Friday, after my husband came home from work, we decided to take the boys to the local mall to get their haircut. I tend to like the boys with a bit longer hair and my husband wants a buzz cut, so they tend to get haircuts about every three months or so. The boys got called at the same time so I took Nico and Larry took Matthew. Nico was such a good boy. He let the hairstylist do her thing and he never complained or even moved for that matter. He was an ideal subject. I was so busy with Nico that I couldn’t watch what was going on with Matthew but I could tell just by listening that he was behaving really well too.
Before we got to the salon Matthew had asked me to make sure they don’t use the “buzzers” on him. He really doesn’t like the clippers since he has sensory integration issues and sound is probably his greatest current sensory issue. The hairstylist really wanted to use them to help clean up the haircut so she asked him a few times, she even brought them out to let him hold. But he was saying “No” and shying away. Finally she asked Larry if someone had hurt him with clippers at some point and Larry then told her that Matthew was on the Autism Spectrum. She could not believe it. He had been so well behaved.
For being such good boys while getting their haircuts we took them to the merry-go-round inside the mall. When Matthew was younger he was terrified of the merry-go-round and would scream if we tried to put him on it. We think that is because it was a sensory overload for him. But since we have been doing biomedical and the other therapies (Occupational specifically for sensory processing disorder) he enjoys them now, but he still refused to ride a horse that went up and down. Well Friday he agreed to try a moving horse instead of one of the stationary horses. He loved it! He wanted to ride again. And best of all he wanted to call Grandma and Grandpa when he got home to tell them what he had done. He was so proud of himself and he had to share it with his grandparents because my dad used to run a merry-go-round when he was a teen. This is their special bond.
After the merry-go-round we headed downstairs, using the escalator – which he had never ridden before, to the food court. We ate GFCF food from Chick-fil-A and just enjoyed ourselves like any other normal family of four. It was the best day I have had since Matthew was diagnosed with Autism.
I enjoyed the mundane outing like it was my wedding day or the first day of a long awaited vacation in Rome. It was that spectacular. These are the things that I have longed to do; to be like every other family. It was truly awesome and it refreshed my soul. It also told me that maybe the long winter of Autism is behind us and the fresh spring of Recovery is on the horizon! Maybe spring has truly sprung.
