"No. I Won't."

I had an "encounter" with an older lady in a shopping centre today while shopping with the kids. Guess what, it wasn't that kind of encounter. My kid wasn't misbehaving and she wasn't commenting on his behaviour, his harness or his iTouch blaring in his hand- in fact, I don't know that she even noticed him. But what the woman said made an impression and I've wanted to sit her down for a reality check ever since. First, a little background.

The Bubbly One's school was closed today so that the teachers could go to a conference. It was a good conference for them to go to and they'd swapped it with another planned closure day with heaps of notice so that was fine. The Bubbly One's been pretty full-on at home lately with endless sensory seeking, which I blogged about yesterday. With this all too fresh in my mind I was not looking forward to a day at home and had resolved to get us out of the house in some way, shape or form. My options were a drive, a walk or some shopping.

Master Bubble has always been a pretty good shopper. Sure, he has occasional tantrums, but he's only had a couple of full-blown meltdowns while shopping so I'm reasonably comfortable doing a fly-in, fly-out shopping trip with both boys. I do our grocery shopping with The Bubbly One most weekends while Daddy and The Little One enjoy some time together. He wears a backpack harness attached to my wrist, I buy him a donut as soon as we arrive, and he "helps" me to push the trolley or The Little One's pram. As much as I'm "on-guard" throughout it I enjoy our shopping trips together. He's come a long way and he's quite proud of himself when I tell him what a great job he's doing (plus he usually scores a little toy). We don't get many rude comments because it's reasonably clear to look at him that he has some type of disability. The few times we have had people comment have stayed with me, but that's a post for another day.

So, we had a day to fill and The Bubbly One needed jumpers for school as we're heading into Winter, so in we went. I've been having trouble getting him to wear a jumper to school and I thought that it was the feel of them on his skin, but after weeks of having them thrown at my head with screaming and crying I finally clued in that it didn't matter what material they were made of because it was the royal blue colour that he found so offensive. So I tried a grey striped jumper. Not a problem. A red one? Fine. Bubbly goes to a special school where most of the kids have sensory issues so when I told his teacher she said to just let him wear whatever he was warm and comfortable in. So our mission was to find jumpers that were not royal blue (or zippered jackets, they're all wrong too), but which still made him look like he belonged to the school.

When we got there I followed the routine. I parked up a level so that he could get his head around walking properly before there were many people around. He helped me to push his brother's pram while wearing his harness and we headed straight for Donut King. It was a little busy but he was calm as we waited (I almost relaxed at that point!). I prompted him to show me what he wanted. Pointing is a new and very celebrated milestone for our boy. He was a little torn today though, and pointed to a few things randomly. I narrowed it down to just two and I noticed that our exchange was being closely watched by a little blonde girl beside him as she leaned on the display case. The lady she was with was placing a special order with her back turned.

Bubbly has a bit of a thing for blondes so when he saw he had this little girls attention he smiled at her and danced a little in her direction. She smiled at him and showed him what she was having. He then pointed at it and I enjoyed the interaction. Then it happened:

"Get off the glass or the lady behind you will go cranky at you". Grandma had spoken and was looking at me for back up. I looked at the little girl, then I looked at her. Had I heard  her right?
"Won't you?!"
"Um no I won't". I got eyeballed. Hard.
"Yes, you will". I eyeballed Grandma.
"No. I Won't." I wanted to say more but she'd already turned her back on me. I smiled at the little girl who was so lovely to my son. "Enjoy your donut sweetie." and they disappeared.

We had a hugely successful shopping trip. The Bubbly One firmly, but calmly rejected plenty of jumpers. He calmly steered the pram away from Target's entry instead of throwing a tantrum (what autistic kid doesn't hate Target?). He smiled as we walked past the scene of last weekend's photo shoot and giggled with his little brother. We checked out the pet shop and he put things down when told to. He grabbed a balloon from a stall (the lady smiled and said it was okay), and he didn't object too strongly to a jumper that I liked- so I bought two. He chose his fruit for school and conned some cars out of me in the supermarket (the point again!). He was awesome and I was so proud of him.

But the encounter with that woman stayed with me. I'm always expecting people to tell me to discipline my kid, but I never expected to be asked to discipline someone else's. And it bugged me that that sweet little girl was given a hard time after she'd been so nice to my son. There was so much that I would have liked to say to that woman, but I had to let three words suffice. I hope those words stayed with her, and I do hope that that beautiful little girl enjoyed her donut. :-)