You can read Part 1 now if you haven't yet.
Imagine you wake up roll over and you see Kaden staring at you and in a loud mono-toned voice he tells you he has been waiting for 13 minutes for you to wake up and he needs ham for breakfast. He hops off the bed grabs his tablets and he walks Homer downstairs to feed and let him out. I'll lay there in bed a minute trying to focus my eyes and I hear him holler it's 16 now. Meaning 16 minutes he has waited and this makes him crazy. In his mind life is a huge scheduling board that must remain the same. Everything is a list of commands to him, a path of directions that need to be followed. And when there is a kink in his loop then there is a disturbance in the universe. He feels icky inside and things that don't stand out to you and I are jumping out at him, loudly blaring, screaming and burning his skin, making his life unbearable. All of that is going on inside him while I'm trying to get my butt out of bed without falling down the stairs.....I'm so not a morning person!!
Good morning buddy!! Ham, Ham, Ham he says in a baby voice. Kaden has fixations on words and phrases ontop of video games and numbers. For a year now his most famous word is Ham. If I had a $1 for every time I heard him say this word I could take care of a fairly large country of people. Speaking of food...he has a limited diet of all kinds of fish and meat, limited veggies and fruits and starches. Breakfast is mainly waffles or eggs with sausage or bacon. Lunch is hardly anything other than a ham sandwich. Dinner is hard.... he likes basic meat and starch. He would eat just a plate of meat if I would let him. I try to always offer veggies he will eat. Some have to be raw, some have to be steamed, but all can and should be served with my homemade ranch sauce. He eats the same thing....everyday, plain, nothing new...very predictable. And if that changes he won't eat and I will not make him, but I don't indulge him with 100 options either. Usually it's textures that bother him, smells that are overpowering are hard to push through. Even a desert that's mushy or has nuts can cause him to melt down. But, keeping his plate exactly how he expects it to be is not always possible... this one particular day we were out of almond butter. He needs it for his waffles, I'm searching through our Sam's Club stocked pantry and the waffles toasted too long. It may be a little crunchy on the one side...will he eat it? As he is rambling on about all things Minecraft he takes a bite and looks at it like it bit him. He can't eat it. He looks at me and literally tries again, he doesn't like to waste, he is very conscientious of money.....almost too much. He smooshes it with his fingers and eats it. I sigh in relief because honestly that could have been a big deal. I know...that sounds crazy. But, it's life here, we are always one breath away from total meltdown.
So, what does a meltdown look like you ask....I will share that next time.
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