At the Schusted house we are always thrilled when it snows outside. Cole LOVES the snow. He will shovel everything in sight, including the street. And when he's done, he'll ride his John Deere riding toy in the snow. It makes him so happy and gives all of us a fun activity on these dreary winter days. This year, Pat has his 4-wheeler and the boys each have a riding toy. It was a sight to see them all out "plowing".
On Friday we were blessed with a beautiful snowfall. We all had so much fun in the snow. This particular night, Cole had the added bonus of a visit from Santa. He arrived in the neighborhood on a huge fire truck! The boys were so excited and Cole waved and quietly said, "Hi Santa!". After Santa passed by, Cole went on with his shoveling while Connor asked, "Mom, how did Santa get here?" Connor has so many questions about Santa. I love his age and all of the fun questions that come along with it!
After a while, Cole did get cold. He came inside with me around 8:30pm. Cole decided he wanted some "coffee". For those of you who don't know, Cole mixes a little bit of milk with a lot of chocolate sauce. He pours it in his plastic camouflage coffee cup and sips it just like his Grandpa does, complete with sound effects. After he mixed his coffee, I suggested it was time for a bath. Cole said, "no bath, not yet". This is typical. At this point in time, I start the bath water and by the time I turn around, Cole is behind me getting ready to jump in. Not this night. I turned on the water and heard him say in a stronger voice, "NOT YET. NO BATH". I walked back into his room and told him, "Ok Cole. Mommy will go shut the water off. You can take a bath later". I stopped the water and when I got back into his room (maybe 7 seconds later), he had taken his cup of coffee and thrown it across the room. It was EVERYWHERE... walls, ceiling, carpet, blinds, garbage, dresser, comforter... everywhere. It looked like it had rained dark chocolate milk in his room. I proceeded to quickly clean up the mess. It took me at least 20 minutes.
Many people ask about discipline with Cole. It is nearly impossible- literally. Autism experts have told us that Cole's brain is not wired to relate his action to the discipline. They say you can try to discipline, but typically it just escalates the situation. That is the case with Cole. We do send him to his room and talk to him about naughty things he does. But at the end of the day, the rules are different for him. I remember the first time we sent him to his room for a timeout. It was over three years ago. He was about four at the time. We put him in his room and closed the door. Seconds later we heard a huge thump. We walked in and Cole had slammed his head so hard against the wall that he put his head through the sheetrock. We knew at that point we would need to try our best to prevent his behaviors and redirect him when he is anxiety-filled and upset.
Despite wanting to put Cole to bed without snuggles and a bedtime snack, I had to patiently calm him down and talk quietly about what he did. At that point, I had to let it go and remind myself that we have more important battles to fight.
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