“Today was just a simple, quick and easy WalMart trip,” said no autism mom ever.
Except, I DID say it today! Store trips are something that we have had to work on. Colin gets overwhelmed easily, and his flight response kicks in, and he is outta there. He also screams. It’s high pitch, it hurts your ears. I have, many times, ended up wrangling him by the time we get to checkput and people look at me like I’m a crazy lady. I am sure I look like a crazy lady, too, because I undoubtedly have broken a sweat and am red-faced. If Curtis and I are there together, one of us sometimes just takes him out to the car so he doesn’t have to wait in the checkout line.
Today, he and I go in, and he willingly got into the buggy. He sat down and just looked around. I’m not even lying, I just pushed him around for a bit just to see if he could do it. And he did! *insert proud mom smile*
We had to wait at the pharmacy for some medicine, so he wanted my phone then, but whatevs. He hasn’t even acted like he wanted it before then. So hashtag win.
I gave it to him for the rest of the trip. We literally only got 2 things today, so it was a short-lived stent in the Walmarts. Some people might not agree with that, but we are babystepping, people. Im sure the rest of the WalMart shoppers were unknowingly happy for my decision too.
I know that our next shopping trip could be a disaster, but not today. Today, he was happy to be there. I didn’t break a sweat. Nobody stared at us or judged. Again, thats a #win!