I am sure I looked like a crazed lunatic screeching after him through the neighborhood. I can only imagine what the neighbors thought :( I chased him into and out of the neighbors garage, "Hi Chris!" and into and out of the street, up the block, in and out of several yards before I finally got my hands on him.
The whole time I was just praying, "Please no traffic, please no traffic" because we live on a very busy street.
The frustrating part is that Zander knows what STOP means but in situations like that he thinks it's funny. He is learning to label gestures but is unable at this point to process the emotions that go with those gestures & facial expressions properly so he laughs and thinks it's a game. It's kind of like when people get nervous and start laughing. Here I am in some neighbors yard a block up the street balling, shaking and yelling at this kid who won't stop laughing. Then as if the last 2 minutes of life weren't crazed enough he decides now would be a great and hilarious time to go limp. His whole body goes limp and he won't even stand. So now I'm the crying, shaking, yelling lunatic who is DRAGGING her kid down the block, AWESOME!
Did I mention that I was in what basically amounts to pajamas since it was just us hanging in our back yard? YEP BONUS!
We actually thought we were going to escape this part of Autism because he's never let himself out before. Zander has zero concept of safety be it his own or anothers. Man, to look up and not know where your kid's at is horrifying enough but then to see him run into the street with absolutely no concept of the potential plethora of peril that awaits him was just more than I could handle. Since then he's managed to let himself out again before we could get a padlock on the outside and he's let himself out of the actual house now twice and gone out the other gate only to be found thankfully in the neighbors tree.
People always look at me weird for saying this but I really don't see what the big deal is especially when it could help so many families: If we can microchip (track) our pets, why then can't we microchip our loved ones that are less capacitated? Do you know how many kids AND ADULTS wander? It's way more common than you think and in the case of a child like mine it would probably be the only way to find him if God forbid he ended up in the wrong persons hands. Zander wouldn't call out if there was a search party looking for him, a tracking chip would be amazing.
They do make GPS devices that you can clip on their shoes or back pack but that doesn't help if he slips out without either of those things. Just think about the resources and county $$ that could be saved if all they had to do was type in a code to locate a missing person!
OK enough of my soapbox: Here's a cute quick story from last week for y'all!
Zander is pulling me to the game closet during therapy saying, "Bursack, Bursack" and I cannot figure out what he wants. I'm thinking there's a sick bird? No, a sack that feels cold? No, hmmm... then I notice that the velcro is off the center square on his therapy token board and he's holding the token in his hand. So now I know he wants to fix the board.. hmm, think,think, think Brandi! LIGHT-BULB! What do I always fix it with? A GLUE STICK! So I pull out the glue stick and ask him what it is and he says, "Bursack!" Yay, WIN ONE for momma! My lil stinker wanted to fix his board, awesome.
This is the perfect example of what I mean when I say he talks all the time but we don't pay attention because we don't recognize the words!
