This picture of Sam was taken in the Spring at the beach when she was a more cooperative subject. Perhaps because she loves the beach with all the sensory stimulus and I'm easier to ignore.
Don't feel sorry for me. Oh, well, go ahead. Some days I feel sorry for me, too. I've had about three sorry days in a row. Today, I discovered, not once, but two times, that Samantha had decided to pee in her bedroom garbage can. Now I've known moms of "normal" boys who would not be at all surprised by this activity. But she's a girl. She has to hover and squat, not just point and squirt. The actual bathroom is probably less than twelve feet from her bedroom. It was not occupied. Don't ask me. I don't get it. I was just relieved the second time that she'd removed the bag. Then I could just treat it like a porta-potty: dump, rinse, dump. The first time I had a big bag of pee to deal with. Tragedy? Of course not. Irritating? What do you think?
Thursday afternoon I came in from the garden to find a message on the answering machine. It went something like this: "Hi, this is Sam [our Sam's aide at school is also named Sam just to make this more confusing, but this is the aide Sam, not our Sam]. I'm really sorry. We really tried. But Sam had a really hard day with her clothes..."
I called the school to see if my child was naked yet, if they needed me to bring clothing or come pick her up. They said she was clothed enough to make it home. When she got off the bus, both legs of her pants were split up the sides and both sides of her t-shirt were split way up the side, too. This was her second set of clothes for the day. This was much more severe than the day before. The previous day she arrived looking fine on the outside, but when she disrobed, it became apparent that she'd been sneaking her hands inside her pants and had still managed to pick her underwear apart.
But Thursday afternoon, I could only shake my head and wonder desperately how I was going to manage to keep her clothed this year if she doesn't knock off this picking compulsion.
I have an unfortunate compulsion to pick at my child. Not pick on, but pick at. This is similar to what my older sister loved to do to me as a kid. I spent most of my summers sunburned and peeling. Deanna loved to peel my skin. That's a little more appealing than my compulsion, but Sam is going through puberty and I can't stand to leave a big white-headed zit just sitting there marring her face or shoulders.
At first Sam was quite irritated with me and I don't blame her. I couldn't help myself, though, and frankly, I've had to put up with a lot of her compulsions that she can't help either. Then we got to where I would position her fingers and she could squeeze it herself. Yes, good times in the Shockey household. Right now, my sister-in-law is gagging and horrified. Sam actually enjoyed this activity now because as mentioned in the past, she has nervous little fingers and she likes to pick at stuff, usually fabric, usually being worn on her body. So this was a new treat.
Then Thursday night arrived. She had a big one on her shoulder. I tried to get it, but excuse me, it wasn't ripe enough. Unfortunately, Sam was now aware of its ghastly presence and she couldn't tolerate it. I did learn that night that Sam's vocabulary contains the word zit. And we went to bed that night with Sam crying, literally, "Zit. Get zit. Cry. Cry...Get zit". Scream. "Zit. Zit. Get zit. Cry. Cry". Yes, she cried the word cry, just in case we didn't get that she was crying. She wanted no ambiguity. I tried to relieve her shoulder of its burden. Miranda gave it her best shot. We both tried lying to Sam and telling her, "It's ok. All gone." But she knew we were lying and ended up crying herself softly to sleep.
I was left thinking, "stupid, stupid, stupid". I mean, she's twelve. Who cares if she has a zit on her shoulder? Why can't I keep my hands to myself? And other senseless recriminations echoed in my head.
Those recriminations would reverberate in my poor addled head the next day.
You see, on Thursday, after Sam arrived home in tatters, I thought I'd had one of those Eureka moments. It turns out that I was completely delusional, completely wrong, but I felt brilliant and well-informed (and at least hopeful) for one evening. I'd decided that "That's it! No more!" Consequences, meaningful consequences. If Sam likes nothing better than eating out, then she'd have to earn it. I wrote in the notebook that goes back and forth between home and school that I wanted them to use the threat and say it in a stern voice. "If you want to go to Subway (or restaurant) then DON'T PICK YOUR CLOTHES!"
Bless their dedicated little hearts, they did try. Then they probably cursed me the rest of the day. When Sam got home that day, her clothes looked like they were in pretty good shape. However, about an hour and a half before she arrived home, I received THE PHONE CALL.
One thing about Sam the aide, she is a GOOD person. She is patient ( not only with my Sam, but with me, too), she is calm, and she is forgiving of mistakes. Like telling them to use THE THREAT.
Apparently once the threat had been made, my Sam could think of nothing else for the rest of the day but "Subway Eat Fresh". And she repeated this phrase, "Subway Eat Fresh, Subway Eat Fresh, Subway Eat Fresh" ALL DAY LONG! Every couple of minutes, in fact. She was unable to focus on anything else and did no work to speak of ALL DAY LONG except to constantly remind EVERYONE that she wanted "Subway Eat Fresh, Subway Eat Fresh". At least with "Zit, zit, cry, cry" it was bed time and we got to listen to this refrain for thirty to forty minutes. Sam's classroom got to listen to "Subway Eat Fresh, Subway Eat Fresh" for seven hours.
They called the Autism Specialist. Yes, that would NOT be me. The specialist came up with a strategy for them. Similar to what I'd tried before, but definitely worth trying again and this time the approach is being tweaked a bit. They are going to take new fabric and go to the home ec room, Sam in tow, and sew her some little square with lots of seams to pick. I'd tried this before, but I hadn't used new fabric and I hadn't done it in front of Sam. Here's hoping.
I will continue to make mistakes. Hopefully, they will be new and improved mistakes and not the same old ones. I will no longer pretend that I know what I'm doing as I do my best to raise this mysterious, perplexing child. I will try to be patient with her. Hopefully everyone else will be patient with me.
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