The Bus Comes and a Trail of Bread Crumbs
September 15, 2007 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
So the schoolbus came for the first time for Charlie this morning. I had already left to teach an early class and Jim gave me the report: It had been confusing. Charlie has grown accustomed to standing in the long driveway in front of my in-laws’ house and running back and forth on the lawn while waiting for the bus; today, Jim tried to determine if they should wait in the tidy parking lot or on the main street (the former, the bus driver assured him). Thursday had had a larger than usual share of anxious moments: Charlie had the day off for school for Rosh Hashanah and my parents left today for California and Charlie was keenly aware of this. I wrote up everything that happened for Charlie’s teacher soon as he went to sleep on Thursday.
As I stood waiting for the bus at 3pm, Charlie’s teacher called: Fabulous day!
The bus came: Charlie stood in the aisle squeezing his eyelids. He walked out haltingly as I tapped his shoulder softly. He started to moan as he walked up the steps and sat down and cried and I tried to explain that someday we’d be in a house with his own yard again, just “not now.” “Not now,” said Charlie. At this point he was crying really loudly and the nearest neighbor had her windows wide open and I did what I prefer not to do, which is that I sort of pulled Charlie to his feet and we went up the stairs. He sat in the black chair by the bookshelf and crying gave way to weeping.
Once upon a time, I thought I had to get Charlie to stop crying as soon as possible. I would say “stop crying!” too many times and “redirect” him to some activity. But I know I need sometimes to get out a good cry and I sat down opposite Charlie, and just sat. He sat, he sobbed, he asked to get in the green car and I suggested the swimming pool. “No swimming pool!” returned Charlie, with a flash in his voice. He got up and went to his room and lay own on the bed. I waited a bit, went in, handed him his swimsuit. “No swimsuit!” said Charlie, by now wrapped completely in his old blue fleece blanket. “Maybe in a half-hour,” I said. “No,” said Charlie. “Okay,” I said and went out. When I went in some minutes later, I said, “How about we swim, then we’ll see Dad and get noodles?” “Dad, noodles,” said Charlie. “But Dad won’t be home for awhile. So we could swim and then come back and get Dad.” “Swimming,” said Charlie.
If you’ve been reading this blog even just for the past month, it is hopefully apparent that Charlie is far more at ease, more able, and just very happy when in the water vs. being on dry land, and this was the case today. He took his time at first in the shallow end as I reassured the hovering lifeguards, “Actually, he’s a really good swimmer.” He had a very happy ten minutes of swimming beside a boy of about his age who was shooting a ball into a basketball hoop; Charlie dove underwater, hung by his legs off the side of the pool, backfloated, splashed like crazy.
We met Jim and went to get Charlie’s old favorite, brown noodles, and then took in a few rides at a small local carnival. Back at home, Charlie sat again in the black chair and munched on a wheat-free roll: He use to eat both the noodles and the rolls frequently and lost interest in the early summer: Perhaps familiarity does breed contempt, or at least dietary dislikes. We do not have TV in our new place—Jim turned his laptop towards Charlie and me, put in a DVD, and asked Charlie if he would like to see Jimi. (As in Hendrix.)
“Jimi. Jim, Jim,” said Charlie.
He kept munching while Jim showed us clips from Monterey Pop Festival—I felt that chill from hearing the Mamas and the Papas and “California Dreamin’—-Jim put on the part with the Who and then Jimi Hendrix, and Charlie looked up from where he was stomping and chortling and opened his brown eyes till they were big. He watched a few minutes then stood up, got his iPod and bucket of photos and proceeded to his bedroom. I covered him up and he was asleep in five minutes.
While Jim looked at bits and clips before going to the part with Janis Joplin, I got out the dustbuster. The volume was up all the way for the DVD and the guitar riffs and the drumming sounded over my housekeeping efforts.
There was a trail of crumbs from the black chair and over the throw rugs and I followed it: For it went all the way to my sleeping boy.
It’s too bad that Charlie had a rough day. Transitions are hard. You handled it so well, and it sounds like Charlie is communicating with words really effectively too. Getting upset is unavoidable, especially when you are ten. The art of living lies in being able to get through it and come out the other side, which is what Charlie did so well. You should be proud of him.
I could really visualize this post! We have a lot of “fabulous” school days, but confusing, frustrating, emotional transitions back home. Many a day I becon a sobbing, big nearly 8 Bubba into the rocking recliner. There’s no talking, just gentle holding and rocking. My rythmic breathing. And his poweful sobbing. Then eventually his breathing matches mine and he looks at me like I have 2 heads, and jumps off my lap. There are also days where there is no crying, but the energy forms into anger, screaming, meltdows, hitting, and the like.
Days like this are harder on us than on our children. I’m not being trite; you will remember and feel this day longer than Charlie. Your outward calm and your loving care helped him through it.
Some foods are associated with schedules. I wonder if Charlie connects the brown noodles and rolls with the school year? My son abandoned “honey toast” over the summer (and has just resumed it) and my husband won’t eat cereal on his days off of work.
Transitions are so hard. Charlie sounds like he’s handling it really well though, in spite of the tears (it could have been so much worse…). I wonder if Nik will have difficulty **not** returning to school?
As an autistic, I understand why he loves the pool; it’s really a great kind of stim. In Reno, though, we never really had an accessible pool, so I used a trampoline for my stim. And when I moved to school in Massachusetts, I found a swing.
I know that I, personally, have various “happy” foods (foods which, in addition to tasting good, become associated with the general feeling of happiness) throughout time, the most recent being a Pad Thai made by a great restaurant near my house. I’d walk a few miles to it every week and enjoy myself, and bring some home as well. Of course, this isn’t possible because I moved across the country for school, but it was an important part of life.
But I do hope that, whatever happened to be giving him trouble like that gets easier. Unfortunately, it really could be a variety of things; it could have even been a really good day up to a really unpleasant sensory attack. In any event, it was handled really well, and hopefully whatever it was is a odd event.
Cliff
Thank you, Cliff—the noodles that Charlie likes are kind of like Pad Thai. In fact, they are “Bangkok peanut noodles” (with shrimp)—rice noodles. We were hoping to get Charlie a trampoline but now that we are in a condo without a yard of our own, that will have to wait……. there are also water slides at our pool (at a YMCA) and these were not turned on yesterday, and Charlie was ok with that. But when they are on, Charlie loves the foaming water at the bottom—-it is soothing yet stimulating.
KimJ, interesting what you note about certain foods at certain times of the year—though Charlie seems to like watermelon, whatver the season!