Don't make me pull this grocery cart over . . . .

You know what I've about had it up to here with?

Compulsive behavior.

The other night Derek had a complete meltdown in the middle of the grocery store because we couldn't go on checkout 7. And in one of my less proud parenting moments, I nearly joined him. For chrissake, what do you do in that situation? Stand there and unload the groceries at the closed checkstand? Ask a clerk to open it? Leave the groceries? Leave some money on the checkstand to cover it and walk out? Leave him at home to set the house on fire and go grocery shopping by myself? Yell at him to suck it up and go through the checkstand that's open and give anybody who wants to think about criticizing me the death stare? That last one will get the job done, but cleaning up the bodies, and the ensuing indictments and prosecution, is a little messy. Perhaps there is a solution that avoids the rigidity all together?

Other compulsions, so y'all know what I'm dealing with here:

Only wants to ride certain numbered buses at certain times.

Refuses certain types of transportations sometimes, but not others. (For instance, usually okay with the bike, but not always)

Won't go down some aisles in the store.

Refuses to ride yellow or blue line trains. Will only ride the red line.

Will not walk down the street when a light up ahead is green, only when the light is red. Actually getting better about this, but it's still a very slow process to get down a busy street. Downtown Portland is nearly impossible.

Sliding doors. He must be the one who controls them, so we have to wait for them to close completely before we can go, at busy times, that's five minutes or more.

Insists that stove dials be turned to a certain number (not always the number I want) until I yell at him that it's not his job and he runs away crying.

Must control what number of minutes the microwave is set for. Often too much or too little.

How do I convince him it DOESN'T MATTER which checkout we go through, just that we go through one? It DOESN'T MATTER which bus we take, only that we get to speech therapy on time? That the number on the stove dial or the microwave dial DEPENDS on what we're cooking, not on his whim? And how can I get my groceries delivered for free so I don't have to put up with this crap?

(That's lipstick in the picture, by the way)

Autism Tai Chi

In the movie Twin Warriors, Jet Li's character, Junbao discovers the principles of Tai Chi. He tries to push a ball into a barrel of water, but the harder he pushes, the more the ball resists, flying higher and higher into the air. He tries to knock down a punching bag with a weighted bottom. Again, the harder he hits, the more momentum comes back at him, opposing the force and intention that he originally wanted. He discovers that by leveraging the force an object already has, he can be a more effective fighter for less effort.

Today I made a connection with this principle of tai chi and dealing with autistic symptoms with this principle in mind. We had a family outing to Lowe's today to pick up a few things. Derek wanted to go through checkout number 10, but it wasn't open. He was leaning out of the cart and grabbing the racks to resist that checkout aisle. We could have fussed and yelled and forced him to go through the checkout he didn't want to and dealt with an epic meltdown. But instead Allen made a game out of Derek's resistance, rocking back as Derek pushed away, then rocking forward again, back and forth, back and forth. Derek actually started to think this game was kinda fun. But he still didn't want to go through checkout eleven. So we put our things on the counter and I pushed the cart through checkout ten, coming around to pick up the stuff at checkout eleven. That little bit of accommodation and "indulgence" saved us from a lot of misery.

The same principle applies to dealing with self-stimulatory behaviors. For Derek this is stuff like humming, pushing buttons, and flicking light switches. I've learned, slowly but well, that these things satisfy a need for him, not a want, and can't be forced into submission. They need to be recognized and worked through, not against. I try to make them into an opportunity for connection and social interaction. For instance, when he's humming, I hum along with him and then change something about it—hum higher or lower, faster or slower, change the tune, add words, put his hand on my lips to feel the vibration, etc. When he flicks light switches I'll pretend to be scared of the dark, or try to scare him with a playful "Boo!" when he switches on the light. And from there I try to move into an interaction, leveraging the "undesirable" behavior into desirable.

Patience, grasshopper.

A lovely moment between Derek and Iguana, when I finally stopped using the flash and got a picture in which Derek doesn't look quite so stoned.

One of Derek's favorite interactive games is the Iguana-Pig Feud. Iguana is usually going along minding his own business when Pig comes along and tries to eat Iguana's body parts. Hilarity ensues. Sometimes Iguana makes a compromise with Pig, offering a different body part instead of the one he would like. Iguana often runs away and Pig gives chase. Iguana's newest trick is to hide on top of Pig. That's a pretty fancy trick for somebody who has a hard time taking someone else's perspective. Sometimes Lizard gets into the act. (Lizard is the puppet in the set that is actually an iguana. Iguana is actually a gecko, I believe.) Lizard says "Lizard, Lizard" and also enjoys Iguana's tail and chases and Iguana sometimes hides from Lizard by hopping on Lizard's back. Iguana is also sometimes a transition object or cuddly guy. Once I thought we lost Iguana. We retraced our steps from our last walk, looked all over the house, and told the neighbors about our terrible loss in case they saw anything. A few days later the neighbors inquired about Iguana and I told them about how you can find anything on EBay and how Iguana may soon be miraculously found.