I Call That A Victory

We had a victory and an epic fail today. And all in the 3 hours after work. Nothing like cramming a full day in a few hours.

Cooper is afraid to ride our lawnmower. It’s hard to explain. He loves it and wants Jamie to drive it. He even wants Sawyer to ride with Jamie. He gets super excited and amped up when it is going. But the second you try and put him on it he loses his shit. Lately I have been noticing that he is afraid of a lot of activities but truly enjoys watching Sawyer do them(or other kids). Examples include watching Sawyer ride a bike or trike. Watching Sawyer play different games and so on. It’s another one of those hard things that I am trying to accept.

So, tonight, I felt daring on the Cooper front. I rarely drive the lawnmower but tonight I thought let’s give this a try. I pulled out a good old fashioned bribe. I told Cooper he could go on his LeapPad if he rode the lawnmower with me. He was definitely intrigued and new exactly what I was asking. The wheels in his brain were turning and I could tell he wanted too….but his feet were backing away from me like I had 3 heads. It was pretty cute actually.

I grabbed him and sat on the mower. There was thrashing, head banging, kicking and hitting. I just sat there. He kept going. Finally I turned him around and gave him a huge hug. He stopped crying and hugged me back. And off we went. We rode around the yard for 5+ minutes without a scream. I asked him where he wanted to go and he pointed in a direction and off we went. He laughed and squealed with delight. For some odd reason he didn’t feel scared if he was facing backwards. This is a huge victory for us. I want to work on activities like this. I believe, to an extent, Cooper needs to be challenged. This turned out good. Thank God.

In the house we went for a good old fashioned haircut. I have cut his hair 4 times without a problem. Well, I must have pushed the limits with the lawnmower ride because here is how it went. A steady progression of failure. All in all though, the haircut turned out pretty good. But holy meltdown city. I threw him in the tub afterwards and you would have thought I was torturing him. Ugh. This kid. (If your kid has SPD or ASD and is afraid of haircuts at the salon I totally recommend cutting their hair yourself. If I can do it so can you!)

And a few pics of the boys wrestling. Pre lawnmower and pre haircut.