Honey, Why is your mouth Glowing?

Many people do not know that autism can come with a variety of other disorders.  In fact, the autism diagnosis alone just lets us, the doctors, parents and therapists know that there is a social-emotional disorder, but tells us little about the real nitty, gritty of what each individual suffers from.  Now, with the new diagnosis tool that's available we can have a little better understanding of what each person suffers from.  For instance, my oldest has moderate to severe autism - not affecting intelligence, with OCD, ADHD and sensory disorder characteristics.  My youngest has moderate autism - not affecting intellegence with ADHD, sensory disorder, moderate OCD and pica.  There are many other disorders that can arise with autism that we are lucky as of yet to not have experienced, like autism which affects intelligence, seizure disorders, mood disorders and so many others, but as you can see, no two people with autism are alike due to the wide variability in how it can effect each and every person.  Autism is like a fingerprint, no two can ever be alike.  And so when you have two kiddos both with autism in one house, each having their own difficulties it can be a little overwhelming....and a little disgusting.  

As I mentioned above my little one had pica.  If you are not aware of what pica is, its when you eat non-food items.  It is often very well documented in pregnant women who are lacking nutritional elements and hence have a desire to eat things like dirt and clay to gain the vitamins and minerals.  It is not so common in autism, but hey, normal is not what the house of crazies likes to do anyway.  And although all blood work shows that he is not lacking in anything, he still will munch, nimble and down right each pretty much anything that is not nailed down to the floor.  And so my little one likes to eat things that are well.....weird, disgusting, and unusual to say the least.  So why keep in this little treasure a secret when I can share our stories that would even make Andrew Zimmerman from Bizarre Foods cringe with disgust.

Now I can list all the unusual things that Mr Muncher eats, but what fun would that be, so instead I will give you a little story with our top most yucky moments.

#3.  Since I just wrote about our new addition of chickens it seems fitting that one of our top stories involves the chickens.  Now you may not know that chickens love bugs, but they do.  And in fact, you can buy them dried meal-worms as treats.  It didn't take to long for our little one to find the bag when mom and dad weren't looking and taste one for himself.  Unfortunately for us, he absolutely loves them.  In fact, he loves them so much that we have to hide the bag and keep it up high so that he can not get them.  And so when we are out feeding the chickens we have to do it when the baby is not around or he will eat their food and treats.  You probably can see where my story is about to go here in a a sentence or two.

So the other evening when we thought the coast was clear, we got the bag out and started to give the chickens the meal-worms as a night time snack.  All of a sudden, the kitchen door swung open and the baby immediately saw the feast on the ground, yelled, "Oh boy!" and went running towards the chickens.  As he dove onto the ground to get his fair share, he was pushing the chickens out of the way who were trying to protect their much beloved treat.  My husband grabbed the baby by the waist who was bent over shoveling the meal worms in two handed and now crying because daddy was removing him from his too beloved snack.  As daddy spun the baby towards me, my cute and adorable toddler had a worm hanging out of his mouth and in the most graceful way possible....I nearly hit the ground from passing out.

#2.  We love being outside  and especially love to go for hikes and so it is not that surprising that as we are out and about our youngest does his own version of buffet feasting.  He has been known to eat dirt, grass, sticks, rocks and leaves on most of our adventures, but by far the most disgusting is when we come across animal ummmm, presents.  That's right, our number 2 most disgusting pica moment comes when our little one found a pile of deer droppings and decided that it look like a nice hike snack.  When we hike the baby loves to be in the lead and we let him go a good bit a head of us because its the one place where he can be independent.  So when he bent down we really didn't know what he was doing until we got up on him.  When we did actually see the action taking place, yelling and screaming took place, a race to get to him and the scrubbing of his tongue with wet ones.  I was so scared he was going to get some disease and am still convince that our son needs to be wormed at least twice a year.

#1.  For me by far, the most disgusting thing our son eats are stinkbugs.  He loves them.  It makes me nearly vomit every time he comes and sits on my lap and a whiff of stinkbug comes from his mouth.  But it has become such a regular occurence that is cannot take the #1 spot.  So instead, #1 came at the beginning of this summer when the nights were getting longer and mommy and daddy let boys stay up later to catch lightening bugs that were beginning to come out.  This was the first year that the baby got the hang of catching them and we showed him how to open his hand and blow and watch as they fly away.  The boys were having a great time running around the yard catching bugs and it gave Daddy and I some much needed time to sit down and relax.  So when the baby came running towards us and there was something on his lips I really didn't think anything of it until I realized that that something was glowing.  "Hoeny, why is your mouth glowing? Did you eat a lighting bug?"  Next thing, our baby went running squealing in delight and we were quickly on chase.  When we finally tackled him, not only were his lips glowing, but so were his teeth and tongue and so it was undeniable...my baby ate a lighting bug and was now glowing.  Silver lining here....at least we could see him in the dark.

And so, there you have it.  Our most disgusting pica moments!  If anything tops these three I will be sure to post, but lets all hope that I don't do that anytime soon.  And so watch out Mr Zimmerman...my baby is coming for your job!