About a girl (on the autism spectrum)

It really hit me today how hard Ava finds it to be in busy, noisy spaces when I took her to an art festival today and she became totally withdrawn by the riot of colour, crush of people and loud volume music.

I don’t talk about Ava’s challenges as often as Jonah’s because she is quiet and ‘easy’ rather than angry and shouty. But as she gets older it’s becoming clear that in many ways, they are harder for other people to deal with because girls are supposed to be more sociable. And anyone that knows Ava well will know she’s becoming less so as she gets older.

I’m constantly torn between putting her in situations I know she’ll find difficult (to get her used to it) and allowing her to do what she likes best, and just spend time in her own – which, to me, doesn’t always feel like great mothering. But it’s hard to watch her listlessly drag herself around shops or attractions, obviously overwhelmed while I overcompensate for her quietness or shyness, or monotonousness, because, for a girl, her one word answers can often seem just plain rude.

But it’s also plain to see how just being somewhere busy can take it out of her. After a day at school, she needs time to recharge, curled up on a beanbag, watching videos on her phone. It’s not like she doesn’t do activities- and when I pick her up from climbing or scouts, I often see her running around with the instructors and people she knows there having a whale of a time. With children her own age, it’s not so easy. She has one or two selected friends to whom she’s incredibly loyal, but other than that isn’t really interested in people too much. She loves animals, numbers, Minecraft, and as her pencil control improves, is getting more interested in drawing. But it’s easy to see that things many other people enjoy- parties or presentations, exhaust her. For a girl, she’s disinterested in clothes or appearance, actively dislikes anyone commenting on her striking looks, wavy nutmeg coloured hair, pale flushed face, and china blue eyes, yet surprised herself recently by how gorgeous she looked in a summer frock I bought her for holiday (normally she’s a jeans, t-short and hoody kinda girl).

But in other respects, she’s completely normal. She loves baking (like her dad) and never looks so happy as when she’s in water though her swimming’s still a little uncoordinated at times. And she’s finding her niche. Jonah and she took it upon themselves to start writing a book together, and save for a few squabbles working out who was doing what, it’s really not half bad. It’s interesting to find out what’s going on in her head, because half the time it’s a mystery to me. But she’s always wanted to make me happy; always been such a delight just to be with, snuggled up on the sofa, that talking seems unnecessary half the time. It’s certainly worth trying to see the world from her point of view as she gets older, because you realise that most people waste so much time worrying about other people. Ava’s just herself, and that’s got to be a good thing.