2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43
Author: Shcherbakova Tatyana Nikolaevna, Psychologist - Moscow
Small sketch, observation, real episode; names changed …
Incredibly thin, translucent, tenacious like a monkey's fingers, incorrectly and deftly seizing the spoon. Oatmeal with pureed meat, no salt and sugar. Vanya is on a gluten-free diet. He is diagnosed with autism. Mom is treating Vanechka, diet is part of the treatment.
A spoon filled with a grayish liquid gruel flies up and, empty, returns back. You need to eat it quickly, because there is dessert for porridge. And for dessert today, persimmon. Sweet, juicy, delicious.
There she is.
Vanya bites - and immediately a piercingly thin, boring sound is heard screwing into his ears. Either a scream, or a squeal, it instantly fills the entire kitchen space, hits the eardrums, and, due to lack of space, splashes out like water from a hose into tense windows. It seems that they, unable to withstand the pressure, will now fly out. The sound, without changing the key, lasts for an incredibly long time, it seems, for an eternity.
“So,” the nanny’s words break through the scream, “let me take a look. She cuts off a small piece, tastes; her face is involuntarily distorted. Persimmon is inedible. She knits her mouth terribly, causing soreness. Nanny Ira is obliged to feed Vanechka only with those products that parents give and allow. This is her duty and a clause of the contract.
- Say: "Tasty!"
- Not kus-but, - Vanechka echoes. The cry, finding a way out in words, dies down.
- Will you eat?
- Yes!
Persimmon is a great value. For her sake, he ate porridge, learned to paint over figures, put on an apron himself, walked for half an hour - all this time he was looking forward to this award.
Vanya is five years old. He is not allowed to go to the kindergarten - they say that he is aggressive. Dad is busy; Mom has a lot of work, and when she comes home, she plays with her little brother: it is difficult for her to play with Vanechka.
It's good that my mother recently found a nanny Ira for Vanya. Ira doesn't really believe in diagnoses. She teaches Vanechka how to talk, dress, brush her teeth, wash her hands, and put toys in place. Plays with him, draws, walks. Ira is strict. She does not allow taking mom's and dad's things - because everyone has their own, personal things. You can't take them, that's the rule. Ira explains everything to Vanechka. Vanechka used to shout, fought, tried to hit Ira with his hands, feet, head, and now he just listens.
And Ira also shakes him on her knees, plays "ghost", kisses his "sugar cheeks", and often praises him, and he presses against her with all his little body and trustfully freezes, turning his cheek for a kiss. Ira allows Vanechka to stroke her cat and, asking her parents, treats him to boiled potatoes, which is tastier than anything else in the world.
Maybe she is his real mother?
Vanechka bites the persimmon, its astringent taste reflexively distorts his face. From wide-open eyes, calm and serene, as if in a hurry to tell something, two tears are hurriedly rolling out. Vanechka swallows tears and persimmons - and bites again.
So he cries and eats.
And in the evening my mother comes for Vanechka.
- Well, hello, son! - she greets her little son. Vanechka knows that these are offensive words. More recently, nanny Ira taught him to take off his pants, pee in the toilet - and get dressed again. He used to write in his pants, and my mother was very angry. Vanechka in a run "butts" his mother with his head: after all, he did not describe himself, why does mother swear?
Mom is taking Vanechka home. Nanny Ira, the cat and kisses remain in the old three-story house. Vanechka disagrees. And again, a shrill scream, or a squeal is heard inside the car …
