My neighbor thought I was Mrs. Robinson.
I mean, there I was, taking a walk through the neighborhood with a seriously talk and dark 21-year-old and my two kids. The neighbor was, sans leash, taking his tiny little terrier (which looks like a puppy but is actually twelve) on an evening walk as he approached the four of us. Usually when we're on walks and encounter the duo, Noah and the dog spend a lot of time playing together, but this evening was different. My neighbor saw the young college junior and I speaking to each other in hushed tones and said, uncomfortably, "I'm sorry to interrupt," and scurried away.
Then there was that other time when I was at McDonalds with my kids and a different man, an older man, and a few days later a teenager who worked there said to me, "I saw you this week," with a subtle tone that she'd caught me cheating.
Ah yes, to the people who don't live in Autism Land, I'm the freaky girl who's always with a different man.
My boys have habilitation therapists who work with them on lifeskills in both the home and the community. Nicholas has 25 hours of habilitation a week, and Noah has 15. That means there are a lot of habilitators in and out of my house in a given week. And since Noah is nine years old--an age when it is totally not cool to have girls hanging around--all of his habilitators are male. The habilitator who has most of Nick's hours and has been with our family longer than anyone is also male.
Nick has goals in his program that require him to practice things like ordering at a fast food restaurant ("chicken and fries and co-o-ke," he always says). Noah's program is filled with social goals, learning how to interact and play with peers. So, of course, the habilitators and I are out in the community with the boys a lot.
On the evening my neighbor freaked about my young companion (which, eww--not only are college students gross, but as a short girl I find super tall guys even grosser), the habilitator and I had taken the boys on a walk; the walk, of course, was just a cover for working a habilitation goal because we knew the neighborhood boys would be around the corner playing. We casually walked near where the kids were playing and Noah asked, "Can I play with them?" Of course! We gave Noah his space--it's so not cool to have grown-ups hovering over play when you are nine--and kept walking along with Nick, making sure we stayed in eye-shot and ear-shot just in case we needed to intervene.
Which, unfortunately, we did. One of the older kids was being a little mean to Noah and refused to share the toy guns with him; Noah responded like a kid with autism would. It was ugly and I got tears in my eyes watching my son, who longs to play with the other kids, get his feelings hurt yet again.
But I didn't let Noah see those tears. Instead, the habilitator and I helped Noah walk through and talk through his hurt, and, while Noah was distracted with the sight of the little dog, we took a second to whisper a few things to each other about the situation out of Noah's hearing.
LOL, I guess they seemed like intimate whispers.
I enjoy the irony of it, the presumption that I am doing something dirty, when the truth is the furthest thing from that. Yes, there are men who show up at my house throughout the day, men who you might just see me with at McDonalds. But if you only stopped to eavesdrop on me and these men, you might hear us talking about . . . children's bowel movements. PECS cards. Stims. IEP goals.
And that's about as un-Mrs. Robinson as you can get ;)
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