Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Biscuit is a FOOD, not a DOG!

The thing with PDD-NOS is that it is easy to forget that my child has a disability.  Then he does something and fixates on something so trivial or odd (to me, anyway) that I'm reminded that yes, he sees the world very differently than I do.

This morning we were doing homework before school.  This morning's load was more than normal because he was kept home sick the last two days.  Don't worry, I didn't overload him, it was just one more page than normal.  When it was time to do his reading, he sat on the couch and pouted for five minutes.  "I'm not going to school.  My head hurts. I'm sick."  The thing is, he's probably right, but he's not sick enough to stay home another day.  Besides, he'll only be there for 2 1/2 hours before I check him out again for a routine doctor's appointment.

Anywaaaaay, it was time to do his daily reading.  A very short book (he's only on a first grade level, so not very difficult).  The problem this morning was that the character, a dog, has the name "Biscuit."  Yesterday, when he knew he didn't have to go to school, he wasn't so grumpy and just sort of shrugged off the name, although he mentioned that "Biscuit" isn't the name of the dog, it's the name of a food.  Can you see where this is going?  Yeah, this morning, he couldn't get past the "Biscuit-is-a-food-not-a-dog" issue.  I mean, really, he couldn't get past it.  So, I couldn't get past it.  I put the book down and finished getting him ready for school.  Some days he just gets so fixated on a little thing that it gets in the way of the big things, and then we take a break.  Does that happen to anyone else?

1 comment:

Heather said...

We call it "ducks in a row" as in she can't move on until all her ducks are in a row. It needs to be complete according to *her* idea of "done" before the next thing can be started. Very frustrating for a parent on a schedule with other kids, but possibly not a bad skill to carry into adulthood for the right person.

(I'm Natalie's sister-in-law)