Your Blues Ain't Like Mine

Noa sees things that we just don't see.

He sees the extra angles that differentiate a dodecahedron from a decagon (go ahead, Google it, I had to 😉).

He sees shapes and numbers in everything around us.

He sees colors. Not just our mundane reds, blues and greens. He sees crimson, ceylon and hunter. Some how Noa decided that one of those colors was his favorite. It was blue. Not just any blue but a royal blue. The blue that had the perfect balance of yellow and green that wouldn't make it too light or too dark but sufficiently vibrant. He could find the blue anywhere. If we were out and he'd see a sign with "his" blue he'd sit and want to stare at it. I made the unfortunate mistake of finding a shirt with just the right royal blue. That shirt became "blue shirt" and he would ask for it all the time. Getting him out of the shirt was almost impossible and the tantrums that would ensue after trying to take it off were epic. It became a way to control him (to a certain extent)—

"Ok Noa, we are going to go in the store, if you are a good boy you can have Blue Shirt when we get home"

The even mention of the “Blue Shirt" usually caused him to perk up and to stop whatever behavior that was brewing.

The shirt love expanded. I went so far as to buy more of the “Blue Shirts”. I combed kids stores in search of the blue. I knew his blue but sometimes I was off. My eye couldn’t discern the exact blue that Noa needed. The blue that calmed him.

When I did find the blue I would buy several. For almost two years, Noa rarely wore anything but royal blue shirts. Everyone that knew him knew that it was his “signature” color. The blue shirts began to have name: Blue shirt 4, Blue shirt red, Blue shirt hood. 

Then one day it became a problem. A child with Autism will have regimens and processes that help calm them and focus them. Its important to support them with these but we didn’t want it to become a fixation, to the point where he would refuse all other clothing except for things with royal blue. We started to slowly remove the blue shirts from the rotation. First it became a battle but then little by little he began to accept different colors. Rewards would be in the form of wearing “Blue shirt gap” on Friday or the weekend. We taught him to take his shirt off, to put it in the dirty clothes and to wait for it to be washed.

As with everything with Noa it was a process but one that we slowly and steadily accomplished. His progress overall has been amazing. From being able to tolerate simple things like going into a grocery store to wearing a different colored shirt we have all borne the scars of skirmishes that produced these small victories. 

I used to take so much for granted before this little boy entered our lives. Now we revel in minor accomplishments that are so very big for us. And as usual, Noa continues to teach us to look at things differently, to change our perspective and to see him in his world….where I’m sure the sky is a perfectly brilliant, beautiful royal blue.