Baba has the whole week off, so we did the unthinkable (compared to what we have been doing for over 2 years now... AVOID long drives and multiple night overnight stays with Aditya).
We decided to take off for a few days and vacation in Santa Barbara. This meant that Aai and Baba spent 2 nights cooking several special diet meals for the whole family, besides everyone in the family also spending a few hours getting their bags ready.
We drove to Santa Barbara on the day of Christmas to make travel easy (with not much traffic on the streets). We stopped by at McDonalds that was open even on that day for a restroom break (YES!)
Aditya and the rest of the family used the restroom to take care of their bodies. Those family members who were interested, could claim 4/8 points for using the restroom for no. 1/ no. 2! And they did:-) Sometimes on this trip they have done both and claimed 12 points!
The time at Santa Barbara is being spent doing a variety of things, some of Aditya's liking and some not. Among things he likes, we have been wetting our feet in the oceans waters and then running on the soft sand. We have also been walking up and down State Street, and riding the all-electric waterfront shuttle. We have been visiting beautiful old structures like the Old Mission and the CourtHouse. Regardless of where we go, Aditya and sister have been enjoying the green sights and the space to run around!
When doing things not of his liking, the limits that he still has are being exposed. For example, the trip to the zoo revealed how much he still hates being there (he always has hated it, perhaps due to the smells). And it also revealed what an important role food plays in his recovery.
For example: we decided we would feed the giraffe. That would be possible at 11:30AM and not earlier. As we entered the zoo Aditya asked when we can feed the giraffes. We told him we did not know exactly when, but could not do that before 11:30AM. For that one hour, nothing could interest our little guy. He was focused on feeding the giraffe at 11:30 and he also seemed restless about the wait. While the rest of us enjoyed looking at and checking out cool facts about the colorful birds, the penguins, the frogs, the elephants, the goats, and the baboons, Aditya took turns taking a keen interest knowing about the animals, sometimes superficially looking at them... and sometimes downright avoiding looking at them. In one case he also complained looking at the elephant was embarrassing (as it pooped right when everyone was watching him).
Baba encouraged him to choose between being flexible and strolling towards the giraffes and checking out other animals on the way, OR being clear and honest that he really only wanted to go to the giraffes and was not interested in anything else before that. Either would be okay, we just wanted to know how his honest thoughts. He was pretty upset at this point, but he then announced he was not interested in anything else, and would rather go to the giraffe.
Baba and he proceeded to the giraffes (but did check out lions on the way... where the pounds-and-kilograms-lover Aditya learnt that daddy lions are 400 pounds heavy while mommy lions are 300 pounds) and waited in line where Aai and sister joined them soon after. Aditya was still restless and wanted to go pee again. Aai and sister were there soon so they waited in line while Aditya and Baba went to use the restroom. Then Aai figured out from the look on his face that he was hungry (we also knew he had not finished his breakfast). When asked about it, he said he was extremely hungry. He went to the nearby bench with Aai and ate another snack while Baba and sister fed the giraffe.
After he had eaten to his satisfaction, he was a transformed child who happily waited in the line AGAIN to feed the giraffe. Once at the giraffe feeding station, he did amazingly well and had no qualms about being licked by the gray tongue of that female giraffe.
The trip to Santa Barbara has also revealed how much he still takes things literally. Some things he has been saying or asking:
1. He has been repeatedly saying: "People at Alamo car rental are honest. People at Dollar car rental are not." (Somebody once told him their experience of the Dollar car rental company incorrectly charging them money for damage they did not do to their car.)
2. You got this IGLOO for taking it to Santa Barbara (IGLOO = the ice cooler that keeps foods in good condition). Will we take the same IGLOO to a trip to a different city? (Baba had told him he was getting an IGLOO to take to Santa Barbara (while that would imply future trips to other cities to a typical mind, that is off the path that the mind with autism knows.)
3. Where is Red Cross? (Countries have flags. Red Cross also has a flag. Red cross must be a country.)
4. Santa Cruz (which is 40 miles away from where we live) is hotter because it is to the South (If something is to South, it is hotter. If something is to the North, it is cooler.)
5. Why do they have an Atlantic Avenue here? (We are close to the Pacific ocean, so they should only have Pacific Avenue here).
Time to play games around "word plays" and phrases that do not mean literally what they say.
Lastly... Baba and Aditya did play a super-spontaneous-imagination game of flying an imaginary airline and going places, where we take turns acting out a new scene using some random props in an old cardboard box.
For example, we began the game in California, and Baba picked Romania as the place to go. "Virgin Europe" Aditya chose the airline with delight. Once we were in Romania, Aditya was to pick something from the box of sundry things around the house and make up a scene. He picked the toy car and said we would race cars. Baba said he was excited but did not have a car. Aditya offered him one from the toys he had! They then played cars, where Aditya said they should now crash them, and the drivers should die.
(He continues to be fascinated and simultaneously paranoid about ideas like cars crashing and people cutting each other with swords).
We enthusiastically died because he asked for it.
Baba then proposed that they be re-born in a new city and country of A's choice. A picked Capetown in South Africa. Baba offered to make a song at this time, and wrote it up with A's help on the board. To rhyme things, Baba chose that one of their names would end with Brown (to rhyme with Capetown). Once in Capetown, it was Baba's turn to pretend something in the box to be something else. He picked pages from a notepad and turned them into books to be taken to school by Aditya and him. Once they skated to school on roller-skates, Aditya chose to become the teacher Ms Victoria and told kids about how to become better people.
The game went on for almost 2 hours, in which we next went to Canberra (Australia), Mumbai (India), and Stockholm (Sweden). We flew Jet Australia, Virgin India and Virgin Sweden to go. We stayed at Hill Hotel next to Canberra Airpot, where Aditya did his favorite thing of ordering food over the phone. Once in Mumbai, we turned into people speaking Marathi. We took turns going to Chowpati Beach and then Pune in a taxi.
Aditya sought out stimulation by refusing to pay the taxi driver, so the taxi driver would yell at him in Marathi.
In Sweden, we pretended to watch Soccer on TV, where Aditya played the American team and Baba played the Sweden team.
Through the game, there were times when A was stretched as he had to make up something from a thing like the tape, a piece of cardboard, a clothes-pin, a TV remote control, a lettuce leaf.
He commented that he found the game a little interesting, but he would find it more interesting once he practiced it:-)
