Category Archives: Neilisms

Bored of the Rings

I love the Lord of the Rings movies, and so does my younger son, Aidan. We watch all three, marathon style, about twice a year. Aidan was around six when he first started watching them with me, and at first the Orcs bothered him a little, so he would hide his eyes when they came on. But he so enjoyed the rest of each of the movies that he put up with a little ugliness. And now, being a long-time gamer, he’s grown used to the Orcs. He loves the quest storyline and the main characters, especially Gollum, whom he tries to emulate in voice and action (only at home, much to my relief). He loves the sweeping cinematography and fantasy elements. He loves the ice cream we eat together while watching the DVDs.

But Nigel, movie lover that he is, has never shown more than a passing interest in the Lord of the Rings movies. I knew the Orcs bothered him too, but it was more than that. I think the whole fantasy element of those movies bores him. He only likes fictional characters that are in realistic settings, which is why he loves superhero movies. The Lord of the Rings, even though it was filmed in the natural world, is in a fantasy setting. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.

He has put in his two cents, though. The last time Aidan and I were out in the living room watching the trilogy, Nigel walked through on his way to the kitchen, stopped briefly behind the couch and said in his deadpan voice, “I think Frodo’s searching for inner peace.” Tolkien literary analysis, in a nutshell.

Then he went to snag some leftover pizza.

Time

Autistic individuals (especially younger) often have difficulty understanding the concept and sequence of time. Unless the sequence of events is tied together as a routine, some autistic people can have trouble recalling the steps of an event in the same order. This affects their ability to learn cause/effect and means/end relationships. It also makes it difficult to predict and prepare themselves for coming events. They need a visual reference.

Nigel loves lists and calendars to make sense of the vague concept of time, and he has the cognitive ability to use them. For instance, Nigel is the first one in the household to change the calendar on the morning of the first day of a new month, without fail. He has done this since he was about seven years old. I remember back in December 2001, I had noticed that in the two weeks since December began, Nigel seemed anxious whenever I showed him something on the calendar, even though he was very excited about Christmas coming. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering him about the calendar. The following week I brought home a 2002 calendar and showed it to Nigel. Instantly his face lit up and he said, “Now we have a calendar for January and February 2002!” I realized that he had been anxious because there was nothing for him to visually refer to after December for upcoming events.

Nigel then proceeded to flip through the calendar and write in his shaky but determined hand: “NO SCHOOL” on all the days that there was no school scheduled. I smiled, amused and relieved. Sometimes autism takes a back seat for a minute, and then he’s just a regular kid.

Conversations With Nigel

Usually, my sons go to LA to visit their dad for two weeks in March for Spring Break, but this year their dad came up to Oregon to visit them. So I have not had an actual phone conversation with Nigel, other than “the-scout-meeting’s-over-come-pick-me-up,” since last July. In the past two weeks I have been reminded of what that’s like.

As with most of his conversations, phone or not, if Nigel’s not speaking about an Obsession of the Week, I have to drag any information out of him. He will rarely volunteer information unless it’s regarding something of interest to him, some piece of trivia about Back to the Future, natural disasters, ancient civilizations, or an explanation of his latest Lego creation, for example. He could never be accused of “B.S-ing” about something he did not know, and I doubt that will ever change.

But when I haven’t seen him for weeks, I want to hear more about how he’s been, what he’s been doing. And those are often difficult topics for him to discuss, especially if a TV is distracting him. I know this, it has always been this way, and so I am patient.

Me: So what did you do over the weekend?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Did you go to the beach?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Nigel? Did you go to the beach over the weekend?

Nigel: Yes.

Me: Which beach did you go to?

Nigel: I don’t know.

Me: Did you visit anyone?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Nigel?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Nigel, is the TV on?

Nigel: Yes.

Me: What are you watching?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: What are you watching on TV?

Nigel: The Lost Pyramid.

Me: Is it on the History Channel or Discovery?

Nigel: [silence]

Me: Is it on the History Channel or Discovery?

Nigel: History.

Me: Okay, well, I love you.

Nigel: I love you, too, bye.

Relieved, I’m sure, he hangs up. He knows I love you is the last thing we say on the phone. And I am always so glad I can hear him say it.

C.A.C.U.R.

The room cleaning saga continues . . .

Last night Nigel came up with a couple of things he wanted to look up on my computer (his – the one he shares with Aidan – is now defunct, due to an “accidental” yes click on a spyware pop-up) and I came up with another way to motivate him to clean his room. No computer use until the room is clean. That idea did not meet with much enthusiasm. He growled, rolled around on the living room floor, then grabbed a pen and a half-sheet of paper and went back to his room. A moment later he reappeared, marching into the living room holding a hand-printed sign at arm’s length:

C.A.C.U.R.

                                             Children Against Cleaning Up Rooms

I tried to hide my smile, and then I made my own sign:

M.A.M.R.

Mothers Against Messy Rooms

And then Nigel tried to hide his own smile. We picketed each other around the living room, marching and smiling, holding our signs out in front of us.

Aidan, entering: What the heck is this about?

Open warfare, my love. This is how we roll. And Nigel was in such a good mood afterward that he spent a half an hour picking up his room. Looks like laughter is the best offense.

 

Evolution as a Defense

I am fighting a losing battle. Nigel’s room needs to be cleaned.

I have heard of some autistic people who need to have everything in its place and can’t stand if anything is out of place. Nigel is not one of those. If something other than his bed is in the same place twice, it is purely coincidental. I think he just has too much going on in his head for him to put something back where it belongs. I have also considered the possibility of laziness, which may or may not be fair, but this is getting ridiculous! You can’t even see the floor in there!

His designated room cleaning day is Friday, and something always comes up that makes me unable to enforce it. (Note to self: change room cleaning day on the schedule to a different day.) If I tell him that he cannot watch a movie until he has cleaned his room, then a friend will invite me out to dinner, and the safest, most reliable way to occupy Nigel while I am gone is to have him watch a movie. I have told him that he will not receive his allowance if he does not clean his room, and he doesn’t care. I have offered the reward of taking him to see the new Indiana Jones movie (which I know he wants to see), and even that does not motivate him. I have written down the steps to clean his room, broken them down visually for him: 1) pick up clothes, put in laundry; 2) pick up books, put on bookshelf; 3) pick up trash, put in trashcan; 4) pick up Lego, put in container . . .  all to no avail. And then I have to deal with this line of reasoning:

Nigel: But why do we have to pick up everything all the time?

Me: Because we are not animals.

Nigel: But we descended from apes!

Metalman

We spent most of Memorial Day weekend at home, with Nigel a bit sick, camped out on the couch having a Star Wars marathon. His OW (Obsession of the Week) this week is metal, including anything in Star Wars that is metal, such as droids, and how he might build his own that will clean his room and do the cat litter.

He is also coming up with his own metallic phrases. This morning I poured us each a bowl of cereal and milk (our usual breakfast) and opened up the silverware drawer for spoons.

Nigel: Uh, plastic, because this – [holds up metal spoon] – makes bacterial galvanization.

Bacterial galvanization. I actually tried looking that up on Wikipedia to see if I could find anything about it, but the two words do not appear together under any configuration. It reminded me of when he was six and started combining words to communicate. He would say “balling snow throwing” to describe a snowball fight. “Circle chocolate cookie” was how he requested Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies. And now, at 13, he has created the phrase “bacterial galvanization.” I have given its potential meaning careful deliberation. Does it refer to bacteria in the mouth interacting with metal to form a nasty aftertaste? That’s what I’m going to go with, although I don’t notice any metallic taste from my silverware. But Nigel might.

So there you go. “Bacterial galvanization” is the aftertaste you get when you eat off cheap silverware. I’ll notify the Merriam-Webster people, but you heard it here first.

Mr. Association

Nigel’s language development has always intrigued me. I have written previously about his use of echolalia to communicate and how it progressed through different stages over the years (stages that I identified and labeled on my own: please note that they are not “official”). The teachers and therapists who have worked with him at various times, especially in the early years, but even now, have often commented on his ability to take lines from videos and use them within the context of a situation.

Nigel has always loved the Disney movies, especially the animated ones, but at the age of five he began watching some of the live-action films. He loved The Swiss Family Robinson, and still does. One day, his behavioral therapist, unaware that he had been watching that movie at home, told me that when Nigel got angry at her he had said, “It’s my gun, you’ve got no right to take it!” Imagine the awkwardness as I tried to explain to her that he had taken that line from a movie. I wonder if she was thinking that I routinely left guns laying around the house and reprimanded my children when they picked one up. The movie scene in question was when the older brother took the younger brother’s gun away from him, and the younger brother was angry about it. Nigel said the line as a way to indicate that he was angry about being told to do something he didn’t want to do. When I explained the movie scene to Nigel’s therapist, I could see the relief wash over her face. Then she said, “I understand now! That’s part of why we call him ‘Mr. Association,’ because he’s so good at associating things like that.” 

Quoting lines from videos is no longer Nigel’s primary means of communication, although he still likes to do it occasionally. He also likes to take words or phrases that he remembers from movies, TV shows, or something he picks up online, and try to use them appropriately. Sometimes he is successful with this, other times not. Today during homeschool, while working on subtracting mixed numbers, he did it seamlessly.

Nigel: I don’t want to do subtraction. It’s not really my bag.

Me: Cleaning cat vomit off the carpet is not really my bag, but it still needs to be done.

I think he got the picture.

Breaking Traditions

We don’t use the word ‘pajamas’ in our house. When I was growing up, clothes that we slept in were called ‘nighties’ instead of ‘pajamas,’ and I didn’t like them much anyway. I would have rather worn a t-shirt and sweatpants to bed, which I started doing in college. I had my kids do the same; it just seemed more comfortable.

When Aidan could talk (which was delayed, possibly because of having an older autistic sibling), he asked, “Why are the pants called ‘sweatpants?'”

Me: Because some people wear them when they’re exercising and they sweat.

Aidan: But we don’t.

Hence, the phrase sleeping pants was conceived. And in the summer, they wear sleeping shorts. Everything has to be labeled very literally around here.

Bedtime is always a mad dash for the boys to get everything done that they wanted to do for the day, all of their little Lego projects, stuff they wanted to look up online, as well as the requisite teeth-brushing, homework-checking, and lunch-making for the next day. As a result, they are rarely in bed at the stated time, which is as late as I can stand it because they have never, even as babies, needed much sleep for some unlucky reason.

So it’s 10:30 PM and I’m really wanting to close up shop for the night and maybe read in bed for half an hour before going to sleep myself. Aidan’s already down (required since he’s younger), but Nigel is still in mad-dash mode. He’s running out to the game room to find one last Lego piece (a Ghengis Khan-style helmet), he’s printing out a chart of the International Date Line from Wikipedia, and he’s saying good night to the cat. I order him to brush his teeth and get in bed because I want to go to bed.

I shut off the lights, check the doors, turn down the heater, and go back to Nigel’s room to say good night to him, hoping he’s ready.

Nigel: I have to put on my sleeping pants.

Me: Let me say good night to you and then put on your sleeping pants.

Nigel: I have to put my sleeping pants on before you say good night to me. It breaks my traditions.

And in the second before I respond, I think, Wow, what a beautiful sentence. Two! He can now express his needs with words instead of screaming, as he would have just a few short years ago. And I say, “Okay,” and close the door until he says, “I’m finished.”

Yes, he has his rituals. Things often need to be done in a certain order (unfortunately cleaning his room does not fall into that category). But there are many things that Nigel’s flexible about, and I can give him a minute to finish up with the rituals that he feels a need to perpetuate. The traditions. They bring some semblance of order to his often harried brain. And who am I to break traditions? Except maybe pajamas.

Day of the Salsa

I do my grocery shopping on Mondays, usually by myself, unless the boys have just received their allowance and want to go with me so they can buy something. Today I was alone, feeling like I was fighting the mild cold that Nigel has, so I got everything we needed for the week and looked forward to getting home and resting on the couch with a cup of hot herbal tea.

Nigel is fascinated with dates and has a knack for remembering them, as I have mentioned before. But I had no idea what he was talking about when, as I was unpacking the groceries, he walked to the calendar on the wall and said, in his stoic voice, “Today is April 7, the Day of the Salsa.”

Were we supposed to bring salsa to a Boy Scout meeting? Was my sister’s cat, named Salsa, born on this day? Did it have something to do with salsa dancing? Mexican culture or history?

Then I realized what he was talking about. “Do you mean the expiration date on the salsa container?” Yes, he did. It was the first time I remember him even noticing an expiration date, let alone commenting on it. Why the salsa? He doesn’t eat salsa, so why would he have cared? What’s even stranger is that the date on the milk carton is two days ago, but he didn’t notice that, and he had cereal and milk for breakfast this morning. I guess that’s good, though. Otherwise we might be dealing with a new obsession, a new ritual that could make mealtimes around here more difficult than they already are.

I better make baked potatoes tonight. Tomorrow is the Day of the Sour Cream.

Nigel the Historian

Nigel has maintained for quite some time now that he wants to be an inventor when he grows up. Yet he has this fascination for history and a photographic memory when it comes to names, dates, and events that makes me think this passion needs to be encouraged. 

Today after homeschool we went to the library, where Nigel picked up some videos on horses, the human body, Secrets of the Mummy, and Thomas Edison. Then we went to our local grocery store where I picked up a few items while he went to the video section to try to find Disney’s Donald in Mathemagic Land. They didn’t have it, but they did have the old live-action Treasure Island, so he got that instead, saying, “I haven’t seen this in a while.”

We got home and got ourselves some lunch (he did his usual grazing approach: two pieces of bread, a pear, an apple, a cup of yogurt, and I put some tortilla chips in a pan and melted some cheese on top). Nigel took his lunch to eat in the living room while he started Treasure Island, and I sat at the kitchen counter reading WordPress for Dummies while I ate.

After about ten minutes, out of nowhere, Nigel called out from the living room, “Mom, you were born in a period of economic inflation.”

Me: Yes, I suppose I was.

That was all.  He often leaves me hanging like that. I suppose I could have asked him why he mentioned that at that moment, but I was too caught up in marveling at his sentence structure and didn’t want to stop his train of thought, wherever it was going. Sometimes I wonder if all of his musings might come out on paper some day, along with his analysis and theories about humanity. He strikes this amazing balance between attachment (to those he loves) and detachment (from social mores and historical events) that I really think he might possess an innate ability to look objectively at a situation (historical or otherwise) and see what’s really going on. I know, I’m making some assumptions here, maybe asserting my own biased observation, projecting that my son could be some amazing social analyst because of his autism.

But I was born in 1971, and I can’t remember when I had last mentioned that around him. He filed it away, along with whatever he had previously read about inflation, and somehow the two topics combined in his head while he was watching Treasure Island. His mind fascinates me.