Someone should report me

Yesterday was a rough day. Joseph was just so ..... autistic.

Most of the time I think people would look at Joseph and think that he was neurotypical. Maybe a little quirky but certainly not autistic. Then he has days like yesterday that just kind of slap me in the face and say "You think things are going well? Haha! Not so fast lady"

The day started off badly when Joseph did something that upset Elle and made her cry. He didn't do it with the intent of hurting her feelings but it did and he just didn't care. He didn't even look at her as she stood next to him whimpering with big tears rolling down her cheeks. It broke my heart to see her so sad and it broke my heart to see him so indifferent. See, it's not that he's a mean kid (and really he's just crazy about Elle) but in this instance it didn't even seem to register with him that she was upset. Or rather, he realized it but it didn't matter to him.

After I had cheered Elle up I pulled Joseph aside to have a Big Talk with him. "Joseph, does it bother you that you made Elle sad?"

"No."

"No?"

"I mean yes."

"Yes? Why does it bother you?"

"Because now I'm in trouble."

"Honey, you're not in trouble but I want to to understand why what you did was not ok."

"Ok, but I need to build more Lego creations now!"

It just went downhill from there. All day long he acted rigid and intense and just plain odd. He wouldn't look at me when I talked to him. If he talked to me he would do it with his face six inches from mine, staring into my eyes, unblinking. His voice was loud and sing-songy. One minute he would claim to be starving but if I got him something to eat he would eat one bite and run away from the table. He talked non-stop about Legos and repeated silly, made up rhymes over and over and over.

The big kicker came when I asked him to go to his room and get dressed. That simple request resulted in a melt-down of massive proportions. Yelling, screaming, shrieking. It went on and on. It sounded like he was being beat. If you know me in real life or if you read my blog you know I don't hit my kids. Ever. Yesterday the melt-down went on for so long and was so intense though that a couple of times I found myself thinking "If I could just smack him, just once, maybe that would snap him out of it."

Not logical thinking and not something I'm proud of but I was sort of at the end of my rope. (By the way, I didn't hit him.) I also found myself thinking that at some point some neighbor was going to call the police. I thought any second a cop was going to pull up and check on us because some well meaning neighbor had heard Joseph screaming at the top of his lungs for 40 minutes.

But I guess I must have the most sound proof house in the world because no one came. I don't know. Maybe it's just me. If I heard a child screaming the way Joseph was screaming yesterday I would call the cops out of concern for what was going on in that house. And I really don't think that it's possible that no one heard what was going on.

Is it weird that it bothers me that no one did anything? Maybe it's because I've heard too many stories of children dying at the hands of their abusive parents and then the neighbors saying "We always heard terrible screaming coming from that house but no, we never called anyone."

Anyway. Yesterday was rough. Today will be better. If I hear your child screaming bloody murder (and I don't already know that there's a very good reason for it) I'm going to call the cops. I would appreciate it if you would do the same for my children.