My Wild Thing

I decided to take Will to a sensory friendly showing of Where the Wild Things Are Saturday morning. William hates going to movies. When he was younger we’d keep him quiet by buying the largest tub of popcorn and planting that on his lap. But once he became gluten and casein free we couldn’t buy popcorn at the movies anymore and, since he hated to go anyway, he stopped going. About three years ago, I tried taking him to an autism Alliance sponsored showing of Meet the Robinsons. That ended in failure. Will and I spent everything but the first fifteen minutes out in the hallway while everyone else watched the movie.

But since I am insane I decided to try again. I popped two bags of popcorn, filled up a bottle with water and tried to prepare William. “Hey, Will guess what? You get to go to the movies!” He ignored me. I tried again. “Will, I’m taking you to see Where the Wild Things Are.” He turned into my wild thing! He started screaming and pinching and kicking! He threw himself on the floor in a furious rage at my colossal nerve; horrified at the punishment he knew was coming! If there had been a boat available to sail away on he would have left. (Unfortunately for him, I keep the front door locked now.) He was so upset he gave himself a bloody nose. At which point I turned into a wild thing only I forced Will onto my boat and drove to the theatre.

Stuffing himself with two bags of casein free popcorn Will was appeased for a time. And once he realized that I wouldn’t let him out of his seat to run around he distracted himself from the torture of the movie by sitting on my lap, reciting the ABCs with accompanying word, turning around in the seat to talk in the direction of the people behind us and ….

I don’t think he has any idea about what happened in the movie and that’s probably just the way he wants it!