Caught out- Oh the shame!

This morning Lucas’ Speechie *Melissa was due at 10:30 am.

So imagine my surprise when the doorbell rung at 9:30 and there she was smiling on my doorstep – and all of the kids and I still in our pyjamas!

We laughed it off and I made some lighthearted jokes about school holidays making me lazy and feebly apologised for the state of my disgustingly untidy , completely neglected and totally unkept slightly messy house.

I wanted the ground to swallow me up.

I had planned to spend 9:30 – 10:30 going around like a rocket hiding toys under beds, stacking the dishwasher (with EVERYTHING on the kitchen bench whether it belonged in there or not).

My reasoning was that I could always fix it later after she left but the bench would at least look tidy - and hiding things in the oven (another quick fix method of mine) then hanging a tea towel over the front so guests are none the wiser.

I’d also planned to close the kid’s bedroom doors, hide all the dirty clothes on the laundry floor in the washing machine and wipe down the bathroom basin with a few baby wipes and finishing the whole thing of with a few sprays of lavender room air mist through the whole house, lighting my “strawberry fields” aromatherapy candle and generally giving that “display home” look and smell that she’s used to seeing when she’s here

But Oh, crap. She totally caught me out.

I was standing in the living room in my old ratty pyjamas, bed hair, coffee breath, feral children running around sockless (freezing tiled floors) and every toy they ever owned strewn throughout the house.

I can’t forget to mention the breakfast cereal bowls and glasses still on the table and the cocoa bombs that had fallen to the floor under careless children’s chairs that had been walked on and crunched into the grout on the tiles.

Lovely.

I think poor *Melissa was quite shocked at my dishevelled appearance and I mumbled something about needing more caffeine, a shower and less children!

To make matters worse- she then told me what she had planned for today’s session.

Wait for it………

She wanted to include all of the children, and wanted them each (and also me) to think of 3 things that we all enjoy doing on our own and something that we all like to do together……and then she was going to take photos of us all doing our special things and she was going to print them up and make a poster.

Urrrggghhhh! I looked down at my stained pjs and over at the kids in the mismatched old hand-me-downs and cringed.

I then had to run around like a fire chief evacuating a burning building and throw some outfits at the kids and go and have a “deodorant and perfume” shower myself .

I did it in record time and even managed to shut the kid’s bedroom doors before *Melissa went any where near them!

We all chose our “favourite” activities.

Lucas chose : bubble blowing, cuddling his puppy toy, and riding his Thomas engine.

Harley chose: drawing, Lego, and playing chicken invaders on the PC

Ella chose: playing her guitar,drawing and cooking.

I chose (well the kids chose it for me) Drinking coffee!, playing the piano and sewing.

We took photos of us all doing these activities,printed them up and made posters that we stuck on the big glass sliding doors.

There was one last photo at the bottom that was of all 3 of them playing the Wii and that was because it is something that they all like to do together.

The purpose of the exercise was to teach the children that “We are all different” but there are some things that we like to all do.

Because my kids have very little idea of how to play together, it needs to be taught.

I think it turned out to be a huge success. Thanks *Melissa!

Now……..housework is screaming at calling me.

Playing Together Aspie Style!

This is a photo taken of my 3 children and my friend’s 2 children -all who have aspergers syndrome- playing together in the dirt after school.

We both laugh because they do this kind of thing ALL the time.

They do not actually interact with each other at all. They don’t  know how!

They just simply play “beside” each other!

Ah, gorgeous!

 

My little stars and their wars!

My boys were playing “Star Awards” this afternoon.

They were chasing each other around the house with their cardboard toilet roll “life savers“ and Harely was “Luke Skyscraper” and told Lucas that he had to be “Dark Vader“!

I seriously don’t know where they get their material from but it is hilarious to listen to!

Even though Ella and I tried numerous times to correct them, they “forgot” within minutes after we would correct them and tell them that it is called “Star Wars”.

It was just back to the same old script. And the script would go as follows:

They would enact a fight scene, Dark Vader would “die” (because good ALWAYS conquers evil) and Lucas would dutifully fall to the ground clutching his throat for effect. (Pretty good acting for a 3 year old if you asked me!)

Harely (being Luke) the “goody” would then step one foot onto Lucas’ chest and raise the arm holding his ” life saver” into the air in victory!

And then they would start exactly the same scene all over again-in exactly the same order.

After about the 4th or 5th time, I was getting annoyed by the repetition and tried to re-direct them a little.

I mean- these boys haven’t even watched Star Wars!

The closest they have ever gotten is by playing the LEGO Star wars game for the Nintendo or by these clips on youtube that were obviously done by people with WAY too much time on their hands!

All was going well, until Lucas decided that HE  now wanted to be Luke , which would have been a good change in the script however –  Harley didn’t like that one little bit! He wasn’t going to be Dark come hell or high water!

So to make his point known, he then decided that he was going to be Yoda because NO-ONE can beat Yoda – “he has the Force you know mum” !

(I didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were actually allies not enemies!

But I’m not sure he would have listened anyway!

And once that was sorted……the fight re-enactments started all over again.

Apparently, after about ten more minutes of play: Luke got “bored” and went to watch Dora on the TV so Yoda got mad and killed Luke,  and then went onto complete his killing spree by sorting out “Dark”, the princess and that Obi guy!

I had to laugh……what else could I do!  His imagination is up and running even if it is a tad violent! (Which is one of the reasons that he’s NOT allowed to watch the series just yet!)

If I learnt nothing else from this afternoon’s play session – I learnt that  if this is what they are managing to come up with on their own. I think it’s wonderful and shouldn’t be tampered with just yet!

Scripting aside- the fact that they were “trying ” really hard to take turns and play together just moved me beyond belief.

Go you little Jedi’s GO!