In previous years, our fae child has found fireworks completely overwhelming: she has needed ear defenders and places to hide from them, as she has not coped with either the noise or the display itself. In the past few weeks, however, she has gone through something of a cognitive shift. It’s not just me who has noticed: her teachers agree that she is stimming (if you don’t know what stimming is see the glossary) more – and by “more” I mean “continuously” – and she is also not masking some of what I can only describe as the more stereotypical autistic traits.
Anyway, last night was November 5th. In the USA, I know this meant the end of the free world as they know it, but here in the UK we celebrate the time when someone tried to blow up our parliament. I think we are supposed to be celebrating that they failed, but opinion is divided on that.
We do this with fireworks. So every year pets and children bury their ears in soft furnishings while the rest of the country set fire to effigies of people they don’t like and let off small incendiaries. For the first time, this year our daughter wanted to participate. We had only a few sparklers, which she was happy to hold but weren’t really what she wanted. But we were saved from a complete catastrophe by our neighbours, who must have bought an entire fireworks department. Their display rivaled some professional shows I have been to, and lasted a good 15 minutes. During which time I watched as our fae ‘eeee’d and hand flapped and jumped her way through the entire thing. It was amazing to watch and filled us with joy.
The only take-home point we made was, don’t give a stimming child a sparkler as she can’t control the hand flapping and she did at one point set fire to the lawn and almost take her father’s eye out.
Raising the Modern Fae 