Oops–Dude lost Alien again

Dear readers,

I have a favor to ask of you.. especially if you are a resourceful user of the Internetz.

You see.. Dude’s Alien has gone missing.

LOST: Voice recorder/modifier shaped as an alien’s head
NAME: Answers to the name “Alien.”
COLOR: Originally steel gray, but color faded because of use. Now a soft cream/white color
SIZE: Fits in the palm of an adult-sized hand
FUNCTION: Press an eye to record your voice. A switch on the side will either modify your voice to slo-mo or fast-mo
REWARD: Undying gratitude from our family and 2056 karma points

Alien is Dude’s voice recording/modifying comfort object. I may have mentioned it just a few times on this blog. Like here, here, here, or here.

Throughout the past two months of transition — from finding out about his residential placement, to actually moving, to just passing his one month anniversary in his new home — Alien has been Dude’s constant.. his anchor.

Moving just sort of happened to him. Dude didn’t get a choice in the matter. Yes, moving out of your parents’ home is a natural step in life, but it’s a step that most young adults get to decide for themselves. I chose to go to college, I chose to live at home for the first year I was working, and then when I couldn’t take the suburbs any longer, I chose to move out. Me. My decision. All mine.

Even though we firmly believe it was the best possible decision for Dude, he had no say in this transition. And unfortunately, we can’t know exactly how Dude feels about that because he doesn’t have the expressive language to tell us. However, behavior IS communication, and his behavior over the past month has been making it clear that he is not taking this change lightly (I haven’t felt the need to get into it here. Nothing bad has happened, but Dude has definitely been keeping things interesting).

Right. So. Alien.

Alien is something that is all his. It is something he can control. It’s comforting to him when things around him are hectic or changing or upsetting.

Because Alien is so precious to him, our family had adopted a strict “Alien stays in the house” rule. We lost it before and Dude was beside himself. Therefore, we were terrified of losing it again.

Unfortunately, Alien made it out of Dude’s new house last week. We haven’t a clue where it ended up.

So, your mission — should you choose to accept it — is to track down a replacement Alien on the Internetz.

I have tried, and failed, to locate anything similar via Amazon, Google, eBay, etc. We can’t even remember how old Alien is.. maybe over 10 years old?

I listed all the specifics of what it does, how large it is, etc. under the caption of the photo above.

Any leads would be SUPER helpful. If you take any time out of your day to halfheartedly do an internet search, even if you don’t find anything, I sincerely thank you

Most affectionately,

A big sister who wants to make her brother happy

Editor’s note: Bonus points if you read the title of this blog post and sang it in your head to the tune of Britney Spears’s “Oops I Did it Again.” If you did, you’re starting to think like Dude :p

UPDATE: 15 minutes after I posted this, my best friend from college calls me. “Hello?” “I found it!” “WHAT?” “It’s in the UK and I don’t know if they ship to the US, but I found it!!!” AMBER, YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE GODDESS! 2 MILLION KARMA POINTS FOR YOU!

Do the Harlem Shake

In honor of Mother’s Day, we headed up to Dude’s house with plans to go out for a late lunch.

Soon after we walked in, Dude spotted my new iPhone (I took the plunge and recently made the switch from Droid. All I can say is the iPhone is about 1000x more intuitive to use than my Droid ever was).

Dude made a grab for my phone and tried to swipe it open. He realized he needed a password to get into it.

“CON LOS TERRORISTAS! AH. AH. AH,” he said excitedly as he handed my phone back to me.

“Do you want to watch the Maryland Harlem Shake?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes!” Dude nodded happily.

Somehow, some way, the media team at University of Maryland got the students to follow instructions and put on this display at the annual game against Duke (Duke, in Maryland’s eye, is our arch rival.. Although Coach K and the rest of the ACC seem to think we’re delusional).

The video’s existence is kind of a miracle considering that Maryland fans are notorious for paying little mind to authority and doing whatever they darn well please. Don’t believe me? Do an internet search and you’ll find multiple articles naming us the worst college basketball fans in the country. Ironically, the struggle for worst fans almost always comes down to us and Duke. It’s a badge we wear with honor

Anyway, this video is one of Dude’s favorites to watch. So thank you, Maryland students, for making it happen!

BBC – My Autism and Me

I saw this video over a year ago, but I just rediscovered it.

It’s really quite brilliant.

I’m fascinated by people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who can thoughtfully communicate what it looks like, feels like, and means in their particular circumstance. I always learn something new when watching videos like this. Hopefully you will too!

So, I get it’s my sister’s birthday and all, but where is my donut?

It was my birthday a few weeks ago. To celebrate, I requested that we take Mom Mom and Pop Pop up to Dude’s house, since they hadn’t seen it before. Then, we would go out for an early dinner at the closest restaurant that both Dude and I enjoy, Red Lobster.

(Cheddar Bay biscuits, am I right? NOM!)

Mom Mom offered to bake a cake for us to enjoy at Dude’s house after dinner. During dinner, Mom realized that we needed milk because apparently you can’t eat cake without having milk to wash it down.

On the way back to Dude’s house, we took a detour to Giant. Dad ran in to grab a gallon of milk while the rest of us waited in the car.

When Dad returned, Dude, who was sitting next to me in the back of the van, craned his neck to see what Dad was carrying.

“Donut. No donut,” Dude said, expectantly. (To understand Dude’s use of the word “no,” kindly refer to the Dude Language Guide.)

When Dude lived at home, every time Dad went grocery shopping at Giant, he would pick up a chocolate or vanilla iced donut for Dude as a treat. Dude saw Dad go into Giant and immediately assumed a donut awaited him.

He had to settle for one of his Mom Mom’s homemade cakes. What a tough life.

The time Mom shaved off Dude’s eyebrows

Hey Mom, remember that time you said I was never going to let you live this down? Well, I’m sorry, but you were absolutely right.

Dude is losing the hair on top of his head. This is a problem that doesn’t seem to have translated to the rest of him. When it comes to his face, and legs, and underarms, Dude is a hairy… well… dude.

Therefore, on a daily basis Dude is subject to “manscaping.”

It’s very important to us that Dude looks clean and well put together. Plus, there is absolutely no way Dude could pull off a beard. Some guys look nice with a little stubble. I love my brother, but he just looks gross.

Each morning, it takes two electric razors to remove his blossoming beard and the kid STILL has a 5 o’clock shadow by about 2pm.

Other components of “manscaping” happen less regularly. This includes removing nose hair, trimming underarm hair, and trying to control his Cardinal Bevilacqua-esque eyebrows and tendency towards a unibrow.

The day before Dude moved out, Mom decided she was going to “detail” him before his bath. She handled the manscaping, Dad handled the bathing, and I handled last minute errands.

I got home after the whole Dude cleaning process was complete. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, shaking his head.

“Go upstairs and look at your brother,” he told me.

“Huh? Why?” I asked.

“Just… go look at him. I want to see if you notice something different,” he responded.

I climbed the stairs and poked my head into Dude’s room.

“Hey Dude!” I greeted him. “All nice and clea–… OH MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOUR EYEBROWS?!” I shrieked as Dude looked up at me.

His thick eyebrows were shadows of their former selves. They just… weren’t there.

I went back downstairs. I could hear Dad chuckling as I walked into the kitchen. He held his stomach and laughed harder when he saw my face.

“What the heck happened?!?” I demanded.

Dad took deep breaths and tried to contain himself. “Apparently your mother decided that his eyebrows were too bushy.”

“Oooook,” I said slowly, “But you TRIM them, not DESTROY them!”

Just then, Mom entered the room, looking guilty.

“WHY DID YOU SHAVE OFF DUDE’S EYEBROWS?!” I asked incredulously.

“Bonny said she did it before!” Mom wailed. (Bonny is one of the ladies who would come help out with Dude’s morning routine during the week.)

“Well CLEARLY she had a more contained approach because I have literally never seen Dude without eyebrows!” I said exasperatedly as Dad held his stomach and laughed some more.

“Don’t make fun of me!” Mom pleaded. “I feel really bad about it!!!”

Dad recovered enough to say, “You feel bad? At least you have YOUR eyebrows!”

Mom often claims that Dad and I gang up and make fun of her too much. There may be some truth to that statement, but sometimes she just makes it so easy. Shaving off your kid’s eyebrows because you’re not sure when you’ll be able to “attack” them next? COME ON. You think I’m going to just let that pass by???

A few hours and many snarky comments later, Mom sighed, “You guys are never going to let me live this down, are you?”

“If we don’t drop it,” Dad responded, somehow managing to keep a straight face, “will you shave off our eyebrows as punishment?”

Now you see Dude’s magnificent eyebrows

Now you don’t

You know Dude?? Part 2

Last year, I found myself chatting with a guy I went to high school with who had no idea who I was, but he knew Dude. I found that to be utterly hilarious.

Fast forward to St. Patty’s Day weekend this year. It was the Friday night right after we officially decided Dude was going to move out. I drove out from the city after work so we could do a family Ikea run to pick out Dude’s new bedroom furniture. (He was still rocking the same furniture from when he was 5 years old. It was time for an update.)

A 6:30pm internet search informed us the closest Ikea closed at 9pm. The decision was made to skip dinner and head right for the store.

Kind of like Grumpy Cat

I feel like this is pretty standard for people, but when my dad and I get hungry and/or tired, we get GRUMPY. Like two-year-old-who-hasn’t-napped-in-two-days grumpy.

Fast forward a bed frame, tall dresser, regular dresser, and nightstand later. Tempers were short.

We drove to one of Dude’s favorite restaurants, Applebees. As we walked up and got a look inside, we groaned. We had completely forgotten it was St. Patty’s Day weekend. It was 9pm on a Friday night, we hadn’t eaten anything in hours, the place was packed with a bunch of hormonal, giggly preteens, and everything was green.

To make matters worse, the waitress who bounded up to our table was one of those annoyingly perky waitresses who speaks in a high pitched voice and seems to live for bad server-patron banter.

My grumpy, food-deprived brain inwardly grimaced at her googly shamrock headband and thought unkind things.

“Hey!” she stopped her banter as she noticed Dude. “I know you!”

Three sets of eyes turned toward her in amazement. Dude was oblivious.

“Yea!” she continued. “You were in on Wednesday with a young lady. Chicken fingers, french fries, and chocolate milk, right?”

As a matter of fact, Dude had been in a few days before with one of his respite workers for an early dinner. Chicken fingers, french fries, and chocolate milk is what he ALWAYS orders.

In that moment, I decided maybe her googly shamrock headband wasn’t so silly after all.

The Big Move

For those of you who have been waiting to hear how the move went, I’m sorry it has taken me so long to post. My life has been, to put it mildly, hectic.

Dude was supposed to move the first week of April, but then it got pushed back a week. We weren’t particularly pleased because we had been mentally prepared for the first week of April, but such is life. You make plans, things change, and you adapt. Honestly, the extra week of preparation was extremely useful.

Before I give the rundown, here is the takeaway message: the transition went as well as we could have hoped!

Dude went off to his program in the morning as usual. Dad and I made the first run up to house with the mattress and split box spring shortly after 9am. If you want a funny mental image, picture us shoving a queen sized mattress into the back of a minivan. That was good times. Once the initial trip was complete, we didn’t get back up to the house again until after 1pm. At that point, it was a mad dash to unpack everything and try to hang some of the decorations on the bedroom wall before Dude arrived a bit past 3pm.

The residential supervisor and the staff person in charge of the 3pm-11pm shift went and picked Dude and his new roommate up from their program. Thankfully, Dude entered the house all smiles. He had woken up in a good mood that morning and it stayed throughout the day.

We then ordered pizza and had dinner with Dude’s roommate’s family and the staff who will be working with the residents. While Dad and I were in Dude’s room hanging photos, we could hear Dude making his new acquaintances laugh. The kid is quite the charmer when he wants to be.

After dinner, Dude’s roommate and his siblings (both around my age) started up a game of Wii Bowling. I helped Dude play a game. He didn’t quite get the whole combination of which buttons you push when and how hard you need to swing your arm, but he was making progress by the end! He really likes bowling, so hopefully that’s something he’ll learn to do and that they can do together for fun.

I started crying when Dude’s roommate’s family left. Not uncontrollably, but enough. I was doing SO WELL right up until then and had hopes I was going to make it through without any problems.

Saying “see you later” to Dude was a classic Dude way to do it.

Dude’s obsession for the past year has been his t-shirts. He’ll stand with his closet door open and look through all of them and pull out ones that he especially likes to hang from his dressers. On moving day, he was GLUED to his new closet, taking stock of all the shirts to make sure they were accounted for since they had moved locations.

Mom, Dad, and I went in individually to say goodnight and goodbye to him since he wouldn’t walk away from the silly closet. I held it together, but barely, and I think Dude realized that because he actually gave me a legitimate hug. Like two arms, applying pressure, head resting on my shoulder, and lightly patting my back two or three times. For a full minute. That RARELY happens.

We left while he was still occupied because I think that made it easier on all of us. We sat in silence on the car ride home until I wordlessly pulled this gem up on my phone:

What can I say? When all else fails, I try to make myself laugh.

Mom checked in the next morning to discover that Dude had woken up in good spirits again. Apparently he was awake at 1:30am sitting at his desk looking at the photo collages I had made, but we think it was more of a “this is new and I want to examine it” kind of thing (he never had wall decorations in his room at our parents’ house) rather than a “holy crap my family left me in this strange house and now I need to look at pictures for comfort” thing. He had also been giving our parents a pretty hard time with sleeping for the past 3 months, so it isn’t unusual for him to awake in the middle of the night.

We’re more than a week into the move now and Dude seems to be settling in well. We’ve heard some reassuring anecdotes about his interactions with staff members and his roommate. We also saw him this past Sunday and he seemed like his usual self. So yay!

I called Dad to check in on Saturday and see how they were doing with their first Dude-free weekend.

“Well,” he began. “It’s weird.”

“How so?” I asked.

“I finished drinking my coffee and I thought, ‘Have to see if Dude is awake so I can get breakfast read— Wait… no I don’t.’ And then I did some more things around the house and thought, ‘Hmm, what time is it? I should probably think about bathing Du–. Wait, I don’t have to do that either!’ It’s really throwing me off, but at least I’ve gotten a lot done around the house.”

So, we’re adjusting. But everything really did go as well as could be expected. Dude seems no worse for the wear and we’re really happy with how it went.

View of Dude’s room from his door.

A shot of the photo collages I mentioned earlier.

Dude’s beloved t-shirts hung in his new closet.

Placing some of his favorite sports teams’ magnets on his new fridge!

Remember that time I mentioned Dude likes to shred pieces of paper and shove them down behind his bed? This is what we discovered when we moved his mattress out of his old room.

Editor’s note: I may be making some aesthetic changes to According to Dude, so don’t freak out if you visit the blog in the next few days and the layout theme is totally different. Any changes are intentional!