Lunchtime

As an autism mom, I'm grateful for rare moments like our lunchtime today.   Everyone sat down to eat (never happens), and all the kids were FULLY CLOTHED!!!!  Had to record this moment for posterity.

Seeing them like this reminded me of the journal post I wrote back in April 2010 describing mealtime at my house:

"I just wanted to capture a moment.  Last night, I sat all three of my kids down for a dinner of salad and pork.  So imagine the typical family sitting around the table eating their salads...I poured them all lemonade.  I want Jason to learn to drink from a regular cup, not just a sippy cup, so I gave everyone regular cups.  I then watched as Jason tried to drink out of the regular cup, then thought it would be fun to watch it pour out on his shirt.  He poured out all of the drink, and then tried to drink some more even though it was gone.  When he realized there wasn't any more, he dropped his cup on the floor.  He then tipped his plate over and used his fork as a rake to push the lettuce leaves,  vegetables and pork around on the table top.  While this was going on, Caiti was using her fingers to rake through the lettuce...ignoring her fork entirely...and just picking out the bits of frozen corn to eat while once in a while sucking the dressing off the lettuce leaves.  Afterwhich, she started grabbing handfuls of salad and flinging them in the air joyfully and watching them fall every whichway.  She also thought it would be fun to fling her full cup of lemonade on the floor.  Needless to say, the spot underneath her chair was a wet and veggie-filled mess.  Good thing my kitchen has vinyl flooring and not carpet.  Garrett, on the other hand, was eating great, but every couple of seconds, he would make a dash for it.  I kept having to yell at him to sit down.  His ABA tutor had told me to be firm and follow through so that he knows exactly what I want, so I would have to grab his hand and lead him back to his chair, where he would proceed to whine and scream in-between mouth fulls.  At one point, he made it all the way out the sliding glass door to the backyard, so not knowing what to do, I said, "Fine, you are having a time out," and locked him outside.  He didn't seem to mind.  Not so effective I guess.  Five minutes later, I went and got him and made him sit down to finish his meal.  He did fine after that; I guess he just had the wiggle bug.  I was feeling parently and decided to teach Caiti a lesson.  I cleaned up the lemonade myself since her cast cannot get wet, but I made her scoot around on her little bum and pick up all the lettuce and pork off the floor and put it in the garbage.  While we were doing this, Jason was using his plate as a broom and scooped his dinner in a nice little pile...he does this every night. 

Typical dinner at the Roach house...anyone want to join us."