Birthday Party

It's two weeks post-birthday, and the party is still not organised. No present yet either.

It used to be easy - set the birthday budget, invite the same three or four friends for pizzas, movies, and a sleepover, spend the remainder on items from the always-growing list of 'must have' Xbox games and books. Done.

He's 17. Things have changed. There is a wider social circle, and girls involved.

We ask questions about what he wants to do - actually we started doing this a month ago.

What do you want to do for your birthday party this year?
Dunno. Have some people over.

Coming up to birthday weekend -
Have you invited anyone?
Ah, no. Well, some can't come.
OK, well how about next weekend?
Yeah, ok.
And what do you want as a present?
Ah, dunno.

OK, so he ended up having a cake on his actual birthday. Nothing else was organised. No way would I buy an unsolicited birthday present for a teenage Aspie. It'll have to wait.

The following week -
What do you want to do for your party?
Umm, have some people over, and maybe a couple can sleep over.
OK, so can you invite them?
Yeah.

Have you invited anyone?
Yeah, ah, no. Some can't come this weekend.
Right, so how about the following week, the long weekend?
I'll check.

The following week, and we're starting to pressure him -
Saturday or Sunday?
Err, everyone is doing different things, and none of the days work.
OK, well Sunday then.
OK.

Friday afternoon -
How many people are coming? 'Cos I need to go shopping and get drinks and munchies and stuff.
I dunno.
Well, how many have you invited?
Everyone.
How many is that?
I dunno. Should I phone them?
Yes, please. I need to know how many are coming so that I can shop. Have you told them when?
No.
Ohhhh K. (plucking numbers from the air) Tell them 7 'til 11.
Right.

Saturday morning, now.
I've still got no idea. He's been doing all this on his phone.
I'm longing for the good old days, when I could just phone his friends' parents. Now I don't even know half of the friends, let alone the parents.

More coffee.
I'll have to sit Dreamer down and not let him move until he tells me who he's invited, and what he's told them. If he remembers.
Then off to buy the supplies.

I still have no idea about a present.

Changing Obsessions

My life was overrun by Dinosaurs. They were everywhere. Plastic dinosaurs underfoot, the bookshelves filled with dinosaur books, and it seemed the only conversation within these four walls was about dinosaurs. Heaven help me if I said something wrong- if I didn't know my T-Rex from my brontosaurus.

I only used T-Rex and brontosaurus as examples there because I don't remember any others. The dinosaur era ended, and I promptly forgot it. Dreamer probably still remembers each and every one.

We did Pokemon. How many are there? Over two hundred, and they all bloody well evolve so you have to remember multiple names and who evolves into which.

The Legend of Zelda game. I blame that one for Dreamer's long hair. He wanted a long floppy fringe like Link, and during the growing process got out of the habit of haircuts and hasn't been able to get back into it. It was alright though, because by the time the Lord of the Rings obsession arrived, his hair looked just like Legolas'.

Shiny things. That one was more of a collection, and they also doubled as fiddle toys. Pockets full. At least my memory circuits were spared during this phase - all I had to do was provide shoeboxes, and remember to always empty his pockets before doing the laundry.

Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

Runescape.

Dragons.

Mediaeval period. During his mediaeval period, Dreamer learnt archery and tried hawking. We never got around to the horse riding.

Now we have anime and manga and zombies.

The odd thing is that once you get to these more adult interests, there are actually a surprising number of people out there in the world who share them. Put a few in a room, and yes, they're talking another language but they share it. They even hold conventions where they gather in their thousands.

They sure aren't the 'normal' Australian interests - going to the footy, and hotting up the Commodore- and it would have you labeled weird to talk about the latest in anime around the water-cooler while the blokes are discussing this week's footy tips.

Hang on. In depth discussions of Japanese film techniques vs. discussions of the on-field punch ups at the football?

I am more than thrilled about Dreamer's choice of interests.

Oh, and Pokemon is back. Apparently, it's a cool retro thing for teens, although I suspect we're only talking geeky teens here. At least by, now he's learnt not to expect Mum to know or care about Pokemon evolution.

Hard Mode Social Stories

For years, Dreamer has been your average geeky, aspie, introvert - rarely talking, definitely not to strangers, only comfortable in the company of a few chosen friends. Yes, I know the geeky girls adopted him, but that was because he was tall, handsome, and distant. A safe bet. They would talk to him, and adore him from afar, even though he was monosyllabic in response.

After starting on an SSRI a few months ago, he's become positively garrulous. And funny, and cheeky (in a eye-twinkling way). Overnight, I have a 17 year old son who is being social but hasn't a clue.

Last weekend he arrived home at 2am and 1am respectively. Friday night he went with his brother Speedy to a board and card games night. Speedy had organised transport home, but the driver, being geeky, had begun a new game and wanted to finish, so they were later than expected. Fine.

Saturday was another matter altogether. I dropped him at the local library, where he was going to borrow some books, study a bit without sibling distractions, play some DS, and catch a bus home when the library shut at 3pm.

At 5pm, I phoned him:
"Where are you?"
"I'm at (couple of suburbs away)."
"How'd you get there? Did you catch the wrong bus?"
"Yes, well no. I met K's sister and her friend at the bus stop, and they were going to K's house and I thought I'd just go and say hi."

Long pause from me.

"OK, can you catch a bus home now? Be home for dinner please."
"K"

At 6:30pm, He-who-has-no-Nickname phoned him.
Apparently, they were having pizza. HWHNN spoke to K, who assured him that she knew the bus timetable, and would organise Dreamer to the bus stop.

At 10:30pm, HWHNN phoned again. I was asleep by then.
"We can't come and get you, please get a bus and come home."

What Dreamer didn't tell his Dad then, was that he'd just missed the last bus. All he heard was the tone of 'you got yourself into this, so you get yourself out of it'. He didn't dare say anything. So, he began to walk home.

At 12:30am, I answered the phone.
"I'm lost. Can you come and get me please?"

After I'd worked out where he was, and picked him up, praying that I wasn't over the limit from a few glasses of wine, we talked on the way home. He'd thought if he just kept walking, he'd eventually get home. He was tired from lack of sleep on Friday night, from walking for an hour and a half, in boots that hurt his feet, with a backpack full of library books. He'd come to an intersection, and had no idea which way to head for home. He was ready to curl up on the footpath and fall asleep.

Big lesson learnt about the danger of missing the last bus, but he was safe, and I'm sure that every teen misses the bus at least once. What am I worried about?

He said the next morning, with a grin, "I'd had caffeine, and I just got spontaneous." No, that's not so bad, either. That's a matter of teaching him that if he's going to be spontaneous, he has to phone and let us know.

What I'm really worried about is that he doesn't know what he's doing, socially.

Inviting himself to a girl's house, just dropping by uninvited on a Saturday afternoon? Not a brilliant idea, but not disastrous. Staying for seven hours, staying for dinner? I hope he gets away with that one. He could either be thought rude for overstaying his welcome, or, K could think she's found a boyfriend.

Dreamer really doesn't have a clue. He already has another girl inviting him out fairly regularly. They are all just friends with common interests, right? Spending an afternoon and evening at a friend's house, eating pizza and playing card games is just that.

Or is it? Are we heading into the murky depths of teenage relationships?

I've got no idea. No idea what Dreamer is thinking. Which means that 'social stories' may have just jumped to a whole new level of complexity.

I previously assumed that the whole bunch of them were as naive as each other, which is why they hung out together. I'm not sure any more.

Help, I think they're growing up.

The Phone...

Dreamer, at the grand old age of 16 years and 11 months, bought himself a mobile phone yesterday.

So what? Most kids have their own mobile at two these days, don't they?

I'm excited because he asked for a phone.

I mean, a phone is a social status symbol. A way to waste time and money chatting to and messaging friends.
Um.. did I just use the words 'chatting', 'friends' and 'social' in connection with the name of my Aspie son?

I never thought I'd see the day.

He has begun to develop a social life. His very own social life.

Fellow students contact him on MSN, and invite him to a semi-regular study group at the library. Fellow physics nuts, admittedly, and I have my suspicions that not very much studying goes on, and there's a fair bit of going to the mall and buying Maccas and Mother, but to me that's even better.

He attends conventions - Supernova and GenCon - with fellow anime, manga and gaming geeks.

He even appears (ssshhhh!) to have a girlfriend. Well, a girl who phones him and asks would he like to go comic book shopping with her and her Mum. OK, the next step is to work on having him phone her, but it's all good so far.

And so he decided that a mobile phone might be useful.

Since when did a phone overtake a new DS game on his spending priority list?

He's spent the last 24 hours getting it all set up. Yes, it takes that long, and I don't think he's even added any phone numbers yet. There's the time, calendar, ring tones, message tones, wallpaper, copy MP3's from the computer, tune the radio stations, connect the wi-fi to the home network, alarm clock, and OMG I want a new phone too. (sorry, techno-junkie here got carried away)

I'm sure I'll have to provide more than frequent reminders over the next weeks to actually ask people for their numbers, and give them his. That's just small bikkies.

I can't get the grin off my face.