Deadlines

3 Years:
“Mama, are lines alive?”
“No. Lines are inanimate. That means not alive.”
“Then how do they die?”
“They don’t.”
“Then how do you have dead lines?”

Since I work from home, my daughter was always very involved in, and interested in, my job. Until she was at least five years old, her understanding of my career was a sort of cargo cult. I made invisible money by sitting at a computer and churning out words called “articles” for invisible forces called “clients.” I had something called “paydays” and bowed to overlords called “deadlines.” She knew, and could talk about, everything having to do with my career. She just didn’t know what any of the words actually meant.

One of the classic signs of autism, especially among highly verbal children, is a tendency to take everything literally and at face value. So, when my daughter heard repeatedly about deadlines, she was certain that I had a collection of lines, and that they were dead. I’m not sure what she imagined when she heard me talk about missing deadlines or meeting deadlines, but I like to think that she thought of them as friends or masters of mine, with whom I had a close but traumatic bond. How that played into her idea that they were dead, I’ll never know.

No matter how many times I tried to explain what a deadline really was, there just wasn’t a way that her three-year-old, literal, autistic brain could sort it out, so she had to settle for just not understanding. I tried to minimize her confusion by not mentioning deadlines around her anymore, but that didn’t keep her from taking other words and phrases hilariously literally!

An Article Called...

2.5 Years: “Mama, you should write an article called, ‘My Baby Pooped on the Floor of the Living Room Just Now.’”

Shit happens. And, when you have a toddler, it happens in the most inconvenient places, at the most inconvenient times—for example, on the floor, in the living room, with a deadline for work approaching in just twenty minutes.

My daughter had learned that, if I seemed really absorbed in something, it was because I was writing. There wasn’t much way around it. From her perspective, work was something that Mommy was constantly tied up in, but—at least, much of the time—I was writing about her, or something having to do with her. It wasn’t uncommon for her, after doing something cute or funny, to later suggest that I write an article about it. Frequently, I would.

Unfortunately, the day came when a suggestion for an article preceded my discovery of something that she had done. And, at the time, it wasn’t really very funny at all. I told her that I would not write an article about my baby pooping on the floor, since I had plenty of deadlines whooshing by me already, but that maybe—just maybe—one day I would retell the story and actually think it was funny and pleasant instead of just cringe-inducing.

I have to admit that, predictably, three years down the road, it is kind of funny.

A Minute Isn't Enough

2.5 Years: “Don’t be just a minute! Be just a mama who loves me!”

Second molars are a huge pain in the butt. They were especially obnoxious for our little family because my daughter’s molars decided to push their way through her gums right around the time that my long-ignored wisdom teeth decided that they absolutely weren’t going to tolerate being ignored anymore. We went through several nights of sitting up late in the rocking chair, feeling whiney and grumpy, while I secretly wondered if it would be okay to chew on a frozen teether to make the aching on my gums feel okay.

One of these nights, I was trying to catch up on work when I heard my daughter wake up and wail, “My gums hurt!”

“I’ll be just a minute, sweetie,” I sighed.

“Don’t be just a minute,” she cried, “Be just a mama who loves me!”

It made sense: in the middle of the night, when you’ve got a mouthful of pain, a mama who loves you is a much more effective analgesic than a minute. I don’t blame her for preferring the former over the latter.