The Duplo Train

Listening to five minutes of Jeremy's playing with his Duplo train set is like entering a surreal universe.

A train gets stuck on a country track. It has broken down. Oh no!  What will the passengers do?  They'll never get to the station!  They must find a train driver, because drivers are good at fixing trains.

Thank goodness!  A train driver has been found in one of the carriages (quite who has been driving the train up until this point remains a mystery).  He knows all about trains.  He volunteers to have a look, steps down from the carriage and approaches the engine, where he tinkers with something on the side for a bit.  He says it needs oil, and he has some in his truck, but his truck is nowhere to be seen.

He's a clever train driver, though, and he thinks outside the box and walks to a nearby farm, where he asks the farmer: "Please can I borrow one of your animals?"

"Oh, yes!" says the farmer enthusiastically, and offers a brown cow.  The train driver leads the cow back to the stranded train and walks it around the engine once.  Then he takes it back to the farmer and thanks him.

("What did he need the cow for, Jeremy?"
"To fix the train."
"Yes, but what did the cow do to fix the train?"
"It mooooed.")

All right then.  Back to the engine.  The driver returns to his carriage and waits expectantly in his passenger seat.  Oh dear, it's still not moving!  Off the driver goes to the farm again.

"Please may I borrow your goat?"

The goat is the charm, and the passengers are on their way to sounds of cheering.

There still doesn't appear to be anybody actually driving the train.

Lots of naughty

Here's a tiny drama from this morning.

The scene: It's Sunday morning.  Abigail has got up early, refused anything resembling breakfast and eventually agreed to eat her untouched school packed lunch from the fridge.  Mummy has left her with this and CBeebies, made herself a cup of tea and gone upstairs to sort things out.  Jeremy has pottered down to watch CBeebies, and TheRev is in the study, printing stuff.

Mummy comes back down the stairs to find Abi waiting at the bottom.

Abi: (With relish) Mummy! I beened lots of naughty.

Mummy: Uh oh.

Abi: But, I want to be friends.

Mummy: Okay.  Well, what did you do?

Abi: I eated my spoon.

Mummy: Sorry.  You ate your what?

Abi: My spoon.

Mummy: Your - I - I'm not sure I've understood.  You ate a spoon?

Abi: Can we be friends?

Mummy: A spoon?  Are you sure?

Abi: Yes.

Mummy: Can you show me?

Abi leads Mummy to the sitting room and points to the remains of her packed lunch.  The plastic baby spoon which was with the (unopened) yoghurt now only has half a spoon on the handle.

Mummy: You ATE a SPOON?  But how...why...I mean, the other bit must be somewhere!  Did you swallow it?

Abi: Are we friends?

Mummy: Yes but where's the SPOON?  Is it in your tummy?

Abi: I don't know.  I spitted it out.

Mummy: Then why can't I see it anywhere?

Jem: Abi putted cheese on mine train.

Mummy: Oh.  Yes, I can see that, but - Jem, did you see her eat a spoon?

Jem: *proffering train* Clean it!

Mummy: I can't really...here, have a wipe...Daddy, come in here, I think Abi has actually eaten a spoon!

Daddy: I'm coming!  That's just printing, I can help get the kids dressed.

Mummy: They are already dressed.  The issue here is that one of them has eaten a spoon.

There follows a time of panic as we both hunt for the other bit of the spoon and consider the idea that our food phobic daughter has managed to consume a sharp bit of plastic for breakfast

Daddy: It's really gone!

Mummy: What's that in...Jeremy's hair!  It's in his hair!


Yes, that funny green thing in Jem's hair was really the top of the spoon, affixed with cream cheese.

It is a miracle every Sunday that we get to church on time.

The Rev's Family Expressions of PosAutivity: #AutismPositivity2014

I'm taking part in the 2014 Flash Blog of Autism Positivity.

This is, as it says on the tin, a day at the end of a month of "autism awareness" (which, though well-meant, can very often spread depressing and downright damaging views of autism) when hundreds of bloggers come together to write positively about autism and autistic people.

This year's theme is communication: "This year we hope to highlight the importance of flexibility in communication within our diverse community and honour multiple forms of personal expression" (official guidelines)

*****

Language is not Abigail's first language.  She is doing ever so well at it, but it doesn't come naturally.  She speaks, as TheRev puts it, like somebody using a phrase book: echoes from television, bedtime stories and overheard conversation are all stored in her extraordinary library of a mind, where they are broken down, mixed up and carefully chosen for use in every conversation.  She takes comfort in scripts and songs which are the same every time.

She started to learn language in echoes of full sentences and phrases.  If she's learned that a phrase is an acceptable answer to a question (because it was true the first time) then it becomes the answer to that question every time: for a while, the answer to the question "Why is s/he crying" was always "Because my hitted him" even if it was a character in a book!   Sometimes, a word selection accidentally triggers an echo, meaning that her reply to your question isn't at all what she meant to say.  Sometimes she accidentally does it to herself: "I'm going to turn the page" she announced to me, before turning off the light.

The way she listens and speaks may make communication difficult sometimes, but at other times it's like living with a tiny unintentional poet, a walking box of connections and combinations all sparking and hissing and flashing at once.

Rather than try to describe it any further, I'm going to make a list of quotations from my journal that will hopefully give you some idea, both of how incredibly quickly she's learning, and of the amazing things that can by done with words by a child for whom language is not her first language.

30/05/13
Tiffer says, in conversation, that he thinks something is less important.  Abi shouts: "It's not less important, it's FULL OF PORRIDGE!"

2/10/13 Abi's response to being asked what she did at nursery today: "I just played happily.  Then I done a song about the sleeping butterflies.  I think butterflies do sleep on something, it's just a pillow and a blanket and all the way back to bed, and then they go in a wirrelbarrel all the way home".

15/10/13
"I have an idea, how about we can play instead?  It's playtime, that why we can play, and the time is play."  (Actually, it was bedtime!)

29/10/13
Abi's response to my reaction upon discovering that she had drawn in orange highlighter on our hosts' pillowcase: "Don't worry Mummy.  It's not the matter.  It's GREAT!"

25/11/13
Me: Abi, we need to change your trousers, those are too small.
Her: No, those are too fine, they are just my same.

25/01/14
Abi is very interested that I am eating chocolate.  "Have you beened a GOOD Mummy?"

11/02/14
Me: What does an angel say, Abi?  (This is a script that we've been doing together since before Christmas, and the answer has always been "Don't be afraid, I've got good news for you", which comes from a favourite Christmas song on video).
Her: Don't be afraid. I got something in my pocket to good news you. 

19/03/14
Mummy, are you feeling better, or are you properly poorly?

1/04/14
Me: Abi, please put that magazine into my bag now.
Her: No, I won't do that.  Putting in bags is not good for magazines.