Mutterings Of A Mindless Mommy

I posted earlier today that I’m not in Chess Mom mode; Chess Dad took Alexander to his second chess tournament.  I received a happy call from Alexander after every game who proudly proclaimed that he lost but had fun.  The final round was supposed to start at 2:00 pm our time; the phone rings at 2:03 - surely the game wasn’t over that quickly!  Chess Dad asks “what does a full-point bye mean?”  I explained that Alexander had a bye for the final round and instead of the typical 1/2 point that is awarded in the event of a bye, Alexander was receiving a full point.

Translation:  Trouble.

For anyone familiar with Asperger’s Syndrome, you know that change is not exactly a welcome event.  Routine is the name of the game and this is most certainly the case with Alexander.  He had an expectation of playing four games.  This expectation is not happening.  What did happen, is a meltdown.  Chess Dad quickly called back and said “you have to talk to him, he’s freaking out” to which I hear Alexander yell “I’m not touching the phone!”  I told Chess Dad to put it into numbers; Alexander likes numbers.  I said to explain to Alexander that there is an odd number of players so every week someone gets to sit out.  If there are 99 children, there are only 49 games.  This week he’s special and gets a point for just showing up.  I then followed up with a joke - “If that doesn’t work, just carry him out of there.”  I guess that is only partially a joke as I’ve had to carry both of the kids (on separate occasions) out of places before.

I feel bad for Dave as he doesn’t have the thick skin that I do with regards to rude comments from onlookers.  Hopefully Alexander takes it easy on him and just has a mini-meltdown.

I somehow managed to talk my husband into taking my son to today’s chess tournament.  My husband does not like crowds and new situations.  We’ve played around with several online autism screening tools and he always scores quite high on the “maybe an Aspie” tests.  I even had him fill out The Ritvo Autism Asperger’s Diagnostic Scale that I picked up from Dr. Ari Ritvo myself.  Yup, scored really high on that one too hehe.  In my house, the apples don’t fall too far from the tree - or their dad in this case!

Anyhow, I digress.  Today I am not a Chess Mom - today my husband is a Chess Dad.  Good for him getting involved with the kids’ extracurricular activities.  Last week while the kids had dance class guess who was there by my side - yup, daddy.  He is a wonderfully involved dad and the kids idolize him.  He works long hours as a planner/engineer type for a local cable company; should he make it home before the kids go to sleep the second that garage door opens, the kids scream and come running.  That’s love!

So today I am not a Chess Mom.  Today I am a stay-in-my-pajamas-and-read-books-to-my-daughter mom.  I like this kind of mom, really quite relaxing.