You know ...when your teenager wakes up at noon, in the summertime and he is smiling. Yeah...that never happens.
Blue comes downstairs to the kitchen with mom's laptop in hand and places it on the counter. He opens the refrigerator and freezer doors --looks for what seems like eternity, as if something new is going to suddenly appear.
"Oh, Thank you for bringing me my laptop," says Mom as she starts to pick it up.
"I didn't bring that for you! That's not fair! You can't use it."
"Um...excuse me. I can't use my own laptop. Surely, you're mistaken. I will think about letting you use it after you get your breakfast."
Moments later, he finally decides on pancakes and sausage. He begins the process of making Bisquick (in a bottle) pancakes. First he pours in the milk. I taught him to use milk, not water. It makes them taste a little better.
He grumbles, "Ugghh!!! I always pour too much milk! It's past the line."
"No worries. It usually needs a little extra milk anyway," I say.
Next he attempts to put in a tablespoon of raw sugar. Some of it spills onto the counter.
"Ugghh! I'm always spilling everything!"I come over and pick up the bisquik bottle. I pick up the same spoon, tilt the head of the bottle over the sugar container and spoon in the sugar.
"You see this way, if you spill any. It goes back into the container."
He frowns and rolls his eyes. "I need the vanilla!"
"You do? That's nice." She's unsure if this is a demand, a request, or just general information. Surely, it couldn't be a request with the tone of voice that he is using.
"Well...do we have any?"
"Yes we do. It's in the pantry."
He gets it out of the pantry. He starts to pour the vanilla into the cap of the vanilla bottle. I stop him in his tracks, attempting to avoid another disaster. I pour it for him.
I can sympathize with his grumpiness, in part because I have a bit PMS myself. I've been especially grumpy for the past few days. In fact, if had this personality all month, I wouldn't like myself very much.
Blue is stomping and grunting at every possible turn ...fussing about anything and everything.
"I'm going to record you, so you can hear how grumpy you sound."
"This is private!!!"
"Yes...you're right. It's my own private hell. Thank you very much."
He tries to open the sausage package. He can't get it open fast enough.
"I can't do this! I give up!" He storms around the kitchen huffing and puffing.
"Can't you just do this for me?!" he says in a nasty, directive tone.
"Um...if you can just change your tone and speak to me respectfully. I'll be glad to help you."
He is perfectly capable of doing this himself, but in his agitated frame of mind, I know it will only go from bad to worse. Once he corrects his tone and asks nicely, I agree to take over for him. No...we can not work together. That would be a disaster.
Finally, I finish up and he sits down at the table to eat. The attitude slowly creeps back up.
"This food is really escalating me! I hate this syrup! It pours too fast!"
Yeah...that was my attempt at cutting out high fructose corn syrup. I bought authentic, very expensive maple syrup. Of course, he hates it. He is used to Mrs. Buttersworth.
He moans and groans showing contempt for the meal that I helped him prepare. The angrier he gets the more problems he seems to have.
"You know...when you fight with the food it has a tendency to fight back!" I say and laugh at my own joke. The grumpy teenager is not amused.
He finally finishes eating. He takes his paper plate and throws it into the trash can. As he storms out of the kitchen he says, "If this kitchen were a restaurant...I'd only give this breakfast 2 stars!"
"Wow! Well that's rude. I tell you what...next time I won't help you at all."
"No! I didn't mean you. I meant the kitchen ...like if this were a restaurant."
"Yeah...but I am the cook in this restaurant."
"Well...that's not what I meant!" he yells. "You turn around everything that I say!"
Yeah...sure. I turn it around.
He finally goes up the stairs and his phone rings. He yells down the stairs, this time his voice actually sounds a little more pleasant.
Yeah...sure. I turn it around.
He finally goes up the stairs and his phone rings. He yells down the stairs, this time his voice actually sounds a little more pleasant.
"J is on the phone. He wants\ to know if you can drop us off at the movies later."
Meanwhile, I make myself a few pancakes and warm up the now room temperature sausage. Mmm mmm! Delicious! I enjoy my breakfast in peace. In fact ..I give the meal 4 stars, including and especially, the expensive, 100% pure maple syrup.
Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago