socks, lies, and videotape
2004-09-08, 4:57 p.m.

Sally was a Liberal Scientist in a past life. Discover your past lives @ Quiz Me

Nooooooooooooooo! LIBERAL! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!Shoot me, shoot me now...

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Today's fortune:

Your dreams are your best guide to the future.

So I can expect my future to be filled with things like being able to fly, living next door to Mel Gibson, and consistently forgetting the Big Project due in high school? I can deal with the first two. I thought I made it through high school? Don't tell me that after 18 years I need to make yet another poster...

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So, we went to church for the first of the Wednesday night supper/classes. The adult course, Authentic Happiness, is going to be a good one. We're going to need it.

We were met in the lobby by mad Daughter, mad little friend, and mad Son. It seems some other boys double-dared Son to remove his socks and chase the girls with them, which he happily obliged. Mad Little Friend took his socks and soaked them in the sink in the girls' bathroom in an attempt to get him to stop. Instead, he chased the girls with cold wet socks. Mad Little Friend had enough, stood her ground, and slammed Son to the floor. Well, he earned it. He bopped his head lightly on the stone floor...not enough to do any damage, but plenty hard enough to get the message across. (I wish information COULD be pounded in...there would be a mad rush by moms and dads and wives and husbands for sledgehammers, ready to drive some common sense into wayward children and significant others.)

Daughter related the tale, as Son was having some difficulty keeping his facts straight. When he is frustrated his language skills go the way of the toilet, he cannot gather his thoughts or relate things in proper sequence. He does not lie, not fully understanding HOW to lie, but he just can't get it together. Daughter has an excellent memory when it comes to getting her brother in trouble, and is able to recall details down to lint, dust bunnies, and how many times the offending party blinked. It is almost as if she has a tiny VCR with instant replays in her brain. These same feats of memory disappear when applied to schoolwork. But I digress...

We (mostly Hubby) had a long chat with Son about accepting dares, and how the boys who dared him were not his friends. Taking dares to do something you know is wrong, is stupid and harmful. We told Son to just say no. If someone asks him to do something that he knows is wrong, then refuse to do it! This concept seems lost on Son, who is more concerned about losing "friends" by not accepting the dare. This is going to be a long battle.

Son does not understand emotions and cannot discern between teasing and bullying, true friendship and manipulation. That is something we work very hard on, and even take Son to a special counselor for help. It is going to be a hard road getting him to understand, and he may never reach that point completely. Everything to him is absolutes, facts, binary code. Abstractions, subtleties, and sarcasm do not register in his little world. As he gets older, other children are noticing this more and try to take advantage of him. Peer pressure is my greatest nightmare for him, as he is easily led. But each day brings progress along with the challenges, and we will meet this one like we have all the others. You know what? I am confident that he can learn, in time. He's an amazing kid, doing far far better than so many others with forms of autism, and he can jump this latest hurdle. Time, patience, and hard work will make it happen.

I have a migraine, and this didn't help. The Motrin is keeping the worst at bay for now, but my stomach is churning and the confusion is lurking in the shadows of my brain, ready to render me totally useless for the rest of the evening. Methinks it's time for bed.

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