Senor Aaron and The Party

In order to end the cliff hanger about Aaron and the Halloween party, I need to tell you that Aaron DID go to the party.  Surprise, surprise!!  I really was mentally prepared for him to stay home………to wake up and absolutely refuse to go……..but I certainly didn’t let him know that.  So when he woke up and came downstairs in a good mood, I was somewhat shocked…….and waiting for the ball to drop. 

Soon he asked, with resignation in his voice, “Mom, can you put the keyboard in early?  Since I have to go to that party.”   At the sound of his flat voice, you would think I had sentenced him to go dig in a rock quarry all day or go clean out a sewer.  Good grief, Aaron…….it’s a party!! 

“What don’t you like about the party?” I asked. 

“All those games stuff,” he answered with no emotion. 

That was no surprise at all to me.  He enjoys Skip-Bo or Tri-Ominos with all the sequencing of numbers and little emotion involved.  That other “game stuff,” though……..not so much.  So I tried to use what I did know that Aaron would like………candy. 

“So Aaron, aren’t they having candy at the party?” I hopefully asked.  He said that he didn’t know, so I reminded him that he had helped shop for the party so he should know.  “That was yesterday,” he said.  “I forgot.” 

Well, that didn’t get me very far.  But Aaron did well all morning, and actually got in the car without a fuss.  I wondered all day if he was holding up at Paradigm, or falling apart, but he called me as usual and he sounded happy.  Barb told me that several times he said that he just wanted to go home but there were no actual behaviors……..and that he was super loving.  Super loving is always nice with Aaron, but super loving on party day is awesome!!

Aaron came home that afternoon, bringing me several Starburst candies……..wrapped, thankfully……..and also a plastic skeleton head that he said Brian gave to him.  I do hope that’s true because the skeleton head has now joined the plastic rat that he brought home several days earlier.  Bolt it down, or it will end up in Aaron’s pocket!

As he told me about the party, he took his shirt off so that Jackson could better sniff the dog scent from the little dog that was there at Paradigm.  Aaron walked into the kitchen, breathless and shirtless, and told me more about the party and lots about the little dog that he loves to pet. 

“Can we order something for supper?” he asked.  I asked him if he was hungry, because he had gone on and on about what they had eaten at the party.   “No,” he answered.  “I was just trying to make a decision for you.”  I laughed at his comment that I have heard before, and at his funny appearance as he walked around with his shirt off, and soon he was clomping up the stairs to his room………happy as he carried his skeleton head that he planned to later show Gary.

I expected the next day, Friday, to be a breeze.  The party was behind us and he had successfully attended.  It was the last day of the week, with the promise of the relaxing weekend ahead.  As Aaron talked to me in the kitchen, I suggested that we go down to Great Clips at 9:00 for him to get a haircut.  He liked that idea, but when the time came to go I saw that this change in his morning routine was not going over so well.  I had prepared him, because I know to do that.  I had told him that we would go get his hair cut, then come back home for a while, and leave to meet his group at the normal time.

But to Aaron, a change in his morning ritual is not so easily accepted when push comes to shove.  He informed me as we were leaving that he didn’t want to go to Paradigm………since he was interrupting his morning to get a haircut, he wanted to have the rest of the day at home.  He was still stewing over his plans as we signed in at Great Clips.  I held my breath as the happy girl who was cutting his hair cheerily asked him what he was going to be doing all day.  I fully expected an outburst then, but he just flatly told her that he didn’t know for sure.  We were able to exit Great Clips with Aaron in one piece and very happy that the nice girl who cut his hair let him keep the pen that he put into his pocket after signing his receipt.  I’m sure that this pen is now keeping company with all his other pens from various businesses that he has managed to slip into his pocket.  Oh, Aaron.

Aaron did go to Paradigm, though he was fairly grouchy about it.  As we drove, he for some reason thought about one of Rosie’s special staff – an older woman named Rosa.  Rosa is Hispanic and her accent intrigues Aaron.  Rosie does not have an accent, but Rosa does, so this is interesting to Aaron.  “Mom, Rosa is from a different country species than Rosie.  She says, ‘Si, Senor.’ “ 

And once again, as he so often does, Aaron will slip in something so funny in the midst of his grouchiness that I have to laugh………or at least secretly smile and hold off on laughing until later.  I never want him to feel self-conscious about the things he says.  I don’t want him to quit talking!  Well, on some days………..

But sometimes I would declare that Aaron is also from a different country species than the rest of us.  Goodness, he can be hard to understand sometimes!

Si, si, Senor Aaron!!