I Love You...Bye Bye

What if you wanted to be alone?  What if you wanted someone to go away?  How would you tell them without hurting their feelings or making them feel bad? People might not want to admit it, but a lot of us feel that way sometimes.  More often than not we probably don't say anything because we don't know how to tell someone that gently.  Maybe we find an activity, such as reading a book or exercising that gives us that "alone" time. When we choose not to say anything and just ride out the feeling, chances are there will be feelings of resentment or irritation, which can lead to fights that seem to come out of nowhere.

Interestingly enough, I think Matthew (who for those of you who haven't read Mr. Bossypants, is non-verbal) has found a way to soften the blow.  It used to be that when Grandma Buettner would come to the house he would start to cry.  Now, Matthew loves Grandma Buettner (she always brings him special treats and scratches his back).  But Grandma coming to our house = Mama leaving!!!  It's an undeniable fact that Matthew is a Mama's boy.  He wasn't crying because Grandma was there, but he was crying because I was leaving.  But a few months ago, he tried something new.  When Grandma came to the door he signed "I love you", immediately followed with "bye bye".  He now does this pretty much every time Grandma comes over.  Obviously Grandma can't leave just because he tells her bye bye, but she can reaffirm that she heard what he said by saying "I love you too, but I'm staying.  We are going to play and have fun."  He then watches out the front window and we blow kisses to each other.

He now does those same two signs when Grandma Sieling comes or when one of his therapists comes.  I noticed he did this sign only when one of his therapists would come to our house.  He has known this therapist for years and has never had a problem with her so I knew that there had to be more to the story.  I can't leave during therapy so I knew that he wasn't trying to tell me not to leave.  He does often sign for me to "sit down", so that I stay in the same room.  His lead therapist always brings this special sand that he loves, but the other therapist doesn't bring sand with her.  The more I thought about it, I think he was trying to say in his own way that he wanted the sand.

Last weekend, we were up at my sister's cabin and Matthew and I shared a bed in the basement so that if he woke up in the middle of the night it wouldn't affect everybody else. His track record for sleeping through the night on the road is not stellar.  This trip he surprised me by sleeping through three out of the four nights...I guess it was all that fresh air!  The night that he did wake up (at 3 am, mind you) his response to my repeated requests for him to "LAY DOWN" was "I love you" "bye bye"!

Matthew has two other interesting ways that he came up with to let you know that he wants you to go away or that he wants more time to do something. When both of our kids were little, we would let them push the snooze button (our nose) to say they needed a little more time to wake up.  Being an avid user of the snooze button myself, it seemed only fair to give them time to wake up versus jumping right out of bed.   Matthew took that little signal of pushing our nose and transferred it to other situations (Damn, he's smart!).

For example, if it's time to clean up his blocks for dinner he might try to push my nose = I want more time. Honestly, the first time he pushed my nose, I had no idea what he was doing.  Then the realization..."he's trying to snooze me!"  The second signal he uses is to smack his lips at me (like he's blowing a kiss...muah). This signal doesn't get him too far though, because I have noticed that he tends to use this when he is doing something that he is not supposed to (i.e. standing in the toilet, filling the sink with water, sitting on his dresser, etc.)  and he's been caught mid-act.  Muah translates to "Go away, lady, I want to keep doing THIS..."  

Well, I'm feeling the need to enjoy a little chocolate fix in peace so...MUAH...