Subways and Peanuts

Riding the Subway

Tate loves flying and especially likes the take offs. So Thursday night, when I asked, I thought he’d probably say flying was the best part of the whole trip so far. But he told me the best part of our trip had been the subway. The subway of all things. That dirty, crowded, noisy, underground train. We had flown, ridden in a NYC Taxi, taken a ferry, seen the Statue of Liberty, and caught sight of a lot of the things he knows from all his movies, but the subway was his favorite.

On the Staten Island Ferry

The highlight of Thursday for most of the family was seeing the statue of Liberty. The statue of Liberty was huge for me. HUGE. Like it has been on my bucket list my whole life. But as wonderful as that experience was, I had one just as amazing (for me) sitting with Tate in the St Louis airport. We were waiting for our next flight, and I sat, astonished, watching Tate devour honey-roasted peanuts he’d gotten on the plane. I exclaimed, “Tate! You like peanuts?” He said, “Mom, I like peanut butter so I like peanuts.” Knock me over with a feather. I had tried that tactic with him many times over the years: “Tate, peanut butter is made from peanuts. Try them. You’ll like them.” He won’t let me use crunchy peanut butter on his peanut butter sandwiches. He eats plain m&ms but never peanut m&ms. But, he was eating those peanuts and acting like it was no big deal. This is a kid that for many years only ate about ten things total. He just does not normally nonchalantly tell his mother he now eats things she does not know about. Wow. He told me he had tried peanuts in the fourth grade when someone brought some to school to share. And then there was this other thing that happened while I was sitting in the St. Louis airport with Tate while he ate peanuts. And this one is probably much bigger than the first. Tate said to me, “Want to hear something funny? These are peanuts but there is no pee in them.” And he began to laugh. He told me a joke! A joke! He made up a joke. And although it was the kind of joke a five year old would tell and it was a potty joke, it was a joke. My kid with autism told me a joke. And what did I do? I said, “Tate, we don’t tell jokes like that. It is not nice to joke about pee.” And then I texted my best friend, Tate’s behavior consultant, and my husband (who was off buying us lunch), because I had to tell them how cool it was that Tate had told me a joke. And because they understand autism, they all got that it was a really cool thing, bodily fluids or not.

This was post two of our travels. If you have not already, go read post one.