In which a Green Anole might as well be Godzilla, and nobody sleeps

People on the autism spectrum tend to have sleep issues. We were told once that something like 70% of kids on the spectrum have difficulty maintaining a normal sleep cycle. Aidan fits solidly into that 70% and he's been there since he was born.

Most of the problem is that he can't settle. He can't turn his thoughts down and let his mind rest. His body is overly rigid and he can't relax. When he was smaller we never knew where we're going to find him in the morning - he could be on the couch downstairs, on one of the girls' floors, or in the middle of the hall. These days he still wanders but usually makes it back to his own room and we find him wedged in the space between pull out bed and couch back (he won't sleep on a real bed). It can't be comfortable. He wanders because he "thinks" about things. He'll tell you he's bored, or not tired, or uncomfortable, or hot, or whatever, but those are all cover ups for what's going on in his mind.

Once, when he was in kinder or first grade, we watched a documentary on Spain, which he thoroughly enjoyed, until the bull fighting scene... He didn't mention it at all at the time. It was ten days of yellow and red sad faces in his Take Home Folder, and ten nights of him waking up Emma countless times to play with him before we discovered that he couldn't stop thinking about the bull dying. Once the idea goes in, it doesn't easily come out.

So a few nights ago Leroy and I were trying to watch The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (that is such a good movie) in our room, when we saw Aidan's shadow move past our door. Leroy told him to go back to bed. Three minutes later, shadow. Go back to bed. Interlude. Shadow. Go back to bed. Interlude. Shadow. GO BACK TO BED! Crying. "There's a lizard!"

Me: "Where?"
A: "In my room."
Me: "Where?"
A: "I don't know. It's IN there."
Me: "What kind of lizard?"
A: "One of those green ones."
Leroy, bewildered, "A Green Anole?" If you've never met one, you should know that anoles are pretty cute. They eat bad bugs, they are smaller than your hand, and kids occasionally use them as clip-on earrings. Harmless.

Leroy checked his room. No lizard. Still crying. We moved piles of World of Warcraft cards and socks. No lizard. Still crying. Leroy moved the furniture. No lizard. Still crying.

L: "Why do you think there's a lizard?"
A: "Because I put it in a box and it's gone."
Me: "You brought it into your room? And now you're crying about it?"
       Nod.
L: "If you didn't want it in your room, why did you bring it in here?"
A: "Because I put it in a box."
Me: "So... it got out of the box, and you can't sleep because..."
A: "IT'S GOING TO GET ON MY FACE!"

You can't do anything with that. It doesn't matter how many times you explain that it won't hurt him, or that people eat spiders in their sleep all the time, or that it's clearly gone because we've moved everything and there is no lizard. At that point we're verging on full blown anxiety. He didn't sleep, because a lizard was going to get on his face, and so neither did we, at least not very well.

That was five days ago. I've found him in a different room every morning since. "Don't worry about it," you say, "he'll get over it." And of course, you're right, he will eventually forget. I know that. I also know that he once refused to use the kids' bathroom for six months after we had kept a litter of kittens there. I bleached it from top to bottom multiple times, but he couldn't go in... there were survivor germs. Vicious little bastards.

Every book you read tells you to anticipate the sources of potential melt downs. I call bullshit. I cannot possibly anticipate that a Green Anole, that my 13 year old son invited into his room would have him sobbing and hyperventilating, and my husband rearranging furniture in his boxers.