Chocolate Monster

Today we had a breakthrough. Jonah has never once bought me anything he is interested in, he's never shown me something he likes, never done a silly trick to make me laugh. Apart from our one and only game of 'Peek-A-Gooooo' he has never initiated play with any of us. It's heartbreaking but it is autism and it is what it is.

We play with him relentlessly, sometimes until we're exhausted. It's part of incidental teaching and we do it in hope that he will one day pick it up and will reciprocate. It's a dream I am waiting to turn into reality.

Today we had our dream come true. Not once, but twice. One of the things Jonah enjoys is wearing Sams great big green sunglasses. We put them on his face and all exlaim with joy, "Oh look at Jonah! Look at Jonah and his lovely green glasses!" We ooh and we ahh for the whole two seconds that Jonah will wear the glasses and we repeat until he has had enough. He smiles when we do this so we know he is enjoying it.

This morning as I sat sipping my cup of tea my Darling Husband next to me on his computer (he's working from home), Jonah wandered up, looked at me and smiled a huge baby Jonah smile and handed me one pair of bright green glasses. I was so stunned that for a second I didn't know what to do with them. He has never 'given' me anything, not once, not ever has he come to me and handed me something. But today he did and he handed me something that he wanted me to do with him. He wanted to wear those big green sunglasses and he wanted us to ooh and ahh over him. So we did. I popped the glasses on his beaming little face and we all oohed and ahhed, "Ohh look at Jonah! He looks wonderful in his glasses!" And Jonah smiled a beaming smile and let us play with him for a whole two minutes.

I'm not sure who's smile was bigger, Jonah's or ours.

To top it off, as it today couldn't get any better not long after playing sunglasses with us, Jonah found the wrapping of an empty easter egg on the floor. Easter has just finished and Jonah has had his official initiation into the world of chocolate and he kinda loves it!

Jonah put the wrapper in his mouth, realised there was no chocolatey goodness coming forth so spat out the wrapper into his hand, wandered over to me held it out, looked at me and yelled, loud!

He has no words yet but if he did that yell would have said, "Do you see the problem here, Mother? This lovely looking wrapper is empty and is no good to me. What I need now is one that is not empty, but is full of chocolately goodness and as I am only two feet tall and cannot reach into that great big refridgerator I request that you do it for me! Now off you go and get me some chocolate."

Darling Husband looked up and exclaimed in excitement! "He bought you a wrapper! It's something to show you! This is fantastic, he's learning and interacting. Get the boy some chocolate STAT!"

And so I did. I fed Jonah two small chocolate Easter eggs and I don't think I have ever been so happy to see my baby eat junk food LOL