This past weekend, we did not venture out for any adventures with autism… Instead, we stayed home and tackled the following projects: saved a squid from a toilet drain that has been out of service for over a week in the main bathroom downstairs; rearranged the kids playroom, including building additional storage for all of their toys and mounting a new smart TV to the wall; and replaced the washer/dryer that’s also been out of service for over a week.
Some time during the weekend before last, Luca had been watching the scene from Finding Nemo/Dory (can’t remember which one it is) where they get flushed down the toilet to escape. Thanks to YouTube, he became fixated on needing to set many of his friends free to the ocean, and although some of the smaller figurines may have enjoyed the quick flush to places unknown… two squids that were approximately 2”x5” did not fair quite as well.
It was a Saturday, and Luca had proudly been showing his Granny and Pop Pop all his friends, because every Saturday they save our sanity by coming over to help entertain the kiddos during the two-day break from school routine, and most weekends even let Steph and I get out of the house kid-free for a few hours to grab dinner and bring them home take-out (it’s glorious!). Luca had just shown his squids, that are meant to be played with in the bath tub, and then took off with conviction towards the bathroom. In the past he’s loved to wash his toys in the bathroom sink with warm water and soap, so we didn’t think anything of it… until we heard the flush. I swear, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked in his direction, and then back to the three other adults who didn’t seem to be quite as concerned, before rising from my seat to investigate what may have lost its life to the porcelain swimming pool.
When Luca exited the bathroom empty handed, my heart sunk a little. Nervously I entered where he left, but found the toilet seemingly unchanged. I took a breath, shrugged it off, and exclaimed to the others “Luca is flushing toys down the toilet, no one leave him unattended.”
I can’t remember what then distracted me from my own demands - I think someone needed diapers to be restocked from the basement - but for the 60 seconds I was downstairs, despite that Granny had picked up on the not leaving Luca alone, and followed him only trailing behind him by 20 seconds or so as he darted toward the bathroom to exile another friend - a second squid made it down the toilet. I came up to her laughing saying, “another one bites the dust” and I thought to myself- no way is that going to be good.
We ensured he was not allowed in the bathroom solo for the rest of the evening, went to the extreme of putting a child-lock on the seat, and kept an eye on the toilet which appeared to be unharmed during the mission. We even went to bed thankful that night that it wasn’t one more mess of collateral damage that we’d have to fix due to YouTube teaching our children how to do something destructive.
But the next morning, the first flush at 5am shattered all dreams of a completely unsuccessful mission, as the bath toys that Luca had flushed, had begun to float toward the surface, clogging the toilet. No need to share with you all the dirty details, but that Sunday afternoon we went through TWO snakes trying to get the squids out. The first snake was a VERY old snake from my in-laws house, which in retrospect I wish I had had more sense to realize a really old toilet snake only means one thing - it was used in toilets prior to now- so I highly suggest buying a new one that’s at least only been used on your toilets (if you get my drift) - and then the brand new one that I went to buy at Home Depot after trying to use the other one for a solid thirty minutes, not finding any success, and just pretty grossed out.
Like most battles with fix-it-esq home maintenance, I exhausted my every try, and lost miserably. And then, my wife, entered the battlefield of our bathroom, spent less than five minutes trying to work the snake, and proudly whipped out the first squid. It seriously felt like one of those situations where you work all your strength trying to open a jar of pasta sauce, only to hand it over and have someone release the cap with ease, to which you defend your honor with a “that’s because I loosened it for you”. Yea. As she held back her grin, despite it’s need to beam ear-to-ear in satisfaction, I found every ounce of energy I had left to sass back at her with the reminder there were two squids missing, and she had only found one.
After maybe another 20 minutes realizing she was never going to get it, we commissioned the first floor bathroom out of order, and went back to our Sunday. It wasn’t until the very end of the week that we were able to revisit fixing the porcelain throne, because it required completely removing the toilet, and Steph’s dad’s help. Wouldn’t you believe it though, that the moment they got it off, this is what they saw?
I swear he’s laughing at us.
The following day, we decided it was time to put together the storage that had been sitting in our basement, to get the kids playroom to the next level. Two additional shelving units, and a TV with mount, meant that at any given time, both Steph and I would be occupied without the ability to entertain a twin while the baby napped. Yes, every instinct I had said to wait until a day when we had an hour while kids were elsewhere, but we had done that for over a month at this point, and it was time to listen to the amazing Mel Robbins, count backwards from 5 and just get the job done.
Yes, it had it’s moments of stress, but Steph’s willingness to teach the boys how to use her power tools, proved to be the highlight of the day. Even Luca wanted to try, and did so with great patience and attention - two qualities we are strategically working on with him. I was doubtful of his ability to be gentle while working on the television- convinced he’d step on it, or get mad and throw the drill at it, but he listened so intently to Steph while she took the time to teach him, that he surprised me. We were able to assemble both bookshelves, mount a new tv, get rid of extra toys they don’t play with, and make more space for them to play.
It was such an important reminder for me that it’s important to keep giving the boys opportunities to prove all doubts wrong - at least until my muscle memory gets rid of all doubt, remembering that only celebrating their magic isn’t good enough - I have to BELIEVE in their magic too. If I’ve learned that part of Luca’s magic is having a heart of gold, and how that fosters his need to take care of who/what matters to him, and belief in doing “whatever it takes”, than I need to remember to think 5 steps ahead at what that could mean for expensive home maintenance, celebrate how beautiful that will be for him when his relationships of importance grow from small figurines to life-changing individuals, but also believe that his small little heart can love so fiercely that nothing will hold him back. **SIGH** I do feel like that heart of gold may actually cost us some gold as his imagination becomes more adventurous, but boys will be boys, right?