Music has been the best therapy for Zoey, it has helped her find her voice, she is still considered nonverbal but this child can sing!
Not all songs are pretty ballads or catchy lullabies, sometimes the song that she sings is a high pitched angry scream that sounds very much like a Led Zeppelin song.
Yesterday was that Zeppelin song. We were at the grocery store and she had tried to bolt out of the cart I was pushing, you know the ones with the car in front, yeah well I had both kids in there and it was going great!
I had stopped the cart and she got out...oh did I forget to mention that her nickname is Houdini. She can get out of any buckle or harness...we really don't know how, other than she's Houdini.
So there I am chasing her through the produce section of the grocery store and I was able to scoop her up and put her in the carriage part while her sister stayed in the car part. I had just enough of what I needed and was bolting for a checkout...the whole time she's singing Zeppelin at the top of her lungs...you know the chorus screaming part of the song. No, she's not really singing this song, her constant scream is just like that of the song!
I'm in the checkout lane, groceries are on the belt ready to go...I'm waiting...the screaming chorus continues while everyone turns to stare at us. Not a fun moment.
I kept looking at Zoey and I'm trying to get her to make eye contact so that she can see that I'm using the sign for sit down and all done, but her singing got louder and louder and it was all you heard throughout the grocery store.
The woman in front of me turned and looked my way to say "It's that time of the day, huh Mom." I smiled, shook my head and thought to myself yes, if you're in the mood to hear Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant song" sure it's that time of the day!
I continued trying to sign and get her to look at me, she wasn't having it. The young cashiers were chuckling and smiling, while I was not!
Then I felt someone behind me, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said "you are a great mom...you are doing great!" Obviously a Zeppelin fan!!
I thanked him and I said "she's Autistic and this is just a bit too much for her!"
He again looked at me and said "it's okay you're both doing great!"
I left that grocery store with stares and eyes all on us, but I left that store feeling okay...with tears in my eyes because this one man reached out to say I was doing a good job, I was a good mom...when I felt nothing like that at all! That is Acceptance right there!!
We got to the car and I immediately put on her calm down song "I will see you again" by Carrie Underwood. She had stopped belting out the screaming chorus of Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" and instead was singing "Oh Oh Oh...Oh Oh Oh"
So yes, yesterday was plain awful, but that's then, not now!
© 2015
Melissa Cote
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