Insert Title Here. I'm Clueless.

I was determined not to write about family, to think of something witty, but the well is dry. Has anyone else noticed that for the last two days every simple little task or idea has been hampered in a million tiny but annoying ways? Or is it just me?

On the upside, the kids seem unaffected.

Girl has been told about the Chinese myth that dragons swallow up the sun in an eclipse. She has decided the eclipse is recent enough for the dragons to still be around, and this makes the walk home from school a long one, full of oohs and coos at cloud formations. Apparently the shadows on her bedroom ceiling look like the Queen of Hearts holding an umbrella (the umbrella is the lightshade). I don't know where I got such a creative kid from; she must be an aberration or a throwback. She's happy, whatever, which given our household is quite a feat.

Son (the Aspergers sufferer) has been sidetracked from appearing in the Christmas show yet again. This suits him just fine and the teachers even better, because although he loves singing, the two attendant requirements - sitting still for long periods of time and performing in front of people, are just not his cup of tea and cause him tremendous stress. Son's stress tends to be contagious. This year he is to help one of the male teachers with the lighting. I wonder if they are beginning to realise just what they've done.

Its lovely to see him so totally enthused (or, if you look at it another way, obsessing about something to do with the real world for a change) but they had to advise him of this special duty at the same time as rehearsals for the show began, so that he knew why he was excused/excluded from the practice. Now he keeps wanting to nip over to see the teacher he will be helping. Seeing himself as a work colleague, he constantly wants to brain-storm and make sure he is up to speed with developments. There is nothing to develop until the show has been finalised and lighting options can be discussed, but he goes anyway, just in case.

He keeps mentioning to me, with some awe, that there are others as good at electrics as he is, and then he alternately decides this either means he is the luckiest kid in the whole school, or that he must have a spark of genius that sets him aside from the rest and that the teachers have spotted something truly special in him. I watch his head and heart swell successively and find myself perched like a hawk in case the superiority theory takes hold and I have to advise him that its probably because the other budding electricians know how to sit still. Its been a long time since I've seen him feel this special.

The other day I was late leaving the school because Son ran over to have another quick word with the long suffering teacher whose idea this was. The teacher asked him whether he had told me about his maths tests. "Oh no, I forgot" says Son.

He apparently did two tests and got 100% in one and 98% in the other. The school is delighted. Son's reaction? "Oh hey, yeah, well, its cos I know it, thats all, but doing the lights,...wow! It means maybe the Headmaster will thank me after all four shows, because he always thanks the lighting man and the piano player and I might get my name said out, and....."

Daughter's reaction? "Yes but look at that cloud - its a man eating a baby elephant! And it's my turn to talk."

I have an aspie kid and a 'normal'. One doesn't know how to share nor how to shut up. The walk to and from school is therefore divided into talking turns, with a no-mans land where we cross the big road and they both have to shut up. One day he'll get the hang of it. Probably.

My own reaction, and probably the reason I couldn't think to do a blog post yesterday, was something along the lines of "That's nice dears, hic durr blurble, I'm a little teapot." I do find mental vacancy so therapeutic, sometimes.