It's been a full week with an unlocked snack cabinet for Sasha. I've strangely nothing special to report, meaning that (dare I say), I have felt like we have lived like a "normal family" this week. I still can't believe I have just written that sentence. Let me pause and reconsider what I've just written...
To recap, I supervised Sasha while he stocked his own snack cabinet from Monday to Wednesday evening with an appropriate supply of snacks. He then restocked his cabinet again from Thursday until Sunday evening. These snacks were kept in his own cabinet, unlocked 24 hours per day. To our knowledge, Sasha acted very normally with the open snack cabinet with no detectable food intensity during the week. He appeared to pace himself with his snacks and ate at his normal snack times. We barely supervised him when he made and packed his school lunches over the week. He ate modest amounts at all of his meals.
Tonight we attended a friend's backyard housewarming party (mingling in the backyard, food laying about on a table at one end of the yard) and Sasha behaved very normally. He definitely ate the food (nothing sugary but definitely foods high in carbs like bread and tortilla chips) but I also noticed that he was NOT standing around the food table, eating continuously for the duration of the party. Instead, he helped himself to some food but also took breaks from eating to chat with other guests. I keep saying he behaved "normally" but I really don't know if that is the right word to describe him since his behaviors from this week are nothing short of EXTRAORDINARY to us. My husband and I ended up having a really fun and relaxing time at this party and so did Sasha. There were no meltdowns, no nagging, and very minimal to no stress. This ability to enjoy ourselves at a party is also extraordinary.
Earlier today, Sasha was invited by his friend, A, to go miniature golfing. We all ended up going (A, his mother, Sasha, Sasha's sister, and I) and had a great time. Again, this was a "normal" activity that he did- hang out with a friend on a weekend. And again, although it appears to be a normal for most people, having a friend and a social life is a relatively new phenomenon for Sasha! Speaking of social life, we learned at his recent IEP meeting that he has successfully met one of his goals about "engaging in appropriate peer relationships with classmates." Although we tried to push for the inclusion of this goal for next year because of our uncertainty of his ability to maintain the goal on his own, his teachers in attendance assured us that Sasha is quite social with his peers in class and that he participates voluntarily in two different social clubs at school. Wow. It appears that Sasha's social skills and motivation have changed for the better as well!
I am so grateful to oxytocin as I'm sure none of this would have been possible in the past without replacing this important neurohormone. Perhaps this week was not "normal" per se, but rather "extraordinarily normal."
Phenomenal!
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