Beach Day
“Mummy, what are our bodies for?” I’m giving our youngest breakfast in bed (because it’s easier) and it’s too early for this kind of existential questioning. Luckily she’s happily distracted with the delivery of her usual: a specific cereal on a specific tray with a specific pillow underneath the tray on top of her legs. The daily ritual then goes: she will ask me “Can I eat it?” and I must answer “Yes” before she can continue with her day. Any variation and we have to “go back to the beginning”. Anyway, today she “doesn’t want any talking now” so I open her blackout blinds and go back to the monumental packing job downstairs that is necessary for a beach day.
My husband and I are up early. We sprang as well as we could out of bed, despite being in and out of 2 of the kids bedrooms three times the night before, to get ready for the day before the unicorns (3 autistic girls is very rare so I’m told) were up and yelling. Being up early, the sun beginning to warm up the earth, and the peace and quiet, made it feel quite like the early morning of a mediterranean holiday. So that’s what we imagined as I packed all the things that ChatGPT told me we’d need for the beach. I use ChatGPT a lot these days for this kind of thing, as I like to tell myself it frees my brain up for more important tasks. I think it’s just me being lazy. But also ChatGPT is more organised than me, and wouldn’t forget, for example, a travel cot, when staying the night somewhere with a baby. Which happened once.
The girls wake up, we get them into their rash vests and swimmers or swimming trunks for the most sensory sensitive one, and bundle them into the car. The eldest takes the reins as the DJ and we listen to a wild and intensely hectic genre of music I can only describe as haunted-fairground-techno-on-x3-speed. The inspiration for her playlist is her latest love of a kids horror movie called Five Nights at Freddie’s that she hasn’t actually watched but goddam Youtube seems to be telling her all about. Without access to my phone, as she has it, I half close my eyes and try and meditate. At least driving gives you some distraction.
Whilst we’re in the car, we have a pre-briefing session. These always sound like a genius idea. It’s that thing where you tell the kids what’s going to happen at the event you’re going to and key safety points or things NOT to do, and you speak to them before the actual event so that they know what’s coming or what is expected of them. Having said that, we avoid expectations as our eldest is demand avoidant and they are her kryptonite. Autism is wonderfully paradoxical.
“Ok girls, so the rule of the beach is ABC - Always Be Close ok? So always be near Mum and Dad, always be able to see us, always be close. Stick like glue. OK everyone?” I ask each of them what I’ve just said, and, seemingly, all seem to have grasped it.
10 minutes into being on the beach, and my husband is up to his neck in the sea in his clothes. He’s wading out to grab our eldest who has become just a little head bobbing about in the sea, much too far out and on some kind of sandbank. She moves quickly, and whilst we were expertly, but distractedly, putting up the sun-tent, she had started walking into the sea. He smashes against a few waves, reaches her and pulls her into the shallow water, explaining why she mustn’t go so far out while her sisters and I look on. The message seems to land. If he is too harsh with his words, she will get very upset and run, if he is too soft, she will do it again in another 10 minutes. These kinds of events used to terrify me, but thanks to now being slightly de-sensitised to them due to their regularity, and thanks also to my beta-blockers, I find them more of a run-of-the-mill kind of episode. My middle one shakes her head sagely, “Oh dear. She was not being close was she. Silly monkey”. She hates not sticking to rules, and this breaking of the ABC code is bothersome for her. She frets constantly about her eldest sibling and her safety. Poor kid.
The rest of our time on the beach passes without major incident, and my husband and I even manage to drink a low alcohol beer in our camping chairs. We talk about how British beaches really are much better than the ones in the Med, and who would want to go on a holiday abroad anyway? The younger two are very happy fulfilling some sort of sensory need that means they wriggle their wet bodies around in the dry sand for hours and hours together, whilst our eldest dons the arctic fox mask she’s made and leaps about in the sand dunes ‘practicing her quads’, which is jumping around like a fox on all fours. At least the whitish-grey mask is easily recognisable in the sand dunes. My husband faces the sea, and I face the dunes, swapping over every now and then and we try and ignore a group of teenagers who are laughing at her.
Back home later in the day, and the evening light draws in and dapples the trees. We’re all feeling sun-kissed and I’ve got that lovely post-sun, post-shower holiday vibe having had a quick rinse in the shower. The house and garden is quiet because the girls are all watching a movie. Not the same movie in the same room - each a different movie in separate rooms in the house. My husband and I enjoy the peace and quiet and reflect on a good day all things considered.
Our youngest tires of her movie after a few minutes and comes and finds us. She shows us her ‘cute walk’ which is her walking but with a slight hop in there as well and then she comes in for a big squeezy cuddle.
“Mummy, there’s something wrong with my voice” she says earnestly, looking into my eyes, looking for the reflection of herself in them. “Is there darling? What’s wrong with your voice?” She tries to tell us that her voice doesn’t work properly, and when she tries to say things it doesn’t work. Afterwards, she skips off to show us another one of her walks before we have a chance to answer and my husband and I look at each other speechless, surprised by this moment of lucidity and awareness, and completely heartbroken.
