Saturday, October 5, 2013

Give me a head with hair

There's always something new when you have an autistic kid. A new word you did not think he knew comes out of his mouth. A task he has never performed that he does as if he knew how to do it all along. Then there are the quirks, the way he taps his spoon when he eats, the way his eye squints when he rubs your eyebrows.

A new thing just started recently. He's been pulling his hair out, and there's a word for it that I am not going to cut and paste here. There's a small bald spot, but much bigger than mine, on the crown of his head that is a cause for concern. Is it another OCD quirk, like how he has to touch the curtain rod when he walks downstairs? Or is the hair pulling something more serious? No one really knows what is causing this. I did a really messed up thing when I was around his age. Licked my bottom lip until it was dry and scabbed over so badly, impetigo set in. New baby in the house may have triggered it, who knows what was going though my crazy head back then? Makes me wonder what about this whole condition is genetic and what is not. It's another thing to add to a pile of other things that make life with him a challenge. Much of this could probably be helped if he were verbal.

Talked about it with his mother at swimming this morning and we thought getting his hair cut might help. It has been getting long, maybe that added to the trouble?

So I took him for a haircut at a place he's been to before. Oddly enough, this was the first time I had even taken him to get his hair cut. It's always been his mother who did this. Weird, I know. He does not like the sound the scissors make and is afraid of the electric clippers and the blow dryer. I told the stylist this before hand and she was really good with him. He behaved well too, until the scissors got close to his ear. No one was hurt. My son got a Dum-Dum lollipop and she got a good tip.

He's still tugging at his hair.

I am totally out of my depth here.

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