Make Believe

We are not really a once-upon-a-time sort of family.

I write non-fiction. The sweet girl reads the dictionary as her bedtime reading. And I can't remember the last time her father read a novel.

And, of course, for the most part, magic potents have not worked out for us. Dragons continue to breathe fire. Damsels in distress are still, much of the time, locked in silent castles. (Okay, forgive the fortress metaphor—I know it's a bit worn from decades of abuse and over use, but we still have many a silent and reclusive day over here at Autism's Edges so it still sometimes seems apt.)

We have worked with potents like Paxil, and magic powders like probiotics. We've had raging meltdowns and fiery words with airport security, medical professionals and special educators, not to mention complete strangers. And we still have a girl who is remote much of the time and with most of the people in her world.

And we're thirteen years into this now. Yes, we're officially thirteen years into this journey as of tomorrow at 6:04 pm when the sweet girl officially becomes a teenager.

Unlike other years, this year, for the first time ever, we are not having a big party. We are not inviting all the kids in her grade. Or our friends and colleagues from New Jersey with their lovely boy Charlie. Or kids from our neighborhood. No bowling alleys, no Mars 2012 theme restaurant, no rock climbing or gymnastics. I have mixed feelings about the change.

These big parties are just a bit too young for a teenager. Now the kids at school are having smaller, exclusive events, sometimes even dates, with their closest friends and sometimes boyfriends.

And that's the hitch. The sweet girl doesn't yet have any close or closest friends. She believes she has friends. She thinks of her classmates as friends. She does not yet seem to understand that friendly and friend are part of a continuum. She is herself increasingly friendly, but she remains locked out of the rush of girlish chatter that marks adolescence and seals the bonds of BFFs. There is just too much talky-talking for the girl.

Yet ironically, in honor of this auspicious birthday, the entry into that portal to adulthood, the sweet girl wants four things: a cell phone, real jewelry, keys to our apartment, and a dog (or a chinchilla, since they have the softest fur ever, an observation she made after petting one at the pet store near her school.) All the kids in her class have cellphones now. One of the girls wears only real gems. Some of them get to walk home on their own and let themselves into their apartments. And most of them have some sort of pet. So these are more than age-appropriate gifts. They feel like marks of arrival.

I was trying to figure out how to swing all of this. I had debated whether to upgrade my phone and give her my hand-me-down. We talked about whether she would want a 3G or a 4G. She could tell I was figuring out how we were going to swing this expense -- something of a stretch for us these days.

Then last Saturday the sweet girl said to me: "Hey M, I have an idea. Why don't we ask Santa for a cellphone for Christmas? Then you won't have to spend any money! Remember he brought you that cool computer writing pad two years ago. Why don't you write him an email right now so he'll have it on his list."

The nearly thirteen-year-old girl truly believes in Santa. And the nearly thirteen-year-old girl has figured out that someone is worrying about something and that there might be a way to fix it and get what you want. Poised on the brink of adolescence, she has magical thinking of an five-year-old and the negotiating savvy of an arbitrager.

We believe in our girl, even if we don't believe in Santa. And she believes in Santa because of thirteen years of garlands and trees, sugar cookies with notes, and magically appearing gifts on cold December mornings.

We'll be finding a way to get that magical phone, some precious gem, and that fluffy pet in the next couple of months.

I guess you could say that our policy about her future can be summed up in two words.

Make.

Believe.