Velcro schmelcro

Yesterday morning, after watching him dig for his favorite socks and struggle to get his shoes on independently (because asking for help is such hard work...) Waylon came up to me with these puppy dog eyes that said, "Can you tie my shoes?" 

Only problem was, his lips couldn't say it. 

I asked, "What do you want, Waylon?" And I could see the pages of the dictionary in his mind flipping furiously through the few phrases he knows to try and find the right one.

He muttered, "It's broken."

Nope. I repeated, "What do you want?"

He said, "It's not yours."

Not quite. "What do you want, Waylon?"

So then he tried, "It's your turn."

Nope. 

And we're deadlocked in a staredown where his eyes are telling me, "You know what I want, Mom."

And my eyes responded, "Yes I know that I know what you want Waylon, but you have to learn how to say the words..."

And finally, the pages of the dictionary stopped flipping and I heard his cute little voice say,

"Tie my shoe."

YES!

So today, at the beginning of this week of Thanksgiving, I am thankful that we bought shoes with laces last Spring instead of Velcro. Or else I would have missed out on these beautiful words.

Learning new things

I've always said, that throughout all of the struggles that raising a child with autism brings, we have learned so much from him about life.

Patience...

Humility...

True joy...

How to disarm fire alarms...

It's true. He pulled not one, but two. Back to back. You know, Mom is running frantically trying to call the school secretary to figure out how to turn it off, and that's kind of cute. So why not go ahead and pull the other? 

So I think I can say that I am a professional at disarming them now.

Unfortunately, he was pretty proud of himself. So you can bet there will be more fire alarms in my future.

It's November, repeat after me. I am thankful... I am thankful... I am thankful...

A Halloween Miracle

Twas' the night before Halloween,
And all through the house....
I had no frickin' clue what Waylon would wear for Trick-or-treating.

(Gotcha there, didn't I?)

I think I mentioned last year, that Halloween may be Waylon's least favorite holiday ever. Really, it's a rather bizarre holiday, if you think about it.
Try explaining this to a kid who can't talk:
Here, put on an itchy, uncomfortable, costume. We are going to go to people's houses, but you can't go in. Just ring the doorbell and stand out in the cold. It will be fun, really. Forget everything we've been trying to teach you about asking for things nicely, and use new words- "Trick or treat". Then, when someone puts a bowl full of hundreds of pieces of delicious candy in your face, only take one. We'll walk forever and you'll be exhausted. But it will be a blast, I promise.
Right.

And because Waylon's wardrobe choices are limited to jeans, swimming trunks, and grey, red, or orange shirts, and I can't really ask him "What would you like to be for Halloween this year?" I planned ahead and thought he could wear a grey shirt with a NASCAR driver on it, and carry a plastic steering wheel. Perfect costume for the boy who loves cars and hates costumes, right?
Well getting ready to go trick or treating was something like this...

To $%#! with your stupid steering wheel, I'd rather throw rocks.

So when Trav and I got suited up in our costumes (Trav was real excited, can't you tell?),

Get it???

Waylon wouldn't leave my oven alone. He just loved it.
So just when I thought Waylon was going to have to go trick or treating as a bun-in-the-oven (minus the bun of course), I had a brilliant plan.
Travis ran downstairs, grabbed Caden's old robot costume made out of a cardboard box, and low and behold, the boy put it on and wore that thing all night long.

It was seriously a Halloween miracle.
And the cutest thing ever.