...crosspost: because sometimes it needs to be written and shared...

Some stats first:

🔸I'm 5'8" minus my beloved heels, and 120 lbs. on the nose according to the bathroom scale.

🔹Weighing in at 137, and a whopping 6'2" is my little man, J-Bug.

🔸I can lift those 137 lbs. for about a minute, and do so every morning when doing his joint compressions.

🔹His shoulders are now so broad that I can no longer reach across him to do ❌ hugs, which for years were the best way to give him instant proprioceptive relief.

🔸My 120 lbs. can still pull his 137lbs.

🔹But, don't provide enough resistance to push those same 137 lbs.

Ok, got all that?

Last night was an eye-opener, panic-inducer, heart-breaker.

We'd gone to Target (gotta check the toy aisle for new Transformers on the regular!), followed by the grocery store. At some point along the way, this Mami totally missed the early warning signs (because it's been so long!) of an autism-meltdown. (go ahead and google that...we're not talking toddler tantrums. Think danger to self and others)

Now, in years past, this gal would have been on top of that, right? First sign and we're out...nope, erase that...I could spot those potential triggers a mile away and would grab and dash. Usual Target scene: Leanna carrying J-Bug in a dead lift, legs over one arm, head hanging off the other...kicking the cart with her feet. Good times, folks, good times.

Fast forward several years...Wonder-Bug has adapted his sensory therapies to real world situations, and learned to block out many of his triggers. And I, apparently, started blocking them as well.

So here I was, blissfully ignorant and getting frustrated with his non-responsiveness in the grocers. But-still-not tuning in to my autism radar apparently.

Instead, we headed next to the burger place in town. The crowded, loud burger place in town where I placed our orders while he sat at a table, head down on his arms.

Satisfied that my g-free, grass fed, mushroom-avocado dinner was being prepared medium rare, I filled our soda cup and headed to the table...

Where...

Finally...

I noticed that something was...

Well, something was shaking, quaking, quivering...something, my someone...was so tensed up that his shakes resembled a seizure. Completely uncontrollable.

Ding Ding, we have a winner! Finally something for me to notice, right?

Quick dash to the register..."we're heading outside", then a struggle lift from the chair and drag to the door. Outside into the dark patio. (Where the rockstar staff delivered our food!).

Ears covered ✔️

Head squeezed ✔️

❌ hug FAIL

Lift and rock FAIL

Full body squeeze FAIL

Heart breaking as I realize I am not physically capable of stopping his meltdown. Heart breaking as I realize he has grown out of my ability.

We came directly home, half-eaten dinners tossed, and I was able to calm him with soft favourites and steamrollers (literally now he lays across the bed while I roll across him).

An hour later, he snapped back into b-mode (better mode).

A morning later, I'm still a nervous wreck.

--------------

Yes, he's brilliant. Handsome and charming. Witty to boot. Yes, he's an awesome scholar and artist and cellist.

Yes, I post a lot about the 'wins'.

But, make no mistake...autism is not easy or pretty, or a carefully selected series of smiling photos. That's part of it, sure, yes... But it's also this...

A mother rendered useless by nature's joke on size.

Onlookers staring, whispering and catcalling when a young(ish looking) woman has a (man sized) boy draped across her body on a patio bench in the dark.

A thrown away shirt, since in his panic and struggle he tore the side seam of my t-shirt wide open.

And this morning's whimpery wake up when his whole body hurts because of last night's shaking.

...the story....another chapter...

Today was going to be my catch-up day.

I had it all planned out.

I had a post all set and ready (in my head) to be typed out, edited and published.

And, more importantly, I had time set aside to write.

But then...

I poured my coffee and sat down to "take five" before waking Mister Man up.

Checked my email.

Scrolled through my news reader.

Clicked in and out of facebook and instagram and feedly.

Opened up timehop for a throwback or two.

And saw this:

6 years ago.  Kindergarten.  One month in.

I remember.

I remember the first week of Kindergarten.  I remember walking into the building, hand in hand, to meet the teacher before the first day.  I remember how hard his hot little hand clutched mine as we cautiously made our way through a maze of sterile hallways all the way down to the back of the school.  I remember being hyper-aware of every sound and smell and sensation...wondering what would set him off first.  I remember kneeling down as soon as we entered his classroom to nudge his chin up so that he would look me in the eye.  I remember shushing him as he started to stim.  I remember pointing out  his new teacher and wincing when his fingernails dug into my palm. I remember how the chaos of all those children and parents and toys and books and wall decor shut him down and set him off all at the same time.  I remember pushing him forward, my legs inching his forward one at a time until we were past the doorway.  I remember him pressing his whole body into the wall, smudging the welcome greeting on the chalkboard behind him.  I remember desperately pointing out all the things I thought he might want to play with.  I remember when, finally, he became so immersed in a plastic set of gears in the corner of the room that he finally relinquished my hand.  I remember the look in his new teacher's eyes: a mix of compassion and confusion. 

I remember the moment when she came over to introduce herself.  I remember how she jerked back, startled, when his whole body began to shake right after she said "Hello".  I remember the look in her eyes.  Her kind eyes.  Her shocked and fearful and kind eyes.

I remember shoving my arm in between them and grasping his hand, tightly.  Pulling him toward me where I could enfold his whole body in my arms and squeeze his core in and down.  An X-back hug.  Proprioceptive input.  Mama-bear mode.  Shut out the world and refocus him. I remember that moment when I realized everyone else had noticed...the room gone silent and still and staring.

I remember tripping over my words as I mumbled about his need for sensory input to help desensitize him to the overstimulation.  And there again, that look of confusion in those kind eyes.

I remember looking straight into those eyes and saying "You do know that he is on the autism spectrum, don't you?  I mean, they told you that, right?"  I remember realizing, even before she answered, that no one had told his teacher.  

I remember turning in all of his diagnostic reports, psych. evals and therapy logs to the main office when I first went to register him.  I remember the inch thick stacks, neatly collated and labeled...three of them.  Copies in triplicate.  

I remember standing there with my arms and legs wrapped around my convulsing child, barely balancing against the table behind me, and realizing that NO ONE had informed HIS TEACHER that she had a student with AUTISM.  

BIG BOLD WORDS in my head.

I don't remember the blur of the rest of that intro-session.  I don't remember how long I stood there wrapped around my son like a kevlar vest.  I don't remember what the teacher said in her introductory monologue.  I don't remember seeing the other students and their parents leave the classroom.  

I do remember when everything was finally silent again and I slowly unwound my limbs and pushed my son out of us and back into him.  I do remember his teacher standing in the doorway, back to us, waving at some other departing family.  I remember when she turned around and walked back over to the far corner we were in.  I remember her slowly, ever so slowly, crouching down to Mister Man's eye level and quietly...ever so quietly...saying "Hi.  I'm so glad to meet you.  I hope we'll become friends." 

I remember him abruptly dropping his head and shoving back into me so that I stumbled.  

I remember sitting down at that little round table in that short chair, Mister Man on my lap and one hand busy holding the plastic gears for him while the other jotted things down with a crayon on a piece of faded green construction paper.  I lectured.  Mami-mode turned off.  Advocate-mode on.

THIS is Autism.

THIS is Sensory-Processing Disorder.

THIS is Communication Disorder.

THIS is ADHD.

THIS is my son.

He likes Transformers and Legos.  He likes deep pressure and squeezes.  He can already read!  But he doesn't talk much yet.  And eye contact hurts him.    

Here's my email.  My phone number.  Ask me anything.  Really.  Call me anytime.  Really.  I can come right over.  Really.   I'll drop everything.  I can walk over in 15 minutes.  Really.  I'll do it.  Whatever you need.

I can't believe no one told you.  

I remember 6 years ago.  I remember the first day of Kindergarten when his bus sailed right past our driveway without stopping, while we stood there.  I remember, finally some 20 minutes later, pushing him onto the steps of a substitute bus...forcing my eyes to smile as I said goodbye.  I remember standing in the roadway, waving both arms and jumping up and down in case he could still see me until his bus was long past gone and the cars behind me were  honking.  I remember how my arms itched and my whole body buzzed with nervous energy that whole day...and that whole week...and that whole month.  

I remember doing everything one handed that day, so that I could clench my phone.

I remember how often it rang.       

I remember how I would answer "Hello" as a question.  And the apologetic voice on the other end...his new teacher wondering how to stop him from shrieking...or shaking...or rocking back and forth because it was disrupting the classroom.  Why was he rigid in the corner?  Why did he get so close to her face when he had a question?  Could he hear her, because he wasn't responding?  Could I come in because he wouldn't stop squeaking...couldn't sit at the table with the other students...wasn't responding to her directions...

The phone would ring.  "What should I do now?", the ever-present inquiry.

I remember the first school party.  I remember arguing with my closet, trying to find the 'just-right' outfit to blend in with these well-to-do, married, stay-at-homers.  I remember being afraid I would embarrass my son in front of his peers.  I remember walking over and signing in.  Smiling and introducing myself.  Adding my plate of cookies to the table.  Pointing out my son...in the corner...rocking back and forth...when asked "Which one is yours?".

I remember.

High-definition memory.

The quick recoil.  The turned down lip.  The words.

"Oh he's the one...um...isn't he...well...something's wrong with him, right?  I mean, he has problems.  Right?   I thought they sent them  to a different school.  My daughter said he freaks her out.  That's what she came home and told me.  She said there's a boy in her class that's kind of a freak.  What is he, disabled or something?"

I remember freezing.  Mute.  Standing there in a half circle of other mothers...no one contradicting or chastening or even making eye contact.  Shocked.  Silent.  

I remember catching my breath...my lip trembling...my whole body starting to shake.  I remember turning away...walking away...rigid...walking toward him and sitting down, right there on the floor next to him, giving him my hand to hold and my senses focusing in on just the two of.  Blocking everything else out and not moving until the party ended.  I remember giving him a hug and walking back down that hallway...signing out in the front office...walking home...

I remember shutting the door and sliding down it and the tears that exploded out of me as I crumpled to the floor.  Hot, angry tears mixed with heartbreak.   

I remember this:

I remember the phone call and the voice.  The principal calling to ask me to 'please speak with him about that shrieking sound he makes sometimes' because it's disturbing other children in his class and their parents have signed a petition to have him removed.  

I remember it all.  

I remember calmly explaining that my son's vocal stim was part of his disability.

I remember her "Well, just tell him to stop it" response. 

I remember that phone call as the beginning of the 6 year war.

I remember it as though it was yesterday.  Because it was.  It was 6 years ago.  And it was yesterday.  And it was every day in between, and many more to come.  

It was raising a special-needs child in a typical-needs world.

And knowing that there would always...will always...be someone that thinks he is...freaky.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I will always be his soft place to land.

And the story will continue...

~Leanna

Uncategorized

...taking stock...

When's the last time you took stock?

When's the last time you stepped outside of your comfort zone and looked at your life~your current situation~with a dose of healthy detachment and judgement-free appraisal?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If this past year was the 'winter of my discontent', then this summer kicked off my pursuit of contentment.  It was a summer of big changes...and little ones.  It was a summer in which I forced myself to make uncomfortable choices and difficult decisions.  It was a summer in which I forcibly cancelled out everyone and everything else, replanted myself, and began to grow anew.

By the tail end of last school-year, I was completely wrung out.  My innate (inane and insane?) compulsion to be all things for all people had left one big, gaping hole.  In filling the needs of everyone else, I had completely (and perhaps subconsciously on purpose) neglected myself.  By using up all of my resources on others, I had successfully put-off addressing my own problems.  Very much a case of taking the speck out of others' eyes while ignoring the much larger blockage in my own. What can I say?  It's a talent!  And one I've been honing for years.  Much to my own detriment.

When the meltdown finally broke through all the busy-ness~in all it's epic, melodramatic glory~I broke into a million pieces.  And most of them were whiny.  Whiny childhood fears and insecurities that had just been lurking underneath all my steely resolve and multi-tasking. Whiny childish doubts that I had never silenced or grown through.  I was, on the inside, just an abandoned kid playing at being an adult and hoping no one would notice.

My inner voice was about 12 years old and full to the brim of self-loathing.  The manifestation of growing up in an environment of criticism and emotional abandonment. 

My inner voice was living my life for me...in fear, in doubt, in anxiety, in embarrassment...in pain.

My inner voice was living my life as an open, untreated wound.

Something had to change.

I had to change.

I had to figure out how to listen to that inner voice...listen, and then let go.

Address her fears from an older/wiser place...and dismiss them.

Send her back into the past, where she belonged, and lock the door.

What I had to do

~really~

was scrape off all the scar tissue on all the wounds and slowly, painfully re-grow myself.

I had to feel it all over again...and force myself to grow in a different direction than I had the last time.

I had to let go of the comfort of my discomfort.

And to do all that, I first had to take stock: of my faults, of my failures, of my mistakes, of my weaknesses, of my past, of my present, 

of who I want to be and how I want to be.

To do all that, I had to tear everything down and throw everyone out and learn how to be myself.

...to be continued...

~Leanna

...tight squeeze...

Pop by our home unexpectedly and you're sure to find a mess...

Or three, purposely ignored in favour of fun.  Doubtless, there will be dishes in the sink and paperwork threatening to fall off the table.  If it's early on a weekend, I'll be unshowered and disheveled...tackling the "dirty work" in yesterday's castoffs.  There will be chaos.  You'll marvel to find me just barely balancing on one foot, while every other limb is doing it's own thing.  I like to think of it as a finely choreographed ballet in which one hand can sign off on med. forms and mail, while the other stirs the pot and the foot nudges things into their place.  In all likelihood though, it's probably more like a tornado. 

Pop by unexpectedly, and you'll find me multitasking.

You'll have to look harder though, to find Mister Man. 

Check the corners, the dark ones.  Or the furniture, underneath.

Boy...with a blanket...and a book...in a basket.
Of course!

 Because in our home, Autism is part of the design.  

Since he was but a wee little one, Mister Man has been wedging himself into small spaces.  Cardboard boxes, laundry baskets, dog cages...no enclosure hasn't at least been attempted.  A former friend in Ohio was moving and brought over a small bench she thought I might like for my entryway. We left it on it's side, heading to the kitchen for a moment for refreshments. Mister Man, never one to miss an opportunity, flipped it onto it's back and wedged himself into the bottom, there to chortle happily to himself when we returned.  The following day found him snug as a bug in that bench bottom, complete with a pillow, blanket, and sippy cup. I learned early on to stockpile boxes and bins. Friends with babies knew to drop off their bulk diaper boxes.  The stockboy at Kroger would save me cardboard milk crates.  And every trip to Aldi's netted at least a few empty cartons.  I made sure to keep duct tape in stock for repairs, and art supplies at hand for imagination transformations.  My living room was littered with airplanes and trucks and boats, all made from boxes and all suitable for just one passenger.  I learned to go with the flow.  And to guard my laundry baskets behind a locked basement door!  

Even when he's not in it...he's "on it".
Laundry basket lover!

If, on a morning in May, my son wasn't in bed when I groggily padded to his bedroom, I knew to check the hamper in the closet.  By June, I'd installed a nightlight in said closet.  I gated off the kitchen at one point, after someone emptied out all the contents of the refrigerator and then restocked it...with himself!  

We had a laundry chute that ran from the top floor down to the concrete basement.  I was ever-fearful that he'd become curious and try to wedge himself into the hole.  Thankfully, that never happened. Locks on the kitchen cabinets and oven were a must.  I bought the magnetic kind and then hid the magnet...so well, in fact, that we had to eat takeout for several days until I remembered it's secret locale! A burgeoning friendship with a gal I worked with came to a dead stop when my son locked himself in her dog's cage during a holiday dinner.  I was thoroughly non-plussed, but apparently it was all too much for her to handle.  

Just. Add. Postage!

With his eventual diagnosis came the marvelous new term "Proprioceptive Input"...the keyword in understanding Mister Man's ongoing obsession with small spaces.  He was, as I had suspected, finding some degree of comfort in an uncomfortable world.  The close-fit spaces he was so fond of provided him with calming sensory input.  And, moreover, gave him a safety zone in which to be himself.

Pop by unexpectedly and you'll find him, so long as you know where to look.  Check the laundry basket beside his empty chair.  Or the space right behind it.  Look on the bed, at that small huddled mass.  Or behind the cardboard sheet angled against the wall.  

Can't find a small space?
Will create one!

While you're visiting, note the spares...flat boxes I buy from home depot at $5 a pop and stockpile behind my dresser.  Lift the top off the ottomans and see where I filled them chock-full of Legos so there's no room for him to hide away inside.  

Home Depot boxes:the best gift ever!

Perhaps you'll see his spinning office chair, or see the portable spinner that can go atop any chair hiding under the kitchen island.  Proprioceptive input again.  Spinning and rocking and leaning...

Leaning to close for comfort.  The boy practically climbing onto-into me in restaurants and stores.

The boy all snuggled up in a full length winter-weight robe...at the breakfast table outside on a hot summer day.  I'll be the one perspiring in a tank and shorts.  The boy piling blankets on our laps at the open-air theatre, despite the heat and humidity...and the melting Mami.  

High 80's and humid as a swamp...
but just look at that smile!

Pop by unexpectedly and you'll see the chaos and the calm...the mess and the order...

Pop by and you'll see that this home of ours is an Autism home.  There's thought gone into every inch...from floor to ceiling, and every nook and cranny in between.  

...tick tock tick...

I'm running out of time.

I feel it.

This obligation to rush.  This overwhelming, breath-holding, heart-pounding compulsion to squeeze every last thing into every last moment before that timer buzzes.

I vaguely remember the early days when time was at a standstill and weeks dragged on, one to the next.  When every day was full to the brim, but never seemed to end.  When change was slow and steady, and growth was measured in ounces and months.  And when, more importantly, the only real obligation was to ourselves and what we wanted this life of ours to look like.

Fast forward through all those ounces and all those months...fast forward through pounds and years.

Fast forward to today.

Today, in May.

Fifth grade but a month from ending. The first "graduation" on the horizon.  Puberty rearing its melodramatic, emotionally-unstable head.  The infant-toddler-little boy-big boy swallowed up by this man-child.  This ever-changing creature that I don't yet know...made up of all those recognizable pieces but somehow, suddenly, reassembled into a stranger. 

The old familiar is disappearing.  I say goodbye to a little more of it with every passing day.  I feel as though I'm trapped inside of a living pulse of heartbreak.  

For what I now realize was too brief a time, our whole lives were each other.  His needs filled mine, as my lessons filled his.  We were a team of two.  One solid unit.  Family.

That clock has been ticking all along.  Time marching steadily, stealthily by.

I have been his whole world.  He has been mine.  He is my whole heart.  

But 12 years have come and gone.  I am being left behind.  Pushed aside to make room for new people, new experiences.  He is my whole world, and my whole heart...but I am no longer his.  

It hurts.

  

The clock keeps ticking.  Now I hear it...the inexorable pulse drumming away underneath our day to day.  At 2am it pounds in my ears.  At 4pm it spurs me on, as I struggle to cram as much quality time into each available minute as I can.  Homework gets in the way.  The schoolday is my enemy.  I'm running out of time, and the obligations keep mounting. Projects and essays and work and phone calls.  Appointments and bedtimes and arguments and illness.  I want to yell STOP!  Loudly, angrily, silencing the chatter.  I want to push the pause button and hold off the inevitable for another 12 years.  I want to rewind, and live it all over again in slow motion.  I want to savour the childhood and the child.  I haven't had enough time yet.  I haven't had my fill.  I want so much more.

He is my whole heart. 

I can feel the walls of the box closing in around me.  The one he's pushing me into, though he doesn't even realize it.  I have gone from occupying every nook and cranny, every inch and mile.  I have gone from being so much larger than life. I have gone from being the framework of his whole world. Slowly, I'm shrinking to fit as he unconsciously builds the walls that will be my future.  It aches, this shrinking down. It's tight and rigid, and hard to breathe.  I went from being everything to something.  The box keeps getting smaller.  Soon, I fear, I will be inside the box.  And the box will be placed high up on a shelf.  "Mother", it will read in black Sharpie ink.  It will sit there on the high shelf as part of the collection.  Just another of the many bits and pieces that make up his whole, full life.  

I'll live in that box, observing but removed.  No longer his go-to person. No longer the answer for every question, the comforter for every pain, the soft place to land.   I'll become the back-up.  The fall back on. The cherished memory.  The old faithful.  The obligation that gets in the way of freedom.

He'll be my whole heart.  But I'll just be a piece of his.

I'm running out of time, and I don't want to do as I must.  I don't want to take my rightful place in that box.  I don't want to become an observer in his life.  I want to remain an experiencer, right in the thick of it.

I'm running out of time.  Time to enjoy the last moments of his childhood.  Time to impart wisdom and humor and grace.  Time to relish in being his favourite person. Time to be his cherished Mami. 

The clock is ticking.  It seems to speed up each day.  Everything is getting in the way.

I want so much more for him than just myself.  But I want nothing more for myself than just him.  

The time will come, and I will do as I must.  I know I will.  Because I want his life to be whole and full and free.  I will do what every good mother before and after has done or will.  I will sever the ties and smile as I wave goodbye, hiding the agony inside where he can't see it.  I will watch my whole heart go off into the wide world and pray that he keeps it safe from harm.  

But just for now, I want to tighten those knots, double up those ties and bonds.  I want to hold on with both hands and stretch out every moment to its limits.  I want to be a part of it all.  I want to answer the questions and comfort the pains and be his soft place to land.  Because I know it's almost over.  Time is fleeting.  Soon I'll only have the memories. 

I'm running out of time.      

~Leanna

...motherhood sucks...

Seriously.

This gig can suck.  

Suck the life right out of you.  Suck the time and the energy and the patience and the... Yeah, that list could go on and on.  Let's. Just. Not.

Spring break started off on a high note.  Pacing back and forth at the bottom of the drive, waiting for Mister Man's bus to arrive and gift me back the simple joys of  "family life" for a blissful, solid week.

Ah, vacation.  Time to reconnect.    Time to rest...relax....enjoy childhood and parenting.  No pressure...no alerts or alarms or deadlines...

It started on a high note.  The bus pulled up...the boy hopped out.  I grabbed his bookbag and chromebook and lunch bag (as I do) and we hiked back up the drive hand in hand.  Into the house...already giggling through plans for the evening. (Boardgames and popcorn outside, to be sure!) empty the bag....open the folder...

Crash!  High notes and high hopes took a tumble.  For inside that "should have been empty" folder was a giant packet of papers, paperclipped because no staple could hold them all.  

Invention Convention

Over a dozen pages outlining  the upcoming science fair, chock full of deadlines and outlines and parental suckiness. 

Oh yeah, motherhood sucks. 

(I remember being a child.  A child with projects due.  That sucked too.)

So there went the break portion of Spring Break.  Right out the door.  Instead of boardgames and popcorn, we hashed out hypotheses and proposals on draft paper.  I won't bore you with the details, but a final decision was rendered the night before school resumed.  Cue Mami, typing away at the proposal long after Mister Man has conked out next to her!

The proposal was accepted.  A note from the teacher reminded my would-be inventor that this year a working model was required. 

Aw, hell!

Working?  Model?  Can I send in my old portfolio instead?!?

Motherhood sucks.  

I'm already laying the emotional groundwork for my son if/when this turns into his first failure.  Because it's May.  I rallied the troops (do the two of us count as troops?) and blasted through September, October, November.  I class-mom'ed it up in December and January and February. I pushed us through March and April with sheer determination and lots of allergy meds.  I have typed and cut and glued.  I built a German Village.  I painted set pieces.  I have yearbooked and costume paraded and lunch ladied my little heart out.  I have homeworked and cello practiced and created 25 individual German walled cities.  I have IEP'ed and argued and advocated.  I have put things together and torn things down and decorated the classroom and hallways and teachers' lounge.  I have served food and discipline and life lessons.  I'm all PTO'ed out.  

And now it's May.  And I just don't care anymore.  It's May and he's graduating in a month.  It's May and he's maintained straight A's since Kindergarten.   It's May and this freaking project is due on Thursday and it is isn't even begun.

Because it's May and I don't know how to build computer application enabled tech devices for special needs  kids.  I don't even know how to fake it.  And neither does he.

But damn it, there's that proposal already submitted and accepted.  There's that due date in red on the calendar.  And there's that "F"...that big giant stinking failing grade (the first one ever)  if I don't miraculously figure out how to help him build this fabulous, brilliantly theorized, impossible invention.

Tomorrow is Mothers' Day.

Guess what we'll be doing?

Motherhood sucks.

~Leanna 

...think fast...

Mister Man is bright, no doubt about it.  He always has been.  His mind is a whirring, ticking, clicking machine.  He's always thinking.

Always.

Always. Even at 3a.m. when he wakes me up to discuss the designs for his invention for the upcoming science fair. 

Even in the shower...when lathering up and rinsing off gets in the way of 'his process'. 

Not a morning goes by when he doesn't come tearing out of the bathroom, towel barely covering the necessities, to impart some newly discovered wisdom to me.  That early in the day, it's usually about design specs for future Transformers.  Super important.  And always right in the middle of my breakfast prep so I drop something, splatter hot food, slice my finger, etc...  Goodness knows my concentration goes right out the window the moment my ears process his voice.  

(Motherhood...it's a danger zone!)

At any given moment (yes, probably even when he's fast asleep) his brain is racing away.  So often when I look over at him, he's completely still...frozen in place...his eyes fastened on some distant horizon.  Conversations with him are never linear...nor circular for that matter,  I suppose.  Rather, they hop about from one topic to another....unrelated in any logical way to all but him.  One leads into three more which dissolve into something else entirely.  Pay attention or you'll get lost.  I do.  All the time.  And then I'm stuck with my own frozen expression as I search endlessly for that dropped stitch in a tangle of topics. 

 He thinks fast.
I can't always keep up.
Our conversations jump all over the place.
It keeps things interesting.

(Maybe that's partly why I still read-aloud to him in the morning...I'm stalling before conversing until the coffee can kick in and give me a fighting chance!)
Lately, I've become much more aware of this...as though after years of unconscious acceptance my subconscious suddenly issued a broadcast one morning.

Alert! Alert! You're falling behind. You're missing the point.

Now, all the time, I find myself consciously struggling to keep up...to stay focused...to follow each thread as it weaves in and out of a conversation.  Emphasis on the struggling there.  I simply can't keep up. He switches from topic to topic so quickly...while it takes me several sentences in to even realize that the previous topic has been abandoned. By the time I catch up, he's already moving on to the next one.

I'm thinking of requiring an outline first! Or a pre-conversation warm up? Maybe flashcards? At the very least, an I.V. drip for my coffee? 

 ~Leanna