The Easter Bunny Hunt---A Story In Pictures

The quest begins.

 Those of you who have read this blog much mostly know we don't give Janey chocolate, because when we do, especially after noon, she doesn't sleep.  At all.  Whether it makes sense or not, it happens, and it's why I don't discount anyone's food issues or theories.  It doesn't seem like just a little chocolate could have that big an effect, but still, it does.  However, we make one exception.  There is nothing on earth Janey likes more than a chocolate bunny.  She often asks for them at random times, like the middle of the night in the middle of the summer.  So, for Easter, she gets a bunny.  We usually get it on Easter day, not to have it around the house ahead of times for her to find and eat at the wrong time.

Empty Rite-Aid bunny rack!

We set out this morning to get her the bunny.  The first place we went was the Rite-Aid.  It's where we get prescriptions, so we are there a lot.  The pharmacist said a big hi to Janey, and she smiled at him.  But...no bunnies!  The Easter area was completely empty of any chocolate rabbits.

Picking out salami

So we moved on, to the grocery store.  Janey and Tony often shop there together.  We picked up a few other things we need before we looked for bunnies.  High on the list, as always, was salami, Janey's hands-down favorite food.  Janey picked out some with Tony in the main salami area, and then ran off to a nearby auxiliary salami area to get another kind she wanted.  After we'd loaded up on salami, we got a few other things, and saw a worker who is always so sweet to Janey, and told her Happy Easter.  She has a grandson with autism, and it's always fun to have her talk to us.

Auxiliary Salami Area

Finally, we went to look for bunnies at the grocery store, but again, no bunnies at all!  It was like there was some huge run on bunnies!   Janey saw some Easter cakes that looked interesting near the cashier, but we resisted them.

No bunnies at the grocery store either!

Some interesting cakes

Salami choosing

 We went to the quickest line, and missed going to the line of a cashier who is yet another Janey fan, but we waved to her, and Janey gave her a smile.  Out by the car, Janey picked which salami to first try. 

We continued our quest at the Walgreens, and there, finally, we hit pay dirt.  We found bunnies!  Janey picked out the one she wanted---not the biggest one, but a smaller sweet little guy.  The cashier there didn't know Janey, but was so sweet to her, talking while realizing she probably wasn't getting a response.  She asked Janey to give her a high five, and Janey did.

The whole quest made me happy.  In our little part of Boston, where Tony has lived all his life, where Janey has lived since birth, we feel included.  Janey is part of the community.  She is valued and treated with kindness and respect.  What more could we ask?  Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it, Happy Passover to those who celebrate it, and Happy Day to everyone!

Finally, bunnies!

Bunny time!

An Oasis of Wonderful

Janey's mood the last week has been up and down.  If the mood stablizers are working, they are working to overall raise her mood a bit on average, not to really smooth it into a stable mood.  I would certainly say she's been cheerier on average than she was before she started taking the new medication, but the moods are still swinging pretty severely.  We are seeing more patterns.  Janey often wakes up screaming.  This seems to be due to her usually waking up wet and hungry, which are things we can do something about.  She often after that has a very good morning.  As the afternoon wears on, her mood deteriorates a bit, and usually there's a pretty low point about four pm.  She rallies a bit at dinnertime, but gets fussy around five or six.  She's been going to bed extremely early---usually at six or so, and getting up very early too, about four or five am.

Yesterday was Tony's first day at work after a week off.  Janey does not like Tony to be at work at all, especially when she's home from school.  So I tried to keep her busy and on the go.  I needed to drop William off at work at 11.  He works at a Whole Foods which is part of a very upscale outdoor shopping center near here, and I decided to walk around with Janey after dropping him off.  Just the fact I felt I could attempt that is a sign of her improvement over the past few months.

The time at the shopping center was absolutely wonderful.  I saw that without any exceptions.  Janey was a pure, pure joy, and I felt like I was in a dream.

First, we went to a toy store.  Janey looked over the whole store, not getting fixed on any one toy.  She showed lots of curiosity, but was easily redirected to new toys.  She named a lot of toys in delight "A pirate!  A pony!  A whistle!"  Then, we went to an ice cream shop she often sees when riding along to drop off William and always wants to go to.  We don't take her often, as parking is tough and the ice cream place is hugely expensive, but I decided to do it this time as a treat.  She had a scoop of chocolate chip, and ate it in total contentment, sitting by the window and watching people walk by.  Lastly, I went to a store she had no interest in, a paper store, to use the last of my Christmas money to buy a hugely overpriced calendar I'd been craving.  Janey was patient and well behaved the whole time we were in that store.  We headed to the car after that.  I didn't want to push my luck.  I felt like I'd lived through an hour of a miracle.

One thing that kept striking me in the stores was that not only was Janey being so good, she was being better (in my eyes) than other kids around her.  The stores were full of bratty little girls (it just happened to be all girls we saw)  They were begging for everything, whining even while getting all kinds of treats, saying mean things to each other and to their parents---they were being all the things that Janey just isn't.  Janey, as any reader of this blog knows, is far from perfect.  It would be hard for me to argue that any child who attacked a room full of people in an emergency room less than two months ago was perfect.  However, Janey doesn't beg for toys.  She doesn't whine for more treats in stores.  She doesn't say mean things to us.  She was thrilled to be around the toys, without really understanding I could buy them.  She loved her ice cream, without begging for more scoops or more toppings.  She turned several times and looked at me during our walking around as if to say "You are amazing!  What a wonderful time we are having!"  She danced to the music playing over the loudspeaker, danced unself-consciouly with me.  She was in so many ways the child I would have dreamt up, if I were dreaming up my little girl.

At the last store, the paper store, the cashier was taken with Janey and kept saying "She is so beautiful!  What a sweet girl!"  When we were leaving, she said "Goodbye, honey!"  I prompted Janey to say goodbye, and she did.  I fought back an urge to do what I so often do, to tell the cashier Janey is autistic and doesn't talk much.  I fought it back not because I didn't want the cashier to know that, but because I was quite sure she already had seen Janey had special needs.  As Janey gets older, most anyone is going to be able to see she is not typical.  And somehow, I realized at that moment that I don't need to always explain that.  I realized that Janey is special sometimes in ways beyond the special that is part of "special needs"  I realized, that in my eyes anyway, she is special far beyond that.  It didn't matter that the afternoon went seriously downhill after the great morning.  I will treasure the memory of that early in the year shopping trip for a very long time.