I've spent notably little time in the Blogosphere this month, evidenced by the small number of posts in June. This is not by accident - June is, by far, the busiest time in my annual work cycle, and this year has been no exception. Then, when there is some time, there are things that take precedence over sitting around on the computer - those who know me will know, one item at the top of that list is making time for my little friend, "Dora."
I've been to her place a couple times this past week to give her Mami a much-needed rest - she has been taking to getting up 2, 3, 4 in the morning lately, and the first thing she wants to do is wake Mami for some company. So, on a rainy Sunday afternoon I hung out with Dora while her Mami slept in the next room. We worked on a book, one of her favorite activities. She makes her own books - sometimes she draws them herself, sometimes she tells me what to draw and I do whatever she asks. There are scores of these books, stapled-together stacks of paper, around the apartment; at one point I set up a stack of plastic filing baskets to try to get some order to her collection, but they quickly overflowed the capacity. You can't throw these away, because months later she will look for her work - this is what happened this week, as she tracked down a book made months ago, "10 Little Mice," so we could make some new pages to add. Every page had ten little mice in some activity - in the desert, running in the door at Barnes and Noble, running up the escalator at Barnes and Noble (poor Mami - one of those early mornings, she had to do her best to draw the pictures for her. Mami did pretty good with the "10 Mice on an Airplane" and 10 Mice on a Bus" pages, but some of the others, well...Mami never fails to point out to me that I set kind of a high standard.)
Last night, Mami was crashing hard, and she asked if I would come over again. On my way there, she tells me that Dora now wants to go to Barnes and Noble. It had been a rough day, with several tantrums - but, after being sent to her room for one such outburst, she came out, shortly after, having dressed herself, and asked "can we go to Barnes and Noble?" She was now behaving well, so Mami was OK with this. Because I was on my way, Mami asked Dora if they could wait for me first; she said "yes" and sat down and waited patiently for me to arrive - she wouldn't turn on the TV, she just wanted to wait for me.
I arrived, I said hi to her, and she beamed, grinning ear to ear when she saw me. Mami asked me if I'd take her myself - she was very tired, and she still had to do laundry. I agreed, and Dora and I headed to their SUV. We were off, Dora was doing great...in fact, the whole trip was fine. I kinda hated giving Mami the updates, knowing what a rough day they had had earlier with her:
- "yeah, it's raining, and we had to run in the rain in and out of Barnes and Noble, but she didn't have a problem with that."
- "She grabbed a bunch of stuff, and I had to tell her to put a few items back. She resisted a little, but then put back the items, no complaint. She ended up buying some bath toys - some ducks, some little pigs, some dolphins."
- "The line at the checkout was a little long, but she waited, no problems at all. One good guy ahead of us in line could see that she had Autism and let me cut in front of him."
- "We stopped for gas, and I had to turn off her DVD player. I was worried she'd get upset, but in fact she was fine. I was pumping gas, and I looked through the tinted windows at her. She was playing with her toys perfectly fine. She saw me, she grinned, I waved, she waved back and then blew me a kiss."
- "She asked to go to Wendy's. On the way back, she asked for her french fries. I wanted to focus on the road with the rain falling, so I told her she would have to wait until we stopped. She waited, no fuss at all."
At this point, Dora's Mami didn't know what she wanted more - to strangle me or to canonize me as a saint. Like any kid, Dora takes her parents for granted, but I'm not around all the time, so I get special treatment, I guess. We joke about it being very frustrating for her to watch, but in truth, Dora's Mami knows it is incredibly positive that Dora has bonded with me and works with me so well. I've made myself a valuable tool in treating her Autism, and I'm extremely proud of this - for all of this, not to mention that I just like the kid, she has become a priority for me.
Then, when we were hanging out (I stuck around to haul the laundry up and down the stairs), we heard Dora's little voice from the bathroom: "Russ, can I have the pigs please?"
Mami, what can I say. I swear, I'm not doing this to you on purpose.