Dear Addie,
This weekend I needed to get our house back in order. With the hustle and craziness each week holds - jobs, activities, homework, therapy, laundry among a number of other chores... all were in desperate need of attention. An all too real struggle I’m sure many busy families can relate too.
I had planned this “catch up day” and daddy was on the case to take everyone to soccer so I could effectively get into “the zone.”
Yes Addie, your mama is one of those crazy people that actually enjoys cleaning and organizing. It just makes me feel more at ease and relaxed if things are in order, and there’s a feeling of accomplishment when it’s all done that I enjoy - to each their own.
Here's the thing though, we don't necessarily see ”order” in the same fashion. Most autistic individuals thrive off of predictability including where and how all of your belongings are kept. This definitely makes life interesting from a cleaning perspective, especially when there is no such thing as out growing toys in your world. Everything has a place and purpose right down to actually baby toys that you still play with.
Now it’s all fun and games, but then there’s the reality that underneath all of your perfectly placed toys and objects is a floor that eventually needs to be cleaned. Which brings us to part of my “zone” this past weekend.
Addie if I had to define your room I’d say it was an adventure in what seems to be a Toys R Us store mashed with the land of misfit toys. There’s a purpose to the placement of all your things - even broken parts to things now are new things that get their own space. A vicious cycle of stuff.
There’s always more than one pondering thought about the placement of something while I’m in there. Like what did all those Fisher Price Little People do to get banished under the bed or why is Snow White in the manger? I might never know the answers here.
With you all at soccer I had limited time but was determined if nothing else to get your room cleaned. Lucky for us this task has gotten less dramatic over the years. I will clean it up and you’ll promptly spend the next hour putting it all back the way it was and almost find enjoyment in doing so. See we are alike baby girl, just what we think is orderly is wildly different.
It was right down to the wire, but I finished your room (and like 5 loads of laundry, but who’s counting) as everyone was arriving back home. You went straight to your room for some decompressing after the soccer game only to find what I saw as order and cleanliness. You saw it as everything had been moved and you were now scanning your room taking inventory of all your objects mentally preparing on how to get them all back ”into place”. You closed your door and we wouldn’t see you again for another 45 min.
I had now moved onto the kitchen when I heard you running down the hall, bouncing your way down the stairs, to wind up next to me feverishly asking for...
A yellow? A yellow?
Having no idea what you meant naturally I tried to get more details with, “a yellow what Addie?”
You once again replied only a bit more frantic and stressed with “a yellow?”
Two-way communications has always been a great challenge on our autism journey and this was the moment I knew I wasn’t about to get anymore info and super sleuthing was next on my list of things to do.
Here’s the thing Addie, the more anxiety or stress you seem to get about something or a situation, the less language you seem to be able to produce. So in other words frustration of an object’s absence almost makes you forget more descriptive words, so you grab onto the way you were playing with said object last and stick with that. It’s a game that daddy like to call WDAS or What does Addie see?
You my dear have a unique almost photographic memory of things. Pretty neat really! I still remember back when I first realized this... you were about 3 1/2 and could only barely say individual letters. You dragged me upstairs and kept saying “C, C, C,” I was so excited because I thought you wanted me to “see” something, sure enough at the top of the stairs in a line of alphabet letters (in no particular order) the C was indeed missing. You sure did want me to “see” something, the “C” was missing! I’m almost embarrassed to say but they were in such a mixed up order I had to count how many were there and then noticed with your repetitive “C” that it was missing.
Fast forward to today and some things never change, all I knew is something yellow seemed to be missing and I needed to help you find it and somewhat urgently in your tone.
Addie do you know how many “yellow” things you have? With a toy box basically in each room in our house, I immediately started taking inventory in my head of which toy boxes had yellow things - crazy ability right?! But I did just clean the whole house, so I kind of knew what was where.
I originally thought it was a yellow star puzzle piece that I had rescued from its impending demise from Finn earlier in the day, but when I said “yellow star” your response of “a yellow?” meant that wasn’t it.
I went on to list a couple of other things before remembering you had only been in your room so maybe I should narrow my guessing game and just see if I could figure it out if I went to see from your point of view what it was you were playing with.
After some careful inspection in your now not so tidy room, I noticed a row of colorful bells and of course one was missing - yellow. You were lining them up by color so that’s what you were stuck on, the color. When I said “a yellow bell?” this time you repeated it back which meant I was right and even better, I actually knew right where it was because I saw it in the craft room downstairs when cleaning.
You followed me downstairs and I took you straight to it. Quickly grabbing it you then took off in almost a full sprint up the stairs, down the hall and into your bedroom with a slam of the door.
You emerged a few minutes later (way less stressed and happy as could be, by the way). I went in to see and sure enough it had been placed in line with the rest of the rainbow colors. Mission accomplished.
I got the house cleaned, did some unexpected super sleuthing and you found your yellow bell - just like that, the world made sense again to everyone.
Just another day of seeing things from your point of view.
Thanks for the challenge baby girl, you definitely keep life interesting and my mind a working.
Love you,
Mom
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