Where the heck is the Spoon ?
For some reason, every single time I seem to really need a spoon, I can only find a fork. I am so not a fork person; I like eating everything with a spoon. So where are all my spoons? Frantically, I searched under the bed, in the toy bin, in my husband’s work area outside, in the pile of dirty dishes I was too lazy to do this morning. This is a true reality in my house: spoons are always missing. This is also a perfect analogy for today. So, what did I do when I found myself without my spoon?
Mayah and her fork
As you all already know, with Autism comes many challenges. Doing things the typical way sometimes seem impossible. At first, this was my biggest challenge, because even though I now knew my daughter was diagnosed with autism, I was determined to teach her how to be normal, how to talk normal, play normal, eat normal, sleep normal, and just behave normal. I know this sounds bad, a mom expecting perfection of a 3-year-old with autism. I wasn’t ashamed or anything like that. I was just ignorant. I use to look at Mayah spinning and spinning non stop, and it used to upset me, thinking this child will make herself sick. Whenever she did learn a word but pronounce it weird, I would correct her, determined to get proper speech. Whenever she would rearrange all her alphabet magnets on the fridge totally out of order, I would say, “No, you are doing it wrong. This is the way.” Yes, I know you are all shaking your head right now. I feel bad thinking of all the things I wish I did differently. Took me a while to figure this out but Mayah was just using a fork.
I opened my eyes
Mayah saw the world in a totally different way that I couldn’t understand. Instead of stopping her from spinning, I should have noticed how incredibly graceful she was, dancing like a real little ballerina, the brightest smile on her face as she happily twirled away. Instead of saying, “No, no no. It’s not Mion, its Lion!” I should have just got down on all fours and say RRRRRROOOOOAAAAARRRRRRRR, because she knew all along what a lion was. When I saw the mess of disorganized alphabets on the fridge that I carefully placed as a lesson, I should have noticed that it wasn’t disorganized, it was sorted in groups by colors. I mean, how amazing is that! She was organizing an amazing display of colors on the fridge. In Mayah’s imagination, maybe it was flowers popping out of the fridge, or a rainbow in our kitchen. I used to be stuck thinking the only way to enjoy life was with a spoon. Nooooo more. Now, I love living life looking through the eyes of my autistic child. Thanks to Mayah, I now know how to eat with a fork.
How about when you have soup and only a fork?
Eating soup without a spoon? Now that gets a little tricky now, right? I like to ask myself, “WWMD?” What would Mayah do? This girl wouldn’t even give it a moment to stress herself, face in bowl and drink, or scoop it up with her tiny hands and drink, or get a straw and drink. I’m sure she would find much more creative ways to drink that soup without a spoon.
I once observed Mayah trying to balance a round wooden circle from her puzzle onto of a rectangle wooden puzzle piece. Seemed like an impossible task to me, but this girl made it work. Mayah saw something I couldn’t see, and she achieved what I thought was the impossible. What does this teach us? There are so many ways to do the same thing. Autistic people are so skilled to have tapped into this hidden knowledge of thinking outside the box, to get things done. They might take a little longer to complete a task, or do it a lot differently than you would, but when they figure it out, it’s the happiest feeling ever, makes them want to spin around clap their hands and do a little dance. Never underestimate a person with autism.