be philosophical about yet another day off from school for so long. 

3) Speaking of philosophy reminds me of no one less or other than......Plato and Aristotle, whose views on women and their "inferior natures," etc., I'm prepping for Tuesday's Women in Antiquity class. 

4) Fortunately, things for Women Today have improved, or at least to the point that even the President skips out of meetings about his health care plan to attend his daughter's band recital.

5) Jim and I have both been devoting ourselves to keeping things as peaceable here as we might. Monday found us unable to resist another drive down to the ocean (a different spot than on Sunday). It was much warmer (high 30s) and Charlie was very game to run out across the snow, over the sand, and near the waves.

6) Those warmer temperatures were a signal of an impending storm, which led to a noticeable rise in the barometric pressure, which had something to do (along with just a brief period of video-watching on the computer) with Charlie crying out from a storm in his head, and spending half of a walk still crying and swinging his head. Considering all the disruptions to his schedule, I didn't think it going to be a completely "behavior-free" series of days.  

7) I know we can muddle through one more unexpected day off of school for Charlie. But am sure hoping for at least a delayed opening for school---Charlie's anxieties about no school are pretty much contagious with Jim and me.

8) While our attention is obviously homeward directed, we always keep an eye on "the rest of the world. Jim and me both being professors, and me having gone through the tenure process just two years ago, we've been shaken by the deaths of three biology professors and the injuries to three more people at the University of Alabama Huntsville after another professor, neuroscientist Amy Bishop, is accused of shooting them at a faculty meeting. One blogger has speculated if Prof. Bishop might be "easily diagnosed with aspergers syndrome [sic]." Possible diagnosis of anyone is always a topic I'm very, very wary of, though I suspect this won't be the only time Asperger Syndrome may be mentioned in regard to what happened in Huntsville.

9) Still determined to keep trying to keep moving forward even when things feel so disjointed, after Charlie had watched one of the videos he likes (and has seen about a 100 too many times), I showed him a video of a lion dance competition in Malaysia and talked about him being part-Chinese and it being Chinese New Year, gong hay fat choy. Quite to my surprise, Charlie watched the whole video, with the volume turned down (those drums can be loud) and my partial translation of the male and female commentators' patter (Ta chiu-le. Gaoxing! Ta chiu, wo jie.....) Maybe tomorrow we'll take a look at Shen Xue's and Zhao Hongbo's gold medal performance (she does have the same last name as I do --- Zhao is the Mandarin pronunciation of Chew).

Or maybe we'll just watch another lion dance. Or the men's curling.

On He and She and Other News

A little phrase Charlie said to me in the car last night signalled his increasing awareness of a subject he's struggled to grasp and articulate: Gender. 

Starting when he was about 5, there've been attempts to teach Charlie the difference between "man/woman," "boy/girl," first with flashcards with carefully selected photos of these pasted on and then with real live people. Society's collapsing of gender markers like "pants for boys, skirts and dresses for girls" and short hair vs. long hair have made identifying those photos supremely difficult for Charlie. With actual people, his responses were sometimes right and sometimes not. Since it's always possible to be 50% right about whether someone is a boy/girl, or man/woman, we could never quite tell if Charlie meant what he said and said what we meant.

Nevertheless. No data or "hard evidence" to back this up, but, based on how he acts, Charlie knows the difference. Up until he was about 7, all of his therapists, teachers, and aides were women (a not uncommon situation in the special education teaching, and the teaching of younger children). When Charlie was 9, he had one male home ABA therapist and two male aides at school and he definitely seemed more animated and active around them. The therapist and the aides were all tall and were quite able to give Charlie piggy-back rides and to toss him around (which Charlie loved). At his elementary school, Charlie had access to a bicycle and he would ride it around the parking lot, with the aides running after him. 

All three guys were, as they told us, very fond of teaching Charlie. From speaking to them, I got the sense that school hadn't been their favorite thing growing up and they always seemed to relish being able to run around and be active and energetic with Charlie. (And so you can imagine what a loss it was to Charlie when he went to middle school in September of 2008 and it was decreed, no more of that kind of "kidstuff.") (Plus, both of the male aides were sent to work with high school students.)

It's also the case that Charlie has at times aimed a hand in the chest area of some female teachers and therapists and of yours truly. Charlie doesn't do this with male teachers and therapists or with Jim. It's not been a big deal to redirect this kind of thing. Indeed, if we make too big a deal of it, Charlie is very likely to try to do it more.

So when, yesterday night in the car, Charlie said:

"Gong Gong Daddy. Po Po Mommy"

I first thought, First time he's said that, and then it occurred to me, I think he's pairing the four of us by gender. And also articulating his knowledge.  

(It is the case that I do wear skirts and dresses from time to time. And I think it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that Charlie's made note of this too.)

Thursday was also the first day around here that felt more like "the usual usual"---I can't write normal; a fair amount of people would not consider our daily existence "normal." Charlie woke up at 6.30am which gave him plenty of time to lie around in bed until he was fully awake, get dressed, run around the house and poke around the kitchen, use the computer, write and talk about the date with me, and load up the white car with various items (not the CD case---he looked crestfallen when we told him we were going to give it a rest, but then seemed content with the radio). He had a good day at school and a good rest of the day at home, going on two brisk walks with Jim. 

It was the first day of no major drama in a while for us unless of course you count Jim and his book in yesterday's New York Times.

And that little phrase that Charlie said.