1. Kill anything living in the refridgerator before it goes forth and multiplies.

2. Endeavour to regularly rotate the piles of clean laundry stacked on the sofa.

3. Fully evaluate cost/benefit analysis of moving to Canada.

4. Train cats to appreciate that children are their friends, not the enemy.

5. Train children to appreciate that confining cats in small places means that they’ll visit the Humane Society [the cats, that is to say.]

• Curb enthusiasm for tumble drier
• No! The tumble drier is not ‘big.’

6. Read paper daily to improve brain capacity

7. Seriously consider advice re
‘you deserve it.’
Find some useless, expensive pastime to indulge in. Short list possibilities;

a. Book club [remember that you’re teetering on maximum brain capacity!]
b. Tennis [you’re clothing would never be white enough and you would also increase pile of laundry on the sofa]
c. Become a ‘lady who lunches.’ Reconsider post jaw surgery and braces.

8. Commence new beauty routine to ward off advancing decrepitude;
• Cleanse, tone and moisturize twice a day OR
• Wash face with Dial [translation Fairy Liquid!] if you manage to remember.

9. Research self improvement courses;
check availability for 11:30 p.m. to 2 a.m.

10. Invent labour saving device to continuously suck all dirt from house. [Consider consequences for self prior to commencement e.g. unemployment]

11. Avoid lawsuit from neighbours; train children to wear at least one garment of clothing [preferably around the nether regions] by Summer. [2007 not 2008] Nakedness is no longer acceptable now that we are all Americans. N.B. hats don’t count for the purpose of clothing categorization.

12. Keep large hall cupboard permanently empty so that all ‘mess’ can be hurled inside at short notice to achieve instant ‘Homes and Gardens’ effect.

13. Count on fingers [and toes] blessings.
[Limit this exercise to once only, in any 24 hour period to avoid becoming too much of a fluffy bunny {translation = American}]

Perish the thought!

They have broken the lock on the television and are occupied watching an advertisement. I lean against the door jam making an inventory of potential breakages and damage, during their unsupervised time.

I hear a nasal demand to ‘buy whilst stocks last,’ that two small people echo with perfection. My eyes drift to the screen; a handy dandy cleaning machine, that does not require parental or adult supervision during it’s working cycle. I wait for a price but I’m distracted by the mantra circling the room, ‘buy now while stocks last, buy now while stocks last, buy now while stocks last.’ Each echo has a corresponding giggle. I am uncertain which bit is the funny bit?

It’s enough to make me seriously consider nipping out to the shops to buy it there and then. Am I an advertisers dream or a challenged cleaner? I debate whether the shoe and sock nightmare is worth the effort, when the voice of doom cuts through my calculations, “you can’t buy it, it will be too noisy, they’ll never stand for it, you’ll never be able to actually use it!” I look at my 9 year old daughter, the voice of sanity.

I grab a screwdriver and start poking the lock on the television door as junior starts up, “we go buy dah machine for dah cleaning?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Er, it costs too many dollars,” I lie. He disappears and I hear a crash with an accompanying ‘oopsie.’ He reappears with something behind his back, a surprise no doubt. “Here you go!” he announces brandishing the dust-buster in my direction with a cheesy grin, “you can be using dis little noo noo instead.” Great problem solving, such consideration! “Der you go, now you can go and be playing upstairs wiv it where it won’t be hurting my ears.”

I will avoid mention of her views on toilets, since I need to avoid scatological references as I am a Brit. I had not considered that there was a possibility that somebody else might climb on the band wagon, to ceremoniously beat our conscious and sub-conscious selves. It is therefore with some surprise that I engage my youngest son in conversation. I enquire why he is pinching his nostrils shut?

“Because of the badest smell!” he screams, keeping his distance. I struggle to gain a purchase on his person and park him on my lap to extract further details. He writhes and wriggles making retching noises. Loud ones.
“What is the badest smell dear?”
“It is you! You are the badest smell. You are worster than peanuts!”
My! That bad!
“You don’t think I smell very nice?”
“NO!” I didn’t really need clarification there, more a moment to gather my wits.
“What can we do about that problem?” He pauses to gaze at the ceiling awaiting inspiration.
“I know! You can be living somewhere else?”
“Where would you suggest?”
“In dah garden. You can be living in dah garden in a tent.”
“But I hate camping!”
“You won’t be ‘dah camping,’ you will be dah living dere.”
So much logic! I need to re-configure my brain.
“But I don’t want to live in a tent in the garden. I will be lonely. Won’t you be lonely without me?”
What a stupid question. Any first year lawyer knows that you should never ask a question that you cannot predict the answer to.
“You will be lonely but I will be stinky free.”
I am somewhat flummoxed, not for the first time. Spouse sticks his head around the door to clarify:
“it’s the Marmite! You didn’t clean your teeth and gargle with mouthwash before you breathed on him.”

It would appear that the health and well being of a fellow human being, is less important than a pollutant free environment. [Ref 1]

[Ref 1] ecocentrism

after ECOCENTRIC adj.
The view or belief that environmental concerns should take precedence over the needs and rights of human beings considered in isolation.

Only one of them has taken readily to the motivational force of pocket money. [translation = an allowance] It’s probably just an age thing. she’s the right age and they’re too young. The boys have to be prompted through every reluctant step but their sister has become the allowance Queen, or should that be plague? She pounces on me at inconvenient moment demanding money with menaces, “what can I do? Can I get 50 cents for picking up that piece of paper?” She has acquired previously undetected haggling skills by osmosis. She has an endless list of ‘things to buy.’ Her brother already has every Pokemon that exists on the planet, and I have yet to find a suitable source of eggs for junior. I need fake eggs, but plastic ones. We don’t want to expand his horizons too far in case he gets hooked on the Faberge variety.

“O.k. 40 cents for picking it up? 25? Alright, say 5 cents?” I agree, because it’s still early enough to be dark, but does she give up claiming victory? Of course not. She’s relentless, energetic and young.
“O.k. how about another 50 cents for putting it in the bin?”
“What? You want 25 cents for picking it up and another 50 cents for putting in the bin?”
“Yup.”
“Forget it.”
“o.k. just 25 cents for picking it up then?”
“What are you going to do with it when you’ve picked it up? Just carry it around all day?”
“What’s it to you? You only said ‘pick it up.’ That’s what I’ll do if that’s what it takes.” Let me die now, it’s the other two that are supposed to be literal.
Once she’s in the groove she’s all over me like a rash as I bumble around in slippers and a dressing gown trying to restore order.
“Can I fix the table for breakfast for 50 cents?” I look at the table piled with papers, books, food scraps, left over homework and a wide assortment of writing materials. I dither momentarily, weighing up the benefit of her being able to earn the extra money she needs for a preferred toy, versus the benefit of consistency of routine for her brothers in being able to sequence laying their own place setting at the table?
“What! What! What’s taking you so long?”
“Er, O.k.” I continue to splosh around at the sink in the kitchen. She’s by my side within 30 seconds, “50 cents please.”
“You’ve finished already?”
“Yup, I’m done. 50 cents please?” I look over. The table is empty. Piles of debris line the edge of the wall.
“I thought you were going to lay the table for breakfast?”
“Nope, you didn’t say that, you said ‘clear if for breakfast.’ It’s clear, I need my 50 cents.” I determine to use my words more carefully, to be less cavalier. Her feet tap in the puddle on the floor as I count out five dimes for her, “don’t make that mess any worse dear,” I plead.
“Hey I can clear that up for you for 50 cents?” I press the coins into her palm and pass her her piggy bank, slip in a high five.
“No thank you.”
“Hey why not? You just want me to stay poor! You won’t let me earn what I need.” I look at the emotional blackmailer with awe. How does she know how to do that already? This is one aspect of her upbringing that has been missing, due entirely to the existence of her brothers. I would never appeal to anyone’s conscience, the ‘do it for me,’ ‘do it to make me proud / please me,’ as that has always been a waste of breath. So where has she found this talent? Is it innate?

A recall a million failed attempts of appealling to her brothers when we first started RDI [translation = Relationship Development Intervention] which I wasn’t very good at;
“Please, just for me, just once?”
“”Once’, what it is?”
“One time.”
“Oh, I not do it one time, I do it zero times.”
Or:
“Please, just to make me happy?”
“No, your face is happy now, that is stupid.”

Or, changing face to demonstrate unhappiness:
“Please, just to make me happy?”
“No, your face is a liar.” It’s enough to turn a mother prematurely grey. No, all such appeals were set aside together with the RDI book.

I look at my daughter, the expert at personal relationships aged 8.
“You should put it towards your college fund.”
“I have a college fund?” she asks with eyes like saucers. I don’t like to mention that any potential college fund has already been squanders threefold on her brothers’ therapy. I grab a cloth and slip to the floor “because I know that you’ll want to charge me more for obtaining a cloth first, another ten cents for disposing of the dirty cloth and object very strongly to wiping the splashes that are outside a three foot radius without additional payment.”

I stand and lob the cloth into the wash, “and besides I can do it myself is far less time than it takes to negotiate with you.” But I suspect that says more about my own shortcomings than hers.

Only one of them has taken readily to the motivational force of pocket money. [translation = an allowance] It’s probably just an age thing. she’s the right age and they’re too young. The boys have to be prompted through every reluctant step but their sister has become the allowance Queen, or should that be plague? She pounces on me at inconvenient moment demanding money with menaces, “what can I do? Can I get 50 cents for picking up that piece of paper?” She has acquired previously undetected haggling skills by osmosis. She has an endless list of ‘things to buy.’ Her brother already has every Pokemon that exists on the planet, and I have yet to find a suitable source of eggs for junior. I need fake eggs, but plastic ones. We don’t want to expand his horizons too far in case he gets hooked on the Faberge variety.

“O.k. 40 cents for picking it up? 25? Alright, say 5 cents?” I agree, because it’s still early enough to be dark, but does she give up claiming victory? Of course not. She’s relentless, energetic and young.
“O.k. how about another 50 cents for putting it in the bin?”
“What? You want 25 cents for picking it up and another 50 cents for putting in the bin?”
“Yup.”
“Forget it.”
“o.k. just 25 cents for picking it up then?”
“What are you going to do with it when you’ve picked it up? Just carry it around all day?”
“What’s it to you? You only said ‘pick it up.’ That’s what I’ll do if that’s what it takes.” Let me die now, it’s the other two that are supposed to be literal.
Once she’s in the groove she’s all over me like a rash as I bumble around in slippers and a dressing gown trying to restore order.
“Can I fix the table for breakfast for 50 cents?” I look at the table piled with papers, books, food scraps, left over homework and a wide assortment of writing materials. I dither momentarily, weighing up the benefit of her being able to earn the extra money she needs for a preferred toy, versus the benefit of consistency of routine for her brothers in being able to sequence laying their own place setting at the table?
“What! What! What’s taking you so long?”
“Er, O.k.” I continue to splosh around at the sink in the kitchen. She’s by my side within 30 seconds, “50 cents please.”
“You’ve finished already?”
“Yup, I’m done. 50 cents please?” I look over. The table is empty. Piles of debris line the edge of the wall.
“I thought you were going to lay the table for breakfast?”
“Nope, you didn’t say that, you said ‘clear if for breakfast.’ It’s clear, I need my 50 cents.” I determine to use my words more carefully, to be less cavalier. Her feet tap in the puddle on the floor as I count out five dimes for her, “don’t make that mess any worse dear,” I plead.
“Hey I can clear that up for you for 50 cents?” I press the coins into her palm and pass her her piggy bank, slip in a high five.
“No thank you.”
“Hey why not? You just want me to stay poor! You won’t let me earn what I need.” I look at the emotional blackmailer with awe. How does she know how to do that already? This is one aspect of her upbringing that has been missing, due entirely to the existence of her brothers. I would never appeal to anyone’s conscience, the ‘do it for me,’ ‘do it to make me proud / please me,’ as that has always been a waste of breath. So where has she found this talent? Is it innate?

A recall a million failed attempts of appealling to her brothers when we first started RDI [translation = Relationship Development Intervention] which I wasn’t very good at;
“Please, just for me, just once?”
“”Once’, what it is?”
“One time.”
“Oh, I not do it one time, I do it zero times.”
Or:
“Please, just to make me happy?”
“No, your face is happy now, that is stupid.”

Or, changing face to demonstrate unhappiness:
“Please, just to make me happy?”
“No, your face is a liar.” It’s enough to turn a mother prematurely grey. No, all such appeals were set aside together with the RDI book.

I look at my daughter, the expert at personal relationships aged 8.
“You should put it towards your college fund.”
“I have a college fund?” she asks with eyes like saucers. I don’t like to mention that any potential college fund has already been squanders threefold on her brothers’ therapy. I grab a cloth and slip to the floor “because I know that you’ll want to charge me more for obtaining a cloth first, another ten cents for disposing of the dirty cloth and object very strongly to wiping the splashes that are outside a three foot radius without additional payment.”

I stand and lob the cloth into the wash, “and besides I can do it myself is far less time than it takes to negotiate with you.” But I suspect that says more about my own shortcomings than hers.

It is a particularly disgusting and vile habit, to walk around the streets stuffing food into your mouth. How can people do such a thing? Eating and drinking are one of the rare ‘activities’ that require the participant to be seated. It is any wonder that America has the highest sales of antacids and digestive relief’s. They could save themselves a stash if they’d only sit down to eat for half an hour. A half an hour to eat, half an hour to walk it off. Everyone would be cured and fitter. There again, since the average American lunch hour is more usually 20 minutes, I detect an insoluble discrepancy.

Whilst I’m on the subject, what about those reprobates who permit their children to eat food off the shelves in grocery stores before they’ve paid for it! It’s a public disgrace. Who do they think they are? Unhygienic and put quite simply, theft. Can’t they wait five minutes until they’ve paid? How about waiting a few more minutes until they get home? Are they so malnourished that they will expire during the delay? This kind of instant gratification will be the downfall of the youth of today. If my mother had ever found that I had behaved in such a manner, she’d have washed my mouth out with soap and sent to me to bed, even earlier than usual, and a good thing too. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without such guidance. But what of this lost generation?

I herd my own children around the supermarket, each holding their respective list in their hot little hands. In transit, following in their wake, I hurl in anything that I can lay my hands on, that looks vaguely edible, as I don’t want to break the flow. They toss in each of their three items as we progress through the aisles. I allow them to choose a ‘treat’ each. They all scarper in different directions, leaving me alone with my over burdened trolly. [translation = cart]

Whilst I await their return, and my stamp of approval on their choices, I examine the contents of the trolly. I try to visualize potential meals that I can prepare from the ingredients. Bananas and ?…… never mind. Pastry and ?……something will come to me soon. Tomatoes and ….yes I have lettuce to go with it. Perhaps a quiche and salad?

They gather together breathlessly in an excited heap. She had chosen ice-cream, no great surprise there. He has chosen string cheese, no doubt inspired by one of his fellow pupils at class. Junior proffers a box of squeezy yoghourts. I baulk and bark, “no squeezy yoghourts, disgusting, foul American invention.” He pulls a face, “but I need them!” he pleads.
“Why, what’s wrong with yoghourt in an ordinary little pot at half the price?”
“Because I am the fast one.”
“Who said you were the fast one?”
“I do! I did! I am.”
“O.k. So what has ‘being the fast one,’ have to do with buying very expensive squeezy yoghourts?”
“Because day are ‘portable,’ which is meaning dat you can eat dem and run at the same time.” I look at his earnest face. Duped! An advertisers dream. I contemplate. How to give him something desirable, in his case a
narrow range of edibles yet avoid
compliance myself?

I pick up a banana, and peel down the skin,
“here, try running and eating that.
Give it a test drive.
Tell me if it’s portable too?”

“Ah mummy, I is not a good boy anyways and I don want nuffink any roads up.” I seek out the blue eyes to see if I have timed this badly? I point to my beautifully configured numbers in the hope of encouraging him to add another. I don’t want to induce cardiac arrest in Santa when he finds a list with only five items on it.
“Can’t you think of anything that would make you feel very happy, that would make you feel a happy green?”
“Well, maybe I am wanting something.”
“Really? What?”
“I am having to want three eggs actually.”
“Great! Number 6, three eggs, that’s a great one! Can you think of another one?”
“Er, well, maybe I fink I am wanting a great gold star.” Saints preserve us, we’re on a roll! “Wonderful! That would make a superb gift. Anything else?” Is there a chance we might reach double digits?
“Hmm, let me see now, I think my last fing would be some green toofpaste so that my teef can be happy too.” Why didn’t I anticipate this? Does anyone manufacture green toothpaste? Do I have enough time to go to Walgreens? Will they let me open half a dozen tubes so that I can squeeze out a squirt and check colours? “Superb, happy teeth must be the best thing in the world, anything else?”
“ Umm, may be I need some bendy pens, I mean soft pens that won’t be hurting my hands and fingers.”
I know that his ‘list’ looks strange to a casual observer. I could explain each items significance but that’s not really the point. The point is that he has no compunction to explain what these things are. The theory of mind, or lack thereof, tells us that he assumes that I understand, that I think as he does, therefore there is no need for him to expound. Even if I were a complete stranger he would still not explain, even if prompted, there would be no point. His perspective is that everyone knows their significance. It is easy to see why this tendency is seen as pivotal, in an autism diagnoses if not merely narcissistic.

“Fantabulous, those are the best pens on the planet! I hope he has some?” I wonder where they can be bought? “Any other offers? Anything else? You’re up to 8 now!”
“My last thing will be a sharing thingy.”
“What kind of a sharing thingy?”
“A game that my bruvver is liking very much, so that we can be taking turns together. I like the game cube game because is it yellow, er because is it nearly golden colour, which is my favourite colour, but he is liking it because it is a Pokemon game and it will be making him happy, it is called a “Topaz Pokemon Version.”

So much for the Theory of Mind.

Ref 1 = 
adamantine \ad-uh-MAN-teen\ adjective
1 : made of or having the quality of adamant 
*2 : rigidly firm : unyielding 
3 : resembling the diamond in hardness or luster

These days, cooking and catering is so much easier. All I have to do is shake out a cup full of Goldfish crackers for the children and a bowl of fishy bites for the cats and I’m all finished. [translation = done] I figure that this just makes them all vegetarians by default. Whilst we are making great progress in the food department, fruit and vegetables are not ‘preferred foods.’ The ‘make your own packed lunch’ campaign has been a moderate success and senior son will volunteer to make his own sandwich at other times to ensure that he can use at least 2 ounces of butter on each slice of bread. At this stage, compliance and task completion are paramount. Coronary heart disease is low on the agenda.
Thus when I hear a squeak of surprise from him, I walk over to determine the cause. “My sandwich!?” he bleats.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a sandwich. Well done for making it on your own. You must be very hungry to have made one now?” [Translation = less than an hour before supper]
“But it is tasting, er, not quite right.” I look at the sandwich with one perfect semi circle missing because he didn’t get the wonky teeth gene.
“What’s not quite right dear.” He pulls a face and bares his teeth, arching his back as he hunts for words. “It, it, it……I dun know, but it is tasting funny.” I peak under the top slice which reveals chunks of too hard butter, dollops of peanut butter and a bright red smearing of something that isn’t jam. [translation = jelly]

I glance back to the kitchen counter, the scene of devastation following his ‘cooking’ session. I step closer as the bifocals aren’t up to the task. I trickle of oil seeps from the up turned lid; Tomato pesto sauce. I rearrange my face and return to the table where he is on his second mouthful.

I sit next to my son at the breakfast table, enfeebled by the 25 minute fruit fight. I’m not sure who has won. Technically, since the fruit is inside him, I should be able to claim victory. He sits cross legged and half naked on his furry red cushion. The chair is at a thirty five degree age to the table, about an eight inch span for his body to stretch. It’s the left hand side of his body. This would be an appropriate stance in an old fashioned bar, with a pint at your side whilst you chatted to a friend opposite you. Or would be if you ignored the lower half of his body and the issue of underage drinking. A wide variety of comments come to mind, running along the lines of ‘sit up straight,’ elbow[s] off he table,’ ‘legs down,’ and so on, but they stay in my head.

His spoon flaps from his floppy hand showering cereal over a 4 foot radius with every welcome mouthful. It is stunning just how difficult they make this simple operation. He is a suspension bridge from chair to table, but that’s only to be expected if you have poor muscle tone, as so many autistic children do. [translation = poor core strength] His head is on one side, which helps keep the cereal inside, since his mouth is open as he attempts mastication. I wonder which is more important, to eat your cereal politely or be able to breathe at the same time? I cannot recall ever having eaten anything in a similar pose, even though I try really hard to remember what it was like to be little.

I think it’s o.k. for the experienced diner to not orientate themselves towards their food, especially if you’re doing something else at the same time, such as have a cordial conversation with your companion. But of course there is no talking and I wouldn’t be the one to put additional pressures upon him at this junction. This is fine because eating and talking should be mutually exclusive tasks. But then he is not chatting, why would he? He is not an experienced or expert diner, he is but a mere amateur. He should have a big L tattooed on his forehead, ‘caution learner eater, please keep a wide berth.’

How can you eat if you’re not sufficiently interested to even look at your bowl, where the food is located? There again, how do you expect to eat anything if you have to think about holding a spoon and have no concentration? If you can’t connect the spoon to the contents to the mouth, a triangle sequence, then starvation is likely. Clearly a species that doesn’t eat efficiently is on the downward path. I think Darwin would have a lot to say about my son.

He is the picture of disinterest, he is merely refueling on something that isn’t offensive. He is just sufficiently and minimally connected to the whole proceeding of breakfast, to eventually complete the operation. He is perfectly positioned for escape when the exercise is over or whenever his calorie count is sufficient, whichever happens first. When the 334th energy unit is registered, he’ll drop the spoon and catapault off that chair to start anything that isn’t in the category of eating. I watch the floppy spoon flap a bit, debating whether he’s on the 300th calorie spoonful or the 335th?

The spoon clatters like a race bell, the chair tumbles over like starter blocks and he’s off without a backward glance, victorious. I check my watch. Six minutes and thirty seconds to consume 335 calories, dry ones without milk. There again, it is also six minutes and thirty seconds of sitting. [translation = depending upon your definition of sitting, of course.}