April Walks With Autism

I've mentioned before that Luke is an awesome eater. He's got about 6 total things on his list that he will eat. At all. Period. I know most of you autism parents out there feel me on this one.

One of the things that Luke will eat is waffles. For awhile we had him eating homemade, organic, loaded with sneaky stuff waffles. That was good. And then somehow, someway, we switched to Eggo ONLY waffles. And for about the last year and a half we've been regularly eating, "Waffles with syrups in a bowl." He like us to cut up the waffles and then he dips the pieces in a little bowl of syrup. So "waffles with syrups in a bowl" has become part of the vernacular at the Schmidt house.

The other day I was re-organizing the pantry in all of my spare time and the good old waffle iron was sitting on the island. Luke spots it and says, "I want square waffles please." (Waffle iron = square waffles. Eggos = round.) I say, "Luke you'll have to ask daddy if he'll make you square waffles." (In our house, Jeff is the MASTER of waffles, it's a Schmidt family tradition super secret recipe and they are crazy good, but I digress). So Luke wanders over and asks Jeff if he'll make square waffles. "Maybe later."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha autism parents out there, can I get a LOL for how well "Maybe later," works with our kids?

Jeff turns to me and says, "I just cleaned the kitchen I am NOT making waffles, he can eat Eggos!!!"

I chuckle to myself and head upstairs. Let's see Daddy handle this one.

As I'm upstairs shuffling laundry back and forth......... I can hear it.

"Square waffles please."
"Maybe later"
"I want square waffles please"
"Not right now"
"Dad, can I have square waffles please?"
"In a little bit"
"Dad, square waffles, in the shiny one?" (shiny silver waffle iron)
"NOT. RIGHT. NOW. LUKE."

So I'm just folding laundry in my bedroom when that familiar smell starts to creep up the stairs.

Waffles.

And I don't mean Eggos either.


A few minutes later I come downstairs to Luke blissfully eating his square waffles. I say...
"Wow Luke, you are soooooooooooooo lucky! What did Daddy make you?"

He's quiet.

(We're working on Luke being able to answer questions so I decided to push a bit)

"Luke, what did Daddy make you?"

Another beat of silence.


"Happy."