The Dark Side

I made the mistake of nodding off at my inlaws. I was brought back to reality by hearing Monkey shrieking hysterically in the next room, then G walking through the room with a crying, flailing Monkey in full attack mode. G was tagging out. Which means that I am up. Sort of, because I'm still not quite awake enough to really understand what is going on. Not that it matters. As always, it doesn't matter how we got here, at this point it only matters how we get back. I get Monkey into the spare room and manage to get all of his limbs under control. Sort of. For a second. Wait. A leg got free. How can he bend it like that to kick me? argh. Got it. Whoa there, almost took a head-butt to the chin. That was a rookie mistake. Can't hold his arm like that. Reposition, reposition, reposition. He's screaming that I am hurting him. Am I? Nope...not hanging on too tight anywhere, he can breathe, move a little-Whoops, gave him a little too much room to move and he got away. Start over. Stay calm. stay calm stay calm. Got him. Why are his elbows so pointy???? I can't let you go, even if it breaks my heart to hear you beg me to do just that. I can't. I love you too much. That doesn't even make sense. How can pinning you down as you scream be any kind of love? Even if I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt. Even if I'm doing it as gently as I can. Even if I know deep down that 20 minutes of this is better than 4 hours in the emergency room. This can't be right. I need to get out of here. I can't do this anymore. Mommy needs a time out. Wait Mommy don't go, don't leave me. Don't leave me alone. Clinging to my leg. Let's lay down and take a break. Take a breath. Let's just breathe. Okay. Here we are. Turning it around. Arms and legs a tangled mess. Head on my chest. Shaky, gasping breaths. Calm down, calm down calm down. You can do it. Just breathe, breathe breathe. His heartbeat on my stomach, mine in his ear, they become one and slow down. breathe, breathe breathe. The monster leaves, Monkey returns. He cries. Hopeless tears for things he can't change. Connection so intense, painfully sharp. He rests. He breathes. He calms. He slows. He is still. Then he laughs. Crazy, exhausted giggle. He sits up, looks at me with clear, glassy eyes. "Let's go Mommy, Let's get out of here"

One of the many downsides to the Autistic mind, at least to your brother.

Motormouth and Monkey are out jumping on the trampoline.
Motormouth: You can't see me.
Monkey: Yes I can.
Motormouth: You can't see me. I'm invisible.
Monkey: You're right there.
Motormouth: No, I'm invisible, you can't see me.
Monkey: Yes I can.
Motormouth: You can't get me because you can't see me. I'm invisible.
Motormouth: OW! HEY! You can't see me!
Monkey: I got you.
Motormouth: Hey! You. Can't. See. Me!!!
Monkey: I got you.
Motormouth: Stop. Stop. Ow. Stop.
Monkey: hee hee.

Ah, pretend play. Maybe someday.

The moral of this story is that G shouldn't tell me stuff while I'm already blogging.

SSG G: (calling from the living room) Oh, hey, for that TNA wrestling event we're working I get a backstage pass.

Me: I don't think I'm happy about that.

SSG G: Why?

Me: Just stay away from those TNA girls

SSG G: What? It's not like they are trampy like in WWE

Me: (wheeling the computer chair to the edge of the kitchen and staring at him around the corner)

SSG G: (looking sheepish) heh heh heh.

Me: Seriously, I don't want to see some barely dressed woman rubbing up on you for the camera or have some little girl talking about how she (using my air quotes) "appreciates your service"

SSG G: No rubbing. No appreciation. Got it.

I guess I don't really like the idea of any of the TNA guys "appreciating" him either.

A lock isn't enough, I need soundproofing.

Motormouth knocking on the bathroom door, because, of course, I've been in there 30 seconds in the past 4 hours, so, you know, I was asking to be interrupted.

Me: I'm in here.

Motormouth: I haveta go to the bathroom.

Me: I'm in here.

Motormouth: (with his face against the door) but....I have to go.

Me: take a number

Motormouth: uh.......70?

SSG G: between 1-10. when you pick a number it's usually between 1-10.

Me: (yelling through the door) I said TAKE a number!!

Motormouth: okay.....7.

SSG G: (coming over to the door too) oh, take one, not pick one. You want to go low.

Motormouth: I still want seven.

SSG G: well, then you are 7th in line. I'll go, then Monkey can go, then I'll go get the neighbors and we'll all go before you.

yes, go get the neighbors too so you can all stand outside the door and have a chat while I'm trying to maintain the slightest shred of privacy in this house full of boys. I don't want to live here anymore.

Me: Just give me a minute!!

SSG G: (sounding like his face is also pressed against the door) Babe, he's starting to do the pee-pee dance out here.

Me: Oh for crying out loud. I'm done. I'm done. It's your turn.

And that's when I knew it was time to go home.

Met some friends of mine at Burger King so we could let the kiddos run wild in the play area while we studied (who were we kidding?). After playing for about an hour Monkey had a run in with a little boy, and I mean little, he was maybe 3 years old. Monkey comes down and is crying and really upset, and had some red scratch marks on his arm from where this kid had grabbed him. It seems from what I could piece together from Motormouth that Monkey wanted this kid to play with him and was grabbing him and trying to drag him off so they could play, and this kid didn't really want to go, so it's not like Monkey was attacked or anything, just the usual lack of social skills at work. Anyway, Monkey was worked up and crying and wouldn't go back into the play zone. The other little boy had gone to the bathroom and when he came back out Monkey points at him and announces-loudly- that it was "HIM, He grabbed my arm!! He did!! (starts to crawl off my lap) YOU WANNA PIECE OF ME???" (oh. dear. lord.)

OoooKaaaay. Time to go. I work at calming Monkey down and convince him that his arm isn't 'broken', just scratched. Meanwhile, Motormouth decides that he needs to go over to the table where this kid is sitting with his parents and explain what is going on. I call him back over and we get our shoes on. Monkey is still worked up and Motormouth then decides that the situation requires him to go back over, lean between these two parents, and tell the little kid that he 'can't hurt other kids at the playground, okay?'

It's time to take my socially inept circus and hit the road.

On the way out to the car, Monkey still can let it go. It's been 10 minutes. He announces to no one in particular "You scratched my arm. You are not my friend. I don't want to play with you."

Really?? Really???? It's good that it was in there, but it would have been nice if you had just led with that.

Or, maybe I’m just witnessing the first stages of dementia.

Grandma arrived two days ago and I have only seen her allowed out of the basement for meals. She is otherwise held hostage down there and made to sort through gigantic tubs of Legos to find the piece that Motormouth needs next. Seriously. His job is to show her a picture of the missing pieces, and assembly. All the heavy lifting, sitting on the floor and sifting through a gazillion Lego bricks belongs to Grandma. I'm pretty sure she is sorting them at night to find all the crazy tiny accessory pieces instead of sleeping, just so there are some ready to go when the Lego Nazi, er, precious angel wakes up in the morning. Meanwhile, Motormouth has attended a birthday party AND played for a few hours on the waterslide in the backyard. He even takes trampoline breaks. Where’s Grandma? Still sorting. You know what it sounds like when you rifle through a gigantic tub of molded plastic? A rock polisher. Guess who is trying to sleep through that noise? Yep. That would be Grandpa. Who apparently can sleep through the apocalypse judging by the racket emanating from the basement, which, coincidently, is where the spare room is located. Did I mention that the basement isn’t quite finished yet? Yeah. There’s no door to the guest room. Still, he manages to get some shut eye in, but only while Monkey is asleep. Since Motormouth has Grandma all locked up, Monkey seeks out his Papa, and he doesn’t let a silly thing like sleep get in his way. I’m pretty sure that if I had chose to wake my father by getting a running start and cannon-balling him that I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale. Monkey gets rewarded by Papa tickling him. Papa gets rewarded with knees, elbows and feet to the head. Nice.
So, what’s the deal? Does becoming a Grandparent make this stuff seem awesome? I keep hearing that being a grandparent is your reward for being a parent, that it is some kind of prize you win if you can manage to see your kids through adulthood. Or is it just that after being a parent for a couple decades, it makes you so crazy that this stuff SEEMS great? I’m just not seeing the appeal. If this is what is going to await me after parenthood, I don’t know if I’ll survive it.

My Dad is pretty awesome too.

My Grandmother passed away.
She was 85.
The love of her life died 15 years prior.
Her health has been declining steadily.
If that all wasn't enough to prepare me, my dear, sweet, Grandma has been telling me for the past DECADE that she is READY. NOW. and that she can't wait to go and too bad for whoever isn't happy for her when her time comes.
She was awesome.

So, I was more or less prepared. G was prepared. Not only for her death, but for everything that comes after. My particular grieving process, my family's drama, the fact that we are going to laugh more than cry, the ridiculous things we will find to fight about...all of it. He was there 15 years ago when my Great Grandmother and my Grandfather passed two weeks apart. And for some reason he didn't run. (he's awesome too, maybe it will rub off) I'm grateful. Motormouth was a little prepared, we've been talking to him about Nana's failing health for some time now. The only person that wasn't prepared was Monkey. He doesn't grasp the concept. Which would be fine, except that whether he grasps it or not, he is still subjected to hordes of slightly familiar and completely unfamiliar people, new places and lots of hanging around. In other words, the worst case scenario possible. The showing was okay. He was very sweet and told Nana goodbye, then shushed me for talking while she was sleeping. He hung out with his cousins watching movies and playing games in the basement of the funeral home and was handling most all of it pretty well. The funeral itself was a slightly different story (we aren't even going to get into the nightmare of attempting to meet the extended family for lunch the day after...it was so awful it drove me to tears). Monkey told Nana goodbye again, and he sat in the church pew quite well for a couple of minutes...and then started to unravel. I immediately came to the conclusion that we should have asked for a reserved "family" pew in the back of the church, but this moment of clarity came too late, and everyone that attended got to witness the following show:

Monkey standing, turning around and sitting about 20 times, asking to go home about 10 times. Spontaneously grabbing my cousin James while announcing "tickle, tickle, tickle!!....oh, you're not Papa!!" Apparently my father was the only one who was supposed to be wearing a dark suit jacket. Monkey standing up and turning around in the pew, putting his hands on his hips, looking very sad and saying "I'm sorry, I didn't know! but I gave it to the Peach, because he's got.....HAIR" (we got this particular reenactment of the Veggie Tales Silly Song "Where is my hairbrush" twice.... Twice) One trip to the bathroom, multiple requests to be "all done", oh, and my very favorite, the entire time he was climbing up my body so he could rub my head and put his hands over my face. This particular move is something that is calming to him. He likes hands on his face and feeling the top of his mohawk. It's comforting. Somehow, it has become MORE comforting to do it to me. I can't get him to stop. It makes me freak out and start screaming- inside my head. By the time the service is over I am one step shy of being stark raving mad.

I bump into my dad outside the church and tell him I wish we had sat in the back so we weren't such a spectacle. My dad replies that we were fine. I point out that he was in front of us and had no idea what was going on in my little circus show. Dad looks at me and says "I didn't need to see. I already know that Monkey was doing the best that he could, so therefore I know that it was fine"

The awesomeness doesn't fall far from the tree.
I hope it doesn't skip a generation.