Simple may be off slightly. One thing is for sure. Nothing is simple. As stated before, many of the things I have learned to help Wayne with being socially acceptable deals with teaching a new behavior. As I think of Autism Awareness, and a story that is truly Autistic, my brain scrambles. But one day I do remember dealt with about the biggest extremes, along with hurdles.
A few Summers ago, Wayne and I went to Carowinds with some friends for a day of fun. Now, please understand, that I LOVE roller coasters, and well, Wayne, is not sure of trying anything that might be a suggestion of something scary. SO we spent the day walking around trying to find rides that we would both enjoy. Wayne and I enjoyed some of the baby rides, but then I decided to push him a little.
We went into the water park and I pushed him to try the kiddie water slide. He loved it! Then he looked at me with excitement and pointed to the bigger water slides. He wanted to ride it badly. So we found one that would let two people ride at once. After standing in line with him for 5 minutes, we finally get to the top, and he decides he does not want to go down. He begins screaming and trying to look for a place to run. I grabbed him, and made eye contact with him, and told him, there is only one way down. Then I gave him a bear hug lifted him up set him in my lap and the worker pushed us off. He screamed half way down the slide and then laughed the rest of the way!
Leaving the water park, I decided to keep the momentum going. We stood in line for ride after ride, some he had a meltdown in the seat so we got off and let the next people on. Others he was ok with sitting in the seat, and we road. We continued this, until he reached a point of somewhat comfort. Then it happened. He saw the "mascots" Nickelodeon Characters with big heads! HE saw them took one looked, screamed and starting running. Somehow, I ended up with Inspector Gadget type arms that reached out and grabbed him almost tripping a lady and toddler, apologized, as I dashed around the corner and held him tight to me against me to where he couldn't see. Once, he recovered, he wanted to go "shake their hand." Yeah, Right.
We finished the day in the kids area of the park and our last ride was the kid roller coaster. Wayne's first every real roller coaster. We rode it together after much debate. He was comfortable in the seat and half laughed and half cried throughout the whole ride. When we got off, Wayne looked at me very seriously and said, "Mom, we have to call an ambulance."
I asked, "Why, Wayne? What is wrong?"
He said, "That ride made my stomach turn upside down and the hospital needs to fix it."
I replied calmly, "It is ok Wayne, that is just butterflies in your stomach."
This made him look at me very seriously, and state bluntly, "I did NOT swallow a butterfly, Mom!"
As I think of it there are many more autism stories like this one. But, this is what autism looks like in our family. A little bit of forced sensory awareness, pushing to try new things, and most of all, learning about figurative language in the most serious ways!
No comments:
Post a Comment