My autistic brother

  I have a younger brother; he is six years old, he's very sweet and he has Asperger's Syndrome. When my mother found out this last fact, she bought at least five books about the syndrome, and I'd like to say that that's an exaggeration, but it's not. She is the sort of person who learns about things from books. All the books had different words for "a thing which autistic children are very good at" - you know, like some are good at computers and some are good at maths. Some call it a "specialist subject", etc, but I think that there is one term which is most accurate - "obsession".
 
  My little brother's obsession is Lego. He invents things, takes them apart, reassembles them, adds extra features, leaves his bricks scattered around the house, shows his models to everyone who doesn't actually run away and talks about them non-stop. Although they are little works of genius, he doesn't understand that people don't always want to talk about his Lego. Once I was getting out my bike keys ready to go to school and he talked to me about Lego as I went out of the door.

   This morning was another prime example: I always sleep in on Saturdays (Sundays are fine, just leave my Saturday lie-ins alone) so today I was in bed reading my lovely book about natural history and evolution when someone knocked on my door. I yelled hello, expecting it to be my mum telling me to get up, but it was Small Person No#2.

   'I made a climbing wall,' he told me, showing me his little model.
   'Oh. That's great.'
  
   About half an hour later I completed my lie-in and went down for breakfast. I went into the kitchen and SmP#2 called out to me again.
 
   Him: Do you want to see my new training course?
   Me: Not now, I want to get my breakfast.
   Him: It's got the new climbing wall in it.
   Me: Yes, but I want to get my breakfast.

  He's so funny.
  So that is Small Person Number 2. Small Person Number 1 is my little sister, the most annoying of my siblings - today more so than usual, because she was practising her trumpet. I won't tell you about her skills on the trumpet; I'll just say that whenever she plays it, my eyes water, my eardrums melt and trickle away and my brain tries to pulverise itself from the inside out.
  I also have an older sister called Marmalade (not her real name, of course) and she also has her fair share of weird pastimes, not least her strange obsession with buttons.
  So that's us: Marmalade, Alimonsoon, Small Person No#1 and Small Person No#2. And my mother who learns things from books and my dad who designs computer software - in his spare time. That is all for my Ramblings of a Nerd today.