"I'M TELLING MOM!!!"

"I'm telling mom!" was something that I heard a lot growing up.  My sister & I, being only two years apart, were constantly fighting and blackmailing each other.  One actual exchange that I remember vividly was "If you tell mom what I did then I will tell her about the time in first grade that you didn't even BUY a milk!" Yes, in grade one my darkest secret was that one day at lunch I skipped buying milk and yes, I let my sister hold that shameful day over my head until 3 years later.  So when she used the previously stated threat and I was a fourth grader I said "Go right ahead! Tell her!"  By this age we should have probably stopped blackmailing one another, but the look on my mother's face when she heard that three years before I didn't purchase a milk at school was one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.

I bring this up because my son doesn't have a sibling.  He doesn't have someone to rat him out when he does things he knows he isn't supposed to.  He doesn't have someone to tell on him for lying.  Yes, my son is capable of lying, he didn't get the "everything is literal" autism symptom, which I guess could be seen as either a blessing or a curse.

Yesterday when I got him off the bus he started talking like a maniac.  He does this a lot, he is telling you a story but his brain gets ahead of him so the story might not make sense if you aren't paying very close attention.   His story went something like this:

"Miss Whittle istompedon her foot somadandIwassosorry and I was bad and had to gototimeout."

To the casual listener this would sound like "Miss Whittle -jibberish- her foot -jibberisth, and I was bad."

The story he was trying to convey was that he had gotten frustrated with his teacher (Miss Whittle) and stomped on her foot.  He was really sorry about it, he knew that was bad, and he had to go to time out.  His brain moves at such a quick rate that he often says words smooshed together so quickly that to the casual observer they sound like jibberish.  It takes him half as long to tell a story sometimes because his words come out faster than normal.  This tends to happen most often when he is upset about something.

He might not have a sibling to rat him out but he ratted himself out.  This is the first time he's ever admitted to doing something bad at school.  His teacher called after school to explain the incident and there were only two extra details added in "the teacher in question was wearing flip flops" *ouch!* and that "he was supposed to be doing schoolwork but he wouldn't stop bouncing around".  So he told me everything that was important in the story and I'm really proud of him.

I am going to make the assumption that the task in question had something to do with writing, which he absolutely abhors.  He can write every single letter of the alphabet, and his vocabulary is huge but getting him to write anything is damn near impossible.  He doesn't even like coloring.  He likes to paint but he hates anything involving a writing instrument.  His spelling tests are done on the computer because he KNOWS how to spell things, he just refuses to write them.

So that is the story of how Alden told on himself for the first time and I was really proud of him!

For more stories about my hilarious childhood, nerd things, and my life in general visit my other blog.