Sandwiches and Success
While recently on vacation, Eric was bursting with excitement about going to Disney. But in order to get to the “disney days” he had to wait patiently through 3 days of his sisters’ gymnastics competition. That was hard. Just as his sister was getting ready to leave our hotel room to hang with her friend for a little while before their meet, Eric launched into a extremely loud screaming and crying meltdown. Daddy was out for a run and before I got the call from the front desk evicting us from the hotel, I told Eric to get his shoes on so we could go for a walk. About 1 mile away, there was a little strip mall. I was hoping the physical activity would give him some sensory input, calm him down and get him relaxed before having to sit through the competition, so off we went.
I was hoping to find a pizza place in the strip mall – but there wasn’t one. I know that some Subway sandwich shops sometimes sold “pizza” during special promotions, so we ventured in there…. no luck. But just as we walked in, I saw another customer getting pepperoni put on her sandwich. I took a chance, despite his very particular & limited diet and ordered Eric a toasted pepperoni sandwich.
HE L O V E D it!
And-extra bonus- they also had his favorite chips that he ate before I even paid for the meal! And then after finishing his sandwich and asking for more (which I said no to LOL!)….he patiently waited 20 minutes while they baked some fresh chocolate chip cookies. And when I asked if he wanted to eat the cookie on the walk back to hotel, he told me he wanted to stay there and eat it. He was happy. I was happy.
We actually were able to turn this meltdown into a fantastic moment and memory.
I consider it a huge success to have found a convenient fast food place that actually has something he will eat! We ended up stopping there a few more times throughout the week to bring this same meal to another restaurant (where we knew they probably wouldn’t have something on the menu that he would eat!)
We didn’t make lemonade out of lemons; we made a melted sandwich out of a meltdown!
—mrs. b
(originally posted on facebook Bacon and Juice Boxes on July 12)