Barrett Tales

So I was telling my Aunt Ginny some Barrett stories from this week and we were both laughing.  Then another friend told me that her favorite posts on LKM are the ones about Barrett, so I had a mini-aha moment.  Perhaps I should periodically share some of the funny things that we experience living life with sweet Bear-Bear.  Plus, I haven’t quite finished the blog I’d planned for today.  So here are a couple Friday Funnies to start your weekend.

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Last week Barrett had a mishap and scraped his shin at school.  It wasn’t a major injury, but it did cause the Bear Siren to go off.

Side Bar:  Bear, when frustrated, mad or hurt, makes an ear piercing sound that comes from deep down inside.  If you’re standing close to him when it goes off, it will hurt your ears.  Believe me!  Interestingly, his mouth is often closed when he sounds off!  I wish I knew how to upload video with audio, so you can experience it.  Now Barrett does talk, but the siren fills the void when he can’t form or find the words he needs.

Anyway, he set the siren off and the teacher has been trying to train Bear to say “I’m hurt,” instead of the siren.   Even though the injury was minor, she wanted to take him to the nurse, just to make sure he was comfortable going to the nurse if he ever really needs to.  So off to the nurse’s office they went. 

Mrs. Corcoran said that all was fine on the way there.  Once in the office Bear sat down and giggled a lit bit.  Both his teacher and the nurse fawned over him and assessed his leg.  They told him that he was going to be fine – the nurse just wanted to clean the wound.  The nurse, who was unfamiliar with Barrett, turned around and grabbed a cotton ball.  SIREN!  Mrs. Corcoran said that the nurse looked startled, but continued to reach for the peroxide.  When Bear spied peroxide, he scramble out of his chair, and with full-siren, hid under the nurse’s desk!  Mrs. Corcoran confided to me that the nurse was very rattled by the time they left the clinic.

I was laughing so hard when his teacher told me, that I forgot to ask how they got him out from under the desk.  To help paint the ridiculous picture for you, Bear is now over five foot and almost 100 pounds!  And before you think I am cruel for laughing, think in this context – there have been many times that Bear has made me want to hind under my desk.

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Barrett is growing so fast that I can’t keep up.  It’s been very cold around here lately, which is early for us, and I haven’t had a lot of options when it comes to dressing him because of his rapid growth.  I’ve been reluctant to buy him new pants right now, because his birthday is in two weeks and then there’s Christmas.  It’s hard enough to come up with gift ideas for Bear that I don’t want to use all my cards right now.  Why am I telling you this?  Because on Monday it was cold and I put in him in a pair of nylon sweat pants that had snaps down each side of the pant legs.  I don’t even know where we got them.  Auntie Kelly?  I didn’t think anything of it, but Rich commented that those may not be a good idea.  I just looked at him, because I had no idea why they wouldn’t be.  They fit, that was good enough for me.

A couple hours later I received a call from Mrs. Corcoran.

“Mom, Barrett’s not happy and we’ve had quite a few sirens.”

Me,   “Really?  Why?”

Well apparently, whenever big Bear sat down, the snaps on the sides of the pants popped open, and then when he got up, his pants would fall off.  As you or anyone would be in the situation, Bear was not happy.  The teacher told me that they’d put him in a pair of PE shorts that they had on hand, but that they kept falling off, too (Bear has a very trim waist).  At one point he was standing in the middle of the classroom, with the shorts around his ankles, on full siren – this time opening his mouth in order to convey the urgency of the situation.   At this point, Barrett wasn’t the only one who was unhappy.  Lots of sensitive ears in that classroom!

I was at the school in twenty minutes with a different pair of pants.  I walked into the classroom and tapped on Bear’s shoulder.  He looked up and saw me holding a pair of pants and busted out laughing!  Oh how I wish I knew what he’d been thinking at the moment.

Autism aside, is there a first aide item that freaks your kid out?  Have you ever been shocked by the rate of your child’s growth?  Doesn’t the first cold day of the year suck when you realize nothing fits your children?  (Cha-ching!)  Do you ever hold back on buying necessities, knowing a birthday or holiday is coming up?  Any funny kids stories to share?