9 Trains (#510)

After so much motion yesterday, Charlie slept in till 10am.

Then we went and did it again, to ride a total of 9 trains in all.

Maybe you're thinking, this family has a thing about trains?

It is true that motion does something for Charlie who indeed rarely sits except to eat and when he is at his desk with a teacher or therapist, and then only for brief segments. When he was in utero, I dutifully kept track of how many movements I felt per day and the totals were regularly beyond the average. Charlie's love of water and his ease in the ocean have always seemed to me to be symptomatic of what can seem a physiological craving for movement such that he hums (his voice in motion?) and paces.

And then there is Charlie on his bike: It was no simple matter for him to learn to balance and to squeeze the brakes (how exactly he was taught to do these things is something I have been bothering Jim to write down). If it had been up to me, Charlie would have stayed with the training wheels till he seemed 110% confident and ridden in parking lots. But Jim kept announcing he was going to try Charlie on this or that new thing and to lead Charlie on rides on our town's streets, far past the confines of a parking lot). Too, as Charlie grew, he kept needing a bigger bike and before you know it, the bikes were too big to have foot brakes. To see Charlie pumping his legs and standing in the pedals and pumping some more (I can almost feel the wind on his face), is to see Charlie strong and powerful, and able.

The hard part is always for Charlie to get into motion. Jim used always to have to hold Charlie's shoulder and/or the bike as Charlie started to pedal (after which, as Charlie rode down the street, Jim ran to kick the kickstand up on his bike, got on, rode off at full throttle). Charlie's balancing skills have been increasing such that he is able (as he was this morning) to balance the unmoving bike just long enough to put his feet on the pedals and start riding; I watched him manage this ballet of leg and foot movements tentatively but calmly, and then off he and Jim went.

Jim had to go visit his old office in the Bronx and we could have driven---it was raining---but Jim wanted to take the train. It was two trains into Manhattan (we have to transfer after a few stops from our town), where stopped for a fast lunch (take a wild guess what Charlie ate---think Japanese) and then we stood in line across the plaza from the Met Opera House to get tickets to the Big Apple Circus. Then it was back on the subway---the D train----all the way to Fordham Road, where a colder wind and rain came down on us. A mother whose college-bound son has Asperger's had emailed Jim in the wake of the October 27th Autism and Advocacy conference and we had a fine talk with them while Charlie made himself at home on a leather couch in the office and watched the trailer for Flushed Away (after Charlie left the computer, the student challenged me to take a quiz on Homer's Iliad).

Then we had five trains to go, starting with the Metro North and two subway rides. We had to run to make the connections: I hurried after Jim who held fast to Charlie's hand. Charlie, who tends to dawdle with me, was skipping along without a pant, and indeed with a grin as we sped by people sitting on the floor, luggage nearby, subway musicians, too many storefronts promising fried food, sandwiches, newspapers, soda, pizza, random souvenirs.

Running, running, getting a move on it, and two more trains to get back home.

(We made it.)