So I haven't posted in a while, this is neither a knitting post, crochet post, sewing post, and it it isn't even cooking related!
This is just a regular post on why today I hate having a child with Autism(ok I semi-hate today)
Most days we have meltdowns. Meltdowns are HORRIBLE. They usually end up with things being chucked, and mostly at me, because I won't find something he lost. Thanks to having ADHD with the autism, my oldest son is physically incapable of looking for anything that he's lost. Which on most days is not a big thing, he'll calm down and attempt to find it himself.
Today was NOT one of those days.
Today it was his airplane that he built of out legos, which disappeared overnight while he was asleep.
After a massive tantrum, he switches gears, which is a BIG step for him.
But this change of gears is not good.
He comes down stairs and says, "Mommy, I'm just looking for my fire guy."
Ok fine, I'll entertain this idea, it obviously means nothing is going to be thrown at me and he's being polite.
We start digging through the bins.
But first I need to set the scene. Anyone who has been to our house knows we have an overabundance of toys. We have an overabundance of toys because we still have practically every toy that Jacob has gotten since he was 2. This includes most Happy Meal toys, etc...and in order to get rid of ANY toy that Jacob has "lost interest in", it goes into a "quarantine" stage where we gather it up while he's gone and it sits in the garage for a period of about a month to 2 months. If he doesn't ask for it in that time frame, it's safe to go to Goodwill, or in most cases the trash. But this can backfire. Because Jacob knows EVERY toy set he owns, and I'm being serious. He knows all the pieces to everything. So if we want to throw anything out, we have to gather all the pieces to that entire set. If we miss one piece and he suddenly finds a piece to the set we're trying to toss, all the toys have to come back in the house and we have to start over. And if we throw away a part to a set and he watches, and then finds the rest of the set, it's a hour crying fit or more about how mean I am and need to buy him a new set. Not fun.
Don't worry, today's set, I've never tried to throw away. Jacob is obsessed with ImagiNext and I wouldn't be that cruel. Except for the pirate ship that he tried to make into a water toy, that thing was rusted shut and had to be tossed, he now takes better care of his ImagiNext.
So we're on the task of looking for the "fireguys" They go to the Firehouse, and he's looking for the fire guys and their suits.
So I start asking questions.
"How many are there?"
"3, but I'm looking for one." he says.
He finds one and 2 suits. Success! Without any incident.
"I need to fine one more." he says, " I can't find it"
So now we start dumping out the bins. Making a HUGE mess. I start pulling out random ImagiNext guys.
"How about this guy? You can just put the fire suit on the guy and poof! He's a fire guy." I say.
"No....this fire guy is brown" Jacob tells me.
Ok so now we're looking for a fire guy with brown clothes...weird, I thought the fire guys wore grey suits.
We've cleaned out the Expedit bins, no fire guys. I get excited twice because I hear Jacob shout, "I found it!" twice but both times was followed by, "the fire ax," and the "trampoline".
I now move onto the toy bench, another toy box filled with toys...we don't find anything. I'm ready to give up and keep trying to get him to change his mind that we can use another ImagiNext but this is not flying. The guy in swim trunks cannot be a fire guy, he doesn't go to that set. I finally convince him we need to go upstairs to his room and look.
And after tearing apart his room, there on the floor is another fire guy. I'm completely frustrated and trying to not show it. I got worked up and there the guy is on the floor, I get anxious because if the search goes on to long, we risk a temper tantrum and someone always gets hurt in a tantrum. And I tell Jacob there he is! All proud because I found 2 out of the 3.
The response I get is classic Jacob, "Well I HAD this guy, but I was looking for ANOTHER fire guy. He's brown, but I guess that's ok."
So we were never really looking for only 2 fire guys, we were looking for the 3rd fire guy who has a brown painted face. In every ImagiNext set there are different guys, all different colors. (White, African American, Chinese, Mexican etc...)
Well when I went to clean up the huge mess that he's just made trying to find the missing piece, I found the "brown guy" behind one of the cubes in the Expedit case. But it's one of those days where I wish I could just convince him that another ImagiNext guy was ok.
But hey, I didn't have a meltdown during the process, and neither did Jacob, so that means it's a good day! Well sort of!
No comments:
Post a Comment