For those of you that don’t know JD very well I need to explain how much he LOVES shapes.  Many of his first words were shapes, and not just your typical heart, square and triangle.  He loves to know the name of any shape.  Once at a restaurant he kept saying octagon over and over again.  We couldn’t figure out where he saw a octogon until we finally looked up at the ceiling and noticed the shape of the room was an octagon.  We worked with him quite a bit so that he would start to say the name of an object instead of just the shape.  He gets quite fixated on them.  This brings us to the Tortilla Chip Fiasco of 2010.

JD can be quite a picky eater but he never refuses chips.  He will ask for them often, especially “orange chips” which are Dorito’s.  Today at his Structure play group at KOTM Deeds was quite upset about the chips they had for snack time.  Normally we buy tortilla chips that are triangular in shape, but the ones they gave him with salsa were rectangular in shape.  My first mistake was to empty the little bag of chips into his bowl.  He yelled and screamed at me and then one by one put them all back into the bag, crumbs and all.  Then when I figured out that he wouldn’t try them because of the shape the two therapists and I all tried to break them into triangles.  Deeds would not be fooled, and continued to yell at us.  Finally another little guy in his class wanted more chips so I said he could have JD’s and that sure got Deeds attention.  He upturned the bag and put all the chips back into his bowl and told me in no uncertain terms that they were his chips.

Finally after 15-20 minutes of trying to get him to try the chips it was time to clean up.  While picking up the chips I found one that was a square and offered it to him and the little stinker gobbled it up.  After he ate the square one I guess he decided the rectangle ones weren’t so bad and made everyone wait while he finished his chips.

I can’t really blame him, it’s kind of been a melt down kind of day.  They come around, where mommy and daddy can’t do anything to help calm him down.  Most of the time when you try things it just makes it worse.  We have a couple of tricks like letting him swing, throwing him in the air (which he is getting too big for ) and having him hang on his gym rings we mounted downstairs.

It’s been a week and we are still waiting on word about his approval for the service dog.  I’m not holding my breath we will hear within the month but I really hope so since it’s causing mommy anxiety.