Touring with your twelve-year-old and with your punk band sure turns heads.
Everywhere we went, people stared and then thought, who gave them a kid? Driving across the country with my on-the-spectrum, ADHD-boy (Ryan) was a joy. The road was a novel place and every time he looked up things were different. He was joyful all the way across the USA. He didn’t sleep a wink and more times than not, he was staring out the window just taking it all in.
Ryan was so excited as we arrived in Los Angeles. The band would join us there and was thrilled to be somewhere for more than one night. He and I swam in the pool that afternoon and by evening were joking that we were poolside in LA. It was grand. The next day, a friend picked Ryan up. She is someone he knows well and her daughter is a few years younger.
Although (in California) they start school in August, Ryan was able to play Mindcraft with her and swim in the pool at their apartment. When we got to the show, the promoter said it would be fine if he showed up and it was the only show he was allowed to watch. (Of course, Ryan did not change after swimming and showed up to our punk show in his bathing suit.)
After our LA-show, we drove directly to the Bay Area; we had a show the next afternoon in Oakland. I took the first-shift driving, but it was a struggle and by mornings-light my husband jumped behind the wheel. Ryan did not sleep a wink that night.
We all tumbled out of the van at a nice family-friendly hotel somewhere outside of Oakland. I was still clad in a pleather dress and the kid still in his bathing suit. The bass player who had slept in the van all night said, just go to the room. The lobby was full of families. They were all well-rested, eating the free breakfast, and ready for a soccer tournament. Forgetting my kid was in a bathing suit and I in a pleather dress with smeared makeup, I thought, ‘breakfast, the kid needs to eat!’ I pulled him over to the buffet as the families gawked at the spectacle we were creating – a mother looking like she was doing the Walk of Shame and a kid in a bathing suit. The story became more intense as my husband and our drummer, happy to see breakfast, joined us.
We only had one room till 3pm, so the five of us piled into it as my almost-teenager protested that he was not tired. He crawled in between my husband and I and passed out. (It was like how we slept when he was a baby and co-slept now, except he is now 135 lbs!)
Somehow we fit in the bed, and slept enough to rock on til’ another day.