When Lee was four years old, his favorite toy was the white bumper pad that trimmed the inside of his crib .
For those of you not familiar with a bumper pad, it is the padded fabric you place on the sides of the crib so the baby doesn’t bump his head on the wooden frame. Most kids like their blankets, but Lee liked his bumper pad. Lee liked the frilly lace on the side and end of it.
He would use it to kiss people, his own special way, by covering their face with it then kissing the padded part.
Most people with autism do not like to be physically touched too much or at all, but that was not really the case with Lee.
Lee loved to show his affection for people by squeezing them. This was cute when he did it to Mom or Dad, but when he did it to me, it felt like he was squeezing the life out of me.
He loved pressure but failed to understand that not everyone else did. I could not stand his hugs when I was little because he squeezed me so tight
I could hardly breath.
After a while the bumper pad was far from white. Lee would take it with him everywhere, so you can image how white it was.
One time Lee took it to the store and it somehow got wrapped around a shopping cart’s wheel. That added to it’s gray appearance! Image trying to be kissed with that. Not so cute anymore.
Finally, Lee lost it for good. We got him a new one, but it was never the same. My Dad suggested that we run it over a few times with the car so it would look more like his old one. I thought that was a good idea, mostly because I thought it would be fun to try, but Mom “wasn’t for it.” I guess kids just like the idea of cars running over things better than adults.
He did have a big white teddy bear that he liked for a while.
One time he saw another white bear by the neighbor’s trash can and thought it was his. He kept pointing to it on the side of the road where it was lying when Mom passed it in the car, but Mom did not want to take someone else’s bear even though it was in the trash. Lee was so persistent, Mom finally pulled over, picked it up and gave it to Lee, drove home and there was his original one in his bed. Mom had to wash it but it made Lee very happy …now Lee had twins bears.
One time Lee went to a store and found a bunch of toy rubber snakes.
He asked my Grandmother to help him wind up the snakes, she agreed, thinking this would kill time. She failed to grasp that Lee would make her do this for 15 minutes until every snake in the store was wound up. It’s all about repetition.
Lee can talk a little now but he usually just says” no” and “go- go.” Those are his two favorite words in the whole world, especially when he is kicking me out of my own room. The funny thing is even though he loves to say “no” he can’t stand it when someone says “no” to him. We also try to avoid saying words like pool and soda or any other words that would get him excited. If he hears a word of something he likes to do, he wants to do it right away. So we often spelled out to each other what we don’t want him to hear. Did you pick up the P..I..Z…Z…A Sometimes we’d even spell things backwards in case he started to catch on. I’m going to the L…O…O..P. He is definitely smarter than people give him credit for.
Lee did not get along at all with our first dog, Daisy. Whenever he was in a bad mood he would try to pinch Daisy.
But Lee was not always mean to the dog. If he was in a good mood, he might even go over and try and pet Daisy.
Of course whenever Daisy saw him, she ran for it, thinking he was going to pinch her again. Lee always looked confused when she did this. Another problem was Lee did not know how to pet animals right. He would just stick his hand on top of the pet’s head and leave it there without moving it. Sometimes he would bring his hand down too hard and end up accidentally smacking the poor animal in the head.
Luckily, he did not pet animals that often for this to happen. Lee seemed to like our cat better than our dog anyway. Our cat’s ears fascinated Lee because they stuck up, unlike our dog’s ears,
so Lee could see directly into the cat’s head. Lee thought that was neat, and when the cat was asleep, he would crouch down and peer inside them, like he was looking for our cat’s brain. There were a few times Lee went so far as to try sticking his fingers in there.
This would cause our cat to wake up, then jump off the chair he was on and run off, then shake his head from side to side. I guess cats really do not like wet willies any more than people do.
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