Day 1: Moe's Favorite Things

If Oprah can have two days of favorite things, Moe can have a whole week, right? Well, 4 days because I took the first day with my ode to Tassimo. Today, we're going to talk chewing.

When Moe was first diagnosed we didn't think he had a lot of sensory processing issues. He didn't seem to be affected by lights or noise very much, and loved cuddles. Hahahaha! We had no idea how wrong we were. We didn't realize that it could work the other way. Some kids are sensory averse, but Moe is a sensory seeker. He likes to touch and fidget and splash and especially to chew. As an infant he rarely mouthed his toys the way many babies do, but for the past year or so he's made up for lost time. There is not a book, toy, item of clothing, or piece of furniture that does not have bite marks on it.

I didn't think I'd have to tell anyone to stop chewing on the furniture since the dog did this:

For whatever reason, Moe needs to chew. It calms him and he likes the deep pressure. Lots of people like to chew and we find socially acceptable ways to do this, by chewing on things like pen caps or gum. For Moe, who wants to chew on everything, we say "not for mouth!" and redirect to appropriate things to chew on. That means basically three things: food, chewy tubes and his monkey puppet.

You know what food is, so I guess I don't need to really explain that. We do try to give Moe a lot of oral input at snacktime, with plenty of chewy and crunchy foods.

We also try to always have a chewy tube hanging around Moe's neck. This is tough because he tends to take it off and drop it wherever he happens to be when he's done chewing, but I have a lot of these around the house. For those of you who don't know, chewy tubes are hard rubber tubes that you can, well, chew on. I suppose I didn't really need to tell you that either. These are Moe's favorites:

Chewy Tube with Bumps

Pen Cap Chewy

We also allow Moe to chew on a gorilla puppet he's had since he was a baby. He's actually on his second one and I have another one waiting just in case. We removed the electronic squeaker so we can put it in the washing machine. Moe loves chewing on this puppet and bites down really hard. Here's a before and after:

Before: Happy squeaky monkey!

After: Sad Monkey

Not all kids with autism chew and plenty of kids without autism do. As far as Moe's sensory seeking behaviors, it is annoying, but not something we are too worried about. He'll either grow out of it or we'll help him find socially acceptable ways of getting this input.

For information on where to buy the chewy tubes mentioned here, click on the link above called "resources."

My Cup of Happy

I don't do product reviews here. I'm not opposed to them, but it's just not what this blog is about. Every so often, however, there are products that really make life easier, and all this week, I plan to write about some of those. Since this is primarily an autism blog, these products will for the most part be related to how we work and play with Moe. But this is also a parenting blog and today I want to write about my new favorite gadget: the Tassimo Single-Serve Coffee Brewer, otherwise known as the Brewbot.

You may have seen the commercials for this cute little machine and before you get too excited, it is not actually a little robot. My BFF has a different machine that she loves, the Nespresso C100T Essenza Single-Serve Automatic Espresso Machine, and I had planned to get that one but thought the versatility of the Tassimo might be interesting. So I looked for reviews. You would not believe the negative reviews I read - not about the machine, but about the fact that the commercials are "misleading" and that the coffee maker is not actually a transforming robot. Really.

Back when I worked at Danger, we had a cool machine that we called the coffee robot. It was a fancy espresso machine that made all kinds of drinks at the touch of a button. Push the latte button and the machine would grind the beans, steam the milk and pop out a latte. I really wanted one of those, but at the time I think it cost a few thousand dollars. It was purchased by one of the founders of Danger, Andy Rubin, who went on to start Android. Andy would occasionally send emails to the company like "I just got a new 100" TV and am giving away my old 99" one. First one to my office gets it." He's a robot enthusiast and I heard he built a full sized coffee robot, but that it had to be put in a cage because of its tendency to whack people in the head when handing them their coffee. Or something like that.

Anyway, the Brewbot comes with little pods, called T-discs, that have a bar code on them. Pop the pod in, press the button, and the right drink comes out. Milk drinks, like lattes, have two pods. First put in the milk pod and when that's done, put in the espresso pod. And, the best part is there is nothing to clean up besides your mug.

Before this little machine, I barely had time to make a pot of coffee. Back in grad school my friend would ask me each morning if I wanted to go get a cup of "happy." It was as true then as it is now. A caffeinated mom is a happy mom.

I was not compensated in any way by Tassimo for this review. I received the machine as an early Hanukkah present from my mom. Thanks Mom!