Confessions and Milestones

So, I have been trying to have a new attitude when people stare or make comments about Nick while out in public. He has still been engaging in his random yelling while out in public, which tends to cause some pointed looks in our direction. One day we went to Burger King to have lunch with my BFF and her son, Blake. Nick had a great time and played endlessly in the play area. He was not too happy when it was time to leave and he let me know it! As we were walking through the (very crowded) dining area he let out a super loud scream. A large table full of people flinched because it frightened them and they immediately turned to get a good look at us. I smiled politely, shrugged my shoulders and said, “I guess sometimes you just have to let it out!” The group chuckled and turned right back around! So, I have now decided that humor is generally a good way to deal with staring. Just last week, we had another incident at Toys ‘R Us while out with my BFF and Blake again! We tried to make a quick pass through the store to look for one toy (first mistake). Nick REALLY wanted to play with the table of wooden trains that was set us in the store. I told him that he needed to use his words to tell me what he wanted, but he was being stubborn and refused. So….we continued walking through the store. He screamed louder than I thought possible, threw himself on the floor kicking and screaming and generally throwing a fit. I ended up half carrying and half dragging him out of the store, screaming and kicking the entire way. As we neared the exit, I saw a man standing with his son (who looked about Nick’s age) staring at us with eyes as wide as saucers. I know he was thinking, “what a spoiled kid! Or I’m glad my kid is well behaved” or something similar. I glanced at him and smiled through the screaming and just said, “We’re having a little bit of a bad day.” He giggled and said, “It appears so!” Anyway, humor is my new tool and will continue to be so, until someone gets snarky with me…then WATCH OUT because Super Bitch mommy will appear! LOL

Nick has had a couple of mini-milestones lately. First, he stayed dry all day at school on Thursday!! He has been doing a good job of staying dry most of the school days this week. He has had some poop accidents, but that’s pretty normal from what I understand. He even did a good job at home and had very few outbursts when his timer went off for him to go potty! Second, Nick and I had what I consider to be our first ever phone conversation on Wednesday night. I called home after Max and I had to take a trip to Children’s Mercy (long story) and Nick got on the phone. He said, “Hi” and I said “Hi” then he said “I had baff.” I said, “What?” again, “I had baff” me again, “What?” Finally I heard daddy saying in the background, “bath!” So, I said, “oh, you had a bath?” Again, “I had bath.” I said, “All by yourself, without your brother?” Nick says, “Myself.” I said, “Did you get bubbles?” Nick ignored that, so I said, “I love you Nick.” “Love you Mama.” As I hung up the phone, I realized that Nick and I just had a real conversation with actual give and take! Granted, he mostly just repeated exactly what I said to him, but it’s a start! He understands the general concept, which is amazing!!

Now, I have a confession to make. Last night, I let Nick cheat on his Gluten Free, Casein Free diet. We ordered pizza last night and started eating it in front of Nick. Now, normally I would make Nick his own GFCF pizza, so he didn’t feel left out. Lately, however, he has refused to eat his pizza at all and doesn’t seem the least bit interested when we eat something he can’t have. Now, last night, Nick immediately started pointing at our pizza. Allen said, “what Nick?” Nick says (in a super quiet quivering little voice), “I want pizza.” Allen looked at me like, “what should I do?” I felt so darn bad for the kid, that I just told Allen to let him have a piece. I cut up an entire piece of pizza and Nick scarfed it right down! This is absolutely not going to become a habit….I have not knowingly allowed Nick to cheat on the diet since we started him on it last June! I feel pretty guilty, but not half as guilty as I would feel if he’d had to watch us eat something he wanted so badly. Lesson learned…..make special pizza for Nick or risk the trembling lip :)

Mr. Turtle and The Bunny

I have spent all day at work thinking about my little boys today. Not that I don’t always think about them, but I miss them especially lately because I have been spending a lot of time at work. This week I am working a 56 hour work week, which includes four straight 12 hour days and working on a day off. As a result, I am basically getting up in the morning, getting the boys ready, dropping them off at Grandma’s and going to work. By the time I get home at night, they are sleeping soundly. So, yes……I am feeling a little sorry for myself. Today, when I dropped Nick off at Grandma and Grandpa’s he was blowing me kisses as I walked out the door. He blew kisses with both hands over and over and it became a little game. I blew a kiss, then he blew more and so on…..it got hard for me to leave. Max was also waving and saying “bye bye.” So…I just keep thinking about Nick blowing me those kisses and chuckling to myself.

Nick has been being a pretty silly boy this week. The other night, we went to Wal-Mart to pick up some paint samples. He was lying on the ground on his belly and writhing around. I thought he was either upset about something or tired and I kept telling him to get up off the floor. Finally he looked up at me and said, “I turtle” and continued on with his “slithering.” I was so proud of his pretending that I let him keep being a turtle while I took some pictures. Unfortunately, turtles move rather slowly, so eventually I had to tell him to walk like a little boy. He protested….”I turtle!!” and continued his slow crawl/slither. I was getting really irritated with the pace at this point so I finally told him, “You will have to either get up and walk like a little boy or be a turtle in the shopping cart!” Well, he sure popped right up started walking like a big boy……lol. It’s funny how well the proper motivation works! Isent his teacher a text with a picture of Mr. Turtle and said that he was pretending and how proud I was. She texted back that they were “being turtles” during a tornado drill at school that day. So….while he didn’t come up with the idea or the motions on his own, he was still pretending! I got a pretty good chuckle out of the thought of all the little turtles in his classroom that day too!

Nick has become a tad obsessed with his new stuffed bunny lately. I got a frantic phone call from Daddy the other night because Nick was laying in bed crying for the bunny. Luckily, I remembered that he had insisted on bringing it on a car ride with us earlier in the day. Bunny was found safe and sound in the car and Nick was able to get to sleep. However, he did manage to leave it at Grandpa and Grandma’s house the other night and Daddy had a minor crisis on his hands. He was able to locate a “substitute” bunny which Nick deemed sufficient. I never dreamed that this silly, stuffed bunny rabbit would be such a good investment!! I might have to buy some extras during the after Easter sale, just in case! Speaking of Easter and bunnies…..I found a place online that makes GFCF chocolate Easter candy!! I was SO excited! I ordered Nick a chocolate bunny, some m&m type candy and some chocolate Easter eggs for his basket. Before this, I have only been able to find carob chocolate chips and rice milk chocolate bars as a substitute. Nick gobbles them down and they are so expensive that we don’t buy them much. As it is, my online order ended up costing $40 for the chocolate, but I also got some extra for future treats!!

Monsters and Bunnies and Pretending.....Oh My!!

As far as milestones go, this has been quite the week for Nick! Last weekend, we met up with my BFF and her son, Blake to do some shopping at Target. Blake will be 3 years old soon and he seems to really enjoy spending time with Nick and Max. I’m not sure why exactly, because neither one of them has ever paid much attention to him! Anyway, the first thing we realized was that Target was having Dr. Seuss reading day. This amounted to some teenage employee wearing a Cat in the Hat striped hat and sitting in the cafeteria area while reading Dr. Seuss books to kids. None of our boys cared about “story time” but they sure were excited to see balloons and treat bags! I asked Nick what color balloon he would like, not because I really expected an answer, but just because. Nick immediately answers, “Green!” Wow….so…..I was impressed the fact that #1. Nick knew he should respond to my question and #2. He knew to respond with a color! As you can imagine, Nick got his green balloon! As a nice surprise, he was able to enjoy some GFCF treats from the snack bag that was passed out as well. Now, to the real excitement of the day (at least for me). Blake and Nick were sitting side by side in the shopping cart while we were shopping. I could hear them jabbering a fair amount about nothing except when Nick would randomly let out a VERY LOUD shout and Blake would tell him “no yell” or “stop yelling.” Nick paid no attention whatsoever and continued to yell randomly throughout our shopping trip. At one point, Nick and Blake seemed to be interacting and playing some sort of game, so I started to pay close attention. Nick pointed to the general area behind me and yelled “MONSTER!!” Blake started screaming and although I was shocked beyond belief, I played along and yelled, “Monsters!! Where???” Nick and Blake were laughing hysterically at their trick on Mommy. I kept asking Ellee (my BFF)……”did you hear that?” I just couldn’t believe that Nick was interacting with Blake and pretending!!! It brought tears to my eyes!


We had quite another milestone while shopping at Target later in the week. (Can you tell we spend a lot of time in that store?) While we were shopping, Nick began getting antsy, so Daddy pulled a stuffed bunny rabbit off a shelf and handed it to Nick to keep him occupied. We have been doing this ever since Nick was a baby and he has never minded when we put the toy back onto the shelf towards the end of our shopping trip. I guess you could call it a “perk” of Autism that he never cared either way if we bought a toy or put it back on the shelf. I specifically remember people in stores commenting that we had such a well behaved little boy because he didn’t throw a fit when we put a toy back. I used to think sadly to myself that if they really knew Nick, they would understand that he just didn’t know to care. Now…back to the Target trip at hand. Nick played happily with his bunny rabbit throughout our shopping trip. As we neared the checkout line, Daddy took the bunny and stuck it on the shelf. Nick immediately became upset and started crying and screaming. He was upset enough that he didn’t realize he had the words to tell us what he wanted. I met Daddy’s eyes as if to say, “see what you started?” Daddy looked shocked and said, “well, he’s never cared before!” So…..as we are in the checkout line and Nick is throwing his fit, I said, “Nick, what do you want.” Nick got real quiet and looked me in the eye with his lips trembling. “I want bunny.” Yup….Nick got the stuffed bunny. I’ll give him credit…he has been carrying that thing around ever since and has demanded to add it to his growing list of stuffed animals in bed with him at night. Today I asked him what we should name the bunny. He responded, “ROOARRRR!!!!” I guess we’ll have to work on coming up with a name, but I am just unbelievably impressed with Nick’s progress lately!!!