Thursday, July 28, 2011

Guest Post: The Gum in My Purse

I want to take a moment to introduce you to a lovely mommy blogger friend. Not only is Cari a nice gal, she is beyond hilarious! I regularly bust out in laughter while reading her blog. She is a single mom with 2 kiddos. Her daughter is the sweet drama queen and her son is a funny kid who also happens to have autism.



Cari is very special because she is the first guest blogger I have ever featured here at Caffeinated Autism Mom. I knew she would be perfect for such an honor. It is an honor, right?   
Anyway, I can already tell you that I like her so much that I am going to beg her to write more stuff for me in the future. I hope she’s cool with that! And, no, I’m not going to stalk her…well maybe only a little bit if I ever fly out to Minnesota. (Fair warning, Cari.)
When you are done reading her guest post, please take a moment to head over to her blog at Bubble Gum on My Shoe and show her some caffeinated love.
Without further adieu, I’d like to welcome our first guest blogger, Cari! {applause}
Let me just get the important stuff out of the way here.  I am beyond honored that Angela has asked me to guest post on her blog.  Stunned, in fact.  I mean she’s brilliant, and smart and brilliant and uses big words and stuff.  I imagine she must have reached sheer exhaustion, or is weaning herself off the caffeine and will henceforth be named, Uncaffeinated Autism Mom.  At any rate, I’m honored, and I call her friend.
The Gum in My Purse
I usually have gum in my purse in one of two places:  Neatly zipped away in the side pocket or, in the crusty crumb graveyard that is the bottom of my Mom purse.  Once anything hits the bottomless pit, it is deemed inedible and trash-worthy to all…except the boy.
GFCFSF-ABCDEFGF.  Gluten free, casein free, soy free; that is the boy’s regimen.  The point today is not how the GFCF diet has been nothing less than a God send for my Autistic son, but how Soy makes him a temperamental nightmare.  Come closer, I’d like you to meet my arch enemy, Soy Lecithin.  I encourage you to pull out any random package of food and I bet 80% of the time it includes Soy Lecithin.  It is in everything.  If I didn’t have to deal with that, my life would be glorious.  The boy’s life would be glorious, and much tastier I can imagine.
Unusual quietness had fallen in the household; naturally I had to seek out the unsuspecting culprits.  I round the corner to my bedroom and find the boy rifling through my purse, eating the unwrapped pieces of gum which had fallen to the depths of the crusty Mom purse. 
From the empty wrapper evidence littered on the bed, it seemed he had consumed a good half a pack of varying flavors.  Mostly swallowed, I’m sure.  As he sat there innocently grinning at me, chewing his gum with his cute brown puppy dog eyes, the words, “go spit it out” failed to come.  Besides, the damage is done right?
He then said, “Look Mommy, I bowing bubbles, you want to bow bubbles?”  Of course I do!  Not every day this kind of excitement happens!
I hopped onto the bed and popped a crumb-laden piece of Trident in my mouth.  It’s such a small thing a piece of gum.  Although I know this piece of gum probably gave him more sensory satisfaction than the Starbursts I offer as a substitute.
So we laid there together on the bed, smacking gum and practicing blowing bubbles.  Him being a 4 year old kid and me his Mom, and it seemed if only for an instant Autism had left the room, and everything was as it should be in that moment.  As a parent of a child on the Spectrum, I am constantly scripting, prompting, repairing, preventing and scheduling; and that’s how it must be, I know.  It just makes those little stick of gum moments all the more special.
{Fifteen minutes later, the beast reared its ugly head; but I’d do it again in a heartbeat.}
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