Blonde Ambition Tour 2009

When I was a kid, my girlfriends and I had hilarious slumber parties.  We had “Miss Slumber Party” contests.  For weeks, we prepared and refined our “personas” with the hope that we would be robed with a sleeping bag, crowned with a pillow, and sent strolling through the living room as the victor.  I’m not kidding.  We really went all out.

As a matter of fact, I still remember losing to Miss Sweets.  I know it was the evening gown competition.  Miss Sweets had designed her own Hershey kiss costume, complete with a little Hershey kiss pillbox hat made out of tin foil.  I was “Miss Nightmare.”  I wore a black night gown I found in my mom’s drawer and painted a red “x” across my face.  I don’t remember my talent performance, but I probably wrote an eerie poem or read Edgar Allen Poe.  I always felt compelled to add a little “literary flavor” to the festivities.  In any case, I was also poor competition for “Miss Music,” who had made herself an entire outfit out of 45 record covers.  Our appointed judges (always the hosting adults) had quite a job to do, and in the end, Miss Sweets wore the sleeping bag.  More than once, I think.

After our elaborate pageants, we’d lay in the living room floor watching ridiculous horror movies until every shadow in the windows made us huddle together.  I remember a skinny, wind-tossed, beckoning-finger-like branch that once created quite a narrative for us for about an hour and a half.  We laughed, whispered, poured out our hearts about things large and small.  Friendships were forged during those sleepovers.  One way or another, we all still keep up with each other.  Even if conversations are rare for us now, there are bonds that we built that remain.  

On Saturday, we hosted our first sleepover party for the girls.  A friend of mine agreed that we should do this for our daughters often,  to encourage them to build the kind of friendship that can only be built on whispers and laughter, head to head on the living room floor. It was she who first called our little slumber party circuit “The Blonde Ambition Tour 2009,” in honor or her daughter and Zoe– two beautiful, fun, intelligent blondes whose birthdays are only separated by a month.  Whether it’s just those two or those two and a few more friends, we want them to have many opportunities to share memories and history.  When a little girl becomes a young woman, it’s her friends who often help her stay the course and remember what’s important.

 My girls, for their part,  had been asking me for weeks about having some friends spend the night.  Suddenly, I realized that the “slumber party circuit” was about to become an act at the Circus, and I had visions of my mom in the house I grew up in, standing in the living room doorway.  I don’t care how long you stay up as long as you don’t wake me up.   This would be my new role, and I warmed up to it quickly.  Like an idiot, I thought, A slumber party.  How fun!  I’ll get pizza, let them pick out some movies, spread all the sleeping bags in the living room floor.  No big deal.  I forgot, momentarily, that there is no such thing as “uneventful” at the Three Ring Circus.  I also forgot that despite my love for simplicity, I don’t know how to do anything on a small scale.  My mom had one little girl, I have two, and my mom is far more practical than I.  I, with my tendancy to want to surround myself with everyone I love (This makes one of my sister-friends laugh all the time.  She says I love everyone so much that I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t all love each other.:)), had trouble limiting my girls to three friends each for this event.  I kept thinking of other little girls we love.  I kept saying to myself, But what about _____________?  What’s one more?  Had it not been for the echos of Kevin’s voice competing with my own in my head (Are you CRAZY?!?), we’d have had more little girls to sleep over that night than our living room could hold.  As it was, we had eight little girls (including our two) camped out on the living room floor in their sleeping bags.

I actually thought that the little girls would be more high maintenance than the big girls.  I wasn’t really thinking about the fact that my big girl has trouble navigating through social situations and handling loads of sensory information.  Remembering what slumber parties were like for us as “neurotypical” girls, I hadn’t really thought about what a sleepover might be like for a little girl with autism.

About a year ago, Riley started telling me that she’d “lost some friends her age.”  That statement, for all it’s lexical awkwardness, weighed heavily on my heart.  How incredibly perceptive, I thought.  In truth, she has “lost” some friends her age.  The friendships Riley longs to have are lost in her own maze of confusion about language and social rules.  She must at times feel as though she is at one end, and the social connections she longs for are at the other.  Even so,  it’s not impossible for her to “find” amazing and wonderful friendships.  But the truth is that it’ll be a difficult, winding path, and there will be wrong turns, opportunities to double back and rethink, and as in all things that we have faced together, only God will ultimately be able to help her find her way to the other side.  For all of this inevitable effort, when Riley finds true friendships, they’ll be the best friendships the world has ever seen.

For Riley, this first slumber party had a shaky start.  Though she felt thrilled to have her friends with us, the complex social situation immediately overwhelmed her.  Since the blue skies and sunshine beckoned, I suggested that the girls go outside and enjoy the day’s deceptive warmth.  Riley stayed outside with her friends for five minutes and then came inside complaining that the insects were scaring her.  I can scarcely imagine how bugs sound to someone with hypersensitive hearing, but having heard Riley’s terrified screams many times, I can tell you that they are very loud and sound humongous.  I suggested that Riley sit on the porch (I’m thinking, At least she’ll be near her friends…), since her friends appeared to be having a great time together outside.  Realizing that they were missing the friend who had invited them, the girls soon appeared on the porch and sat next to Riley in the double rocking chair.  They tried really hard to engage her in conversation, but this too proved to be difficult for Riley.  She soon retreated from the challenge and came inside, where she insisted that she should help me in the kitchen.  I  suggested that the girls play a game together and enlisted Kevin’s help in getting them started.  He found a card game in the closet that he thought would be perfect, but while he was reading the directions, Riley pulled out some magnetic letters and started pairing them with letter cards.  An easy, mindless task like this one was a refuge for her, and I knew that.  The other girls, to their credit, tried hard to join in this play-project (which was way too young for all of them), but Riley openly resisted their participation.  I sighed.  How could I get the girls involved in something which would bridge all the gaps between them?  While Kevin read directions (he kept getting distracted by various things), the other girls gave up trying to connect with Riley and started playing with one of the dollhouses.

I had invited one friend of Riley’s who also has autism, but she had not arrived.  Riley meandered into the kitchen, once again insisting that she help me make cookies.  I urged her to play with her friends.  “But Mommy, Akira forgot to come,” Riley said, and I realized that she hoped connecting would be less difficult with someone more like herself.  “No, she didn’t forget.  She’ll be here.”

“When will she be here?”

“I don’t know, but she will be,” I answered, knowing that Riley longed for me to quote the exact hour, and hoping that what I told her was indeed the truth.  I willed Kevin to figure out the card game and engage all the girls in playing.

Meanwhile, Zoe and her friends took to each other and the slumber party with the ease that I remembered from my own childhood.  They had no difficulty falling into imaginary play and conversation with each other, giggling and tossing about new and fantastic scenarios with natural creativity.  I watched them outside playing and jumping together on the trampoline and felt jealous for Riley.  I wished things were as easy for her when it came to friendships.

Then Kevin looked up from the card game instructions and said, “Oh boy.  Here we go.  Zoe’s crying.  She’s on her way inside.”

Great, I thought.  Zoe said that one of the girls had accidentally fallen on top of her arm and hurt it.  The arm wasn’t bleeding, scratched, or red, so I thought drama was the most serious thing with which I was dealing.  I hugged her and reassured her until the tears ceased, and then I suggested that she go back outside and play with her friends.

“My arm still hurts, Mom.”

“It’ll be okay.  Maybe just a little sore.”

Zoe absorbed this, but instead of going back outside where her friends were still having a good time, she went upstairs.  She reappeared wearing her Hello Kitty pajamas and stretched out on the couch.

The fact that she’d chosen the couch over her friends was a very bad sign.  Had it been Riley, I’d have been less concerned, but Zoe is never one to turn down an opportunity to be with her best buddies.

I went back over to reexamine her arm and noticed immediately that it looked slightly swollen a few inches above her wrist.  The moment I tried to flip her arm over, she winced and crumpled into tears all over again.  Oh no, I thought.  This is very, very bad.

I called a pediatrician friend of ours and asked for his advice.  A few questions later, I had a phone number and directions in hand for Kevin and Zoe to meet our friend at the hospital for an x-ray.  “But I don’t want my arm to be hurt,” Zoe cried.  “It’ll feel better in just a little bit.  It will.  I don’t want them to take a picture of my arm.”  She shook her head as she spoke.

“Honey, you need to go with Daddy and do this so we can be sure your arm will be okay.”

Zoe’s friend Nora sat beside her, holding the hand that wasn’t hurt.  She had not left Zoe’s side for a moment since she’d discovered that Zoe had more than just a minor injury.  We could all take a lesson from that show of support, I thought.  “Do you want a friend to go with you?”

Zoe nodded slowly, bending her head in Nora’s direction.  “I want Nora to go with me.”

“Nora?  Will you go with Zoe?” I asked.

Nora didn’t hesitate but immediately started looking for her shoes.  “Yes, I’ll go.”

Together they left on their own adventure.  The first thing Zoe said after her broken arm had been confirmed and splinted by our good friend and they walked back in the door?

“Mom!  Nora and I got to ride down the hall together at that place in one of those chairs with the wheels!”  A true friend always knows just how to turn a terrible situation into something bareable (and even fun) just by sharing in the experience.

So, while Kevin, Nora, and Zoe were off at the hospital, I was at home trying to finish my cookies.  Riley helped me.  Her friends played with each other.  Zoe’s other friends played with each other.  Finally, Riley’s friend Akira arrived.  

Riley loves Akira.  She was so excited to see Akira that she laughed, and grinned, and moved all over the room.  Then, suddenly and without explanation, she left (where was she going?).

Akira’s mom and I chatted; I pulled cookies out of the oven; Akira toured the room picking everything up and putting it back down, asking a million questions.  Adam rolled balls and toys down the stairs.  I put in a movie for the kids.  “Will you stop talking?” the other older girls kept asking Akira.  “We can’t hear.”  How ironic, I thought.  The gal with the communication disability is talking too much.  The little girls watched two minutes of the movie, asked me when Zoe would return, and left the room to play their own game.  Somewhere in the midst of all of this, Zoe returned and Akira’s mom left.  Riley reappeared with multiple braids and dozens of tiny beads in her hair.  She’d just spent about half an hour trying to get her long blonde locks to look exactly like Akira’s.  

Riley and Akira are so much alike, but since they are both autistic, they both have trouble making connections even with each other.  It is fine for them to occupy the same space,  but they both remain restless and unsure exactly how to engage each other or anyone else.  The entire evening, the four bigger girls were like separate ships sailing on a pond.  On occasion, two of the girls sailed together, but then their boats would smack against each other and they’d move apart again.

When Zoe returned, the four little girls took up right where they left off.  Not one argument threatened their solidarity.  After supper, they curled together in their sleeping bags, four heads together so that they could whisper.  

Riley and her friends struggled to find all the elements they needed for cozy sleeping.  Some were missing sleeping bags or pillows, some were unwanted in the spots they had chosen.  Finally, we thought we had them all settled, and Kevin and I went upstairs.  Ten minutes later, one of the older girls came and knocked on our door, complaining that the other girls were being too loud.

Exhausted, I sat there trying to remember if there was ever a time when my friends and I had tattled on each other for being too loud at a slumber party.  I had not wanted to police the girls and their friends.  I had wanted to reserve the “quiet down” command for extreme noise.  I had hoped to just let them have their fun.

Reluctantly, I went back downstairs and asked the girls to whisper.  I think the problem for the older girls had two sources.  One of the girls, the one most used to friendship and sleepovers, had injured her closest social equal with a lack of sensitivity.  Another of the girls, who desperately wanted to engage the others, had chosen obnoxious tactics to get their attention.  Reluctantly, I remembered the times when one or two of my friends and I spent our slumber parties in tears.

No sooner had I settled back into my retreat with Kevin, then there came another knock at the door.

“The girls are still being loud.  I can’t sleep.”

Ah, it’s going to be a long night.

Before the night was out, one of the older girls had gone home.  I couldn’t believe it was one of the older girls and not one of the younger ones.  I wish I could give you a window into the next morning, when we got seven little girls + Adam ready for church and loaded up the vehicles.  Someone in the foyer at the church building saw our group file in and asked if we were starting a preschool.:)

As I was telling some of our friends about the slumber party and my surprise that the older girls were actually more difficult, one of them quipped, “That makes sense.  They’re becoming women.” 

I held up my Bible and gestured in his direction.  “You know, this Bible is very thick and hard…”

Looking back on it, I think our friend is right.  What sort of journey is it that women must endure before we find our way to friendship?  As little girls, we start off so solid.  Loving each other comes so easily.  We can laugh together, dream dreams, accept each other as we are, appreciate all the special things that are so readily visible in each other.  Then, we get a little older and start clumping into exclusive groups.  We forget how to get along, we misplace our priorities, we forget the value of our friendships.  Almost every woman I know has been through a time (some I know are still there as adults) when she wondered if she would ever have true friends or be valued by her peers for every detail that makes her unique.  What is it about figuring out who we are that causes us to damage each other in the process?  Most of us (but unfortunately not all of us) at some point figure out the value of our sisterhood.  We finally understand that we don’t need to be—don’t want to be—exactly alike,  and that our friendships with other women can sustain us through broken bones and broken hearts.  We finally reach the point when we love the friend who always talks too loud because she talks too loud, and the one who is awkward and slightly obnoxious we come to love because she is always a little off beat.  When we finally figure out how much we need each other, we make it back to solidarity.  In adulthood, after all that inevitable difficulty, our friendships become the best the world has ever seen.