One thing about Jude is he's never short on a new fact to tell you. The other day, I took him grocery shopping with me. I forgot to grab a cart from the parking lot because I was busy listening to him tell me about orcas. I was proud of how he patiently waited at the curb for me to run back to the cart corral and grab one.
That was only the beginning. When we got done our shopping, I told him again how proud I was of him. He has experienced near-crippling anxiety. One of the reasons we became homeschoolers was to remove this roadblock to help him learn, but the grocery store has been an exceptional source of stress for him. He doesn't like feeling as if others are watching him. Slowly, he's worked his way from hiding under my coat to walking next to me. This time, he went about 20 feet away from me to grab a loaf of bread, and then said it was OK if I took an armful of chips back to the cart while he got his bag. (At our warehouse club, they're sold two factory bags to a club mix-and-match pack. I did ask if he wanted help filling his bag, and was informed that he could do it himself, thank you, and I could go.) I skedaddled back before he changed his mind.
This is HUGE for him. Not only is he two-thirds of an aisle away, but there is another person in the aisle.
Until Jude, I used to take for granted being able to say to a kid "Be Mommy's helper...can you get something over there while I get this here?" and getting a chipper response. When the doctors asked me what our goal was, I said that I didn't need a "neurotypical kid response," I just needed to be able to take him with me to get groceries. I need to tell everyone how proud I am that he's worked really, really hard and is now my official Chip-Getter.
Click here to read the entire series: Five Minute October
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