...on giving in rather than giving up...

"Ugh...I give up!", said my eldest this afternoon, whilst trying unsuccessfully to wrangle his little brother into lunchtime submission.
"No, you don't!", said I in response...somewhat harshly, mostly garbled...mouthful of salad.

It was a matter of one bite.  One singular bite of leftover hamburger, positively drenched in ketchup.  One bite, and an overwhelmed three-year-old, and the forkful he found absolutely impossible...impassible...for his little mouth.

Because...you see...there was a drip...
A drip of ketchup hanging from the bottom of the fork.
And Henri?
Does NOT tolerate anything on the bottom-side of a fork.

This is part of the current regime.  The current monarchy of three-dom.

It's etched in stone (at least, for now...), right up there with no squeezy hugs unless he initiates, and no cherries in the fruit platters.

And, because I am taking the time to write about it here, it will become part of the story in years to come...The Who and The How of Henri...

But for today, stone-script aside, it's just another thing to add to the already lengthy list of Henri's foibles and one which, in the moment, feels like a bit of 'abuse of staff' to those of us who serve his every whim.

I motioned at the bottom of the fork, where the ketchup hung down.  Not quite a drip...certainly not a tear-drop shape of crimson...but just...an upside down bump.  I pantomimed scraping it off on the plate, and watched as he did so.

The bite, proffered again...rejected again...this time with the hitching breath of imminent tears.

Several suggestions later (not a one of them a success), the remainder was finally eaten...by my eldest.

Because by then...by the long stretch of inaction and delayed action...the problem had swallowed the whole bite up.

And both my boys were now on strike.

"I give up."

"No."

~~~

How often we are tempted to Just Give Up.

To sink into that pit of hopeless failure and the inaction that follows.

To stop expending energy on a problem that seems unsolvable.

It gets you nowhere...giving up.

You just...stop...you stay...you settle...

And the problem?

It's still there.

And now you're part of it.

Giving in, though...that's something altogether different.

If giving up is putting the fork down and never again picking it up, then giving in is putting the fork down and getting a spoon...or chopsticks...or a cartoon-faced toothpick.

Giving in is recognizing that there's a problem...not with the person, but with the method.

Giving in is allowing for Henri's particular sensory needs to not only be recognized, but to be valued in terms of how we guide him toward success while respecting the boundaries his body and mind have set for the task.

Henri loves a good hamburger.  And by good...I mean a cheeseburger.

A cheeseburger with a perfect ratio of pickle to bite, and the just-right-amount of ketchup per morsel.

He wasn't upset because he didn't want the next bite.

He was upset because he did want it...desperately...but he couldn't eat it as it was...

He was upset because he needed his big brother to see the problem and fix the problem, before the problem swallowed the whole bite up.

~~~

There are things I see now, that my eldest has yet to notice.  Things that are familiar to me, because I've lived through some version of them before...with him...

Raising him...raising the autistic essence of him...was a long drawn-out lesson on giving in and never giving up.  Raising him was, and remains, the daily (moment by moment, rather) practice of giving in to his specific needs in order to guide him toward success.  It is the accepting of his parameters, and adjusting my lessons accordingly.

And so it is with Henri.

I give in, knowing his need for a clean fork-bottom...

I give in, and wait to relish the moments when he squeezes me round the neck...

I give in, and remove the cherries...

Giving in is the gift I give him...letting his needs and his preferences hold space...hold value.

Letting him hold space and value.

Letting him give in to eating the burger without giving up.