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!!!
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