Shopping Mall Santa Nightmare!

So........we decided to take a trip to a different shopping mall today. They supposedly had a wonderful Christmas display set up this year. Giant snowglobes with scenes from the movie The Chronicals of Narnia" and a Giant Wardrobe..etc. Course Santa would be in the middle of it all! We had planned this trip for a week....telling you how you would be able to play in their fabulous play area. We talked more about the trip last night. You informed me that you had NO desire to see Santa or sit on his lap or to talk to him or have him see you let alone have your picture taken with him!

I said that was fine...you did NOT have to have your picture taken with him.

So we get to the mall. I stopped at a Carlton Card store and got a few things while Daddy took you to the restroom. You came back and I could tell you had been crying hard. I asked what happened. Apparently the mall had decided to CLOSE the play area....for refurbishing. SO...that took care of that play time. ...and that was the main reason for the trip as you did not have occupational therapy today as they are closed for the holiday.

So we decided to check out the Christmas display which while nice...was not quite what we had expected. A bit disappointed we walked toward it...and you started to cry again! HARD...telling us you did NOT want to SEE Santa or have him SEE you! So we barely made it around the display without having you stuck to us like a leech (sp?) and your head shoved under our arms so no one could see you including Mr. Santa! You said you were going to WRITE him a list of what you wanted.

So...we decided to try our local mall as they have an area you could run around in. However...this meant walking by yet another Santa. You started the crying thing all over again....saying how you did NOT want to SEE Santa or have him SEE you. We had to basically be human blinders just to get you to walk by the AREA he was in. Finally made it. Down at the play area you did a lot of body slamming into walls or rolling on the floor. Slamming your head forward and backwards.......I did manage to take a video clip of it from a distance but not sure how well it turned out. I missed some parts of it.

Anyway.....this time of year for the past 3 years at least seems to be very difficult and trying for you. You are an emotional time bomb just waiting for someone to look at you wrong or mention something wrong to set you off! You make some progress and then are in a holding pattern for awhile again or even regress.....perhaps because your brain is learning all these new things and it has to reprogram itself all the time? I imagine that in itself can be exhausting and tiring. BUT....you have consistently had a very difficult time this time of year every year for at least the past 3 years in a row. I know our routines are a bit different. I know you probably get overloaded a lot by all the extra stimuli.

Anyway......this got me to thinking about whether or not someday you could handle driving. Sure you are the BEST driver on a race car game on a computer. You KNOW EXACTLY where we are going...all the maps...routes....highways....SPEED LIMITS on every road we ever take.....intersections....landmarks...etc.....and are superb at it...HOWEVER....I wonder if you could ever handle the stress that could be involved when driving and having to intermingle with other cars and drivers? I am thinking you might not be able to handle that....but maybe one day you could. What do you do if you can't? Take a bus? I doubt you would love that too much but then again maybe you would really like it a lot!? I used to take a bus. It is okay.....but maybe you would be okay at driving. Course in my MOMMY mind you never driving sounds mighty appealing....but then again it means you would be dependent on someone else all the time to get around or another means to get around...not so good.

BUT I am thinking about something way out in the future. I love you my Noah Wesley!

Mommy