Artful dodger

Babyboy is an aspie type, somewhere on the autism spectrum that my particular health authority refuse to quantify because it would cost money in the education sector. It's ok, middy; I'm not drunk enough to go all ranty and political tonight, this is just a scene setting paragraph to explain why this is so special to me.

Aspies/autistics don't deal with personal contact in the way most of us do so, when babyboy establishes a new routine that involves snuggling with me I take it as a major blessing. We used to sit and watch casualty on the sofa together but that's died out as he's got older. He'll be a teen in a few weeks, I'd resigned myself to losing that last physical link we had and researched other ways to keep close to him without freaking him out.

My inner child stamps her foot and screams at me that loving, non-sexualised physical contact was sorely missing for her and is absolutely neccessary for shedloads of reasons. I hug and kiss No 1 Son and babygirl every day to make inner child feel better but I sense that babyboy is not comfortable with it even though he needs it so I rein in the touchy-feely parent I've become and wait for him to come to me.

I came back from a - very rare - whole night away from my children and slipped back into normal, albeit hungover, mode. As dinner comes to an end I feel my hand being led to the sofa and sit where I'm directed as babyboy takes a place beside me. I tuck my legs under myself as is my wont, he settles into a place very close to me. I stroke his face the way I know he can cope with and, not that he'd admit it, enjoys. I feel something soft and stroky on my ankle and think "Yes!' This is progress, this is him trying to return physical contact to make someone else feel good. Finally, he's showing that he can empathise!"


Er, no. He was being artistic with a permanent marker. Comme ci.



It's still there right now. Slightly faded from exfoliator scrubbing and many applications of waterproof mascara remover but there, all the same.