Himself Saturday

When you know you get to go to the big slides you get up early so you don’t miss going to the big slides. Owen woke before five. He came to me asking for his tablet and the big slides. I’m not sure if I was coherent enough to remember which came first or how many times he said it before it registered. I told him to go back to bed and try again after five. He said, “tablet.” By this time I was trying to decide if this was a one eye-opener moment or two. I told him before anything he had to go to the bathroom. Surprisingly he ran off, yelling something over his shoulder, and miraculously came back in a little bit asking for his tablet again. About that time I heard the coffeemaker starting the glorious wake-up juice and I knew I couldn’t fight it anymore. I gave him his tablet and told him to go lay back down. He said, “chocolate milk please” and from there it was time to get the day going. I asked him a question and he said, “welp.” This is when I’m amazed and scratching my head. I’m amazed he knew the word and said it so matter of fact but wondering where he learned it from. I said, “come here please” and he said, “I want to show you something” mimicking my voice as he said it. The boy knows when I ask him to come to me that I’m generally going to make him try something, work on a project, or do his exercises. He’s got me figured out. I told him we would be going to big slides soon but I wanted to distract him from our grocery delivery. I try not to have the groceries delivered when he is home but sometimes I still have to. He repeats many phrases throughout the day and one of them is “groceries is de man.” Today’s delivery was going to be by a woman. I didn’t want this to cause more problems nor did I want him at the window yelling at her. He sat on my bed with me, stuffing everything under my pillow. He doesn’t want anything on my bed and I had been doing work on my computer with my papers spread out. I went to the kitchen after the groceries were delivered. I pulled out one of the drawers to put something away. Owen came back through and had to make sure all the drawers were closed. All the drawers needed to be pushed in even though I hadn’t opened them all. We got ready and headed to the big slides. When we walked outside one of his new books had come so he asked to take it with him. He read it in the car. He wanted to take it in but I told him it wouldn’t be easy on the slides. He decided to leave it in the car. I do believe he was in sensory overload when we got there. He was so happy because Santa was there. As soon as we checked in we found a place for our coats and shoes and he took off. I try to stay with him but I’m not exactly fast. We have been there enough times they recognize Owen and one of the guys is always interacting with him. I was looking for him on the slides and I see a flash run past at the front. He was going to see Santa. When we walked in the door he kept asking where Mrs. Claus was. He ran back and forth from one side of the room and then back to Santa. He picked up confetti off the floor and laid down near the large candy cane display. He sat on Santa’s lap numerous times and continued running back and forth even though I told him numerous times not to run. He finally went and jumped on the trampoline and then went down the slides. He talked to everyone. He asked them their name after saying every name he has ever heard. He sat next to kids and tried to slide down at the same time as many of them. After a couple of hours, I could tell he started to get hyper so we needed to leave. I let him do a few more things and then it was time to go. He once again ran ahead of me and sat on Santa’s lap again. And pulled out some of Santa’s beard. Thankfully Santa didn’t put him on the naughty list and was very kind about it. When we left he wanted me to take him by the windows and then we went home. It seems like we both ate none stop the rest of the night. He played on his computer and asked about church tomorrow. He wanted to know if his friends were going to be there and he wanted to go back to church to sing Christmas hymns again. I told him they weren’t having it again and he said, “you can go” so we will see what happens tomorrow. I’m very thankful for how well our day went and praying for sleep once again. He had an amazing day and his laughter filled my soul. To all of you that are going through something, know you are not alone, and you can accomplish anything if set your mind to it. Smiles to all and donut daze!