Way Excited

Guess what? After 2 years of nursing school and months of resume writing and interviewing... I GOT A JOB! A really good one!!! I am so excited! I feel like jumping up and down and flapping my arms, sort of like this:

So you might have guessed, this is Waylon when he is way excited. (Watching Lightning McQueen makes him very happy!) Fancy people call it "stereotypic" behavior, but most people in the autism world call it "stimming," which is short for "stimulation." It looks weird, and sometimes funny (the teenage girls working in the video store used to giggle when Waylon was around 2, and he would stim like crazy when we were picking out movies.) Most of the time, people with autism stim when they feel anxious, or overwhelmed.

Now everyone stims a little here or there, like an annoying pen clicking habit, or biting your nails when you're nervous. It's just that people with autism do it on a bit more dramatic scale. When Waylon gets way excited he flaps his arms like crazy. And I know that it looks weird, but I think it is cute. Plus, since Waylon is unable to tell us how he is feeling, it's a way for him to show us his emotions. (I wish we would have recorded Waylon's reaction when he saw the ocean for the first time- he is crazy about water, and he was stimming so hard he about had a heart attack.)

If Waylon's ABA therapists knew I thought stimming was cute, they would probably die. Of course, their job is to work on his behaviors, and stimming is one of them. But I think it is cute anyways. I guess that's just the mom in me.

So anyways, all of the brilliant researchers in the world keep trying to come up with answers for why people with autism stim. And I figured it out as soon as I answered the phone yesterday. I don't even remember what the HR lady was saying, because my mind was spinning and flapping like crazy. I'm way excited.