It's the thought that counts - or is it?

There was a crisis in our home last night!  Jed was going for a shower, he had handed his watch to Murray who had put it on the cabinet in the bathroom.  After his shower we heard a minor meltdown coming form upstairs, it was Jed and he couldn't find his watch.  Thus followed a conversation which became a little heated where one party explained where they had put it and the other saying they it must have been moved.  Jed wouldn't even let me flush the toilet because he was a little concerned it had fallen in!  he really had no idea where it had gone.

By this point Imogen had been in bed for about half an hour, we had people in our living room waiting to start a meeting, a pre teen feeling very stressed and no idea where the watch had gone.  We left our visitors downstairs and were all looking around everywhere we could think of upstairs until suddenly, Murray burst out of the bathroom and into Imogen's room, turning the light on as he flew in.
I thought she had been asleep but oh no!  We found her sitting in her bed with the sellotape and paper, wrapping Jed's watch up to give to him as a present!!  I have to admit I had to squash down a laugh and try very hard not to send mixed messages as I told her it wasn't acceptable to take other people's things even if you were going to give them back!!

It was then we realised this is something we need to address as this is not the first time.  A couple of weekends ago we had a weekend when we went away as a whole church, it was a great time of fun and time together and we had an excellent speaker who is also an author.  He brought some of his books with him incase anyone wanted to buy them.  It was also the weekend of Father's Day and on Father's day morning unbeknown to me, Murray was presented with a messily wrapped up bundle which contained the two of the books.  Later it was revealed to me that Imogen had taken the books and went to one of our friends (also a Mum!) and asked her to help wrap them.  She had been asked where she got them from, if Mummy knew and if she had paid.  Imogen happily answered, off the table, no, she hadn't paid and Mummy and Daddy weren't to know - it was a secret!!  My friend asked her if she should pay for them, Imogen shrugged her shoulders and replied 'If you want to!'  We of course rectified the payment situation after receiving the gift!  I think there is a bit of irony in the name of one of the books....

We definitely have a bit of work to do here!!  They say it is the thought that counts - hmmm not sure the outworking of that is meant to be quite so literal!

Animal rescue!

About a year ago I found the phone off the hook and a leaflet next to it.  The leaflet had a picture of a snow leopard on the front and said in bold letters 'Help save the snow leopard'.  I recognised the leaflet as a few days before Imogen had picked it off the floor as it fell out of a magazine I was reading and had asked me what it said.  I had made her work it out and she had kept it safe in her bag since then.
Inside there was a phone number to call and become a sponsor of the WWF to give £12 a month to help save the cute creature on the front.

 I picked up the phone and was glad to hear that it was dead at the other end sensing that at some point in the recent past it had been connected to a premium rate line!

I took the leaflet into Imogen's room.  'Immi, did you call the phone number on this leaflet?' 
All I got was a sheepish look.  'Immi, I need an answer, did you call the number?'
A nod this time.
'Did someone answer?'
Another nod.
'Was it a man or a lady?' I asked, trying to draw her out.
'A man' she said.
'What did he say?'
With relief I heard 'He told me I should call back when I am older.  Mummy, when you are an adult you can do what you want can't you?'
'Kind of,' I replied
'You're an adult when you are 18 aren't you?'
'Yes.'
I walk off with the leaflet, rip it in half and put it in the bin. 

End of scene one

Jump with me now 12 months to just a couple of weeks ago.  Imogen's room looked like a bomb had gone off and so Murray braved the room and went to sort out and throw away random empty cereal packets, inner tubes from kitchen roll, yogurt pots etc  While he was there he found the leaflet, it was carefully sellotaped back together!  He went to put in into the bin bag that he was brandishing, but Immi caught him in the act (again it would seem!) 
'No Daddy, don't throw that away!' she shouted 'I need that for when I'm eighteen!'

I don't know what I find most amazing.  Is it that she fished the leaflet out and stuck it together?  Is it that she remembered for over a year that she is calling them when she is 18?!  (Especially after she couldn't remember hiding her brother's DVD the week before!) Or is it that she cares so much about the fluffy leopard?! 

I am not sure which I find most amazing, but what I find worrying is that the very same day we found her sitting at her window watching our neighbours who had a bouncy castle in their garden that day; writing down the phone number of the bouncy castle company!!  I am hiding all the phones on her eighteenth birthday!!

Hide the Hobbit

I am not sure if this incident is to do with ASD and 'mindblindness' or memory loss due to epilepsy, or impulsive behaviour due to ADHD or whether it is just plain sibling rivalry but I thought you might enjoy it!

A few weeks ago we were at a supermarket and Jed had taken his well earned and saved up pocket money with him in order to buy the long awaited (by him, not me!) film, the Hobbit.  He got to the shop and found the film.  As we continued to browse around the shop we became aware that Imogen was becoming irritated and picking up random (and sometimes inappropriate) films and putting them in the basket.  I asked her what she was doing and she replied that Jed was buying and film and so she wanted to as well. Unfortunately there really was nothing she actually wanted at the time (the new Tinkerbell film was not yet out!) and so we convinced her to leave it this time and to save her money.  Or so we thought....

When we got home, Murray and Jed settled themselves in front of the television and watched their epic while Imogen and I played.  Every now and then she would mention how unfair life was in the fact that she hadn't bought a film to watch too, but I was really unsuspecting.

At some point after the film Imogen must have decided that Jed should no longer own aforesaid DVD and decided to hide it.  We didn't realise that it had been hidden until about a week and a half later when Jed came in, upset that his DVD was not in his case.  Now this is not an uncommon occurrence in the Golder household, quite often the previously watched DVD will be left in the machine and then discarded somewhere on the cabinet when the next viewer comes along with another film so I didn't really take much notice - I just told him to go and have a better look.  When 48hours had passed and Jed was getting near distraught stage I started to wonder whether he could be right, had Imogen hidden the film? 'Surely not!' I thought, but by now my doubts were large enough to cause me to ask the question.  So, off I trot to Imogen who is oblivious to Jed's despair and playing happily in her room without a care in the world.  'Imogen' I ask, 'Did you hide Jed's DVD?'  

'Which one?' she asks. 

'The Hobbit, the one he saved up especially for' I reply.

'Oh....hmmmm...I might have done...let me see....yes...I think I might....but I can't remember where I put it......have you tried under the sofa?'

'Yes Imogen, I've looked there.'

'Have you looked on the bookshelf?'

'Yes, Ive looked there too.'

'Hmmm...well....I think I might have hidden it, but I don't know where now!' and she returns to her toys on the floor.

Now you have to understand that ASD causes very black and white thinking without being able to see anyone else's point of view.  So, when Imogen hid the DVD it was the worst thing in the world that could have happened to her.  She could not see, or let go of the fact that she didn't have a DVD too.  And when asked about hiding it she could not lie, there was no attempt to hide the fact that she probably did hide it, but at that moment in time her Aqua beads where far more important.  There have been similar times in the past where I have gotten angry with her, made her leave what she was doing to come and fix whatever it was that she had done, but she doesn't make the connection of what on earth it has to do with her, so she will gladly come and help the family, but cannot grasp that she was the cause of it - no matter how angry I (or Jed in this case) get.  It just confuses her.

Well this day I spend a good 3 hours looking for the DVD, and as a previous post of mine testifies, that doesn't put me in the best of moods.  I didn't find it that day, and so the search continued the next day.  I finally found the DVD (which I still haven't mustered the motivation to watch by the way) slipped between the DVDs in my boxed set of Gilmore Girls.  A sense of relief and 'flippin heck it was her all along' washed over me.

I took the DVD to Imogen.  'I found Jed's DVD Imogen' I said.

'Oh, where was it?' she asked.

'In my box of Gilmore Girls DVDs'

And her response; 'Oh yes, I remember now, I did put it there!.....Sorry Jed!'