He loves helping and being useful. He likes to be in charge. Isaac sorts the recycling and cans, loads up the van, and helps unload at both locations. He's genuinely happy doing these tasks. I love it, too, because the van ride calms him down after school, and I talk to Isaac and he answers occasionally as we are driving around town.
A few weeks ago, he asked me to drop off the recycling first. He never asks to change the routine, but it didn't matter to me. "Sure," I said, "let's do it."
I was a little surprised. He wanted to change the routine?
I think what bothers him most is occasionally finding a stray pop can or beer bottle among the recycling. At that point, I refuse to drive to the redemption place again. Instead, the bottle is returned to our home and stays there until the following week. It must feel wrong. And it is, when the goal is to get this stuff out of our house.
Monday night we talked about Tuesday's recycling. He studied the daily schedule I had written. Isaac wanted to make sure I remembered his new request: first recycling, then pop cans.
"Write it on the schedule," I said. "Then I'll remember for sure."
He grabbed the pen. Then he picked up a cell phone, opened up YouTube, and went straight to high school basketball games from earlier in the season. Isaac has watched the Cedar Falls vs. Dubuque Senior game dozens of times. He laughs hysterically at some parts and screams with excitement during certain plays.
Was he getting sidetracked by his all-time favorite team, the Cedar Falls Tigers?
He looked carefully at the phone screen, wrote down "1st" on the piece of notebook paper, fast forwarded the game, and slowly wrote, "2nd." Then he handed the notebook back to me.
Recycling 1st, pop cans 2nd.
Isaac has a difficult time spelling. I'm not sure why. I don't know if it makes any sense to his autistic brain or if his motor planning doesn't work the same way his brain does. He might not know how to spell "first" and "second" without transposing a few letters, but he was able to figure it out by watching the basketball game and looking at which quarter it was -- and copying down what he saw on the screen.
Isaac has challenges, but he's smarter and more resourceful than most people realize. He knew he had seen "1st" and "2nd" somewhere. He wanted to make sure he got it right. With his love for basketball and his problem-solving skills, he figured it out.
It was a slam dunk.