Find Out What Jen Finds

A whole hour???

• September 27, 2008 8:40 am

Early this morning The Elder climbs into our bed. Five minutes later The Younger comes in and lays down on the floor (just like we trained him!)

He just leaves the room. The Younger popped up and grabbed the Dump Truck full of matchbox cars, that is attached to his hands except when he is eating or washing his hands, and rolls it down the hall after his brother. I was drifting in and out of sleep, just happy that I had gotten some sleep. I have been sick for about 2 weeks, yesterday it got so bad that I caved and let The Hub take me to the doctor. I got me some good Rx drugs and slept/been in bed pretty much from the time that we got back from the doctors until now (which is 7:30pm on Friday).

The kids were playing in the playroom at 5-something in the morning! Good grief!

My beaming with pride feeling left as I hear (in the hallway now)

On Fridays, The Hub and I get to sleep in while The AP gets to get up butt early to get the Kids ready for school. I’m so spoiled. EVERYONE should have an au pair. I truly truly mean that, all joking aside. She reminds me of what the world calls “typical,” what it’s like for someone to “get it” when I’m being sarcastic, to joke around and not have it be taken so literally that I’ve hurt someone’s feelings, and of course to give me relief when I just need a break. She is my Calgon! When we decided to hire an au pair I was in desparate need of help. Not just so I could work, but so i could stay sane. I was constantly so overwhelmed. I’m sure many of my readers can empathize with that. It was the hardest thing to do when she arrived, to relinquish control of my kids which was all that I really knew to do daily. She was sooo bored the first week because i literally sat with them all day. Even after that, I had a hard time not being involved in every part of everything. Now I don’t know how I did it without her!

She is my Calgon!If you have a houseful of aspies and/or auties, I truly recommend having an au pair! Especially if you have 2 or more because the price is the same no matter how many kids you have. She’s my saving grace. Nothing nor no one can take my place or love my kids more than I do. I know what they need, how they feel, how they process things^*.^*cool, a year ago, I wouldn’t have said that with that much confidence. The AP helps me to stay on the outside a little more than I would like to, but in a way that I need to in preparation of sending them off to school and other situations that I can’t be there to watch their every move and rescue them when they need it.

I grabbed a pen and piece of paper (a post-it note pad) and started jotting the conversation down so I would remember it later. Most of what I have written down was only captured because they kept placing their backs to me and couldn’t see me writing. Though i still was trying to lay low and pretend to be asleep. At times I would write chronoligically and jot in times to help jog my memory but some of it were things that I just wrote down because, at that moment, I remembered it happened. Unfortunately I didn’t asterisk those moments and taking notes with a drug-induced memory isn’t the most reliable thing in the world. So if they were funny enough, I stuck them in here somewhere, and if they weren’t I just left them out. Please forgive me. Lol.

They each have their own style of OCD play.A blue car comes flying in our room from the hall way. The Elder ignored it and kept “driving” the much-sought-after truck into the bedroom. Not sure what happened right after that so I guess they worked it out because the next thing on my post-it note talks about parallel play. They each have their own style of OCD play.

The Elder was sitting up with a box of matchbox cars and lining them up side by side, ever so perfectly. The Younger dumps all the cars out with the dump truck and then puts them each back in one by one. It’s kind of a hilarious spectacle to witness

At some point The Younger exclaims “No that’s mine!” The Elder then starts “mixing” the cars up like he’s smearing them around like finger paint. I just knew cars were going to be flying everywhere. I had to intervene.

Satisfied with the answer, I laid back down. The Elder goes running out of the room. The Younger puts all of the cars into the box and then slowly and patiently fits it in the back of the dump truck just perfectly and then just as fast as he can, he runs down the hallway pushing it.

I attentively listen to the gentle crashing of cars (and no crying) as I write down as quickly as I can, sitting up in the hopes that it will be legible later. My heart is pounding not knowing how long this peace between brothers will last.

All of a sudden it got really quiet. I was anticipating hearing screaming, fake crying, car crashing and/or flying against the walls and doors. But I hear a precious giggle from The Younger who cheers “Pass Gas” and chuckles again. I figured out what was happening in that moment of silence.

6 o’clock and all is well

They continue to play well. I hear “No that’s mine” (famous phrase I guess). Then I hear the pitter patter of guilty feet running in the hall away from us.

I guess I need to get up now, I think to myself. But before I could get my feet out from under the covers, The Elder runs to his hiding corner in our room with The Younger close behind. The Elder jumps out of his hiding corner and roars like a Beast^**We call this “rarr-ing” because that is the actual word we say. They both act “surprised” and start laughing. I relaxed at the thought of “normal” “boys will be boys” interactive play.

Monster chasing continues down the hall and when they come back, The Younger has his broom in hand. He gently taps The Elder on the head twice. Not hard enough for me to voice my concern yet. But I’m still in prepare-for-emergency mode in case it gets out of hand. Glad I didn’t because it was good to see how The Elder handled it. But it was very difficult to not referee.

Because The Elder wasn’t reacting the way he was “supposed” to according to Y, he started “attacking” him more aggressively. The Elder kept moving his head away from The Younger but pushing his butt toward him to kinda “ease” him away from him and called him “stinky pants.”

I was getting nervous because the pointy part was so close to his head. Just then The Younger takes the sweep part of the broom and starts “brushing” The Elder from his bottom and up his back. Well The Elder loves to get his back scratched and so was actually enjoying that. I think it started to tickle because he arched his back and threw his head back and the broom hit his head. I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out of bed to get him to stop. But The Elder started laughing reinforcing it. So The Younger kept doing it, I guess assuming that The Elder thought the head hitting was what he was laughing at. I verbalized my dismay.

The Younger turns the broom around and looks at the bristles, examining it as if to research if it was indeed a broom/sweep^*. ^*or trying to figure out, wait, I was supposed to be jabbing him with the dangerous side instead – he wasn’t called Danger Boy for nothing – he earned that nickname!Once the puzzled look left his face, He tried to quickly resume his kung fu stance and, twirling the broom with a “Hee-Yah,” he racked himself! I tried not to laugh outloud.he racked himself!

Meanwhile, The Elder had taken advantage of the distraction and fled to a different corner of the room (out of my sight) with cars in tow. The Younger goes after him and grabs the much-NOT-wanted blue car and returns within my sight. He puts it in his mouth “daring” The Elder to come jerk it out of his mouth. Since The Elder wasn’t paying attemtion, he tried harder to taunt him and The Elder started monster chasing him…again.

Amongst the rarring in the background, I find myself nose to nose with The Skipper Doodle who’s doing the pee pee dance. Good timing (He probably was scared as his bed was in the middle of the monster mayhem).

He runs back down the hall and I hear The Younger rolling the dump truck after them(I’m sure with the box of cars in the back – I’ve passed on my need to compartmentalize!)

So I sat up, frantically writing this all down so that I wouldn’t forget. Boy, a audio recorder would be better. I’ll keep that in mind. Wait – my mobile phone has a recorder and it was charging by my bed. Geez, I must have been sleepy.

I hear them in the kitchen. Usually that follows with some kinda of loud clanking. I’m ready to go rescue the kitchen when I hear clapping.

I nudge The Hub to see if he heard that since he was the one who taught him that cadence.

pitter-patter pitter-patter. The Elder arrives in the bed room and repeats the clap rhythm. I sit up in the bed and look at him like How rude (we are working on defining that word with the body language).

Ok so he picked up on the body language up didn’t apply the appropriate social reaction of stopping.
I hear pitter-patter-rolling pitter-patter-rolling. The Elder gets excited and hides behind our bed. The pitter-patter-rolling takes a pitstop at the hall bathroom.

The Elder sighs and claps louder.

The NYSE bell announces it is 6:10am. I thought it would be cute to give The Hub that ringtone since he has discovered his special interest with the Stock Market. I telling you…it is the.most.annoying.sound.in.the.world. I don’t know what I was thinking when I did that. I sure wasn’t thinking that it would be what greeted me every morning or I would have called Sprint directly to delete it from their options and offer compensation.

However, the noise did not seem to phase the kids??? They continued to play, and well, I might add.

I was very impressed by how he handled that, shoot, how he handled most of what happened this morning. I think that Kindergarten has taught him a lot of self-control. I think that Kindergarten has taught him a lot of self-control. By the time the next NYSE bell going off (oh, did I mention that The Hub pushes snooze a million times before he gets up?) the monster chasing resumes. It was a cute kind of hide and seek to watch. They would run out of the room and The Elder chases The Younger back into the room, rarrs at him and Y giggles and says “You scared me!” as they continue chassing each other.

Off with truck
Off with cars (with the blue car in his mouth)

NYSE bell. snooze.

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