Chaos Theory

When I was a junior in high school, I took an advanced math class.  Calculus, to be exact.  Why?  Well, because I didn't know any better.

The teacher, who was actually a brilliant woman who had her PhD in English AND Math (why was she teaching at a public high school?  Perhaps she didn't know any better?) put us in groups of two or three and asked us to write a research paper on a math subject.  Joy.

My best friend and I, out of the many topics that were available, chose Chaos Theory.  We knew nothing about chaos theory.  It sounded vaguely interesting. For all of you who did not have the pleasure of writing a math research paper, this is what Chaos Theory basically is:  small changes in one system can have a vast impact on other systems that diverge from it.  I.E. If you step on a butterfly while you are travelling through time, when you come back the alphabet will be screwed up.  If you sneeze, then twenty years down the road a tsunami might swallow the Hawaiian islands.  (Read "A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury, you'll get the picture).  Thanks to my morning, I now know more about Chaos Theory than I ever wanted to!

It started out well enough.  It always does...like the calm before the storm.  Heh.  So, everything was fine.  It was.  I am traipsing through my personal jungle, careful not to step on any Lepidopteric toes (do butterflies even have toes??) when Logan wakes up.  You want to talk about a sound of thunder, this would be the first warning rumble, friends.  He wakes up and I have to give him his medicine.  But back up.  Before that, my daughter couldn't find anything to wear.  (Her chest of drawers is full of clothes.  She's 9.  Sometimes, I can't find anything to wear, either.  It's a girl thing.)  I find some clothes that meet her approval.  Crisis averted.  The tears barely had time to flow.


So, I give Logan his medicine.  This involves a spoon, some honey, and a time release capsule that is pulled open and sprinkled on said honey.  It also involves he and I doing a complicated choreography of dodge and bait all over the house, culminating in him sagging against the love seat and me tipping the spoon into his mouth.  Well. I didn't factor in the half-masticated chocolate chip cookie that he was trying to finish and he didn't like the taste of honey with it.  At that moment daughter walks into the room.  Logan spits it all over her.


Yes, friends. Some autistic children spit.  They spit when they're agitated, they spit when they're angry, when they're scared, and woe to the person who is standing in the way. 


My daughter screamed and Logan became further agitated.  


Well, I got my daughter cleaned up and we were getting ready to go.  My oldest son comes into the room crying because his lizard, which he caught in the front yard and lovingly tended in a habitat of his own making, has vanished.  Somewhere in our house a green anole is running rampant, eating crumbs off the floor and taunting our two shih-tzus, one of whom is dumber than a box of rocks on a good day!  At this point Logan becomes further agitated and starts yelling at the top of his lungs.  Yes.  Some autistic children yell.  They scream.  They make all kinds of nonsense noises.  It's like a whooping crane on speed.


At this point the doorbell rings.  And I think, they've finally come to take me away.  But no.  It's my good friend Caroline, who lives around the corner from me, who I love dearly, dressed in her Ibanez t-shirt and black eyeliner, she grins at me and says, "What're ya doing?  Are ya going somewhere?"


I remind her that I have to take the kids to school.  "Oh, well did you see all the garage sales around?"  It's true.  Our neighborhood exploded in a plethora of used lamps and granny rockers, onesies and beanie babies.  "Yeeesss..." I say.  It's, like, 735.  I have to go to three different schools.  


"Well, do you want to go when you get back?"


"I have to take Logan to therapy."  


"Oh.  Well, call me later."  


Okay. I promise to do that.  At this point the shih-tzus are running around in circles, my oldest son is sobbing over the lost anole, my daughter is chattering, and Logan starts hitting.


That's the side of autism that not a lot of people talk about with people who don't deal with autism.  When Logan is supremely agitated, he strikes out at the person closest to him.  He will punch, kick, hit, grab, or do whatever he can to elicit the most immediate response.  We put him in time out, we take away his favorite toys,we have tried a number of things. We. Are.Working. On. It.  Unfortunately he targeted my daughter, who screamed bloody murder at the top of her lungs-twice.  At this point, dear friends, all the butterflies are either dead or dying.


I end up leaving him at home with my husband, he is so out of control.  I take my two oldest to school.  We pull up to the entrance.  My son looks at me with tears in his eyes and says, "I can't go inside.  I'm afraid I'll start crying.  I can't go."


I use my firmest buck-up you're-a-soldier -get-out-there-and-do-it voice:  "Nathan Stogner, you listen to me.  We are going to find that LIZARD! And if we DON''T find that lizard, then WE WILL CATCH ANOTHER ONE!  Now, get out of this van and GO TO SCHOOL!  I LOVE YOU!!!"  And he got out of the van and went.


I pick Logan up from the house.  I take him to therapy.  He has such a great time he doesn't want to leave.  It's only 1100am when he's finished.  I think all the way back, years and years ago to when the alarm clock rang at six am this morning, and think about how I got up out of my warm, cozy bed.  And I ask myself, Why?  Why did I get up?


I guess I didn't know any better!