We had a small festival in our neighborhood last week. It's not much of anything but they did have a bounce house. This is C's idea of heaven. He bounces and laughs and pretends to fall. He feels weightless at times and the pressure on the joints when he jumps is great for his moods. So they say that it's $2 for 10 minutes or $5 for all day. Well duh...I'll take the all day please! C enters the bounce house. He's one of the first five kiddos in there. Immediately the bounce house collapses! The grandparents of the other four kids and I scramble to get all the kids out. After everyone was accounted for and it inflated up again, the people running the house sent in a few teenagers. They bounced and grabbed the walls and could not make it collapse. We reluctantly sent the kiddos back in. This time it stayed up! My kiddo starts to laugh and bounce and play out some cartoon that he has seen in the past. His ten minutes passes and we take him out for a safety break. It was already HOT HOT HOT out! He drank water and then was allowed back in. The heat is starting to get to him. After this session we head home only on the promise that we will return later in the day. As I walk home with C in the jogger he reminds me, repeatedly, that he wants to go back to the bounce house.
Later in the day we head back down. Armed with water and a sleeveless t-shirt he gets back in. When he jumped for 8 minutes and then asked for a break I knew that it was too hot for him. I gave him a break and then let him back in. Sweaty, red and panting now I tell him that it's time to go. Flailing and screaming "HELP" I manage to get him to the car (I drove this time). His 10 minutes of heaven behind us he sits in his seat and cries while trying to drink cold water. The heat has proven us incapable of working through autism. This has been our experience with the zoo as well. My kiddo is a fall, winter and spring kinda guy. I'm okay with that. You see, Momma is a red head with no tolerance to the sun. So kiddo and I are a match made in heaven...or match made in a bounce house :)
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