A Stone's Throw

I first got an email from this family in early December, I remember because it was just before finals. They lived nearby and needed someone to watch two young kids in the afternoons and evenings 4-5 days a week. Again, the father was in the Navy, but stationed in Djibouti rather indefinately.

My first meeting with the family was right at the end of the semester, the mother was a student by day and worked full time at night while her sister, who lived with them, stayed home during the day and worked at the same place at night.

The children, both boys, were absolutely wonderful. Intelligent, cheerful, and sweet, the little one "Dan", only about 18 months old, took right to me and we were forever inseperable. The older one "Cris", about two and a half, did not warm up to me quite as quickly.

The first few weeks we spent just getting to know one another. Dan didn't talk, just smiles and action; Cris cried. Cris sat, up to eight hours at a time, under a blanket from his mother's bed and cried.

As I began to get him to interact, I began to notice that he wasn't like other kids his age, for one, he was very close to smarter than myself. (Okay, I'm not a genius, not quite anyway, but there should be more difference between an two year old and a twenty-two year old.) Cris also did not communicate normally. Most notable was this interaction; I would ask him, "Do you want juice?" His response was never yes or no, but "Do you want juice." as affermative or "No do you want juice." as dissent. Red flags went up in the back of my mind. I dug around on the internet, looking at medical texts and information from other parents, and sent off an email to someone I knew long ago and came to a startling conclusion. Cris was autistic.

It just so happened that about the time I came to this conclusion on my own, their grandparents happened to be visiting and I brought the topic of Cris up to the grandmother. She said, yes, he most likely was autistic and their other daughter (who works in a profession with such children) pointed it out long ago. She also said the parents were in denial and said if something was wrong the schools would catch it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe my ears. By the time he made it to school, most likely it would be too late. If he was lucky enough that the school caught it the first couple years, he would get shoved into special ed, a place from which few students ever returned. So I returned to my books and journals and began devising a plan to help him get over this obsticle.

The first step was getting him to accept me. This actually turned out to be fairly difficult. I ignored him unless him came to me. I never looked directly at him and set about creating an ironclad routine that anyone who had him in their care could follow. Since he wasnt old enough to really tell time, I used the television. I programmed the TV each day to switch to each channel at the correct time and in no time at all the crying began to lessen. Shortly after that he would come sit with me to play or watch a show and he began to show that he really liked to help in the kitchen.

This routine became key to everything else we did. It became my way to get him potty trained and my way to actually get him to do other activities. The mother and aunt pointed out on different occasions, "The boys cry and run to the door when you leave."



One entire day got devoted to yes and no. We tried flashcards, word recognition, and a host of other things and by bedtime, he pretty much had it figured out.

Once we had basic communication down we starting disposing of bad habits. The list was simple enough if it had just been the mother and I; binkies, bottles, eating inthe livingroom, and diapers primarily, along with allowing Cris to echo speech instead of answer as he had learned. But the aunt had the children most of the time and liked having little fuss from them. So we got rid of everything. I pointed out that while they were with me, which was most of the day, these things were not done so it wouldn't be much of a transition.

By early summer we had it down pat. I arrived at 2 in the afternoon just as the kids were getting up from their naps and we had a couple hours of somewhat structured playtime. We would paint or use playdough, if it was warm we would play in the little pool out back. Four o'clock was our first target time, Reba was on at four for an hour. In that hour we cleaned up whatever we had been doing and went for a walk around the neighborhood. Walking took quite a bit of time and usually by the time we got back it was nearing 5.
At five o'clock Gilmore Girls came on and that was dinner preparation. Sometimes Cris would help me and sometimes he would play with his brother. Usually by half past they were at the table eating.
Six o'clock meant Reba was back on and we had more playtime or read books, slightly calmer activities than earlier in the day.
Seven was Still Standing and that was bath time. Bath time took a bit longer because Dan had a bath but Cris took a shower.
Eight o'clock was time for snuggling, watching the final round of Reba, and preparing for bed. After we settled, occasionally I would get on messanger and Cris with talk to my mom online.

Over time we bagan to venture further away from home. They liked to go visit my dog so we did that often, we would go to children's museums or just to a different environment. Much of what we did was to stimulate both boys, but especially Cris. He had aversions to certain sensations like sitting in water (like a tub or kiddie pool), walking barefoot through grass, or sitting on a swing. Finger paint and playdough gave him trouble at first as well. Because of his general aversion to water, I was very surprised the first time we took him swimming in a big pool and he didn't want to get out.
He formed a very unusual bond with my mother (whom he saw all of like twice ever) and liked to talk to her and visit with her if she was down.

Dan was just Dan, not very talkative, very much the observer. During the time I watched them he did finally begin to talk, but with an unexpected twist. Having listened to my fast way of talking, he spoke very fast.
Mid summer brought a traumatic event to the house, their aunt was hospitalized for MS, something she had been battling for a long time, and the household was thrown into turmoil. The first night the boys came and stayed at my house and as we drove away in the dark, Cris was in the backseat crying to himself "Mommy will come later" over and over again. It was a demonstration that some of the coping techniques we had been working on, he understood.
After a year of caring for them I pointed out that while I had helped the boys quite a bit they needed professional help, it was met with resistance. Finally I had to just end working for them because seeing those boys and knowing that without help, Cris wouldn't ever reach his full potential was tearing me apart.