Phew! — August A Blur

Phew! — August was a blur with travel. After one work trip that took me to California for two weeks, I stopped back home just long enough to go to the hearing on aversives and see Sweet M and FathersVox for a couple of days before heading off on another work trip for a week. Back in town another two days, then off, finally, on vacation, with Sweet M and Fathersvox, back to our off-season, frequent-flyer-mile boon Caribbean paradise.

Photo: My favorite frequent flyer.


Sweet M was unimpressed by the place — too many mosquitoes, too hot and humid, too much scratchy sand and strange crickety noises at night from the tropical landscape. She begged me to turn the nine-day trip into a four-day layover, but when I explained that we had reservations — that we couldn't change our tickets — she hung in, and found some delight in bobbing in the not very big waves. (Beach location pictures may follow, if the waterproof camera comes through for us.)

But in the end, what Sweet M really loved was the end of the vacation. The fact that she was going home. On the ride on the ferry on the way back from the island we visited — bobbing up and down against the choppy waters — she was thrilled.

And she didn't even fuss (much) when the airport TSA screener confiscated the seriously dangerous Hunt's prepackaged, totally sealed, chocolate pudding that we'd forgotten to take out of her airplane lunch box.

We'd thought she'd eat her pudding in the three hours we had to wait in the airport, but she hadn't gotten around to it, and her carry-on was chosen to be rescreened just prior to boarding. She certainly fits a terrorist profile, don't you think? Especially in that lavender Hannah Anderssen dress. It's a dead giveaway.

As the officer droped her pudding in the garbage, her lip quivered, and she started in, but it's my chocolate pudding, but then she just pulled herself together and climbed onto the plane.

As you might have guessed, I'm not convinced we're even the tiniest bit safer with TSA agents confiscating kids' chocolate pudding, but I rejoiced at her reaction. She's come a long way — and in much more than frequent flyer miles — from that first summer when we tried to escape to the Caribbean only to be caught in an autism edge's airport moment.

We're all glad to have been there — to all of those there's — and even more glad to be back.


Keywords: autism • Asperger's Syndrome • ADHD • learning disabilities • speech-language disorders • parenting • family life • family vacations