Christmas every day

Andrea, mom of Lauren, 10

Brrrrr… Brrrrr….Brrrr. It is Saturday morning and Daddy is up bright and early mowing the lawn. Lauren dashes to me terrified. “Lawnmower! Lawnmower!” she screams with a frightened look on her little face and her ears corked with her fingers. She then buries her head in bed with her beloved stuffed toys waiting for this ordeal to be over while I try to reassure her that this too shall pass. Meanwhile Jodi and Daniel are sleeping through all of this, oblivious to the turmoil taking place.

Lauren has always been scared of certain motorized noises since early childhood. At the top of her list is lawnmowers, followed by blenders and juicers. This oversensitivity to certain loud sounds is not unique to our dear Lauren but is fairly prevalent amongst children with autism, who have difficulty processing sensory information.  When Lauren was younger, Daddy and I tried to use the blender and juicer very late at nights when we thought she was in a very deep sleep. It worked….sometimes. Now we take the desensitization approach, hoping that frequent exposure will help her to overcome her fears. She is getting better and we press on.

Loud motorized sounds may be scary to Lauren but not loud music. She LOVES music and the louder the better. Daddy, Jodi, Daniel and I are frequently awakened from our beds at 5 am on weekends with the melodies of Christmas from the Bronx Bethany Choir’s “Hope of Christmas” CD. She is the choir’s biggest fan. Christmas is the most favorite time of year for Lauren with music, lights and toys. Since we got the CD in December, everyday at our home is Christmas. Lauren and all our family have listened to the CD over 200 times or more.  Repetitiveness and rigidity with routines are other features that Lauren and many others with autism share.

As Lauren listens to her music, she often lines up her numerous stuffed toys. We have stopped counting them now but we think there may be close to 100 or more and she knows each one by name. Her stuffed toys are her “everybody”. Although many autistic children engage in the stereotypic activity of lining up toys, Lauren has taught us that what seemed to us as an initially purposeless activity was actually one with depth and meaning, full of imagination and pretend play that are often lacking in autism. She told us that her “everybody”, the stuffed toys, are the choir members. Sometimes, she is the conductor, sometimes a singer and sometimes the organist…and yes, sometimes we line up beside the toys and join her choir much to her delight.

This is a glimpse into our normal life with Lauren….one with routines that are difficult to break, one with stuffed toys all over the house, one with loud music blasting most of the time, one with second thoughts about using the lawnmower, blender or juicer just now. But one that continues to teach our family daily of love, compassion, patience, joy in service and fun in the midst of seeming chaos.