Last week my sons started asking lots of questions about the 4th of July. No, not the questions about how we would celebrate or if we would go visit family or if we would have a cook out. No, their questions were about fireworks, specifically, would they have to hear any? If you have a child with autism, you may experience the extreme anguish your children feel when they hear the loud popping noises of fireworks. I don't particularly care for loud noises either, but my kids absolutely obsess about this noise. They start worrying about a few weeks ahead of time. Do we live in the city limits? Can people shoot off fireworks in our neighborhood, and so on.
One morning last week, Nick said, "I wish we could just skip the month of July." I said, "oh, you want to go straight from June to August since that is your birthday month!" "NO," he shouted at me. "I don't want to have the 4th of July." By Thursday, the boys had made sure they knew where their earphones were and had them at the ready. We've used noise reduction earphones for a long time for loud music, loud movies, etc. We were supposed to go to Missouri for the 4th of July weekend and visit my brothers and my mother. However, on Wednesday and Thursday when we discussed this in our family and the boys realized that there would be no avoiding fireworks, they refused to go. My brother lives in a rural area and there were definitely going to be fireworks there. I've learned to at least avoid exposing people I love to the meltdowns that something as simple as fireworks can spawn.
On Thursday evening, a neighbor set off a few fireworks a block or so away. Nick and Will became frantic. Nick had on his earphones and was carrying the telephone around. He wanted to call 911. I told him that fireworks were not an emergency and that he could not call 911. He dialed the neighbor's phone number repeatedly. They did not answer (thankfully). He left wild messages for them to stop shooting off fireworks.
Friday night was a repeat of Thursday night and it wasn't even the 4th of July yet. On Saturday, I got out ear plugs to go under the earphones. The boys had them in by 6:00, just to be ready. At the first sound of fireworks nearby, they jumped in bed and threw the covers over their heads. They slept all night long with the ear plugs and earphones securely in their ears. Just for good measure, a gigantic storm, complete with thunder and lightning followed the fireworks.
This morning, there were smiles all around. "No more fireworks, right Mom?" they asked in unison. I smiled, hugged them tight and thanked God that another 4th of July had passed.