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Macaroni Dad

'Cause Dads Love Macaroni, Too!

April 18, 2014
The Spectrum...

Last Wednesday seemed like any other school day as I poured my daughter’s milk into her favorite glass and dropped her pop tart onto a plate. Half way through the week is a good place to be because Friday sits clearly on the horizon and makes the second half of the week seem do-able if not all out enjoyable.

Suddenly, a size 1 shoe flies out the door from my 8 year old's room and slaps against the wall outside the kitchen. She stomps out in all too familiar horrid, teenage fashion and I remember being able to feel her heel bones hitting the hard tile floor. She plops down in front of the kitchen doorway and seemed to be having an issue with getting her socks and tennis shoes on her feet.

“It’s okay honey,” I said in a calming but slightly alarmed voice. “Regardless of how bad this seems, I am sure we can get your shoes on.”

“It’s NOT OKAY dad! These stupid socks have this thread across the toes and these stupid laces won’t lay down the way I want them to...This is really making me mad!”

What seemed like a simple task that morning of putting on shoes and socks turned into a 30 minute screaming fit that changed the day my daughter was going to have. As cool and as collected as I tried to be, the way in which she came apart from such a simple task tore my morning apart and changed the day I was going to have as well. After yelling at the coffee table, my wife, my car door and the trash can, I stormed out of the house to start my hour commute for the day.

While driving it gave me time to call my best friend of 25 years in Orlando. While I told him about the fit my daughter threw and the flying socks and shoes and hair and cereal and ponytails that morning he sat in his office in Orlando and listened to what had happened. Best friends are there to listen and soak in what we tell them. They don’t judge or try to one-up or out do what we just told them, but they let us get it out so we can feel better and get through our day. Often they don’t have to say anything at all, but simply the act of us being able to blow-up and blow-out is a cathartic process that helps us to go onto the next task of the day. With my daughter on the school bus and my wife still wondering why I was yelling at her and kicking trash cans while running out the door, I finished my story about my overly dramatic 2nd second grader and my wife who just doesn’t understand me.

Best friends don’t have to respond and don’t always have to one-up you, but in this case it was appropriate...and just in time for me to stop feeling sorry for myself.

“Hey buddy, it’s Wednesday so let me tell you about my week so far,” he began. 

“Today my son Jeffrey threw a 45 minute tantrum because I put the cereal on the table in the wrong sequence. You see, first the bowl has to go on the table, and then the napkin next to the bowl. The spoon goes on the napkin and then the dry cereal gets poured into the bowl, and then if my son is okay with everything so far, the milk can go in. If you don’t do things in precisely that order, it doesn’t fit into his world and even if I go back and do it correctly, he gets hung up on how it was initially done wrong. You can’t begin to understand how many mornings I have to change my suit because I am wearing some random brand of chocolate pop cereal on my shirt because it was thrown across the room due to daddy doing it wrong.”

“As you know my wife and I have been looking for a new house so we can move to a school district that is more friendly and willing to allow therapists into the classrooms for my twin boys. As I speak to you, about five teachers have quit working in the day care center where my boys go to school because they say they refuse to go through another day of what my 4 year olds are putting them through. If you will recall we had to start giving Jeffrey special medicine to help him go potty because he stopped going for about a week. It seems when he begins to go number 2, it hurts him so much that he screams and refuses to go. The other day I sat with him for over an hour at home while he cried and told me he didn’t want to try. He doesn’t want to go potty you see, so he holds it in. If we didn’t help him, I am not sure he would ever go. The medicine helped of course, but it had an opposite affect and he apparently went to the bathroom all over his classroom. The poor little guy couldn’t control it. Kids were screaming, teachers were quitting...someday maybe I will be able to laugh about it, but right now I just feel terrible. The school administrator called me and says he needs to stay out of school for a week while they clean, re-assess and recuperate. Of course you would think my other son, Jake doesn’t have any challenges, but at 4 years old he still doesn’t really talk. We are still working on his speech and getting his brain wired to communicate with mom and dad and brother and sister but he for one reason or another is just further behind than his brother. It seems that while Jeffrey was having potty problems and going number 2 all over one room, Jake was standing over the toys with his pants around his ankles in the next room and urinating on the blocks, Lincoln logs and most of the books. Think about this happening while kids are screaming and trying to escape and the teachers are tending their resignation notices. Did I mention that we have to move?”

“I know you’ve had a rough day so far, but I have Jeffrey in the back seat because I am taking him back to the hospital for more tests. The poor little guy hates needles but I am sure they are going to draw more blood.” 

“You wonder why I flipped out a couple of years ago when the doctor told us that my sons were autistic. I freaked out because I knew it was going to change my life forever. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to throw a football with them or take pictures of them going to prom or sit down with them and eat dinner like a normal family does, but these are my boys and I love them with everything I have. I didn’t plan on this being my life or my destiny, but I am raising a very wonderful, very precocious 6 year old daughter and two outrageous, rambunctious, autistic, sons and I wouldn’t change it for the world. Sometimes we don’t know what it is we are supposed to do in this life until we are thrown into it. These guys are my life – they are my everything, and I couldn’t imagine life without them.”

“By the way...I am in a support group with about six other couples who have children that are at varying degrees on the autism spectrum. That story you told me about the socks reminds me a lot of one that I heard the other day in session.” 

“Have you ever had her tested?”

***My good friend lives in Orlando and has had his sons in a special therapy designed to help and rewire neural pathways inside the brains of his boys. They are similar but also very different in the way they understand and react to the world around them. He is still coming to grips with what it is going to take of him and his wife to give their children the best chance for a healthy and productive future. He told me a few weeks ago that it didn’t register right away when the doctor told him that his sons were autistic. He also said he didn’t give it a lot of thought when he heard it, but immediately after telling them that their boys were autistic the doctor smiled and followed by saying, “You are so lucky! Most parents don’t find out for years – Do you know how lucky your boys are?”

Macaroni wife and I have had these discussions before. We have always known our little MiniMac was very special in her-own way. The shoe and sock tantrums are a regular occurrence and might point us towards needing to investigate further if our little one is somewhere on the spectrum. 

If you wonder about you little one or maybe think they are exhibiting signs of autism or maybe Asperger’s syndrome, it is important to know that there are therapies out there that can give them an excellent opportunity at learning and growing into a full and productive life - the earlier it is understood and diagnosed and the sooner therapy can be started the better. Denial is not an option. 

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