Interpreting the World

Christina's post about her husband telling her how much younger she looked on a weekend away from the kids remind me of the way Husband says I am a different person the minute we get in the car after dropping DuckyBoy off at Grandma's for a night.

It's true. Though a weekly night out is restorative, it's not as deep as when I know I have more than a couple of hours off. When I not only don't have to deal with bedtime, but also no morning hassles either, I can relax and have a drink or two without feeling like I'm going to kick myself at 7 am the next day for feeling less than 100 percent. (Becuase it's usually like less than 60 percent. I'm almost never at 100 percent in the morning anyway.) And also that I'll be free to sleep until 9 or 10 and then kick myself at my leisure, without having to do so while driving 37 Matchbox cars through their car wash in a prescribed order.

Probably all moms feel like that, but I wonder if it may have something to do with having a child on the autism spectrum as well: As I commented on Christina's post, I realized that I spend much of my energy helping interpret the world to my son, and more interpreting him to the world.

Granted, I do less of the second part now that he's getting older. I'm simply not with him to be able to do so, which sometimes I'm sure is good and other times is a bit frustrating, and I wonder if I'm making much ado about nothing.

But just last week in the school cafeteria, a boy in another first-grade class who is friends with one of DB's classmates said to DB, "You know me..." and DB said simply, "No, I don't," and got up to walk away.

I was so caught off-guard I didn't have the presence of mind to make DB come back and practice saying something more socially acceptable. (Anyway, what does one teach a 6-year-old to say in this situation ???)

And frankly, I knew it was going to be fruitless for any of us to argue with him or try to convince him he does know this other guy, and I don't know if he does or not, so I let him go -- and explained to the boy that often, DB does not recognize people when they are in a different situation than the one in which he knows them. He gave me kind of a blank look, so I'm not sure if that made sense to him, but I hoped he understood I was trying to explain instead of make an excuse.

Now that I'm writing this up I'm not so sure. And I think I can feel another hair turning gray...