Peanut Butter and Jam Moments : Repost
Our Abbey loves In N Out! I mean she absolutely LOVES it!! If you don’t have one in your neck of the woods you’ve just got to find one and experience it for yourself. It’s the fries she loves the best frankly. And the more ketchup the better. As a matter of fact, she’s taken to peeling off the little corner of the ketchup packet and just sucking it down before the condiment can even touch the fries. And it’s because of this love, that we often hear all about her plans for going there and the plans she’s made for what she’ll order once there. A protein style hamburger please, extra lettuce and tomatoes, add pickles, and fries, and lots of ketchup (of course).
Each and every person that comes into her life for any length of time ultimately hears about her favorite burger and fry place too, and it’s pretty predictable to hear from a new worker, “She was so funny and told us all about In N Out”. Individuals with Autism often fixate or have special interests in specific topics or hobbies and our girl’s love of In N Out and ketchup is no different. But sometimes these passions can lead to getting stuck and to a heightened level of anxiety, and that’s when we find that a little help is needed to get un-stuck.
So it was the other day, when she became so overly excited about pulling into her favorite drive thru that she began to squeal with delight. Then quickly slipped into a loud pronouncement of her requests. And finally, crescendoed with an insistent demand that simply sounded allot like yelling, “I want ketchup and fries!”.
At that Eric kindly but firmly said to her, “Abbey, you need to calm yourself”. But she couldn’t.
So, Eric followed up with a very clear directive, “If you’re not calm, you’ll be getting peanut butter and jam for lunch not In N Out.”
Abbey exerted her will one last time, projecting her voice up to the front of the minivan from the back seat, “I want ketchup and fries!”.
Eric responded with a single pointed question, “Peanut butter and jam?” – BOOM.
That was all it took, and she got the point. However, what happened next left us in stitches laughing. Abbey let out an uncontrolled giggle and replied, “No! I don’t want peanut butter and jam”- giggle-giggle.
We were flabbergasted. While she had truly been stuck on her fixation point, she had also been perfectly capable of becoming unstuck. During that little exchange between she and her dad she knew exactly what she was doing, and she was weighing the cost. Absolutely hilarious! What a teenager!!
Under the threat of that plain peanut butter and jam sandwich she had done a complete 180 and reigned herself in in order to win the ultimate prize. How often does that happen in our own lives. How often are we capable of reigning it in but wait for a catalyst to get ourselves unstuck. Whether it’s a commercial reminder to get off the couch and get our bodies moving so we can stay healthy and strong, or it’s a friendly incentive at work to hit the pavement hard and increase sales, or it’s a straightforward response from our spouse that shocks us out of our complacency as a partner. We all have those peanut butter and jam moments in life that help to catapult us out of our stuck places and onto bigger and better places.
What are some of the peanut butter and jam moments of life that have helped you to unstick yourself and get out of a jam?
