We Go Twice...

I cannot stop thinking about yesterday so I have to write about it. To most it would probably be considered a "good day" for a typical family, but for ours, it was an absolutely FANTASTIC day.

It started out as a normal Monday morning. Nothing but chaos between the hours of 7:00 am to about 9:00 am with getting the three boys ready, fed, and out the door for their school days. I then went about the day getting the baby fed, the dog fed and everybody that was left at the house ready for my parents to come over and babysit. Alan had a field trip to the pumpkin farm and I was going with! I make a point to go every year with him, just him and I. How the day turns out is always a crap shoot. Some years he really enjoys it, some years not so much. It's a tough situation to navigate for him (as fo any child with special needs) becasue there is always so much going on at once. The sights, the sounds, the other field trips running around being very loud, the smells of animals (ughhhh so bad) its overwhleming to say the least so I never know what to expect.

I met the bus at the patch and when he pulled up and my heart ramped up immidiately trying to read his face to plan for what kind of day it would be. He seemed calm and ready to get off the bus, so I was hopeful for our day together, and to my luck it was awesome. He immediately hopped of the bus right to me and we had to wait in line while his teacher was getting the tickets for everyone. While we were waiting together he motioned toward me to give him his back pack. I thought maybe he wanted something to drink or eat but to my surpise he grabbed his talker (AAC device). He started typing away as we were waiting and handed it to me with the request of "go to the farm". Alan was ready to go in and I don't blame him. It is always a little chaotic waiting in the front with a million other schools of children, adults, loud busses and the list goes on and on. So with him requesting it super appropriately and we had already been wating easily 5-10 minutes, I brought him into the pumpkin patch or "the farm" in his langauge.

We had an amazing time together. I took his headphones off, because I wanted to see if we could navigate this loud place without them, maybe just a little experiment of my own, but he did it and he did it well. The only times he really had his hands on his ears was around the tractors, and I can't blame him for that, they were extremely loud. We walked, held hands, talked, didn't hold hands, played on the hay bales, the tires, the huge jumpy pillow and of course the corn pit. He was in his element and I couuld not have been more proud of him on that field trip.

Here is where the magical part of the day happened. W hen we got back home, I was making dinner and I kept thinking about th day, how well he did. My husband was not home from work yet and Vinny was on the bus heading home so I decided to sit down by Alan on the couch and wait for Vinny's bus. I started looking at pictures of the field trip. I was admiring how he looked in them, I was replaying the events of the day with him advocating for himself and communicating his needs to me when something caught Alan's attention. He moved himself closer to me and wanted my phone. I gave it to him and instead of going to Youtube or something along those lines, he stayed in my photo album. He scrolled every picture from the day and looked at them in great detail. Back and forth, back and forth, scrolling from one picture to the next then back to the previous picture. He was invested in them, and it was almost as if he was trying to mentally put himself back in those pictures. Alan then handed me back the phone and basically had an idea. He got up, went to the kitchen for his talker and sat back down with the words scrolled across the screen "go to the farm". When he handed it to me I read it aloud and with his eyes never leaving me I looked at him and said "yea we went to the farm today Alley and you did so good!" But that was not good enough for him. He wrote it again and handed it to me with his finger pointing to the words "go to the farm". By the time I was done reading it again, he was standing at the door with his shoes on, ready to go to the farm. My heart bursted into a million pieces. It was late, I had dinner almost done, my husband wasn't even home yet and he was ready to go, again!

I immidiately called Al on his way home to explain the miracle of what had just happened. The steps he took to communicate his wants and how appropriately he did it, was beyond amazing. In that same conversation I said to Al, "How do you feel about going tonight when you get home?" and of course he was on board because any time our boy communicates appropriately what he wants or needs, we feel like we HAVE to make it happen for him. Of course I had to explain to Alan that we were not able to go in that instant, we had to wait for Vinny and Dad to both come home before we could get in the car.. He handled it very well, I explained to him the specific time we will be able to leave and it sufficed for him.

Once my husband got home, he scarffed down maybe five bites of dinner only to hop back into the car (after he just commuted 1 hour and 15 mintues home) to take his boy back to the farm becuase that is what he wanted and that is what he deserves. We arrived back at the same pumpkin patch this time, whole family in tow and it was the most beautiful evening together. Everyone had an awesome time and we jammed packed as much as we could in the couple hours we had left with sunlight. Alan did an even better job the second time around. He mustered up enough courage to go on the really tall slide with the potato sacks in which he was a little scared the first time during the day and he absolutely loved it. I think he went at least 8 or 9 times. Some of the peopke working at the pumpkin patch even recognized Alan and asked if he was there earlier in the day. It was perfect, absolutely perfect for him, for us, for everyone.

So we went twice, in one day, to the same pumpkin patch for our guy and it was worth every penny.

With Grace-

This Autism Mama