Alex would learn to pilot an F-16 in exchange for a chocolate-chip cookie.<\/p>\n
Autism parenting sites all warn about overusing bribes, but nothing sticks Alex to his barber\u2019s chair or to a seat at a family event like a chocolate chip cookie. Jill whipped them out to get us all through last Passover (\u201cSit down, Alex, or no cookies. NO. cookies!\u201d\u2026), and it worked, more or less. He\u2019s sat through dinners in restaurants, movies, circuses.<\/p>\n
Not oatmeal raisin nor peanut butter. Not macadamia nut nor Cherry Wink. Maybe a straight chocolate cookie, probably for a brownie, but not for a doughnut of any flavor at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cCook-KIE!\u201d he says in the kitchen. \u201cCook-KIE!\u201d he says in the store. To him, Chips Ahoy are currency. He can find the aisle in any Duane Reade or CVS he been in even just once (with a quick detour to the household section to utter \u201cRed!\u201d and reach for a bottle of Tide \u2013 which we usually of course don\u2019t need and I can\u2019t figure out why he wants the Tide anyway since all he ever does when I take him to the laundry room to help with the wash is root around on the magazine table for National Geographics or House and Gardens).<\/p>\n
\u201cCook-KIE!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSaltines instead, Alex? Are you sure you want cookies?\u201d He reaches up. \u201cHow about the small package?\u201d I say. Four Chips Ahoy. Plenty.<\/p>\n
\u201cCook-KIE?\u201d He raises his arm \u2013 he doesn\u2019t really point \u2013 toward the single stack. He\u2019d sure take the three-stack jumbo bag \u2013 and polish them off in less than one evening and in less than maybe two complete Elmo videos \u2013 but I\u2019m not so far gone as a dad as to allow that.<\/p>\n
Alex also goes gaga for Jill\u2019s chocolate chip cookies. She often mixes up a big bowl of batter \u2013 with a dash of coconut \u2013 and wraps a couple of batter logs in plastic and sticks them in the fridge or freezer. I confess I like the batter, too, and will quietly as possible unwrap the batter logs in those rare moments my family actually leaves me the hell alone in a room of our apartment and will knife off what\u2019s surely an unnoticeable slice. Jill keeps saying I shouldn\u2019t because it\u2019s too fattening. Better than sneaking gin, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
Besides, Alex steals, too. When we make a batch in the evening, each of the kids get four and Jill and I each get three. Alex gobbles his in a flash, then prowls (take notice when he stops prowling). Is daddy watching his bowl? Yes. Is mommy watching her bowl? Yes. Is Ned\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cHey!\u201d Ned finds his empty bowl. Alex hasn\u2019t eaten them yet, at least not all of them, just dumped them into his own bowl and scurried back into his room. Sometimes we\u2019re fast enough to rescue a few for Ned. Sometimes not. You learn to live with it in this business.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlex, give me back your bowl!\u201d I demand.<\/p>\n
This bowl? his face seems to reply. Sure! He hands it over with his right while I see his left slipping something behind his back. \u201cGive\u2019em back, Alex! You had your four!\u201d At least, those four are the ones we know about.<\/p>\n
Jeff Stimpson, 49, is a native of Bangor, Maine, and lives in New York with his wife Jill and two sons. He is the author of Alex: The Fathering of a Preemie and Alex the Boy: Episodes From a Family\u2019s Life With Autism (both available on Amazon). He maintains a blog about his family at http:\/\/jeffslife.tripod.com\/alextheboy, and is a frequent contributor to various sites and publications on special-needs parenting, such as Autism-Asperger\u2019s Digest, Autism Spectrum News, and The Autism Society news blog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Alex would learn to pilot an F-16 in exchange for a chocolate-chip cookie. Autism parenting sites all warn about overusing bribes, but nothing sticks Alex to his barber\u2019s chair or to a seat at a family event like a chocolate chip cookie. Jill whipped them out to get us all through last Passover (\u201cSit down, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-special-needs-fathers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatherville.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}