Working with Michael Around
by Steve (Michael's dad)

Michael can be quite difficult to do things with. One of his favorite things is to listen to me sing. Very sweet right? Well after two hours or so of the same song, it gets a little old. So I recorded myself singing the song into the computer, and then whenever he begs me to sing it, I can boot up my laptop, and put the song on continuous play, and he is happy and I can work.

Except like most things in life, it is not that simple.

Now whenever he sees me sit down with my laptop, he associates that with the song, and sits besides me, and demands that I play it.

Which seems kind of sweet also, I mean, I do like him to sit beside me. But one of the things I do for work is record screen shot – how to videos, where the screen is recorded along with my narration. And of course, I can’t do that while he is listening to that song.

So, I found another thing that is a favorite of his. Popcorn. We have a hot air popcorn popper and one of his favorite things is to watch a batch of popcorn pop. But even more, he likes to sit down and taste the bowl of popcorn.

Yes, I mean “taste” and not “eat.” That would be better.

You see, he has an oral aversion, which basically means that he has a really hard time swallowing things. We feed him through a special tube that is in his stomach wall. But he doesn’t mind putting things (like popcorn) in his mouth, he just won’t swallow.

The dogs in our house LOVE him. Because he tastes, chews, masticates, and thoroughly slimerizes his food, and then spits it out somewhere. If a dog is around, he gives it to them. (Unless I am sitting next to him, then I am his first choice.) But if not, he just spits it back in the bowl. This can make sharing popcorn with him quite an adventure. Is that extra butter? Or is it one that he has thoroughly tasted?

And so while I have distracted him from wanting that song played (over and over and over and over) he is sitting next to me trying to share his popcorn, giving me all the pieces he has tasted even though I tell him to give them to the dogs instead. It makes it hard to get things done. So I better type this while I can.