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Sarah knows her sister well.
Charlotte has been struggling lately. Her cheeks are flushed, her belly is itching. Combined with her not great behavior and the signs point to food sensitivity. I’m suspecting soy. Time will tell.
She was having a fit tonight, laying on the floor. You can imagine.
Suddenly Sarah appears.
She throws herself down on top of Charlotte (deep pressure) and starts saying, “Charlotte! Charlotte! I have a plan to cheer you up! I have a plan to cheer you up!”
Mom and Dad whip around to see how this unfolds.
With all eyes on her, Sarah scrambles, breathlessly, and grabs a Fossil watch tin and lid that she’d stolen earlier from my nightstand.
She stands over Charlotte and while banging the tin and its lid together she sings, “Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer up!”
Caught completely off guard, Charlotte starts giggling.
Soon we’re all laughing. And we’re all cheered up.
Meltdown averted.
Having a sister is good.
When we were on vacation this past summer, we fine dined at the President’s favorite joint – Five Guys Burgers and Fries.
It was a hit. We all loved it. Burgers, hot dogs, fries. Ice cold Coke.
When given her choice of where to eat one day while down there, Charlotte chose Five Guys again.
She has not stopped talking about it. In fact, I believe it may be her favorite memory from summer vacation (am I raising a little foodie or what?).
You can imagine her happiness when we found out a Five Guys franchise is opening just minutes from our house.
Charlotte cannot stop talking about it. She has planned our entire trip. Most especially her order.
“Hot dog, no bun, and French fries and mustard!!”
It opens Monday. And she is none too happy that I’m making her wait till Tuesday to go (no school, so no rush at lunchtime).
This weekend we’ve been pretending to eat all of our meals at Five Guys.
The last thing she said before going to bed was, “Maybe we can go to Five Guys a different day. Before Tuesday.”
Maybe I’ll surprise her and we’ll go there for dinner Monday.
Bliss at Five Guys - South Carolina
Stay tuned for a full report.
Both of my kids are very independent. I don’t micromanage their time or activities.
Charlotte can operate the remote and find the DVRed shows, so when she wants to watch a show, she does. Luckily she self-limits the amount of television she watches, so I don’t have set any limits. (Whew, I feel like I got a free pass on that potential battle.)
If they want something to eat or drink, they can have it – within reason of course. No sweets before dinner is a rule (that has been tested many times).
Independence is good, I encourage that.
But, at the same time, I feel like they need to ask first. If you want to eat an apple, fine, but you need to at least ask first.
This is not something Sarah or Charlotte seem to understand.
If you want to color, fine, but you need to ask first!
You don’t just push a chair to the counter, climb up, and then reeeeeeeach way up high to get the crayons and markers.
Most of the time I don’t say no to requests to color. Unless of course it’s 5 minutes before it’s time to leave for school (as noted in this post).
If you want a cup of chocolate rice milk, no problem. Just ask. No need to get the carton of chocolate rice milk out all by yourself and pour it all over the counter into the cup all by yourself.
I can help. That’s why I’m here.
Perhaps my constant reminders to ask first are finally sinking in. At least with Sarah.
She has been asking permission lately. For everything.
“S’okay if I can push my baby in the stroller?”
Sure, Sarah, you can take your baby for a walk.
“S’okay if me and Charlotte can go play in my room.”
Yeah, go right ahead. And thanks for asking.
What I don’t get, though, is why I never hear,
“S’okay if I can take this marker and scribble on the wall?”
or
“S’okay if I can throw Charlotte’s Belle doll in the toilet?”
Instead, I hear the after-giggle. She has a very distinct giggle, low and deep, that she reserves for when she knows she’s done something she shouldn’t. When you hear that giggle, be prepared.
Be especially prepared if she’s running out of the bathroom when you hear that giggle. And grab some rubber gloves.
Some of Charlotte’s quirkiest things are some of my favorite things about her.
One of my favorites for a long time has been shhhhh.
Translation: Do not shush her, or tell her to be quiet, or keep her voice down in any manner of language.
If you do, you risk wounding her heart to its very core.
It’s true that Charlotte has a loud voice, but she’s not particularly loud in public places unless she gets really excited. I don’t often find myself needing to tell her quiet down, but it does happen.
For some time now (over a year!) she has been obsessed with making sure that she informs me everywhere we go that she’s not going to be quiet and that she is going to use her regular voice. Usually she informs me of this via her famed questioning tactic.
“Mommy, am I going to talk regular or quiet?”
You might think this is a legit question, but it’s trickery. Mad trickery.
If I say, “Charlotte, you need to talk quiet here,” she will drop to her knees, cover her face with her hands, possibly shed a tear or two, and then ask again, “Mommy, am I going to talk regular or quiet?”
To which I might say, “Talk whatever way you want, Charlotte.”
“Regular?!! or Quiet?!!” all the while pseudo-whimpering.
When this first started, I used to work really hard at helping her overcome this little disruption. Now, not so much.
If I’ve (God forbid) screwed up and broken Charlotte’s Rule Numero Uno and accidentally told her to be quiet (using any manner of language at all), I will just walk away and casually toss back over my shoulder, “Talk however you want, Charlotte, I’m going inside.”
Despite that cavalier approach, I do still take great pains to never shush, or tell her to be quiet, or to use an inside voice, or not to make any noise.
Luckily, when it does happen, I no longer have to listen to loud wailings, and rarely is there even the aforementioned whimpering.
Most often now it’s an interrogation, Charlotte-style.
One of my favorite examples happened last month while we were vacationing in South Carolina. Near the end our stay we were cooped up on a very rainy day. My sister was working and my Mom and I decided to take the girls to the nearby library for story time.
As we’re walking in, my Mom innocently says, to all three kids (my 2 and their cousin) to “keep it down in here because this is a library.”
Suddenly Charlotte erupts in tears. She grabs me and is burying her face in my shirt.
“Mommy, who told me to be quiet?”
“Charlotte, no one told YOU to be quiet, Grandma told everybody to keep it down since we’re in a library, a quiet place.”
“Mommy! Who! Told! Me! To! Be! Quiet!? Was it Grandma?”
“We’re in a LIBRARY. You can’t be loud in here.”
“Why did Grandma tell me to be quiet?”
[You are hearing all this said in a whiny, whimpery tone, right? Hers, not mine.]
“Charlotte, Grandma was not telling YOU to be quiet, she was talking to all three of you. And me.”
By this time we’ve made our way to story time and we’re settling in on the floor. Charlotte, of course, is glued to me, sitting in my lap and sending death looks over to poor Grandma. But all seems to be well. She’s being quiet. She’s listening.
And then it starts.
“Mommy, who told me to be quiet? Was it Grandma? Did Grandma tell me to be quiet?”
And on it went. And on. And on…
Fortunately, I find this to be endearing and hilarious. It’s just so funny that she’s so vehemently against being asked or told to be quiet.
Should you ever have the privilege of meeting the lovely Charlotte, consider yourself warned: She will only talk in a regular voice, she will not whisper, and if you shush her, beware.
Beware.
When I found out my child was Autistic, I had to throw out everything I knew about parenting and start from scratch.
How many times have you heard a parent say that? Parenting a child on the spectrum is different. Most of us know that, many of us live it on a daily basis. The usual stuff that works with NT kids just doesn’t seem to work with ASD kids.
Well, I have a little spin to put on that quote.
When I realized my child was neurotypical, I had to throw out everything I knew about parenting and start from scratch.
See, I had things kinda figured out with Charlotte. She responds well to lists. She likes to have a plan.
Once Charlotte understands a rule, she follows it pretty well. (Pretty well, but she is just a kid after all.) Understanding the big picture goes along way toward getting her to listen.
With Charlotte, eventually I had accept that some things she just couldn’t help. Like running around in the store because of all the sensory bombardment was beyond her control. It was how she coped. So what if other patrons didn’t like it? As long as I could see her and she wasn’t destroying property, she could run. That has passed now anyway (mostly).
Occasionally well-meaning family and friends have commented that they don’t know how I do it. “She is so much harder,” they say, “and requires so much more work.”
Those comments stuck in my head leading me to assume that parenting a neurotypical child must be a lot easier.
Whew, right? Sarah’s going to be a piece of cake.
Ha! Hold on while I pull myself together from the laughter.
Sarah is anything but easy. Everything that I do and did with Charlotte – does not work!
First of all, Charlotte never challenged me like this when she was 2. My biggest problem with Charlotte at age 2 was that she had no spontaneous, original language so I had no idea what she wanted or needed.
And that wasn’t even much of a problem because I was the World’s Greatest Anticipator of Needs.
Secondly, Sarah can’t read! So those lists that I used to make when Charlotte was younger – no effect. Sarah just grabs the pen and scribbles over my list.
Possibly the biggest, and most challenging, difference between the two is that Charlotte is not defiant for defiance sake. Sarah, however, loves to test me.
Here’s a great example.
Our upstairs opens out over the foyer. Just recently a toy or two has been lobbed over the banister and into the foyer. Yesterday, after Bashful was tossed over (by Charlotte) I announced that any toy that is dropped over the banister becomes MY TOY and goes in the Goodwill box.
Charlotte immediately gets upset because she’s worried she’s going to lose Bashful. I assure that the new rule starts NOW, and that Bashful is safe.
Meanwhile Sarah has disappeared into her room. Seconds later, with her eyes locked on mine, she runs out of her room and lobs part of her Little People train over the banister and giggles as it crashes down onto the hardwood floor.
Think she’s testing me? Oh yeah.
Charlotte doesn’t operate like that.
My more difficult times with Charlotte, when she was 2, were almost always away from home. At the store, at a friend’s house, at a family reunion. Almost all can be linked to sensory stuff.
By contrast, 2 year old Sarah is great when we’re out. Easy to take shopping, listens, stays right with me.
At home, though, she’s Trouble. Because she’s so incredibly adorable (seriously, the most adorable kid ever), people can’t believe it when I say she keeps me on my toes (aren’t I polite there?).
Keeps me on my toes she does indeed.
And so I must toss out everything I know about parenting and start over. Figure out what works for your typical but strong-willed mischievous 2 year old.
Meanwhile, pray that since 3 was Charlotte’s “bad” year for behavior, perhaps it will be opposite for Sarah and she’ll become the sweet little angel I was expecting.
And if she doesn’t, I still consider myself blessed to have two such great kids. Who could be luckier?
Hello from vacation! Despite how I thought the week would go, I am tonight finding myself with some down time. Everyone else is in bed early and already sawing logs. After too many nights up late, the kiddos are in desperate need of some catch-up sleep.
I will save most of the highlights from the trip for a future post when I return. I’ll just say this: The older Charlotte gets, and the more communicative she becomes, the more interesting travel becomes with her. Truly interesting.
For the longest time Charlotte kept quiet about most everything. Her speech was primarily echolalic and scripted. Hearing unprompted, spontaneous language was a rare gift.
As she has developed, her communication is less scripted, more spontaneous. It’s still such a joy each time I hear it. I don’t think I’ll ever not appreciate her ability to communicate, never take it for granted.
On this particular trip, she has not wanted to talk to Daddy, who is at home, on the phone much. She always says no when I ask if she wants to say hi. A couple of times I have pushed it and just held the phone up to her ear, knowing that when she heard his voice she’d talk to him.
One time she told me she didn’t want to talk to Daddy because she didn’t want to miss him. I should have considered myself warned.
Today, she was adamant that she didn’t want to talk to him. And I was equally as insistent that she do.
She finally took the phone and when she heard his voice she burst into tears. Big, heaving sobs, her body and voice shaking.
“Daddy! (sobs) I love you! (sobs) I miss you! (sobs) I want to come home! (s0bs)”
Oh my breaking heart. I didn’t know she would miss him this badly.
However, even in my moment of feeling like Worst Mother Ever for taking my girl from her beloved Prince, I felt that bit of joy. Glee, almost, that she was doing it.
Communicating spontaneously. Articulating her feelings – she misses him. She loves him.
Charlotte is ready to go home. Tonight while I was putting her to bed she wanted to talk about Saturday and our plan for driving home. I suggested we talk about our plans for tomorrow, but she was stuck on Saturday. So we discussed in great detail the long drive home. She let me know the plan for the day, which ended with her running inside the house to see Daddy. My heart was melting.
Sarah is occasionally ready to go home, but those times seem to coincide with when she is in trouble and on the receiving end of a reprimand. Mostly she idolizes her older cousin and follows her everywhere. Everywhere.
She adores my niece so much that she only wants to wear her clothes. To appease her, I pulled out one of Sarah’s own shirts and said it was M’s shirt. Sarah agreed to wear it and her own shorts but only under the belief they were actually M’s clothes.
Later in the day, she looked at her shirt and with a very serious look on her face said to me, “I have one just like it at home!”
You gotta love a 2 year old.
The goodfountains, sans their captain, will be embarking on a week-long vacation this Friday. Our captain, also known as Daddy, will be staying behind (someone has to take care of the Guna pig).
My blogging activities will most likely be mega-reduced for the week whilst I’m away. Before I go, I leave with you some stories of the Genuinely Cute kind for your reading pleasure.
The brochure for the mega sports complex where Charlotte and Sarah take tumbling arrived. I was leafing through it while the girls hovered over me. I asked Sarah if she wanted to take a tumbling class again and she emphatically said NO!
“I want to take dance lessons!!” she cried.
“Dance? Really?”
She nods, with great gusto, and points to a picture of a girl wearing a tutu and says, “I want to wear THAT!!”
With dance, apparently, it’s all about the outfit.
Charlotte is realllly, reallllly, realllly into cars right now. She can identify so many different kinds just with a quick glance. (Ask me how thrilled I am to be embarking on a long car trip with a kid who is obsessed with pointing out every make and model of car we pass.)
I digress.
She and I get out of our car the other day and there, parked across from us, was one of her most favorite of cars – a Saab (I would say she has good taste here, but then I’d have to confess that other favorite car is a Chevy Malibu – go figure).
When she sees the Saab she very audibly gasps. Several times. I, of course, am clueless.
“Charlotte, what are you looking at?”
“A Saaaaaaaaab,” she lovingly sighs.
The woman walking past us, I have to say, had an amused, if not a bit perplexed, look on her face.
Sarah seems to have forgotten how to walk. She gallop/runs everywhere with her arms straight up in the air while singing some nonsensical words.
I’m not kidding. Everywhere.
Continuing with the car theme, Charlotte has named her various tricycles, bicycles and big wheels (yes, we have them all, and then some). Just yesterday while peddling around the cul-de-sac she was loudly yelling, “HI CHEVROLET! HOW ARE YOU CHEVROLET!!”
She looks over at me. “This is my Chevrolet, Mommy. My red one is a Buick.”
Speaking of Buick’s, getting to go for a ride in Grandma’s Buick – she’ll do anything for that. Car rides as currency – we’re working it.
And lastly, one more about Charlotte, less of the Cute, more of the Wow She Said That variety.
Charlotte has not been too interested in practicing her new piano songs lately. She still plays the piano often – many times a day – but when I ask her to practice the new stuff, she refuses. No reasons why. Just wants to play the older stuff.
I told her teacher this at her piano lesson this week. They go off to their lesson while I stayed in the lobby.
Her teacher tells me afterward that she said to Charlotte, “Hey, why won’t you practice Finger Trick 1? Don’t you like it?”
Charlotte says: “I’m having a little bit of trouble with that song, that’s why I don’t play it.”
WHAT?!?
That is not scripted from somewhere (that I can think of) and it’s such a fabulous answer to a question. Not silly (as she’s prone to do), not silent. Just a simple answer. Just wow.
We head for points south on Friday morning. I’ll have my computer and will try to read and comment, but likely no posting.
Toodles!
There was the princess herself,
along with some royal friends,
a fun, new game,
a pinata of course,
the "Beautiful Bride" cake she requested,
more than a few presents,
equaled one happy, quite social, little girl who celebrated the big Numero 5!
Sunday night, Charlotte Snow White sits atop her swingset clubhouse castle surveying her yard domain.
Suddenly she sees the moon, big and round, hanging low in the sky.
“Guess what I see! Do you know what it is? Do you see it?”
The rest of her family kingdom could not see it from their humble positions on the ground.
After moving around a tree and much ducking and bobbing of heads, however, they managed to see it, the moon, glorious moon.
Charlotte Snow White descends from on high with a grand announcement.
“I’m going to go put my space costume on.”
She goes into the house. A few minutes later a voice is heard calling down.
“Hey, guys, can you see me?”
The Queen Mother (her grandmother) calls out: “Where are you, Charlotte?”
“Up here. I’m in my room. I’m putting my space costume on. Can you see me?”
Soon Charlotte an astronaut returns from her mission.
Wearing fleece pajamas a shiny spacesuit, she treated us to a special gift from outer space – sparklers!
My negative-ish last two posts do not sit well with me. Yes, I worry. Yes, I doubt and question. But I try my darndest not to let that consume me, or my blog.
I do so appreciate all the comments of support and empathy. And the jokes to cheer me up too!
Let’s not linger in the worry, though. Let’s move straight into the good stuff. The beauty and joy and love of children. My children. Our children. The typical ones and the special needs kiddos.
Charlotte’s language continues to blossom. Every day we gasp at something new she articulates. A new understanding she seems to have.
She is beginning to ask so many more questions of us, beyond “What are you doing?”
There’s “Why are you doing that?” and “What did you just do?” She asks about our plans for the weekend, and inquires what’s for dinner later. It’s like she’s finally taking an active interest in her own life.
Conversational skills are building, although at times it is frustrating when she won’t answer the simplest of questions. And she still is not great at listening, as in “minding” us, you know – being obedient (I am not a fan of that word).
My husband and I were asking ourselves tonight regarding the not listening -is that an ASD thing, or is it just Charlotte? She decided she wanted to go upstairs tonight (while we were sitting outside eating dinner) and get a bandaid. And no amount of firmly telling her do not go upstairs, stay outside worked. Neither did threat of consequence.
She just went on up. This happens frequently. It can be so infuriating.
Lately, though, (knock on wood) that has been the only frustrating thing. Being 100% dairy and soy free seems to have taken care of the screaming and aggression. Thank the heavens as that was really hard to deal with.
Sarah astounds us as well too. Her command of language is superior. A few weeks ago, she lost me at where we take weekly tumbling. She was putting her shoes on, so I ducked into the bathroom to check on Charlotte. When I came out 5 seconds later, Sarah had run off in the opposite direction, crying, and looking for me.
She said to me: “I looked up and you were gone. I looked and looked for you and I was crying. Then the teacher picked me up and she gave me to you. Don’t get lost again, Mommy.”
Every week when we walk into tumbling she looks me in the eye and says, “Don’t get lost, Mommy. Okay?”
Have I mentioned how much I love where we take tumbling? Just let them know when you sign up that your kid has Autism, and they will provide an extra instructor if needed.
That has been helpful for us. Sometimes Charlotte gets a little overwhelmed when we go in there. Last week she cried and said she wanted to be 2 so she could be in the 2 year old class with me.
One of the floating instructors walked around with her for a few minutes and then she was fine to join her fellow PreK tumblers.
I love watching her from across the room. I see her standing in line patiently, trying some crazy new move, learning the Chicken Dance. That may be the cutest thing ever to watch.
Sarah, equally, is a joy to watch in tumbling – a rock star. She is fearless, and has such balance and strength and coordination. She loves the physical aspect – climbing, jumping, rolling.
Begin sappiness.
It’s marvelous parenting two such opposite children. I feel blessed by God to have been given these gifts.
End sappiness.
Happy Independence Day.
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