Weekends! Yea! Well, kinda yea. You never know how the weekends will go having a child with autism. I should rephrase that. You never know how the minutes to minutes will go when you have a child with autism. However, lately taking Sir Dantes out and about on the weekends has been a pretty good thing. So, today I took him and Ms. Maxie shopping.

Before Sir Dantes started talking I really never knew exactly how he felt about what I bought for him. Every now and then he would show a definite dislike for something by using his hands to push it away. The way he showed that he wanted something was just to grab at it, but he has a tendency to grab at a lot of things he doesn’t really want like raisins. One day at Krogers, Sir Dantes had to have the raisins.

Follow up:

I was hesitant to buy them because he already has really frequent and nasty number twos. But, he insisted so I caved. Turns out, he couldn’t stand them. He must have liked the color of the box or something. So, before he started talking buying any type of article for Sir Dantes was a “hit or miss” type of situation.

As I said earlier, taking Sir Dantes shopping with me and Ms. Maxie seemed like a good idea. I planned that we would go to a couple of consignment shops and the grocery store. I packed a snack, a drink, his IPod, a change…my purse was heavy. We got in the car and jammed some Linkin Park. The day was pretty so I even opened the sunroof. Sunshine faces were dancing in my mind. Well, the clouds soon began to creep in.

First stop…UR consignments. Sadly, she is going out of business but everything was 50% off and I found some great boots! Before I found the boots I stopped at the children’s section. Here we go with the “I wants”. Do you think I am talking about Ms. Maxie? Well, no I am not. It was Sir Dantes repeating and grabbing. He even threw his IPod to the floor! I thought we were for sure going to be arrested for shop-lifting as many times as he made a bolt for the door with clothes in his hands. Then I thought I’d be arrest for child abuse because I spanked him. I probably looked like a mad woman running around the store. I even had Ms. Maxie run interference for me at one point!

Praise be the Lord that the owner knew my kids. My husband likes this store and has been there before with the kids. She even remembered the last hat that Sir Dantes’ daddy bought for him. Okay, we are out of here with more clothes than I really wanted to buy. And, I got my boots and we were not arrested. So far so good. Let’s go on to Wal-Mart. I wanted to buy the babies some new jammies and slippers.

Except for the meltdown over the “Cars” slippers, everything was pretty smooth. I like that Wal-Mart has karts. Sir Dantes is very happy to ride in the basket part. Cool. I am not usually ever buying anything here that can not stand a little abuse. Slippers and jammies are all that I need. I was pleased to see that most of the slippers only cost $6.00. I tell Ms. Maxie she can choose from this one, or this one, or that one. She sticks to the budget and picks a cute pair that will be fairly sturdy for the winter. But Sir Dantes; oh no. We have to have the “Cars” slippers. He would not relent. “How about these ones?”. To my question I got a very clear “no!”. Then he wanted to wear them.

He absolutely had to wear them. I was not going to let him. I don’t remember why but I had a good reason at the time. Meltdown! In the underwear isle the meltdown started. It lasted until check out but I was determined that I was going to get what I needed and he would not prevent me from that. He calmed down once we got to the car and the bags were in the car. On to the grocery store! By this point I had ruled out the second consignment shop.

Once at the grocery, I let Sir Dantes choose the kart. He did but he was still antsy. First to the deli to get a cookie, but we were stopped by an employee offering us cream cheese cake. Mmmm…that started to calm Sir Dantes down for a bit. By the time we made it through the produce section he was up and going. “I want, I want” while he grabbed at everything. On no! I am not buying every little thing that he insist that he wants. After we made it through the hygiene area I had to force him into the seat and put the strap on. Of course, he fought and screamed the entire time. Just when I thought I couldn’t take anymore a nice lady offered them ice cream. We made it. Sigh!

Well, it was an interesting day. We got through it and had a good evening. That is to say it was as energetic as normal. You can never take your eyes off him. He wanted Lucky Charms for a snack. “I want, I want”. They both had some for a snack. Now they are both asleep. That is nice. I get a chance to finally relax. I am so glad that Sir Dantes is talking and that he doesn’t seem to be a parrot. It is nice to know that he likes pumpkin flavored ice cream. But, if mommy says “no” please don’t keep saying “I want”.

Thanks for listening. I am done.