My Evening Sucked, But You Can Help!

Okay, when I picked up Mo, she had a one-word vocabulary. 'No!' She was shouting it over and over.

Do you want to go to McDonald's? 'No!'

This was not true, she was just in a really, deeply contrary mood. We were going to hear Sissy sing at school before we went home, and she wanted to cut the preamble and get straight to YouTube on the kitchen computer. It's about the only thing she'll do of her own volition at my house.

She can find anything on YouTube, if anything is Disney, Barney or Sesame Street related, especially if it's in a foreign language. I don't know why she prefers Disney music sung in Finnish, but she apparently does. Finnish, by the way, sounds like English mumbled by people who are about to overdose on goofballs.



I made it clear that the only way she was getting any computer time was to shut her pie hole and listen to Sissy's concert. I didn't put it quite that way, but I know she got it because she started alternating her 'No!' shouts with 'Yes!' shouts. The threat to withdraw computer privileges normally works, it's kind of my hole card.

But she was in such a mood. As we drove through the golden arches, which she adores, I asked her what she wanted and she said, 'Chicken...NO!'

So when the concert started and she commenced to shout 'No!' I wasn't exactly surprised. I gave her a chance, maybe twenty seconds, covering her mouth and telling her it was time to cork it up if she expected to see any computer time at all.

She responded by shrieking into my hand.

So we left the show. I couldn't even stick close enough to hear the music spill out of the gym because she was being so loud.

I'm lecturing her about how her bad choices ruined the concert for Daddy, about how she can do better than that, and that there are consequences to bad choices. At some points, I felt she was getting it, at others, I felt like I was talking to the wall.

There were other parents out walking kids who couldn't shut up for the show, there in the halls of the school. But those kids were toddlers and younger. With a twelve year old, even with autism, you figure that fight should be over years ago.

Time for the ham-handed segue: I'm walking in Walk Now for Autism on October 10. I'm almost a thousand dollars shy of my fundraising goal, so I need your help. I know I just tapped you for BikeMS. I know walking around the Speedway doesn't seem as impressive as riding a bike 80 miles a day. But this is important, and if you donate now you also have the chance to redeem my otherwise frustrating Friday evening. No amount is too large.

I did get a great picture of Em happy. She didn't want to smile for a pic, but then she found out her sister was in deep trouble.