Getting Christmas Presents

As I mentioned in my last blog post, buying gifts for Alex is sometimes a challenge. While I’m fortunate that we have Wal-Mart, Kmart, Target, Kohl’s, Penney’s, and Barnes and Noble in our town that offer a variety of items for shopping, I also do a lot of online shopping for him. When I can’t find items locally at the aforementioned stores, I often check their websites to see what I can get online. Both Kohl’s and Penney’s websites [www.kohls.com and www.jcp.com] offer a nice feature where the shopper can browse for gifts by the intended recipient and/or cost of gift. Besides these stores, I also shop a great deal online at Amazon [www.amazon.com], which is Alex’s favorite online store because of the wide variety of books, toys, games, and electronic gadgets they carry. In fact, I often suggest that Alex’s aunts and uncles get him Amazon gift cards because he has so much fun shopping for items online.

Since Alex has often had interests that were not typical of kids his age, I also have found specialty catalogs especially helpful in finding Christmas gifts for him. I have no connection with the following companies other than being a pleased customer, and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking for unique gifts for hard-to-buy-for children and teens.


Bits and Pieces offers a variety of puzzles, games, and interesting gadgets primarily for teens and adults. In addition, their website also provides the helpful feature of suggesting gifts for specified recipients and/or amounts to be spent. Their website is www.bitsandpieces.com.



Young Explorers carries a wide variety of interesting toys and games for children of all ages. They specialize in educational toys and games, many of which have won awards. Their website at www.youngexplorers.com organizes its content by age of recipient and by categories of items. Alex’s favorite gifts from this company often came from the Brainy Toys or Science/Nature/Math sections of the catalog.


Toys to Grow On, whose website is located at www.ttgo.com, also offers a nice variety of educational toys and games for all ages of children. Alex especially liked the items from the “Love to Learn” and “Science Discoveries” of this catalog.


Mindware, which bills itself as carrying “brainy toys for kids of all ages,” provides a terrific variety of educational and award-winning toys, games, gadgets, and books. Over the years, I have found various items for Alex in the “Science,” “Brainteasers and Puzzles,” “Games,” and “Great Gifts” sections of the catalog. Their catalog is not only informative, but it is also appealing with its layout and photography. Their website is located at www.mindware.com.


A catalog I received for the first time this year, Museum Tour, also offers a nice assortment of award-winning educational toys, games and books that are carried in museum stores throughout the United States. Their website is www.museumtour.com. For Alex, I was especially interested in the science-oriented gifts, particularly those dealing with biology, meteorology, and astronomy.

Even though trying to find gifts for Alex sometimes requires some creativity and searching on my part, I’m glad to have found some terrific stores whose catalogs and websites allow me to find Christmas gifts that are right up his alley. Not only has he enjoyed playing with the specialty gifts, but he has also learned from them, which is an added bonus.

“You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Acts 20:35

Ghosts of Christmases Past

As the official Christmas shopping season has begun this Thanksgiving weekend, I find myself thankful that I have basically finished shopping for Alex. Buying gifts for him always proves to be somewhat of a challenge because he rarely asks for anything, and he is not good about giving suggestions. Nonetheless, I try to find things I think he would like. Sometimes, my ideas are right on target, and other times he looks at me as if to say, “Why would you think I would want that?” Interestingly, some of the gifts he has been less than enthusiastic about receiving at first later become favorites of his, which is gratifying. The other evening after he went to bed, I noticed an array of his belongings in the family room, where he had been spending time, and I realized that all of these items had been Christmas gifts from various years—Ghosts of Christmases Past, so to speak, that reveal his various interests.


One of these former Christmas gifts was one I’d gotten him last year, a retractable ballpoint pen with ten different colors of ink. I had seen one of my seventh grade students using a similar pen in class and asked her where she’d gotten it, thinking that Alex might like one, too. She told me that she’d gotten it at Claire’s Boutique, and I dug through all the hot pink pens to find a purple one I thought he’d find acceptable. While he didn’t seem very interested in the pen when he received it, he’s been using it quite a bit lately to write his assorted cryptic lists in multicolored ink.



Speaking of lists, another part of the Christmas Past menagerie included one of his all-time favorite books, I Love Lists! by Linda Schwartz. In fact, Alex loves this book so much that he’s now on a second copy of this paperback because the first one fell apart from being read and carried around so much. The book describes itself as: “More than 200 fun-filled lists for reading, science, math, geography, music, art, sports, and lots more!” Essentially, if Alex had asked someone to write the perfect book for him, this would be it. I happen to know that he finds the following lists in the book especially interesting: “Big Numbers,” Presidents of the United States,” “Bones in the Human Body,” “Palindromes,” and “Weather Words.” For compiling these clever lists into this book that Alex has enjoyed for years, I would personally like to thank Linda Schwartz.


Another book he has been reading was a Christmas gift from 2006, The Best Stocks You Can Buy 2007 by John Slatter. Alex has had a fascination with the stock market for a few years, so he has about five annual editions of Slatter’s book that we gave him for Christmas gifts. I’m not certain why he selected the 2007 version of the book, but I’m sure he has some reasoning for his interest in this particular book that is now five years old. When he starts giving us good investment advice, we’ll know that we made wise decisions in encouraging his interest in stocks by giving him these books.


Since Alex has an interest in money, I found a toy cash drawer with play money a few years ago that he has enjoyed from time to time since he received as a Christmas gift one year. Lately, he has been doling out the fake currency and coins, leaving the phony money on the floor and on tables throughout the house. Maybe he’s leaving tips for Ed and me for the excellent service we provide for him. Whatever his logic, he has certainly gotten our money’s worth out of that gift that only cost two dollars.


Another Ghost of Christmas Past in this collection is the television “plug and play” video game 1 Versus 100, based upon the game show of the same name. Since Alex really likes playing video games and watching game shows on television, this seemed like the perfect combination. A Christmas gift from thee years ago, he pulls it out to play every few months or so.


One of Alex’s favorite Christmas gifts from the past is one he carries around nearly every day, a handheld educational electronic toy called an iQuest. Loaded with questions about science, math, and social studies, this electronic gadget has keep Alex amused for hours Unfortunately, the manufacturer Leap Frog no longer makes the iQuest, which is a shame because it’s a great learning device. While the Leap Pad that replaced it offers more entertainment in the form of color and graphics, the iQuest’s simplicity and emphasis on facts appeals to Alex, and he has learned a great deal from playing with it. Most kids probably wouldn’t appreciate that, though, which is probably why the iQuest is now listed as a “collectible” toy.

As I surveyed the group of former Christmas gifts that had engaged Alex’s interest that day, I was pleased that I had been right about what kinds of things he would like. Also, I’m glad that he still enjoys things he has had for years, finding them entertaining even after all this time.

“Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me.” Isaiah 46:9

Saving

Before Ed and I were married, he proudly claimed that he could fit all of his belongings in his car. Considering that he was driving a Mazda GLC (Great Little Car) at the time, this was quite a feat. Since he had been a graduate student living on a teaching assistant’s meager salary, he didn’t have a lot of worldly goods to his name. Fast forward to the present, about twenty-five years later, and now we couldn’t fit all of the items from a single room of our house in that subcompact car he used to own. While we’re not even close to needing an intervention from the reality show Hoarders, I do admit that I like to keep things and must push myself to get rid of old possessions to make room for new ones. I’m always a little nervous that if I get rid of something, sometime in the future I’ll decide I need, want, or wish I’d kept it. Poor Alex has inherited this need to save things from me; his belongings wouldn’t fit in the Mazda GLC, either.

Most of the items Alex wants to save are paper-related: books, newspapers, and lists he has scrawled in his illegible handwriting or typed so that he can read them. Because Alex likes to sleep with his favorite books, many of them have covers missing along with bent or curled pages. Nonetheless, he never wants to get rid of any of his books, no matter what their condition. Consequently, we have provided him with bookcases so that he can keep his beloved books neatly and safely stored. As for his lists, we have tried various methods through the years to organize his scattered pieces of paper that usually contain dates, statistics, and other numerical values that only seem to make sense to him. Often, he would spread out these lists on the floor, poring over them proudly as he studied the information he valued, such as prime numbers or pi digits. To limit the scattered paper, we encouraged him to type his data on the spreadsheet program of his computer so that he could save this information digitally. A few years ago, when his computer suddenly stopped working, Alex’s primary panic was not the loss of his computer but his potential loss of data, and he moaned that he’d lost all of the lists he’d so carefully typed. Thankfully, the computer only needed a new power switch, and Alex could access his beloved lists within a few days. To help him organize and save all of his lists recorded on typing paper, sheets torn from legal pads, and assorted scraps from notepads, we bought him a cardboard file box in which he could store hundreds of lists. In addition, we later convinced him to write his lists in old-fashioned composition notebooks with marbled covers that securely kept his lists intact, which the legal pads and other notepads did not. These methods allowed Alex to save his lists while keeping our house neater.

Since Alex would probably save everything that he brings into the house and never get rid of anything, we have devised tricks to get rid of items he no longer needs. Of course, if we told him we were giving away or throwing away his stuff, he would likely throw a fit. Instead, we must use a technique of shifting, which allows us to get rid of Alex’s things gradually. For example, for a while Alex wanted a copy of the The Wall Street Journal every Saturday so that he could study stock market trends. Once he had that weekly edition, he would carry it around the house, sleep with it, and generally make it a crumbled mess of shredded paper from handling it so much. However, he was reluctant to part with any of these newspapers and would have been upset had we suggested throwing them away or putting them in the recycle bin. After Alex would go to sleep, Ed or I would grab the oldest editions of the The Wall Street Journal, leaving the newer and less tattered ones where he could find them, and put them in the garage or the basement. We were afraid to get rid of them completely, for fear that Alex would be angry that we had taken his precious belongings, so we put them in a holding place where he wouldn’t see them. Had he asked for a specific one, we could still get it for him. After several weeks passed and we felt certain he no longer missed those papers, then we would hide them in the garbage to get rid of them for good. Similarly, we used the shifting technique with old toys, sending them over to my parents’ house, where the grandkids could play with them there. If Alex showed an interest in playing with his old toys there, we kept them, but if he ignored them, we would give them to Goodwill after we were certain he wouldn’t want them again. Over the years, this shifting method worked very well to help Alex sort through the possessions he thought he needed and wanted to save. Had we allowed him to save everything, we might have been candidates for Hoarders, indeed. While he doesn’t need to limit his possessions to those that would fit in a small car, keeping clutter to a minimum is something Alex will need to learn eventually.

“May Your ways be known throughout the earth, Your saving power among people everywhere.” Psalm 67:2

Recommended

The other day I received an e-mail from Amazon.com with a detailed list of suggested items entitled, “Recommended for You.” These e-mails appear in my inbox every few weeks, and I always find them interesting because they have analyzed previous orders and come up with similar yet different items they would like to sell me. What is especially intriguing is that they don’t realize these recommendations are actually for Alex; I’m just his personal assistant who orders online for him and tracks the package when he asks. With its wide variety of books, electronics, toys, and games, Amazon holds special appeal for Alex because he can find nearly anything he’d like to own. Having mastered their search function, he enjoys looking through the various possible options, comparing prices, weighing which is best for him, and then negotiating with me as to whether he can order his desired objects. Although I don’t always understand quite why he wants some of the objects he finds on Amazon, I am always impressed with the imagination Alex shows in coming up with various gadgets and the specifications he requests that they have. Moreover, he does know what he wants because the items he chooses usually become particular favorites of his that he carries around and uses often.

Since Alex likes numbers, statistics, and weather, we have a variety of thermometers around the house so that he can monitor the temperature. A few years ago, he began checking Amazon to see what kinds of thermometers they carry and found one he knew he had to have, a non-contact infrared thermometer with laser targeting. While this sounds like something from a science-fiction movie, it’s just a thermometer that can be pointed at an object to determine its temperature using a laser. Alex was impressed with its digital display, but the real selling point was that its description included the range of temperatures it could measure: from -76 to 932 degrees Fahrenheit. I suspect that he was hoping to test the extremes of the range, but that was not going to be an option. However, once the thermometer arrived, we found him with his head stuck in the refrigerator and freezer, checking the temperatures there. Another day, I discovered the plastic end of the thermometer had melted slightly. When I questioned Alex what had happened to it, he admitted that he’d been testing the temperature of light bulbs when they are turned on and had gotten too close. He can sit for long periods of time on our back screen porch measuring the warmth of the sun’s rays as they shine on the floor out there, and he likes to note the changes as the angle of the sun shifts. One day, I opened the dishwasher and discovered that he’d put the thermometer in the top rack of the dishwasher to measure the temperature of the water when the machine was running. Unfortunately, the thermometer is not water resistant, but after a couple of days of drying, the gadget was as good as new. At least Alex was smart enough to put it on the top rack of the dishwasher; I’m not certain that it would have survived a round in the bottom rack. Nonetheless, despite all the various experiments that thermometer has endured, as evidenced by its appearance, it still provides Alex with hours of entertainment, proving that he knew what he was doing when he decided to order it. Another gadget he found on Amazon that he has enjoyed thoroughly is a stopwatch. When he decided he wanted a stopwatch, he carefully compared and contrasted his options before deciding upon one that measured to 1/1000th of a second. His need for precision and accuracy made him opt for this model over the more common ones that measure to 1/100th of a second. While most people use stopwatches for timing sports events, Alex prefers to use his to measure the exact length of television commercials and You Tube videos. In addition, when he is watching NASCAR races on television, he sometimes measures the length of pit stops with his stopwatch being more precise than the ones shown on the television screen. If Jeff Gordon’s pit crew wants to know exactly how fast their stops are, Alex could tell them.

In addition to electronic gadgets, Alex also enjoys searching for unique books on Amazon. One of his all-time favorites is Pi: A Source Book, nearly 800 pages (exactly 797 pages, according to Alex) of articles about the mathematical concept of pi, one of his favorite topics. I believe he has read nearly all of this long book, and he has read some sections repeatedly. My favorite part of the book is the pi song, complete with music and lyrics. A few weeks ago, Alex decided that he would like a 1996 World Almanac to add to his collection. For several years, he has received a World Almanac for the upcoming year as a birthday or Christmas gift, and he consults these reference books many times a week, to the point their pages become bent and their covers fall off. Nonetheless, these well-worn books remain in his collection for reference. When he told me he wanted the 1996 almanac because it was the year of his earliest memory, I asked him if he already had one. He assured me that he did not and then went on to recite the years of the almanacs he does have. Thankfully, Amazon did carry this out-of-print book through their book dealers, and for less than four dollars, Alex obtained his desired book, which he has enjoyed reading, perhaps stirring memories of those early years. Although children with autism are sometimes said to lack imagination, Alex’s creativity in coming up with ideas for gadgets and books he’d like to have defies that stereotype. Moreover, his ability to research and find what he wants, as well as to show good consumer skills by determining the best value, makes me proud to be his mother and his personal shopper.

“May He grant your heart’s desires and make all your plans succeed.” Psalm 20:4

Rediscovery

This past week, Alex seems to be in a nostalgic mood, as he has been busily rediscovering books, toys, software, and handheld electronic gadgets that he hasn’t used in months, or even years. His bedroom, which he has been keeping neat for quite a while, currently looks as though a tornado has torn through it because he’s been sorting through books on his bookshelves, toys in his toy box, and electronic games and gadgets in a basket. In our home office, he has software manuals and CD-ROMs lying on the desk. His desktop computer, which held less charm for him once he got his new laptop this summer, has regained favor as he has been playing old games on it. A few years ago, Alex developed a keen interest in simulation computer games and acquired a nice collection of software that allowed him to plan, build, and run various business ventures. After a while, though, he found Google, Wikipedia, and You Tube more interesting than his computer games. However, this week, he has resumed playing Roller Coaster Tycoon, Mall Tycoon, Restaurant Empire, and Casino Empire. The enthusiasm he formerly held for building roller coasters, malls, restaurants, and casinos has returned, and he gains satisfaction as he watches his plans develop through the sequence of the computer games.

Scattered on Alex’s bedroom floor are books that he hasn’t read in months and toys he hasn’t played with in ages. Among the books he’s studying again are two coin collection books of pennies, the NASCAR Road Atlas, and Mrs. Byrne’s Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words, a gift from a friend who thought I’d appreciate a book whose title contained the name my students call me. I’m not certain why Alex has resumed his fascination with coins, maps, and odd words, but I’m pleased that he knows where to find books that he enjoys. In addition, he’s been pulling out and playing all of his electronic interactive games: U.S. Presidents, Solar System, U.S.A. Map, and World Map. While I suspect that Alex probably knows all the answers to the questions these interactive games pose, maybe playing them again gives him confidence that he has learned the lessons they’ve taught him over the years. He has also been playing with two car-related toys that he’s had since he was little, the Hot Wheels Racing Steering Wheel and the Hot Wheels Auto Tech Service Center, both of which are speaking toys. Since most boys his age are out driving cars, I have to admit that I’m relieved that he’s just dealing with toy cars. Certainly with his motor delays, the Hot Wheels steering wheel is much safer for him to operate than a real steering wheel.

Besides software, books, and toys, Alex has also been digging through his handheld electronic games and gadgets that he has basically ignored for months. He’s been bringing old games to me to put new batteries in them, and in doing his mental inventory, he has realized that some gadgets he previously had have been lost or broken over the years. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, “Progress Achieved,” Alex had a small tape recorder that he would use after provoking us so that he could record our angry comments. He particularly liked replaying Ed’s earnest request “to stop torturing us,” and my middle school teacher voice insisting that Alex “sit down and be quiet because I’ve had enough!” Because he was driving us crazy with that thing, we hid it where he wouldn’t find it. Apparently, we found a really great hiding place because we can no longer find it, either. This week, Alex located a similar tape recording toy online and decided to purchase it using a gift card his uncle and aunt had given him. If he resumes using that gadget for evil instead of good, we will be mailing that Yadda Yadda Yadda, as it’s called, to Uncle John in New Jersey to do with as he pleases. Another gadget Alex decided to replace this week was his Talking Road Whiz handheld device that tells distances between cities and the locations of businesses along major highways—a simpler, less expensive version of GPS. As I recall, angry adolescent Alex threw the original Road Whiz in a fit of temper, which explains why none of the buttons work anymore, despite new batteries. We found the Road Whiz online, and he put some of his gift money toward a new one. Now he keeps using online tracking to see when these new toys will arrive. The other day, he informed me that he also wants a PDA and has been pricing them on the Internet. Although he wanted one several years ago, we did not get him the Palm Pilot he wanted, as we didn’t think he was responsible enough to take care of one of these expensive electronic aids. Now that he does generally do a good job of taking care of his things and has his own money saved to buy one, he’ll probably add another gadget to his collection. Considering that his father now travels nearly everywhere with a Kindle and an I-Pod Touch, Alex seems to be following in his footsteps with all his electronic accouterments. Despite the fun and excitement that come with new possessions, Alex still likes the familiarity of the old things and gains pleasure rediscovering them.

“Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand by the roads and look; and ask for the eternal paths, where the good, old way is; then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.’” Jeremiah 6:16

Library

One of Alex’s favorite places to go besides Walmart and Panera Bread is our local public library. Considering how much he loves books and reading, his enjoyment of trips to the library is not surprising. When he was younger, I took him to choose books probably two or three times a month. However, for several years, I couldn’t take him to the library because his unpredictable adolescent behavior worried me that he might become noisy and disruptive. Meltdowns from children with autism are never pretty, but I knew that if he threw a fit in the middle of a quiet library, all eyes would be upon us. I wasn’t brave enough to risk that kind of negative attention for either of us. Recently, his vastly improved behavior has earned him regular trips to the library again, and he and I have established a routine where we go every other Saturday morning. While his tastes in reading material have changed over the years, his enthusiasm about going to pick out books from a large collection remains strong.

As a little boy, Alex spent most of his time in the children’s section of the library, other than the time he spent patiently waiting for me to select books from the adult section. The only problem about the children’s section of our library is that it is located on the second floor. Since Alex was afraid to walk down the stairs at that time, I’d have to carry him down in my arms. As he got bigger and heavier, this became a challenge because we were also carrying a stack of books he’d chosen. Of course, we could have taken the elevator, but my fear of elevators made me more willing to carry Alex and his books down the stairs without complaint. While most children like picture books and story books, Alex preferred books about letters and numbers. I think we read just about every alphabet book in the library’s collection. In addition, he loved Jane Belk Moncure’s My First Steps to Reading Series; each book focuses specifically on one letter of the alphabet, such as My “a” Book, and lists several words that begin with that letter. These books complemented his speech therapy nicely because he would often choose the letter that his speech therapist had assigned us to work on for those weeks. He read all the books in the series, and even read some of his favorites more than once. Another series he really liked was the MathStart Series that includes math problems in the stories, which appealed to his love of numbers and math. He also discovered a series of foreign language picture dictionaries written for children, the Just Look and Learn Picture Dictionaries, and he enjoyed learning some Spanish, German, French, and Italian words from these books. Besides his interest in books about letters, numbers, and foreign languages, Alex also liked looking through children’s cookbooks, especially when he was a big fan of the Food Network.

One of Alex’s strengths lies in his ability to research his interests. He mastered the computerized card catalog early, and I remember vividly holding him up so that he could reach the keyboard to type in his search queries. Now he no longer needs me to boost him to reach the computer at the library, but he often prefers to investigate possible book choices from home, using the online card catalog instead. While I sometimes make suggestions about books I think he would like, he also comes up with ideas of his own about what he’d like to read. His favorite library books seem to be medical in nature; he has read about child development and was especially engaged in a couple of books he read about the brain and nervous system. In addition, he has checked out books about recreational activities, such as NASCAR, gambling, and the board game Monopoly. He was also pleased to find a book about the different numbers famous athletes have worn on their sport jerseys; this combined his interest in sports as well as his love of numbers. Because of his interest in finance and the stock market, he has additionally read books about Wall Street and banking. Currently, he has checked out another library book about the brain and nervous system that he has been studying carefully, along with the Encyclopedia of Antique American Clocks, which is fitting since he likes clocks and dates, both of which are prominent in this book. As I watch Alex enjoy selecting books from the library and reading them at home, I’m pleased that he, like Ed and me, finds so much pleasure in reading.

“In that day the deaf will hear words read from a book, and the blind will see through the gloom and darkness.” Isaiah 29:18