LIZARD

Yesterday, my mom pointed to a fat lizard on the kitchen wall and asked, "Calder, what is this?" And Calder proceeded to grab the lizard! When he was in childcare, and his class went for nature walk, his teacher got him to pick snails for his classmates to observe. I bet if we ask him to catch cockroaches, he would!

FISH

Calder was with me when I went to the supermarket yesterday. He started hitting the apples and oranges as he named them, so I instructed, "Calder, no touching!" Unfortunately the next thing I saw was him holding up a raw fish by its tail!

TOOTHPICK

The other day, Calder came to me in a great state of excitement. "Mommy, what did we take?" I was clueless. Then he asked a few more times, "What did we take? Mommy!" Later I realised I had forgotten to give him his usual toothpick for blueberries. Today he ate blueberries again, but he asked for "chopsticks". So I gave him a pair of chopsticks. He realised he had made a mistake and tried to recall the right word. Good thing he remembered the list of new words. (I had pasted a blank paper on the wall beside the dining table and wrote on it new words he learned). A quick glance at the list and he triumphantly declared, "Toothpick!"

SCALDED

Once, Calder scalded himself during a meltdown. I was at work and my mom was taking care of him. There was a pot of boiled chrysanthemum soup on the stove and he shoved it down in anger. The hot soup splashed onto the floor and rebound onto him. Fortunately, the scalds didn't turn into blisters. I thought the experience would have made him fearful of hot surfaces. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect: now he touches everything he thinks is hot.

SNIPPETS

Thinking about this for a while. Going to keep this blog updated with snippets of life with Calder. I hope it'll be useful read for fellow parents and others curious about autism.

Little Improvements

During the Chinese New Year, relatives observed that Calder has improved. If you compare how he behaved the previous years, you would realise it's true. This time round, he could actually stay seated for quite a while. He even went up to relatives on his own to wave and say "hi". Previously he was the very restless boy who went up and down the stairs, who kept visiting the toilets and wanting to close their doors.

Recently, I also noticed that he is able to hold on to the "open" button in the lift to let people in. And he no longer fumbles with the tongue in his shoes. This morning, when he took the folded clothes, I thought he was going to throw them into the laundry basket like he usually does with the used ones.  But he headed for the clothes cabinet instead and actually put the two shirts into the right drawers. And before leaving for school, he felt his bag and exclaimed "handbook!" (I had forgotten to put it in.) I was very impressed with the alertness of mind and ease of communication despite his limited vocabulary.

Little improvements like these remind me to stay hopeful. Though Calder learns much slower than other children, he does learn. After 7 years, he finally calls me "Mommy". After 4 years of training, he finally figured out how to gurgle. Yes, there are a lot more that he doesn't know, but I must believe with patient expectation that he will get there some day.

Stress Triggers

If you are to ask me what is the main challenge of bringing up a boy like Calder, it is his emotional instability. Any little thing can upset him. And he spirals out of control readily. My hubby and I tried to identify the triggers to his recent meltdowns and we came up with a few possible causes:

ABRUPT STOPS 

We brought the kids cycling. Hubby wasn’t very keen because he was afraid that Calder would bang into people. Fact is: Calder loves to cycle. He loves speed and would cycle very fast. I am not afraid to bring Calder cycling because though not necessarily careful, he is skillful with his steering. Also because compared to Hubby, I am much more of a risk-taker. On this particular day, the family went out on four bicycles and smoothly completed one round of the jogging track before proceeding as usual to the nearby park. Hubby and I would sit on a bench while the two kids cycle around the park. Because of the wet weather, the ground was slightly wet. Very soon, Calder skidded and fell.  But he got up again and continued cycling around. Hubby was quick to point out how dangerous it was. I decided to give in and end the activity. I told Calder, “Let’s count to 5, then we go home.” I counted to 5 and Calder headed home on his bike. But he became edgy and threw a tantrum back home. This was not really an abrupt stop but to him, unanticipated enough to cause mounting unrest. 

CONFLICTING INSTRUCTIONS

In church, Calder asked for another pao (he loves pao)  so I gave him the third one. He ate it very slowly. My mom observed, “I think he is full already.” So I asked Calder, “Mommy keep this pao, ok? When you are hungry, then we continue eating?” And I kept the half-eaten red-bean-paste pao. But then my mom waved her box of cookies and asked if he wanted some. I ventured, “I thought you said he was full? How could he eat more if he was full?” And she kept the box of cookies. Calder was probably wondering: So do I eat the food or not? And he started getting agitated. Hubby quickly brought him home. 

CHANGE OF ROUTINE

We went to a birthday party yesterday. Calder was happy and kept mentioning “birthday party”. But then he had a meltdown and started yelling and had to be brought home. Hubby and I went over the events and realized that he became upset because we threw away his plate of food when he went to the toilet. He had taken very long to eat those dishes because they were not his favourite. But his recent rule was to finish all his food. We thought we were doing him a favour by removing what he didn’t want to eat. Apparently, to him, keeping to the rule is more important than enjoying his food.