A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the unique rules we follow in our house – often without even thinking about them. Many people enjoyed that post and asked for more, so here we go.
- Casey’s feet can never be touching the kitchen floor when the lights get turned on or off. Seriously, she flies through the room if she thinks someone will flip the switch while she is in there. And if she is getting a drink from the refrigerator, she’ll hop out of the room if the light gets turned on. If she has to turn it on herself, she jumps when she turns it on so her feet aren’t touching the floor. I just asked her why she does that. (Even though why questions are nearly impossible for her to answer – I thought I’d try!) Her answer? “Yes.”
- Casey has to hop into buildings. Truthfully, this is much easier than it used to be! When she was younger, she jumped through store doors onto one foot, jumped back on the other and then jumped through on both feet. While this doesn’t sound like any big deal, when you are walking through a crowded door, people are not expecting a child to jump into them from behind or that she will jump back out the door. I tried pulling her through the doors, but as you can imagine, that was a classic failure! It got so bad that I either held the kids back from a store door, or sent Mandy in first to keep people back while I guarded the door so no one could get too close as she jumped back. Thankfully, now, she just does one hop into every store and every house (including ours!).
- If something is written on the calendar, it will happen. One year, Santa brought Casey a calendar that had every holiday imaginable on it – including ones from around the world and religions other than ours. I, of course, never gave a thought to checking what was printed on the calendar. Big mistake. Huge mistake. Casey decided we had to celebrate everything – Boxing Day, Kwanzaa, Cinco de Mayo, Hanukkah – you get the idea. Every day seemed to have something on it and she was determined to celebrate them all! Believe it or not, Santa did the same thing the next Christmas, but got smart enough to open the calendar and black out everything that we didn’t celebrate. On a brighter not, we learned a lot about other customs that year – I tried to find something simple for each holiday so we could “celebrate” if she was going to have a meltdown over it. Now, “Cancel” is the best word!! She completely understands writing cancel on something means it’s not going to happen and while she isn’t always happy about it, she doesn’t get upset.
- Windows cannot be left open until Rob deems it’s time. He will shut doors and windows for days before he decides it’s warm enough to leave them open – or I can convince him it’s okay. His windows are never to be open when he is home. And he refuses to shower if the window in the bathroom is open.
- Casey loves cherry tomatoes and ketchup, but refuses to eat larger tomatoes because they aren’t tomatoes. (Neither of them generalize well. Teaching them that beagles and labs are both dogs was a challenge!)
- While Rob wears the same clothes all year (wind pants and sleeveless shirts – rarely, if ever, shorts), Casey dresses by the calendar month. From October 1st – March 1st, she wears two shirts every day – a turtleneck and sweater or sweatshirt. From March 1st – April 1st, one shirt with long or short sleeves. May, she can wear capri pants and starting in June, she will wear shorts and t-shirts, until September when it’s time for long pants again. Now, this sounds like a great idea, but when you live in Ohio, where you can be wearing flip flops one day and snow boots the next (did that a few weeks ago!) she can get really warm or really cold. But – her schedule can’t be changed. I’ve tried and then I decided she is old enough to make her own clothing decisions.
- Clothing is dirty as soon as it touches your body and cannot be worn again until it’s be washed. I mean, if she puts an outfit on and we decide to go somewhere, she will change and throw everything down the laundry chute. If I’m quick enough (HAHA!) I’ll run down and put those clothes on the dryer so they can just be refolded and stuck in her pile of clean clothes.
- Rob has to have the light over the bathroom sink and the kitchen light on before he will take a shower. The bathroom light, I understand, but no idea about the one in the kitchen. He’s been doing it for years with no signs of stopping, so I don’t notice it. I did make the mistake of hitting the switch one evening and turning the kitchen light off – and here comes my dripping wet boy yelling “lights on!” as he slipped and slid from the bathroom to the kitchen to get the light back on. (Another rule of most autism homes – you never know when a naked or half-naked person may wander through!)
- Casey will only drink water from the bathroom sink. Never, ever will she drink from the kitchen sink. No idea why or even when she started doing this. She knows I make their koolaid from the kitchen sink – she has helped me make it before. But to get a drink, nope – no way! If she is thirsty and someone is in the bathroom, she’ll stay thirsty instead of using the faucet in the kitchen.
- Holidays and birthdays are pretty special in our family. We have traditions that we love and I truly try to make each of their birthdays as special as they are. Casey, however, has a hard time relaxing and enjoying the whole day because she has a “schedule” in her head that must be followed. On a birthday, you get to pick where to have supper, then family comes and you open presents, then you have cake and ice cream. Until she blows out her candles (we finally got her to agree to a smaller number of candle than her birthday a few years ago!) and has her cake, she doesn’t smile much. Birthdays are serious business until everything is completed – then you can relax and smile. Holidays are the same way. Until the schedule in her mind is complete, she is unable to truly enjoy the day. I’ve tried explaining to her that we will do everything and she can have fun, but she just can’t stop checking items off from the list in her head.
I hope you got a few giggles from our continued list of rules! Life is always pretty exciting around here – it keeps me young! (or at least that’s what I tell myself!)