Letting things happen.

When you have a kid with autism, every day is an emotional roller coaster. I mean, I guess regular kids drive their parents all the emotions too, but it feels different with Baduka, than what I see with other parents, siblings, and friends. Today, for example, they have been awake for an hour and a half. They have already eaten together, pushed each other, cried, made a mess, played on the porch, and are now watching a movie. They've fought, and made up in their own ways. I have broken up fights, and smiled at them sitting close, and playing together.

But Baduka has been all over the place. He's been happy, sad, mad. Trying to figure out why for each is the frustrating part for me. Not immediately knowing what he wants, and what he wants to do next, makes for very long days of chasing him.

Our kitchen is small, with a little, I call it an alleyway, spot where our sink, and counter are. Its almost like it should be a skinny walk-in closet, with a window at the end, but someone decided to shove a sink in it instead, and take the door off. Above the sink has cabinets. The cabinets have no doors. People, if you are ever thinking open cabinets are a good idea, I am telling you, IT ISN'T. You can thank me later. Then on the wall opposite the cabinets, we put up shelves, for our cereal, and pretzel stash. Besides the stove, this is probably the most dangerous part of the kitchen, because it's where all our glass, and sharp objects are. Baduka has been climbing the wall with the window, up onto the counter where the dish drainer is, for weeks.

Before he was doing it to reach snacks. But the last few days, he's been touching the glasses. Paying close attention to the 2 wine glasses I haven't broken yet. We kept taking him down, but he hasn't stopped trying.

This morning, after all the other things he's been emotional about, I decided to not stop him, but help him. I took the two glasses, and him down, and said, "Bud, what do you want to do?" He took both glasses, and made the motion of he was going to smash them together. So I said, "you want to cheers?" He smiled. I said, "okay I'm going to show you how gently... Gently. Like this." We clinked glasses a few times, said, "Cheers!" Then I said, "one more time, okay? Then we'll put them back, and go do something else." We clinked one more time, he handed me his glass, and went outside.

I have started to come to realize, that changing HIM isn't helping US. He has his wants, and needs, and right now the ability to voice it isn't there. But if we just let him follow through on the things he is so focused on, he knows what he's thinking matters, too. I may not be a mind reader yet, but I know he's happy knowing I care enough to try to read his.