Scary Things!

My memory for recent things seems to be pretty much toast. Burnt toast, very black and crisp at that!

I can't recall now if I mentioned the other day about the new trick Mandy and I discovered we can use to keep Kurtis relegated to the living room but in case I didn't, I'll tell you about that tonight. If I already mentioned this, then my apologies for being repetitive.

I'm pretty sure I have said how Kurtis has had a lot of sensory issues -mostly to loud things, equipment running -those kind of sounds.

For a long time his main problems of things that scared the heck out of him consisted primarily of these items: Hair dryer, curling brush, food chopper, mixer and the one he really hated, would practically have a coronary when he saw it coming into view was the vacuum cleaner.

His fears of the hair dryer and curling brush were the first to diminish. The food chopper and the hand mixer took a little longer. These days, the food chopper doesn't seem to phase him at all and the mixer, well -it gets his attention if he hears it but now he will come running to the kitchen to see what is making the noise and once he sees it is the mixer with either Mandy or me using it, he gets this look of relief on his face and then, goes back to whatever mischief he'd been into before.

The vacuum though has taken a bit longer to get acceptance with him. It used to be whenever Mandy hauled it out, he would go into a screaming frenzy but nowadays, when Mandy gets ready to run it, she always tells me to get ready for an incoming child. And, as soon as she would turn it on, he would come running to me, wherever I might be and promptly try to climb up in my lap and then, hang on for dear life, all the while watching his mother to make sure that evil machine wasn't coming after him.


Lately though, he doesn't always have to have someone hold him while the vacuum is running but he will climb up into one of the recliners and just sit there until the task at hand is completed.

B ut the other day, Mandy was trying to clean out the vestibule by the front door and in doing so, she had the vacuum in use for a while. When she finished using it out there, she moved it into the doorway (actually it is an archway) between the living room and dining room and just let it sit there for a while.

Then, out in the vestibule she came across this mask that we had bought last Halloween. It's an old man, with long, stringy white hair, a very long, craggy face and a bit of a bald spot on the top. We bought it because we knew immediately that it was the kind of silly thing my son, Clate, would love to prank people with. That, plus there were certain characteristics about it that reminded both Mandy and I of her Dad. Boy, this is one of those times when I am really relieved that my ex doesn't read my blog (or at least I am pretty sure he doesn't read it anyway) because he has always fancied himself to be quite the looker. His favorite thing was always to take a long, long look at himself in the mirror -after combing his hair, shaving, etc., and say "You good looking son-of-a-bitch! Don't you ever die." (No conceit in his family cause he has it all, ya know.

Well, Mandy knows that this mask is something that absolutely terrifies Kurtis -sends him into total screaming hissy fits. And sometimes, I guess you could say she can have a touch of a mean or maybe just plain ornery streak because knowing how afraid he is of that mask, she got it out and casually put it on the handle of the vacuum cleaner to see what reaction he would have.

Yeah, he screamed and cried, then after she moved the maxk but left the vacuum standing in the same spot, he was still frightened and ended up perched on the couch then till she put the vacuum away. So now we're seriously thinking of putting the vacuum in that same spot anytime we don't want him to go chasing through the rest of the downstairs rooms.

But tonight I had a big scare myself.

Mandy and the kids had gone to a birthday party for one of Maya's school friends, Katie was at majorette practice and Bill had been home but had left to go pick Katie and her friends up at the school.

It was shortly after 9 p.m. and the darkness outside was rapidly closing in. I was occupied in the recliner near the side window of the living room, watching tv while really concentrating too on working on the strawberry and vines tablecloth. So engrossed as a matter of fact that I didn't notice any activity at all out on the road in front of our house but then too, as dark as it was by then, I probably wouldn't have been able to see anything moving there anyway.

But, as I said, I was really paying attention to the embroidery to make sure my stitches were smooth, straight, etc., when all of a sudden there was this noise -a really, really loud growling and very menacing sound at the window near my chair.

Hearing this noise that jolted me out of my work trance, it also startled me so much I think I may have jumped several inches off the seat of the recliner too.

And as soon as I did, I regained my wits and compusure as I realized the noise coming from that window was my goofball son, who had snuck down here and put his face right up to the screen and as loud as he could had done this ARGGGRRRRRRR! sound.

Of course, he was laughing like a loon, as were his girlfriend, Betty, and her little girl, Rachel! A nice trick he'd managed to pull off on me for sure. I told him if I suddenly got about 15-20 new white hairs they would all be his fault. And he darned lucky that I wasn't pushing the damned needle through the fabric when he did that and when I jumped cause if I would have given my finger a big prcik with that needle and if it would have drawn blood right away and that blood would have fallen on the white fabric of this table cloth I've been slaving over for at least 3 1/2 weeks now, well you better beliefe there would have been hell to pay!

When Mandy got home and I told her the trick her brother had pulled on me tonight, she got almost as good a laugh out of that as Clate did.

Daqrned kids anyway! Always have to be trying to do something to drive a parent crazy, don't they?