Autism Takes the Cake
Sometimes when the weird stuff happens, we wonder how we overlooked the signs. Yesterday the reason was simple: We slept through them. The craziness went down overnight.
In the wee hours – 4:00 a.m. or so – Leah decided the best use of her time was to bake a cake. We heard none of it, either because we're old and going deaf, or because we're just that tired. Mike (as usual) was the first one up and walked into the aftermath. Meanwhile I didn't think much of the slightly sweet smell wafting through the main floor; that morning I was busy hectoring the 16-year-olds for reasons that now seem unworthy of attention, especially when compared to walking into the kitchen and finding a surprise cake cooling on the stove.
Our ordinary kitchen becomes Kitchen Stadium
Leah's history of kitchen adventures goes back more than a decade, although her interest waned within the last several years. In theory, it bodes well when a teen with autism is interested in the kitchen. All kinds of functional skills are learned there. However, other than using the Hot Diggity Dogger to prepare her favorite dinner, Leah is rarely interested in cooking for practical reasons, and certainly not if it's someone else's idea. Her style seems to be more Iron Chef-meets-Nailed It! than home cook.
When she was 8 years old, we spent a few months hiding our eggs in our basement refrigerator because in a bizarre piece of quasi-performance art, Leah loved to re-enact a favorite scene from It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. For those who struggle to recall the plot, one running gag is Peppermint Patty's futile efforts to teach Marcie to dye Easter eggs. Before we upped our egg security, I'd spot a saucepan on our kitchen island some mornings, and the second or two it took me to wonder how it got there would be interrupted by Leah's voice telling me, “All the eggs are in, sir.” One look in the pan, where eight or nine yolks bobbed in water, and I'd have no choice but to agree that yes, they certainly were. Eggshells usually littered the sink, and the carton, inexplicably, often ended up in the oven.
Most fixations run out of shelf life eventually; in time, we were able to return the eggs to their unsecured location and Leah expanded her repertoire to sandwiches. Meal prep seems like an appropriate life skill, right? People take sandwiches to work or school every day.
Yes, but ... Leah never willingly ate a sandwich, then or now. So any sandwich-related activity from her was highly suspicious.
She never bothered with plates, which tells me eating wasn't a priority. I'd find her creations on the counter or on the kitchen table, like an edible centerpiece. Our Leah was driven to create. She often started in the direction of peanut butter and jelly, but during sandwich assembly, after slapping some peanut butter on one slice of bread, she almost invariably decided that jelly was too pedestrian. Her jelly substitutes included:
Parsley
Maple syrup
Dish soap (added after the maple syrup got messy – intention might have been to clean rather than to make a culinary statement)
Spring onion stalks
Lettuce
None of this was made up – except the recipe
Even with her history of creativity in the kitchen, my first thought was still that Leah had found a cake recipe online. Partly because I would never have the courage to make up a recipe, and partly because Leah can rock an internet search when she wants to. But much like her younger self, teenage Leah showed no further interest once the creative process was over. It was up to the rest of us to enjoy her cake, or not. The hallmark of an artistic soul, or signs of a will so strong it refuses to conform to anyone else's expectations? All I know is, if I handed her the recipe for her favorite chocolate cake and suggested she make it, she'd probably (in not so many words) tell me to get stuffed. When I inquired about the cake ingredients, and whether she'd be willing to share the recipe, Leah fell back on the familiar, with a 'stop asking questions, please' and an emphatic 'nope.'
The good news is, I didn't taste any dish soap.