A New Toy

Every day that we go to the children's rehabilitation center for physical and occupational therapy, I am grateful that my children are doing okay.  I see parents wheeling older children with severe disabilities out of the hospital elevator.  I glimpse fatigue behind their smiles and hellos, and I don't know how they do it.  My son is getting a little too heavy for me to carry for any length of time; however, he is able to stand and he will eventually walk.  He is making progress.  I can't imagine having to lift him ten, twenty years down the road, as some families do.  I interact with other children and families in the waiting room, which now feels like a second home.  Some kids are way ahead of my son.  My son is way ahead of some other kids.  I feel okay.

Then we go to a playdate at another family's house.  My daughter is excited by the train table and pushes the train along the track.  The little boy stands beside her and connects more magnetic train cars.  I chat with his mom and watch my son repeatedly crawl the perimeter of the rug.  Around and around he goes, looking straight down, forcing his sister and her new friend to step back as he barrels through their legs.

The other mother and I take out different toys.  We show my son all sorts of fun things to do.  He ignores us.  He is not interested.  He keeps crawling.

Then I see it.  A spinning/stacking toy in the playroom corner.  I bring it to my son and he looks, he smiles, he reaches out to play.  He takes the spinner and sends it spinning down the pole.  The other mother is surprised.  It took her two-year-old a long time to learn how to do that.  My son is engaged, happy.  Then he misses the pole and yells out of frustration.  He persists.

The family of the child I tutor cleaned out their playroom and generously gave us a toy kitchen and kitchen set.  My ecstatic daughter played with the kitchen all afternoon.  My son blatantly ignored it by refusing to look in its direction.  I cleaned an old easel given to us by a friend, and set it up.  My daughter eagerly colored with markers at the easel.  My son did not  give it a momentary glance.  So we caved.  We went to the toy store to buy him the spinning toy.

We got there at closing time.  I left my family in the car as I ran, breathless, into the small store.  A father was inside with his children.  I described the toy to the saleswoman.  "Spin Again!" she exclaimed, and led me to the back.  I felt an awkward need to explain, and started rambling.  "I'm sorry I know you are closing and we just got here but this is a toy that my autistic son got excited about at a playdate and he actually played!  We have to get it for him!"  She just smiled at me.  The other father stared.

Wait, what did I just say?!  I heard the words "my autistic son" come out of my mouth and I froze inside.  He hasn't been formally diagnosed.  It may not even be true.  We are preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.  The words felt strange, and shocking, and... oddly okay.

I thought I was supposed to feel sad, or angry, but it just felt normal.

So my son played.  Finally, he was happy with something new.  Something different he allowed in his space, something interesting to him.  He enjoyed quality evening playtime with his mommy, just the two of them, spinning disks down a the pole.  Great for developing his motor skills, great for social interaction and turn taking.  Most importantly, it grabbed his attention, and he wanted to play.

Maybe he is happy crawling the perimeter of rugs.  Maybe he is happy ignoring other kids and toys and crawling to the door and back.  He loves stacking toys, familiar books, and now spinning disks.

I brought the Spin Again to our next appointment at the children's rehabilitation center.  My son's occupational therapist wanted to see it after his session.  Another child in the waiting room wanted to play, and grabbed the spinning disks with excitement.  After my son put a disk on the pole for his therapist, he looked at the bigger girl grabbing more of his disks and he decided that he was all done.  So while the girl played with his new toy, he quietly crawled all by himself to the exit door.

And that was okay.

First Words

Our son decompressing in his ball tent.

Our son said his first words.

We were out at dinner a few weeks ago, which typically involves our son eating quickly and then having no patience to sit at the table while the rest of us eat.  So dinners out usually mean that I wolf down my food and I take him outside for walks while my wife and daughter finish their meals a bit more leisurely.  I like this arrangement because then my wife pays the bill.

Clearly all done, our son turned to me in agitation.  He raised his arms to be picked up out of his high chair, and I wondered at which volume his distressed "AAAAH" would sound this time.   His mouth opened, and a moment later the sound followed.  "Mamamama UH!"

Mama up.

Time swirled around me as I lifted him to me and hugged him close, tears in my eyes, staring dumbfouded at my wife across the table to make sure I wasn't dreaming.  She nodded, smiling.  She had heard it, too.  Oh, what a moment!

I hugged him and squeezed him and wanted to celebrate right there but our son wasn't sharing this stop-time experience and wanted out.  Miraculously we were all ready to leave.  Our slowest eater was finger-painting her face with her condiments.  I put my son in the stroller and wiped ketchup off my daughter's hands and face, which clearly transferred to the wipe but didn't seem to be washing off her skin.  "Bath night," I thought.  I put her in the stroller, and pushed it outside, our family together, still rejoicing over this new development.  I couldn't stop smiling at our little boy.

Then my wife said, "Look at her."  I glanced at our daughter and touched her red cheek with alarm.  "That's not ketchup," I said. "Those are hives."  Her face had broken out in red, swollen welts, the rash on her face around her mouth, on her cheeks under her eyes, and down her legs.  We buckled the twins in their carseats and raced to urgent kids' care.  (Our cheerful little girl recovered over the next half hour and was sent home with a dose of children's Benedryl.  Turns out she is allergic to pineapple.)

Our son spoke his first words.  His sister, with her outgoing personality and, in this case, allergic reaction, forever steals his thunder.  But not this time.  He spoke.  He knows that words are used to communicate.  He understands that he can use words to get what he wants.  He accepts that he has to put his lips together to make the "m" sound (something that does not come easily or naturally for him) and he knows his mama's name and the meaning of "up."

He has been paying attention.