Friday 10 June 2016

Home again, home again jiggity-jig

Just back from holiday with Ethan and the kids and need another holiday to recover!

Eleven days in a (very small) self-catering caravan on a Spanish tourist site with an Aspergic husband and son (along with our neuro-typical kids) was rather like an endurance test - with a few idyllic moments and amazing views thrown in to keep us all going!

The stress started the moment our sandalled feet hit the tarmac of the airport. Airports seem to hold a special terror for Ethan. Even with two hours to go until boarding, Ethan got jittery with anxiety – eyes wide and intense, voice raised, fingers twitching. He marched us through check-in and security, leading from the front at a rate of knots, dragged children and bags banging in to other passengers on the way. No time for Ava and I to indulge in airport perks such as trying on perfume samples at duty free…except that we did, because I refuse to (and refuse to let my kids be) ruled by Aspergers, and we were on holiday for goodness sake.

Our frivolous waste of precious minutes was met with silent building pressure in Ethan leading to an angry look and an even faster pace to the boarding gate, where we sat and waited for fifteen minutes for the shuttle bus to take us to our plane. I couldn’t help pointing out that ‘I’d told him so.’
His reconciliatory comment on the plane that my perfume ‘smelt nice’ did little to appease my resentment. I was already bracing myself for the journey home….


That said, Ethan’s intensive focus, his planning and ordering of documents into carefully-labelled envelopes, his pre-booking of the taxi to take us home from the airport, does get us all efficiently and easily from A to B. It just somehow also saps all the joy out of the adventure. 

Saturday 4 June 2016

Are you receiving me?!

Anyone else out there in neuro-diverse partnerships experience their NT partner only giving half the information required?! My husband does it all the time! Frustratingly (or perhaps as a sub-conscious means of survival!) my brain never retains the incidents, except for this morning's which is still fresh in my memory...
So, Ethan came into our room, out of no-where while I was getting dressed on holiday and said, 'Do you want to go for a walk by yourself today? I'll look after the kids, I don't mind."
Seemed a bit of a random suggestion for a family holiday so I replied, "erm, no thanks. I'll stay with all of you..."
To which, Ethan, seeming a bit put out, replied, "oh right, ok."
It wasn't until later when I realised the date & mentioned to Ethan that it was the seventh anniversary of my mum dying that he said, genuinely confused, "yeah, I know. I've already spoken to you about it when I offered for you to go for a walk."
The penny dropped...but when I mentioned that he hadn't mentioned the context of it being the anniversary of mum dying he was convinced he had communicated that information. What goes on in his head and what he thinks he's said compared to what he does say seem to be poles apart sometimes!