Well, I didn't get this post done before the end of Autism Awareness month, but y'all get to read it anyway, because it's Always Autism Awareness month at our house :)
James loves food. It’s his drug of choice. Literally. He likes oatmeal, and eats it almost every day. But he LOVES pizza, and will eat a whole pie by himself and have a stomach ache, then get up at 2am and try to make another one. He eats mustard (and sometimes ketchup) with everything. Pretzels, bacon, fish sticks, fries, bread, etc. He likes normal stuff like PB&J- grape jelly only please with creamy pb and cut into 4 squares, tuna fish- made with just mayo and hold the bread, hot dogs with- you guessed it- ketchup and mustard, toast, plain or salt and vinegar potato chips, Doritos, mac'n'cheese, pancakes, chicken nugget happy meals from McD’s, chocolate milk, soda, cheese sticks, apples and peanut butter, tomatoes, pineapple, kiwis, bananas, strawberries, cucumbers, celery, watermelon, peaches, cherries, grapes, carrots, baby oranges, OutShine grape popsicles, anything chocolate, sweet potato pie, and loads more that I can’t think of right now, but all of it terribly specific.
I’m really lucky that James is such a good eater, a lot of autistic kids really struggle with foods and eating. James has struggled a little bit, but mostly when he younger, and more with not being able to digest things. We have had him on a dairy free/gluten free diet since he was 3, and we have slowly upgraded him to organic whole wheat and organic dairy (in small quantities) in the last year or so. We've also had to be careful about giving him meat. He loves hot dogs, bologna, pepperoni, bacon, and sausage, and will eat meat in Large quantities. For example, he could eat a whole package of bacon by himself when he was 5. But he doesn't digest it well, and we have to make sure that we limit it to a normal sized portion and not too often. We can tell when he’s had too much of something he shouldn't have, because he gets stinky-gassy and complains that his stomach hurts. It also happens when he overeats. We have to be really careful not to let him overeat. It’s a weird problem to have but it’s nicer than having to force feed him. He actually likes food so much that he’s started helping me cook. He nibbles at garlic, onions, and salad, he stirs things on the stove, cuts veggies up for me, adds butter or salt to whatever is in a pan on the stove, and sometimes I wake up and see eggs, sugar and milk all mixed together in a pan in the oven. Sometimes it’s frustrating, like when he adds frozen veggies to my boiling potatoes, or puts noodles in water before it’s ready, but it’s also really cute that he’s trying to help.
He’s really good at cleaning too. He puts his dishes in the sink and rinses them off if they are dirty. He puts his leftovers in the trash and puts food in the fridge. He unloads the dishwasher, takes out the trash, puts a new bag in the trash can, takes out the recycling, moves the laundry from the washer to the dryer and then to the basket and puts it in the couch. He puts his toys away, puts his laundry in the basket, and tries to wash out his poopy pull-ups when he has an accident, and he wipes up his spills off the floor. He even helped us rake up the leaves in the backyard a few months ago. He loves to go to the dump with Tom too. He doesn't do most of these things all by himself, he still needs verbal prompts and a buddy to assist sometimes, but it’s progress. Another emerging skill is grocery shopping. He likes to put the food on the conveyor belt, bag the groceries, put them in the cart, load them into the car, bring them into the house, unload the bags onto the counter and put them away. I’m just happy he likes to help :)
One more thing I forgot to mention, he LOVES to remove nail polish. He likes to have me paint them, but he REALLY likes taking the polish off too lol! I should be taking more pics of him helping out with stuff, but mostly I'm busy encouraging or directing him to get it done, so......
