Color Him Happy

I know children on the spectrum are overly obsessive.  I get that.  Everyday I am watching my two year old become more and more fixated on certain objects, videos, and activities.  One part of me is excited to see him interested in something...more like anything.  Then there is the part of me that is slightly frightened after eight hours of Yo Gabba Gabba Dancy Dance Bunch on auto-repeat.

These new fixations have become the nucleus of our household existence.  How can I get Logan to take a nap without having a meltdown when he has to leave his video?  I have to go to the grocery store...don't forget the Yo Gabba Gabba video for the car!  If I have to get him out of the car to go into a store he is now not only melting down because he doesn't like being in the store, but he is also melting down because he had to leave his video.  It is like adding insult to injury.  Not only is he completely enthralled with the Yo Gabba Gabba video, but he is now taken up an unusually focused interest in coloring.  He doesn't want to put the crayons down to play, read, or eat.  He is constantly walking around either saying "Color-color" or "Gabba Gabba".  He doesn't want to sit at the table anymore for meals because that means he has to leave his video.  He sits through an entire meal while screaming "Gabba Gabba" and throwing his food on the floor.  My husband and I can't even watch the evening news.  The older kids are limited to watching television in their rooms because Logan is dominating the television in our living room.

To make matters worse I made a huge mistake last week and calmed a meltdown in a store by (out of sheer desperation) saying "Do you want Mommy to buy you some "color-colors"?  The screaming ceased and he began to repeat "color-colors" for the next 10 minutes as I wheeled around looking for coloring books and crayons.  I actually took him out of the seat of the shopping cart and placed him in the back of the cart and opened up the crayons right in the middle of the store and let him go to town.  There he was on his knees coloring furiously in the bottom of a shopping cart, babbling "color-color" repeatedly and for one single moment there was peace. 

Now I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking that I turned my son's obession into something positive and I know you are thinking this because I was thinking it myself.  I was actually pretty smug when I rolled up to the cash register and paid for everything free of screaming and head-banging.  But, (there is always a but) now I have created a monster.  I am now the proud mother of the "Color-Color" King.  Everytime I walk into a store he begins to scream at the top of his lungs "Color-color!!!!!!" over and over again.  He figured out instantly that the store has crayons and he must have them!  I tried taking the crayons I had already bought him on the next shopping trip, but that wasn't good enough.  He has to have more "color-colors"...better "color-colors"...the world will not be his until he has claimed all the crayons from all over the globe!!!!   I have three brand new packs of crayons that haven't even been opened just to prevent a meltdown.  Now you know I am one sick puppy for giving into this madness...but I am just plain desperate for peace and serenity on an outing.  I know I am being selfish for giving into the obsessions but they can come in handy in times like shopping or times that I have four tons of laundry piled up on the sofa.  It is amazing how many household chores I can get done now while someone is fixated in front of the television.  The challenge of breaking these routines is so difficult that I am giving into them and I know these things need to be limited but I seriously don't know how to do this without my son erupting like Mt. Saint Helens. 

I discussed the obsessions with my son's developmental pediatrician and he firmly told me to break the routines and to take the video away cold turkey.  I suddenly had a mental picture of me throwing the video in the trash can and watching my son spontaneously combusting.  Then I thought about me having to deal with the fall out from taking the video away cold turkey and imagined my son's pediatrician kicked back at home watching Sports Center on ESPN, eating a turkey sandwich in his underwear.  It is easy for these professionals to render what should and shouldn't be when they don't have to come home with you and help.  He can point fingers and then get off work and have a drink with a friend or go hit some golf balls.  Yes, I know professionals are educated in their field and know what they are talking about but they don't have to live it.  On our last visit I was also scolded because I was allowing Logan to eat gummy bears in the waiting room.  Gummy bears are the magical fruit.  They calm meltdowns.  They improve attention spans.  They create patience in a child that ordinarily doesn't have any.  My son's doctor told me that they were full of sugar and that only adds to his hyperness and that I should know better.  I told him when he stopped making me wait for 45 minutes to an hour to be seen then I will get rid of the gummy bears.  He didn't say anything else to me about that, but I digress.

So here I sit, typing this blog listening to five felt-like alien-mutants singing about social skills with their friend, a strange man in an orange jumpsuit with a toilet-seat cover for a hat, and I wonder am I doing my son an injustice by allowing these behaviors or am I making his life a little happier.  He is clearly happy as a clam and it is making my life easier, as well.  Am I just being selfish and trying to justify this behavior because it is appeasing my child and myself?  The verdict is still out.  I know at some point these obsessions are going to have to be broken but right now it is just a lot easier to give in.