Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Talking To Friends

Like most pre-teens and teenagers these days, Katie wants a cell phone of her own.  Knowing Katie like I do, I can tell you this is 12 kinds of a bad idea.  In the first place, she looses everything she touches in about 5 minutes of picking it up.  She will pick up the remote control, carry it around, and drop it wherever she wanders to next.  We will find random toys, magazines, socks, and stuffed animals dropped behind chairs, under her bed and in the basement.  Can you imagine trying to find a cell phone with a dead battery?  Katie takes her disappointment like a trooper, however, and makes it work for her.  She "talks to her friends" on her pretend cell phone, which is her hand cupped to her ear.  She has quite the conversations with them too.  Sometimes I forget there isn't anyone on the other line, because she asks them questions, and answers them back as well. 

When Katie goes to bed at night, she has to talk to her friends to get herself to sleep.  If we tell her to be quiet, we hear her say, "Friends, you have to be quiet, my mom is getting mad!"  Sometimes she will be down the basement for hours, talking and laughing with her friends.  Sometimes Autism can be quirky, sometimes it can be endearing.  It can be frustrating, terrifying, rewarding, heartbreaking and emotionally draining.  You just never know from day to day what  your Adventures in Autism will bring you.   

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