I am SO grateful right now for the many ways society has begun to embrace children and families affected by Autism. There are many things I thought Nick may never be able to experience. For instance, I remember my own parents telling me about the first time they ever took me to a movie. It was a special and wonderful experience for them to see their child's eyes light up at this new adventure. At that time, I just knew that it would be a very long time (if ever) before I could ever experience the simple pleasure of taking my own child to the movies. It wasn't long before I heard that AMC theaters was trying out "Sensory friendly showings" in their theater nearby. I did some research, talked to some other parents and learned more. Apparently, there was some "big-wig" at AMC who had a grandchild with Autism. They decided to hold a sensory friendly showing of current family type movies once a month and see how it went. One Saturday a month, at 10:00 a.m. there is a showing of a brand new movie for families affected by Autism. The sound is turned down a little quieter and the lights are brought up a little lighter and families are allowed to bring in special snacks for kids on special diets!! The best news of all? The whole "silence is golden" rule does not apply during these showings! We have been to a couple showings since I first heard about them and just this past weekend, we saw "How to train a Dragon" at the sensory showing. I brought GFCF popcorn, juice and candy and Nick, Max, Grandma and I met at the movie theater. The lights went down and the movie started immediately....NO previews to sit through!! Nick immediately covered his ears, but soon realized that he could watch the movie without the sound hurting his ears. I watched both Nick and Max become entranced by the movie and I felt my heart grow warm with gratitude that they were able to have this experience. When Nick randomly let out several loud yells no one in the theater turned to stare or shushed him or even acted as if they noticed. Many other kiddos yelled or made funny noises during the showing as well. One kid ran up to the front of the theater and made shadow puppets against the screen. When Nick got bored, he climbed out of the aisle and walked up and down the stairs or moved to another row. At one point, Max tried to walk down the aisle and climb into a little girls lap. I grabbed him and apologized and that little girl, who couldn't have been more than 10 years old, said, "It's o.k., my brother has Autism too." It almost moved me to tears just to see and hear how accepting everyone was of each other. It was truly a wonderful experience and I certainly hope that other companies will take a cue from AMC. They have definitely made loyal customers out of our family!!
We have also recently had a very nice experience at the T-Rex restaurant in Kansas City. For anyone who doesn't know, this is a dinosaur themed restaurant that has enormous robotic dinosaurs that actually move and growl. I have wanted to take Nick to this place for quite awhile, but wasn't sure how he would react. Allen and I finally decided to brave it and take both boys there for dinner. I didn't have any idea whether they had any GFCF menu items, but I hoped we would figure something out. When we got to the restaurant, I inquired about a kid's meal for a special diet. The head chef came out to talk to us and gave us several options. There were some items that were GFCF on the kids menu or he would be willing to make any GFCF meal from the adult menu into a kid-sized portion! The best news of all was that he could make GFCF french fries! Thank god for small miracles, because Nick had been begging for french fries with every Burger King we passed on the 30 minute drive to the restaurant! We were seated immediately and Nick popped right back up and explored the restaurant. He circled the entire restaurant about 3-4 times and pointed out all the dinosaurs and fish. He was a little nervous about the growling (it was pretty loud), but he handled it well. He did manage to escape from daddy at one point. He was located on top of the Woolly Mammoth display approximately 20 feet above the dining room floor. Sigh...
After we finished dinner, we took the boys into the little shop they have attached to the restaurant. They have a "Build a Dino" made by the same people that do "Build A Bear." Nick and Max each got to pick out a dinosaur to stuff, bathe and print out a birth certificate for. Then we let Nick pick out a dinosaur t-shirt and looked around the store some more. Nick found some dinosaur figurines that he fell in love with and threw about 10 of them into the stroller. He shopped just as fast as I removed those darn things from the stroller. Then, as I leaned over to say something to him, my purse gaped open and he threw two figurines into my purse! Whew....glad I saw that, because it would've been hard to explain at work. So, about $65 later, we finally exited the store and did some shopping at the surrounding mall. We had a few minor snafus....one in which Daddy turned his back on Nick and then turned back around to find him running through a water fountain with no shoes or socks on. He told me about it after I came out of the store I was in and after I stopped laughing, all I could say was, "I can't believe he knew to take off his shoes and socks first!!!" Ahhh......I will say that Autism teaches me to enjoy and celebrate all the minor and yet enormous progress that Nick makes in everyday life.
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