Having Happy Meals

Bitty typically insists on exactly SEVEN chicken nuggets, no more and no less.

He usually won’t eat that many (more like 4-5 at a time) but he likes the number seven. Luckily, his brothers are all too happy to dispose of his leftovers :).

For what it’s worth, the trick from the movie Rain Man (in which he cuts the four fish sticks in half to make eight) actually worked for a while (ie. cut two nuggets in half to turn five nuggets into seven) but he wised up soon enough and he actually checks now to make sure I put seven whole nuggets in to cook. I swear, I can’t get anything past this guy! 😉

He surprised me one day by being adamant that he only wanted TWO. I thought he was trying to weasel his way into an easy dessert (which he often does) by making the requisite “dinner first” extra small, so I went about putting the usual 7 nuggets on his plate.

He screamed at me. I offered to give him five instead.

“TWO on da pwate!” he insisted.

Tired of arguing, I put two nuggets ON the plate. And then proceeded to put the remaining nuggets on a napkin NEAR the plate.

And what do you know, he was cool with that. Ignoring the nuggets on the napkin, he excitedly reached for the ketchup. He’s all about doing things by himself, so I let him squirt the ketchup, watching to make sure he didn’t create a ketchup tsunami in his enthusiasm.

Instead of the usual puddle of ketchup, he carefully made a curve and then he burst out laughing, “Iss-a smi-wee face!!! Hahaha!!”

LOL. So THAT’s why there could be only two chicken nuggets ON the plate.

Reminding me, once again, that no matter how bizarre his requests demands may seem at times, he pretty much always has a reason. Sometimes I am privileged to be let in on the secret, as in this case, and other times the reason is known only to him, but he knows what he’s doing.

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Here’s another one from when dh and the boys met me for lunch recently. He borrowed my phone and took this picture himself :).

3runningcircles

I’m a mom of three boys on the autism spectrum — 11-yr-old id twins and their 7-yr-old little brother — and wife to my dh of 19 yrs who is a SAHD. My blog is where I share our story, as well as topics relating to autism awareness & acceptance, twins, the silliness three little boys can get into, and whatever else is on my mind. Hopefully some of what we’ve learned over the years is helpful to others (or at least entertaining).