Weekend with the kittens

My wife's friend found some kittens that appeared to to abandoned and she took them in
and nurtured them back to health and now she's looking for a home to place them in. I'm allergic to cats and our youngest son Caden is as well. Our oldest son Mason (the child with Aspergers) is not allergic and he LOVES cats so we thought we could babysit the kittens for the weekend so Mason could interact them. Well as it turns out we all fell in love with the kittens. Caden and I battled through the weekend with itchy eyes and sneezing but it was worth it. I've never seen the kids this excited before. It was worth it not just because of the entertainment the kittens provided but to also see the reactions from the kids.

Mason couldn't be away from the kittens for more than 5 minutes. Aspergers provides some interesting challenges and we're always looking for therapeutic vehicles to help him cope with life. It appears as though cats are one of those vehicles. He connected with those cats immediately and he went from going 100 mph (his normal speed) to 10 mph. He laid down with the cats and played with them, he snuggled them, he sat on the couch and had one of the kittens fall asleep on his lap..... He never sits without fidgeting or twitching or having to get up and run around. (it makes bedtime a nightly challenge) He sat quietly with that cat sleeping in his lap for almost 30 minutes. I had to chuckle because after 30 minutes I saw him walking down the hall to his room and I asked why he got up and he said "I just couldn't sit still anymore and the kitten wouldn't wake up."

Sunday came and it was time to bring the kittens back and we saw another element of the Aspergers kick in. High levels of uncontrollable emotional outbreaks. He did not want the kittens to leave and he cried, screamed, threw things around his room. This lasted for about 10 minutes which is actually fairly short for one of his outbreaks. I think one of the kittens walked in to his room during the outbreak and he stopped to pick it up. He laid down on his bed and snuggled with the kitten for the next half hour. It truly broke our hearts to give them back and my wife was crying because it was hard to Mason this upset. We honestly contemplated keeping the cats but in the end, our allergies won the battle. Mason said that he didn't want to be around when we brought the cats back so my wife took the kids to a movie while I did the deed.

We've babysat for a friends dog in the past and Mason has never really connected with dogs like he does with cats. There is obviously some type of energy or aura or something about the cats that he feeds off of. I truly wish we could get him a kitty. Our youngest was just diagnosed with asthma a few weeks which now means he has to live with nebulizer treatments twice a day so I'm not quite sure if having a kitty is good a idea right now unfortunately.

The moral of the Asperger story here is it appears as though animals (cats in our case) can provide a great therapeutic method to helps kids cope with life. In our case the response was immediate. The calming effect it had was unbelievable.

The other moral, is to get creative when dealing with issues. In our case, Mason was so upset that he didn't want to be around when we brought the kittens back. He agreed that it would be ok if he went to see a movie while I did the deed.

Coming up, I'll be talking about our most recent ordeal with the nebulizer treatments and how Mason is being effected.

Ciao'
Kevin
His demeanor changed 180 degrees.