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.