The Flood of Water

I’m sitting there doing something when I begin to feel I’ve heard the toilet flush about five times in a row. Then I hear Ned call, “Alex has flooded the toilet!”

I round the corner off our living room and there’s half an inch shining across the black and white tiles of the bathroom floor. My temper takes a predictable turn when I see the water. I step right into the water with my sneakers. Screw it. Except, to paraphrase Fargo, “He don’t say ‘screw’, if you get what I’m sayin’.”

“Ned!”

“What?”

“Ned, I need your help!”

How come I can’t call on Alex? How come all I can do is yell at him to get the hell out of the bathroom?

“Jeff, I’m coming!” says my wife Jill.

“I’m not talking to you! Ned, bring me the dustpans!”

The only bathroom trouble Alex (13, PDD-NOS) has ever had – aside from aim, which as a guy I can tell you is over-rated – is a glass-eyed fascination with running water. He runs the faucet long enough when brushing his teeth to draw an environmental rebuke from his typically developing younger brother Ned.

I’m talking to no one as I use the dustpan (“Thank you, Ned! Good man.”) to scoop and dump splash after sort-of brown splash into the tub. The dustpan is flat and the floor is flat; doesn’t that make sense? Besides, months ago Alex ripped the crap out of the car-washing sponge we bought for these floods. This is the sense of autism.

The flood has something to do with the toilet paper being near the end of its roll. Reports Jill, “I heard Ned telling Alex, ‘Stop using so much toilet paper!’” Sounds about right for my life.

“Ned, bring the Swiffer!”

Ned does help. He lugs the sopping beach towels – it’s deep winter so who cares if we use them, and we use them to make the bathroom floor stop shining – in a bag to the basement laundry room. We went him back in half an hour to put them in the dryer. He gets a laundry lesson.

We have to look at the plusses. Alex has learned a lesson about flushing five times in a row – maybe. Ned has learned a household chore. We get the clean bathroom floor until Alex goes in there again, this time for legit business. Aim remains over-rated.

Jeff Stimpson lives in New York with his wife and two sons. He is the author of Alex: The Fathering of a Preemie and Alex the Boy: Episodes From a Family’s Life With Autism (both available on Amazon) and has a blog about his family at jeffslife.tripod.com/alextheboy. He contributes to various sites and publications on special-needs parenting, such as Autism-Asperger’s Digest, Autism Spectrum News, the Autism Society news blog, and An Anthology of Disability Literature (available on Amazon). He is on LinkedIn under “Jeff Stimpson” and Twitter under “Jeffslife.”

For about the past 3 years, Curtis has been taking swimming lessons through the Center for Therapeutic Recreation, sponsored by Easter Seals, which develops programs for children with autism and other disabilities.  When he first started swimming, it took Laura and I all we could do just to get him in his “swimming shorts” (god forbid you call it a bathing suit because those are for girls) and into the pool.  Curtis would fight us all the way from the living room until the moment his swim coach inevitably peeled him off whichever one of us he clung to for dear life.
To this day, Curtis still tries to get out of swimming lessons just about every week, though it is much less of a battle than previous years.
We still have to use the locker that is one number higher than the previous week, a routine he has stuck to since he began swimming. It nearly went terribly wrong this week, as someone was already using locker 48, but after assuring Curtis that this was not a big deal, he chose to use locker 47 for a second time. Although we may seem a little cruel for having him go week after week I assure you as soon as he actually hit the water he is all smiles. 
When he first started swimming lesson, Curtis couldn’t swim much at all.  He had to wear a float around his waist and use a pool noodle. He was terrified to swim on his back because he was afraid he would hit his head at the end of the pool, which he had done once before and it's difficult to convince him it won't happen again.  I think all of us have said before on this website that we have all spent a fair amount of time worrying about Curtis’ physical safety which obviously extends to water. A year ago, Laura was happy that they would have at least 30 seconds to save him should he get into the water alone because at that point he could tread water for about that length of time before going underwater.  It has always been a goal in the back of my mind for him to be able to swim across the pool without assistance.  Last week, I sat on the side watching him swerve and circle his way almost across the pool before finally grabbing the sideline. 
I asked, “Curtis what in the world are you doing?” knowing he would have made it across had he just gone in a straight line.  “Drawing roads!” was his response. 
Of course Curtis had found a new way to do his favorite activity.
I told him after swimming that if he went in a straight line he would have made it across the pool.  He seemed a little surprised by this information.  This week, Curtis got into the pool, threw a noodle to his swim instructor and took off.  He made across the pool.  And back. And back across again.  All of the swim instructors cheered and Curtis could not have been happier asking if I taped it each lap that he did.  I am so happy to report that Curtis now stands a good chance in the open water for at least 50 yards.  Hallelujah!  Another goal set for Curtis and another goal exceeded.

Jamie, 1:1 Home Support