You Know You’re Tired When…

My shoe is on the left. My daughter's
is on the right.

In case you haven’t read the last month’s blog posts, I’ve been taking care of my daughter who had cardiothoracic surgery. And I’m tired. I didn’t realize how tired until yesterday.

As we were walking to the car, my daughter said: You’re wearing my shoes.

Me (thinking she was talking about the new shoes she bought me for Christmas): Yep.

Daughter: I thought you were going to wear your new shoes

Me (wondering at the redundancy of her thoughts and chalking it up to heavy painkillers): Yep.

Daughter (confused): But you’re wearing my shoes.

Me (looking at my feet): These are my shoes.

Daughter: Where did you get those shoes?

Me: Out of your closet.

Daughter: So those are my shoes.

Me: No. They’re mine. I must have put them in your closet.

Daughter: But they’re my shoes.

Me (looking at the shoes again): I don’t know what—(gearing starting to turn). Oh, wait, these are your shoes.

Daughter: Yeah.

Me: Sorry.

Daughter: No problem. But don’t they feel big? (She wears a half-size larger.)

Me: They feel pleasantly roomy. My toes can wiggle.

Daughter: Ah.

Me: I think I need a nap.

Autism and Black Beauty

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I try to post about autism every year on World Autism Day. Part of me really doesn’t want to write about autism. But part of me has to.

I have a sixteen year old son who’s autistic. In God’s wonderful mercy, our son has responded very well to various therapies and diet and has progressed from the pediatric neurologist’s encouragement, “Maybe he’ll learn to talk” to what our family calls, “eccentric.” But it’s been a long, long road. And I don’t always like to look back because it’s sometimes painful. But it’s marvelous too. And funny—if you don’t laugh in midst of suffering, you lose perspective.

One of the most difficult things during the first few years of Matt’s life was the lack of sleep. Matt only slept a few hours out of every 24. Sadly, many of the leftover hours were spent doing rhythmic crying.

Much of our life revolved around Matt’s sleeping. He’d be walking in the kitchen, fall asleep standing up and literally crash to the floor. Sometimes his face would smack the ground. But he was asleep. You’d think the crash would wake him, but it never did. Anything else, on the other hand, would. No one could touch him or even go in the room because if he woke up, he wouldn’t sleep again. Often not until the next day. My older kids remember me saying, “I don’t care if it’s lunchtime. No one is going into the kitchen until Matt wakes up.”

And, of course, my husband Calvin and I needed to sleep. So we’d put Matt in our bed between us (autistic kids can get into so much trouble without supervision) and turn on the VCR so Matt could watch Black Beauty—I’ve seen it 1000 times or more. He was completely fixated on the movie. And every time the fire started in the barn, Matt would wake us up. I remember Cal saying, “Matt, you know that Black Beauty is going to be okay. This is the second (or third) time you’ve watched this movie tonight. In fact, you’ve seen this movie multiple times every night for the past couple of years. I promise you, Black Beauty is not going to die in the fire.” When Matt was asleep, Cal and I would sometimes giggle and devise ways for Black Beauty to die.

But having Matt awake and watching BB was better for Cal and me than when Matt actually slept because Matt slept sideways. So the three of us would be in bed, forming the letter H. Cal and I would be huddled on the edges of the bed, trying not to fall out. We couldn’t go sleep on the couch because if we moved even a little bit, Matt would wake up. And during the winter when Matt would shove the blankets to the bottom of the bed, I’d tell myself I wasn’t cold because if I pulled the blankets up, Matt would wake up.

Thankfully, ten years later, we sleep better. Though I’ll still wake up cold and wonder why I didn’t pull up the blankets. I guess old habits are hard to break. And as for Black Beauty. Cal and I are never, ever watching that movie again.

Shredding the Bedding

Lots of people have been posting on Facebook and other places about participating in Thirty Days of Thanksgiving. I began to ponder some of the more unusual things I have to be thankful for like a husband who puts up with my sleep idiosyncrasies.

I sleep-talk a lot. (Though I will say, Cal needs to be thankful that I’m not my cousin who’s known to sit bolt upright in bed during the middle of the night and “sing” at the top of her lungs. You’ve never experienced sleep issues until you wake up at 2am to someone screaming “Jesus Loves Me” at the top of her lungs.) In any case, when Cal and I first got married, he didn’t realize I talked in my sleep. He’d thought sleep talking was the occasional mumbled word. Not the ramblings that went on and on. It wasn’t until he realized that I didn’t always make sense that I was asleep.

Then there are the times I wake him saying, “The police are pounding on the front door. Go answer it.” Except it’s only a dream. When I’ve been insistent, he’s actually gone down two flights of stairs and opened the door for me. Now he rolls over and says, “Go back to sleep.”

I can’t forget the sleep walking where he finds me and brings me back to bed.

But what would drive me crazy if he did it is the “bedding shredding.” No, I don’t kick the sheets around or pull the blanket loose. I actually shred the bedding. I wake up with sheets torn all around me. On some nights, I become the Incredible Hulk and rip the sheets. Thankfully, I’m not that strong and sheets are well made, so it only happens when the fabric is getting old from repeated washings. I’ve even shredded a heavy wool blanket. (Yes, I know I’m some sleep doctor’s key to the lead article in the Journal of Sleep Medicine.) If Cal had woken up among puffs of shredded wool, I would’ve said, “Ack, what did you do? Do you know how much a wool blanket costs?” Instead, he said, “Hmm. I guess that must be getting old.”

Yeah, he’s pretty much a saint. Last week, I ripped a pillowcase during the night—I guess it must have been getting old.

BTW, Screwing Up Babylon will soon be available. (In spite of Sandy) Today I plan to convert the file and upload it to Amazon. Yay!

The Master

This morning, Jezebel is slinking around the house with her head hanging down and her tail drooping. Why? Because last night she was an emotional basketcase, and this morning she’s embarrassed. A little after midnight, a ripsnorter of a thunderstorm blew in. In fairness to Jez, it’s a little hard to sleep when the room lights up as bright as day and the thunder shakes the windows. But, I just pulled the pillow over my head and went to sleep.

When the storm was near enough that the lightning and thunder were close to simultaneous, I dragged myself out of bed to unplug all the computers. I tried to wake up Ariel—she sleeps like the dead, or undead. At any rate, it was easier for me to unplug her computer than to wake her, so that’s what I did. Next, I unplugged the school room computers. I knocked on Luke’s door—he muttered unintelligibly and grunted out “yeah” in response to my "unplug your computer." At this point, our black dog, who’s supposed to be ferocious and mildly evil, met me in the hall. She gave me her pathetic look--wide eyes and flattened ears. Then she tried to "hide" by pushing her way between my legs. Behind her trailed Matt and Jake, who were vociferously denouncing her two-fold approach to the scary electrical storm. First, she barked. When that didn’t work, she whimpered. Matt and Jake threatened all kinds of evil if she were not removed from their room.

With a sigh, I took Jez to our room and said, “The Master wants you.” Jez trotted around the bed to Cal’s side. And I pulled the pillow back over my head and went to sleep. Yep, there are definite privileges to not being The Master.