Things We Love

Day 26:  THINGS WE LOVE

Ok, finally I can post the happy post about the things Coleman loves.  He woke up in great spirits this morning, another good night of sleep under his belt.  He went straight to the play room as always, along with his “yo” and juice, pushed the button for the t.v. and waited for me to come in.  He has specific requests each day – “Please Backyardigans Heart of the Jungle?” – we have them all on our DVR – and he knows every show, every episode by heart.  God help us if the cable box ever dies.  This morning Peter Rabbit was on the show before I went in to change it to his request.  But he was already engaged in Peter Rabbit – he never gives himself the chance to enjoy new shows, just quickly saying ‘No, Backyardigans please!” but today he watched.  He stood bouncing and laughing watching the show for the full half hour it was on.   That’s always a sign for a good day.  Even with the rain, we managed to stay happy. 

So before this blog ends I thought you ought to at least know some of the things that Coleman loves, and not just what ticks him off.   Aside from his show, of course, there are his guys.  We’ve already covered his love of these little figures, and that is the one constant that has never changed.  He spents a long time, laboriously lining them all up several times each day, and talks and talks and talks to them.  Please be particularly careful around them in the morning so as not to accidentally bump them and knock them over or else the whole process of setting them up starts over.   Make an omelette and grab a cup of joe because this is going to take a awhile.  Aside from his guys and his shows, Coleman loves a whole lot of other things too.    

My favorite thing that Coleman loves is hugs.  It is not lost on me for one second that many children on the Spectrum do not like to be touched at all, let alone hugged.  I can’t imagine how hard that must be, knowing that a hug can spark a meltdown, or that a hug causes your child to stiffen up in complete discomfort.  I know some children like this and it’s got to be heartbreaking as a parent.  Coleman is not like that, and for that I am so very grateful.  Coleman loves a hug, and the tighter and stronger the hug, the better.   He will frequently ask “Hug me?” or “Squeeze me?”  And of course, we always oblige.  It’s a favorite request at our house.

Coleman also loves for you to press your palms up against his ears.  I learned this from his school, and he finds it incredibly calming.  I place the palm of my hand over his ears and press gently.  I wish I knew what it was about this that he loves, but it’s easy and it’s soothing for him. 

Watching cars go by is a fairly new favorite, and we noticed it first while we were away at Loon this winter.  We were sitting in the Lodge at the end of the day waiting for the girls to come in.  He was having a snack and watching his shows.  But he became distracted looking out the windows at the cars.  I tried to draw him back in, but he refused, just kept looking at cars coming and going.  After that, every time we met at the lodge, he wanted to sit near the windows to watch the cars.  This was harmless to me at the time, but school told me he was becoming distracted during class looking out the window.  And thankfully we live on a quiet street because I’ve noticed at home he is immediately at the windows when cars go up or down the street.   There is not much we can do, except that we try to not sit near windows when we go places (like a restaurant) to help keep this habit in check.

Coleman loves to watch other kids running.  Actually, he loves to watch anyone running, but typically we don’t see a bunch of adults running around.  At the park, when children run by playing tag, he squeals in delight, rolling his hands in happiness.  When the girls were younger, they would invite friends over and we would all go out front for a big game of dodge ball, with Billy and I on either end trying to peg the kids in the middle with the ball.  Coleman never wanted to play, but he would beg for us to play so he could stand at the sideline and watch.  Like our own personal cheerleader laughing and yelling as everyone scrambled back and forth.  The girls are getting too big for that game now, but Coleman still wants them to play with them and their friends which causes some problems at the house.  He wants to be part of their fun, yelling for them to wait for him as soon as they step outside.  We’ve explained to the girls that this is a difficult change for him, their growing and needing some time with their friends.  This week was a little tough, with Coleman barraging them with orders to Please play ball! Or Please go on Swing!  We’re trying to manage both his desire to spend time with the girls, and the girls’ need to spend time alone with their friends.  The upside of all of this is Coleman’s continued emerging social side and that is a good thing.    

Coleman also loves spending time with his cousins.  They all understand him, and they tend to pay special attention to him, and do many of the things he loves.  Like play hide and seek, despite that Coleman is horribly bad at it.  He will be hiding with Emma, and whoever is it will dramatically stomp around saying “Where could Coleman be…” and of course he replies right from his hiding spot “I’m right here!”  They all laugh and play again.  He absolutely adores this and would play for hours.  They also play tag and jump on the trampoline with him.  He completely loves the trampoline.  From bouncing to playing games, he spends all of his time on the trampoline smiling and laughing.  And the bonus of the trampoline is that Coleman is very ‘on’ when he finished – it’s like the jumping makes him completely aware of himself, of his body and his surroundings, the blood flows throughout him and he is just really involved afterwards.  His speech is better, his thoughts are cohesive, and he is engaged.  Total bonus of doing something he loves.  In all, the most playful interaction Coleman gets, he gets with his cousins, and we are very grateful for them.

As I’m sure I have said many times already, Coleman also adores the park.  He has a little routine he does when we get there – a specific order in which he does the various activities:  First is the big red swing, then the tunnel, then the small yellow slide, etc, until ultimately we end at the large climbing section with several slides.  We spend the most time at this section, and I still climb up the whole thing with him every time.  I chase him, we play the Grumpy Old Troll, we race down the slides…all good fun.  Except that I am a grown woman among a pack of 5 year olds.  The young Yummy Mummies with their latte’s and hip baby bags stare in disbelief with raised eyebrows at my antics.  Right.  Because I’ve been just dying to go down a slide today.   But my little man loves it all so I ignore the looks and keep moving. 

Coleman is not able to ride a bike.  We have tried several, but he just hasn’t been able to understand the need for continuous motion on his feet.  He’s also not very strong, so I suspect strength plays a part as well.  We bought him a new bike two summers ago, hoping we could get him on it.   He willingly gets on, but we can’t get him to keep pedaling.  I’ve crawled along the street, pushing his feet around with the pedals, tried Velcro to keep his feet on the pedals but he still has not picked up the concept yet.  I’m hoping this summer might be our break.  In the meantime, my mother bought us this amazing, fabulous bike called a Taga.  Coleman is too big for a traditional bike seat on the back of a bike.  He also lacks the balance and coordination for a tandem bike.  This Taga bike is a large three wheeled bike with an oversized seat on the front.  Coleman loves it.  He sits in the front watching everyone like a king.  His favorite thing is to ride down big, long hills, the breeze blowing in his face, all the while yelling “WHEEEEEEE!”  It is awesome.  But the problem is for every hill you go down, you have to go back up.  And I’m not the most in shape human being out there.  And Coleman, while small, is still 45 lbs of solid weight.  So the thrill of the ride for Coleman is at least partially offset by distress of the ride home for me.  J  Still we love that bike, and we are so glad we have that option for Coleman. 

Like the bike, pretty much all things that go fast Coleman enjoys.  First with sledding, we had to drag him to the hill. “No thank you” he kept saying.  Until finally Billy threw him on my lap and pushed us down the hill on the sled.  “Noooo” for the first minute, then laughing, then “Again?” at the bottom.  He’s been hooked ever since.  We barely come to a full stop at the bottom and he is already saying “Again?”  Similarly, we took him to his first water park a couple of years ago.  As we stood in line on the stairs up to the slide, Coleman kept saying “No, you don’t like this!” (He gets his pronouns mixed up often).  “Yes you do, it’s fun! We’ll go fast down a big hill!” I replied.  “No thank you.”  But I kept talking it up, saying how great it was going to be, until we got to the top.  He still had on his socks and sneakers.  I bent down to take them off and he started to panic.  “NO THANK YOU!”  he squealed, starting to make a scene.  It was our turn to get on and the line was all the way down the stairs with others waiting behind us.  “Come on bud, this will be fun. Just come here.”  I tried to coax him over, but he wouldn’t budge.  I said to the teenager working there:  “I’m going to grab him and pull him on.  He’s going to yell but it’s ok.  Just give us a push.”  So I grabbed Coleman, pulled him onto the tube in between my legs , sneakers and socks still on, and off we went.  He fought me most of the way down, as I held him tight.  We were close to the bottom when he stopped fighting, and a couple of seconds later when we landed in the pool with a splash, he looked at me a smiled.  “Again?” 

Roller Coasters – and by this I mean small baby roller coasters – not Six Flags Roller Coasters – is something else Coleman really loves.   We take Coleman and the girls every summer to Santa’s Village in New Hampshire.  We went for the first time two years ago – I had never taken the girls when they were small – and my first thought was we could have saved a bundle of money had we gone there instead of Disney when they were young.  It’s a great place for young kids.  The girls are too big for it now, but they love to come and see Coleman so excited.  He LOVES it there.  We head straight to the roller coaster – he is very patient in the lines which can be hard – and we ride for the two minutes it takes to zoom over the tracks, and as it screams to a halt, he yells “AGAIN!”  He loves getting off and running around the side, back in through the windy entrance, and then back on again for another ride.  We seriously do this about 20 times in a row, with the exact same response every single time: “Again!!”  We then talk him into taking a break from the roller coaster and head over to the Log Ride – a typical amusement park attraction where you ride in a log boat, go up a huge hill, and then fly down it, splashing water everywhere.  Coleman likes this one a lot too – not as much as the roller coaster, but a lot.  As we come around the corner at the top, just before we drop, he grabs my hands and puts them tight around his waist, and then laughs at the bottom.  He even tolerates the water splashing pretty well.  So we go on this one 5 or 6 times before heading back to the roller coaster.  And we do those two rides all day. Just those two, no others, all day.  And none of us complains a bit.  Because the Santa’s Village trip is for Coleman – and nothing makes us happier than seeing his elated smile all day long. 

Another fast thing Coleman loves is go-carts.  Last summer while at the Cape on vacation, we went every night after the beach.  It was partly how we got him through the full day at the beach, the promise of the go-carts looming on the ride back.  And even waterlogged and tired, he talked excitedly about it as we drove the 20 minutes across the Cape to go.  Back at home, I’m grateful there was a place that was nearby.  We went quite often during the summer.  The young guys that worked there liked Coleman and were good to him, letting him ride multiple times without getting off first.  When the sign went up in the fall that they were closing the next weekend, we went every night for a week, prepping Coleman that in 6 then 5 then 4, etc. more days the go-carts would close for a long time.  He still asked after they were closed, but handled the closure pretty well.  Now that the weather is getting better, pretty soon we‘ll start venturing down again. 

The last thing I’ll mention that Coleman loves is swimming.  He loves our pool, but finds it more enjoyable when everyone is in swimming – quiet afternoons are less appealing to him.  I think I already mentioned how he likes to watch everyone jump.  It gets old pretty quickly for the jumpers, but never old to him.  Other times, he’ll take his guys into the pool and spend a long time lining them on the ladder or the stairs, talking away to himself.  My favorite Saturdays in the summer are those days that he is happily playing with his guys in the pool, the girls are floating around talking together about something, and Billy and I have a moment to sit and enjoy it all.  This I love.     

Even more than the pool, Coleman loves the beach.  It was a long time coming, I’ll tell you.  We are beach people.  We go early and stay late, order dinner there….  Any day at the beach is a good day in my book.  But Coleman was not initially a fan.  He hated sand, and refused to even stand on it so we use to carry him down to the ‘wet’ sand.  And even then, he wanted to be held in the water – didn’t want to touch the bottom with his feet.  But not liking the beach was not an option for us. So we kept at him, taking him and trying to last a little longer every time.  We are grateful to our good friends who have a house near our favorite beach, where we would take Coleman up for a break in the middle of the day.  He could watch his DVD in peace, have some “yos” and re-charge his brain so he could last a few more hours in the afternoon.  Our days at the beach now are wonderful.  He is still not a fan of the sand – it’s ok to walk on but insists the sand is cleaned off of his feet as soon as he sits down.  We are a bit like the Clampett's at the beach, we bring so much stuff.  Billy laughs as we get it all pushed into the back of the truck before we head out, asking “Got it all Ellie Mae?”  But these things keep Coleman happy and content at the beach. And that keeps me content and happy at the beach too.  We bring a small plastic table and chair – yes I said table – for him to set up his DVD and watch his shows on when we take a break from the water.  This is essential to the longevity of our stay.  We bring his DVDs and his guys (we always count them, and never let them out of our sight).  The rest is the typical stuff you take to the beach.  Coleman most enjoys being in the water so you had better be ready to go in if you take him.  He is unfazed by cold water, and has no fear, so he will walk right in up to his neck regardless of the temperature.  This is the only not-so-fun part. J  He loves waves the most – he is very good at paddling his feet to jump up over the waves and he screams in delight as he sees them approaching.  I hold his hand tightly and as the wave come sup, I yell "Jump!" and up he goes, usually getting above the wave.  But many times the wave covers him, but he just laughs, grabs my hand to wipe his eyes, and screams “Again!”  He stays out there for literally an hour or two, laughing and happy the whole time.  Only that I plead with him for a break does he actually retreat to the sand for a snack or lunch.  This summer was the first time we got him to sit in the sand – he didn’t love it but tolerated it.  The girls helped him make a big castle and moat for his guys, and we tried to get him to play with them in the sand.  He tried, but it was a little overwhelming for him.  Still we made great progress and I think this summer we’ll get even farther with that play.  Once he is out of the water, it is no longer than 20 minutes and he is asking to go back in the water.  Which we do.  It’s pure joy to watch him, and by days end, we’ll have spent 5 or 6 hours in the water.  We are all water-logged and exhausted from all the fun.  It was worth all the years of pushing him. 

So there are many things Coleman loves to do, many things that bring him joy.  Some came naturally, and some we had to push him on.  And while that doesn’t always work, sometimes it does and that makes it worth the effort every time because you simply never know.   These things are not available to us every day:  some are once a year thrills, some are seasonal, and some are dependent on good weather.  But when we can, we try to do as many of these activities as often as possible.  Even if we do look like the Clampett's.