Driving Me Crazy!!

I swear one day I am going to look in my rearview mirror and see a line of patrol cars following me, lights on, bullhorn out the window instructing me to pull over immediately and get out of the car with my hands in the air. Did I rob a bank? No, but if I can't find ABA therapy more affordable somewhere I just may buy a Nixon mask and go for it. Do I have drugs in my car? No, but with the way my rides go it sounds very tempting. No, somebody will have called to report a possible child abduction. What else could be the explanation for the young girl in the front seat next to me screaming and pounding her fists on the window trying to escape? Biting her hands and feet must have been her way of calling attention to our car so someone could call for help, right? I'm telling you, it's going to happen and you know what? I just might go with it! "Umm yeah, I did kidnap her, you are absolutely right! Are you taking me to jail now? Please??!"

I absolutely, positively, with every fiber of my being hate driving Camryn anywhere these days! Used to be taking a drive was one of the only things that would calm her down. I would pile the kids in the old suburban and ride around town for as long as we could stand because it was the only place that Camryn was quiet and peaceful. She would look out the window and bob her head back and forth to the music giving the other girls and I a much needed reprieve from her screaming and tantrums. But for the past several months transporting this child anywhere has turned into pure and utter hell!

When we purchased our very large vehicle five years ago we did it with the thought process that Camryn would not be able to reach her sisters and hurt them. HA!!! Little did we know that unless we were to purchase a bus Camryn would find a way to torture Mason and Natalie while I was behind the wheel. I sit them in the last row and put Cam in the middle row and guess what? She reaches behind her and pinches, hits, whatever she can do to hurt them. I swear I don't know how she does it! Try as I may to rid the car of missiles, they make their way in somehow and go flying through the air aimed straight for little heads and bodies. To make things easier for Mace and Nat I have moved Camryn up front, where she plays out her shenanigans on me while I'm trying to manuever our land yacht through traffic. She pinches me, opens the glovebox and empties it out, screams for gum then hands me a stringy chewed up wad of it two seconds later screaming for a new piece. She tries to unlock her door, she pushes any buttons she can reach on the dash and last Friday threw her backpack at my head as I was making my way down a very wet highway. And they say texting while driving is dangerous!! She bangs her fists on her window and screams at the top of her lungs. After she threw hew backpack at me she slumped down in her seat, pulled her feet to her mouth and pulled her socks off her feet with her teeth! Yes, with her teeth!!!! I just kept repeating out loud to myself "Breathe, just breath, just breathe". It is frickin' ridiculous that I should have to endure this every day of my life just trying to take my kid to camp!

While I'm on the road I see all the other cars passing by. This guy on his cell phone, that woman in a daze sipping her coffee. I have to laugh when I see them do a double take at my car passing by with Camryn banging her head on the back of her seat and biting her ankles. But in all seriousness it can be very depressing. And poor Mason and Natalie! They can't even ride in the car without constantly being reminded that our family is very different from most. The screaming is so loud you can almost feel your eardrum perforating one stitch at a time. Used to be Michael Buble could calm her down but my CD's got scratched and I haven't replaced them yet so I have to rely on a Disney CD and a few stories on CD, but even that is hit and miss. It is miserable, just plain miserable and I have to keep telling myself "Just twenty more minutes and then you have seven hours before you have to do this again."

I see all these cars go by with those little stick figure family decals showing how many kids they have. All the figures are smiling, some are wearing Mickey Mouse ears, and I just want to barf. No offense to anybody who has these, as some of my very good friends do, but when you are driving down the road while your kid is trying to eat the dashboard these things tend to tick you off just a tad! I picture a stick person version of our family...Mom in the fetal position, Dad pulling his hair out, two small figures in triangle dresses with their hands over their ears and the third figure with a huge circle for her mouth screaming, her hair going every which way and a stick figure dog cowering under a table. Seen that sticker anywhere? Didn't think so.

Right now I am getting ready to take Mason and Natalie to the beach and I gotta tell you, I am really looking forward to it. It will take us about twenty minutes to get there if all goes well but if the drawbridge gets stuck and we have to wait for a mother duck and her twenty ducklings to cross and there's a construction detour and a school zone and a ninety year old woman from Canada sitting on phone books in front of us it will all be okay with me because I have driven with Camryn and if that doesn't bring on some road rage nothing will!

"More Michael Bluble please"

So, anybody who knows me knows I like Michael Buble. Okay, maybe that is an understatement. I really like Michael Buble. Okay, I am in love with him and God forbid if my marriage ever broke up and I was single and Michael Buble asked me to marry him, I would totally say yes, no I would scream YES!!!, but of course this is all hypothetical! lol  Anyway, what's so funny is that Camryn is really the one who got me hooked on him! I started listening to him about 5 years ago, and I liked his voice and of course I thought he was adorable, but I only played his CD now and then. Camryn was not quite 3 at the time and really not verbal at all, but even at that young age she loved music. She, like many Autistic children as well as kids in general, responded incredibly well to it, and me being a huge music lover, I have some sort of tunes on all the time. I like all kinds, from Phil Collins, George Michael and Lionel Richie, to Pink, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi and everything in between. I do however draw the line at polka! And because we spend alot of time in the car, music is playing in my kids ears constantly. I knew Camryn was listening but I never realized how much she was listening until early one morning. She was 4 and I was on my way to her room to get her up for school. Not quite to her hallway, I heard her making noises. As I got closer, I realized she was singing! I had never heard her sing, so I tiptoed as close to her door as possible without being noticed, to hear  her better. As I stood there listening, I heard her sing "Tell me cuando, cuando, cuando" which is a song on one of my Michael Buble CD's. I could not believe it! I had no idea that my little girl had taken this song in and was now laying in her dark room singing it. Tears filled my eyes. I opened her door and she stopped. "Cam, were you singing?" I asked. She said nothing, which was her usual repsonse to questions.I tried again,"Cam were you singing Michael Buble?" Again, nothing. That little booger! "I heard you! You were singing!" Then I started the song..."Tell me when will you be mine..." I stopped and waited to see if she would finish the line....and she did!!!!! "Tell me cuando, cuando, cuando",it was almost a whisper, but she did it! I could not believe it! I tried another of his songs. "Another summer day..." To which she  whispered back "Has come and gone away in Paris or Rome". OMG!! She knows them! I went through all of his songs."Cause you are not alone, and I am here with you...." and Cam finished "we'll get lost togther". "Yes Cam, yes!! You got it!!" At this point my eyes are filled with tears, and we are sitting on her bed, 5:30 in the morning, the rest of the house still asleep and me and my little girl are having a "conversation" for the very first time. I use the term conversation loosely, but for the first time, I was getting back an appropriate response, she was answering my "question". We covered them all from "Save the Last Dance for Me" to "Me and Mrs. Jones" Not all her words were clear, but I knew what she was saying and the point was, she knew them, she knew them all and before that morning I had totally underestimated my daughter. I decided to see if she knew other artists, so I tried singing Kenny Chesney, whose CD I often played. Nothing. I tried Miranda Lambert. Nothing. Bon Jovi, Pink, Maroon 5. Nothing, nothing, and nothing. It was only Michael Bubles music that she was reacting to. I had no idea why, but I didn't care. This man got through to my daughter when no one else could and for that I loved him no matter how smooth his voice or sexy his smile. From that day on I played his CD"s constantly and when I tried to turn them off Camryn would say "Michael Bluble "putting her hands together signing the word more.WOW! When we were driving and she started to have a meltdown, no matter how bad it got, kicking, screaming, head banging, biting herself,all I had to do was put on Michael and she immediately stopped, becoming silent and lost in the music. And to this day, it is his music and only his music, that can bring her out of a meltdown. Now, 3 years later, she refers to all music as "Michael Buble" (She finally got his name right). At school she would constantly say "I like Michael Buble" " I need Michael Buble please". She said it so much that her teacher went out and bought his CD so Camryn could listen to it at listening center! I have no idea what it is about him that clicks with Cam, but whatever it is, I am so thankful. And now, because he bring out parts of my daughter I didn't know were there, and he's so very easy on the eyes and ears, I am a huge fan! I have been to 2 of his concerts and he is an amazing performer! I am going to his concert in Tampa tomorrow night with my mom and although I am super excited, I really wish I could bring Camryn. Although she has no concept of him as a famous person, or person at all, to see her face when the band starts up and he sings her favorite songs would be priceless. Unfortunately, the same reason that makes her love for his music so special is the same reason she will not be able to join me. Although I know she would totally flip out in joy, she would also flip out in confusion and frustration and I cannot risk that as I would not want to ruin everybody elses time. So instead I will do what I have done the last two times. I will tuck her picture in my purse and when he starts to sing , I will close my eyes and remember that morning we sang together in the dark, and I will smile.