Sean has new shoes we purchased for school so he would have new shoes to start the school year. They are red adidas with white stripes and look very much like Sonic the Hedgehog's shoes. This was one of the points which made him choose these. They were also not cheap--cheap shoes would last about 6-8 weeks before sprouting a hole--so I'd like to see him wearing them.
This morning, Sean was grumping and grumbling about getting in the car. (Last year the tardy bell rang at 7:55, so 7:30 was the time I'd start telling him to get shoes and backpack and head to the car. This year the tardy bell rings at 7:45. If we waited till 7:30 to start getting ready, we wouldn't get out the door till 7:40 and he'd be rushing around at school. His sister is attending the same school, and she much prefers to be on the early side of things, so we're usually out the door by 7:20.) When he finally made it into the car, he was wearing his old, dirty beat up shoes. The conversation on the way to school went something like this:
"Why are you wearing your yucky old shoes when you could be wearing your new shoes?"
"[Inaudible grumbling]"
"What? I can't hear what you say when you mumble so quietly."
"I SAID, remember the skin peeling on my feet!" exasperated tone. Sean hates to repeat himself.
"What about the skin peeling on your feet? You need to leave it alone and quit picking at it."
"Ugh!"
"Do you think your new shoes are causing that? That was happening before you even got the new shoes. You need to stop picking."
"Ugh!" [Conversation about when he got shoes, which shoes are we talking about, very confusing and hard to even recall the order] "Remember when we went to the hospital?!"
"When did we go to the hospital??" Completely baffled here. Sean hasn't been to the hospital for himself since he was little for scary episodes of croup and he is certainly too young to remember. "I haven't been to the hospital with you in forever and I don't think you'd remember it. Are you talking about when you went to see Dr. Collings and you had shots?" (This was 3 weeks ago and was just a well-child visit, but we talked about the peeling skin thing then.)
"Ugh! No! Remember when we went to the hospital?" as though by insisting that I remember I'll be able to share the memory to which he's referring.
"No. You haven't been to the hospital." He's getting more and more frustrated, I can't figure out WHAT he's talking about or what it has to do with his peeling feet, and we are now so far away from the subject of the red shoes.
"Remember?? Remember when we went to the hospital?!"
"Sean, are you talking about when we went to Dr. Collings? What does that have to do with your shoes?"
"Ugh! Just forget it."
"Well, just wear your red shoes so we don't have to have this conversation again!" I'm still confused. By the time we got to school he was frustrated with me to the point of tears, but still refused to give me anymore information to help me understand. I was just completely baffled. I still am. He had to be tickled to improve his mood before I let him out of the car.
These types of conversation make me think there's something to that theory of mind concept. The idea that autistics lack empathy because of it is a bunch of bull, but when he genuinely can't seem to understand that I don't know what he's talking about, I wonder if he understands that I'm really not thinking what he's thinking.
