A night on the Town

   Boy, have we been busy! On Valentine's day, Michael woke up with pain in his chest and shortness of breath. Long story short, he had a pneumothoarax, which is a collapsed lung. After a 4 day hospital stay, a chest tube, and some time off from work, he is feeling a lot better. He is still not to tip top shape, but he will be going back to work Monday. Lukas handled the whole ordeal well and did an awesome job hanging out with his Daddy in the hospital room for hours. He enjoyed the elevators, would press the floor numbers I would tell him to press and walked nicely in all the halls holding my hand. When we would go down to the cafeteria, he would stay with me and ate his food like a champ (nuggets and fries, of course.) The hospital stay showed me that Lukas is ready for the next step of doing more things outside of the house. He use to dart off and get so excited to be out that it was very hard to take him places. We still went places, but not as frequently and usually with backup.

   Last night we brought Lukas out for a night on the town, which we have never done. We went to Chuck E. Cheese in Spartanburg and when he first walked in he got a huge smile on his face. The noise and large amount of people didn't seem to bother him. He wasn't interested in his pizza, but he was pretty patient while Michael and I ate, which is a big big deal for him. He was mostly satisfied to watch a helicopter that was flying around on one of the games from our booth.

   We did get him to ride on some rides. He didn't have a big smile on his face like the other kids. He almost looked bored. I don't know if that is because he is actually bored or if he just isn't showing the emotion on his face. I will tell you when we were at Tweetsie Railroad and he was on the bigger rides that did some serious spinning, he was laughing his head off. I don't think the kiddie rides give him the sensory input that he finds entertaining. He did enjoy a slide and climbing. At one point, to my horror, he climbed up a tube slide that led into a tunnel of mazes overhead. He would have been lost, not able to really talk, and way too young to be up there with the wild older kids. With tears in my eyes I climbed the slide and found him being pushed back down by two older boys. He was laughing. Thank God. Before we left, a little boy about 8 years old came up and said, "You are good parents." I made sure to to tell his parents that they had a very polite son.

   After that we went to Barnes and Noble. They had a lego table and a train table so Lukas was happy. Our night was a success. I know this is just rambling on about a night we had out, but to an autism parent this is a huge deal. So many of us stay at home if our children can't handle the sensory input of the outside world. What I am trying to do is watch his cues and push him along to do the things that he can handle in the outside world. I am not expecting all days to go as well as last night. If he couldn't handle it, we would just leave. I am glad we tried, though. I believe the best treatment for autism is experience and I want to gently nudge Lukas along to experience the world as he is ready and capable.