Hanging on the Telephone

While my husband is overseas, he is 9 hours ahead of the UK and so he is getting up to start his day just as I was heading to bed and the same is true of him when I get up. So mid afternoon for me, he will be setting off for the airport to head home again, with his business already completed. Due to the time difference, Joshua has not been around when he has telephoned home to ask after us all. But Joshua has never spoken to anyone on the telephone : at the weekend, he was hovering by the phone when I called his respite provision and looking interested. The member of staff that I was talking to told him that his Mum was on the phone and handed the receiver over. Apparently he smiled and even waved at me, so he knew who was on the other end, but he said nothing as I repeatedly said hello and asked him questions.

For Joshua, the telephone is not a communication device, but it is a fascinating toy. It has buttons to push, that beep and light up. He will pose endlessly in front of the hall mirror holding the phone to his ear like he has watched his parents do. He used to do an impression of me on the telephone while he does that: ” yes…yes… yes…. hahahahaha” which was hilarious but I haven’t heard that for months now. Once he has posed and admired himself with the telephone, he carefully places it in the dog bed beneath the mirror in the hall, so it is often lost under a sleeping dog.

Over the years we have had a few mishaps with the telephone : he has dialled 999 twice in my memory! Once we were called back by emergency services to check that all was well but once, at Granny’s house, the Police actually came to the door to see that everything was OK and I had to show them the perpetrator, as we had all been eating a meal while he made his call for help. Again at Granny’s house, the cordless handset went in to the washing up bowl of water and was ruined and I have lost count of the number of mobile screens that he has cracked; the most dramatic was when he threw my Blackberry out of the patio doors one summer, into the garden.

So although he does not use a phone personally, Joshua is very drawn to them. When I am speaking on the telephone, he will often do anything to try to get my attention, to try to focus on him rather than the caller; That can range from pulling his trousers down so that they are round his ankles and is in danger of tripping over them, to going upstairs and perhaps posing at the top. He often looks as though he wants to engage with the caller, by getting really close, but if he is given the opportunity to speak, he usually smiles, waves or kisses the phone but never utters a word.  Joshua is fascinated by hands-free calls in the car as the familiar voice fills the car but cannot be seen. He once had a Facetime call with my sister and he enjoyed that, perhaps he would engage more if he could see the other person’s face while they were speaking.

If I thought that he would engage with me when I phoned respite, I would call in the daytime so that we could ‘chat’ ,but instead I wait until he is , in theory, tucked up in bed. I would love to hear Joshua speak on a telephone one day, even if it was just to say one of his favourite phrases , such as ” I like you” or “No way!”

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