McDonalds? Why, yes please!

If you have a child with Autism, you know that you will do anything you can to make your child happy and/or comfortable.  Elijah has a lot of days where he hates to eat anything that I try to feed him...including his favorite 4 foods.  YES...FOUR foods.

Chicken Nuggets (specific brands, mind you!)
French Fries
Sausage
and last but not least, hot dogs.

We have nicknamed this the Autism diet.

Any of the above MUST, and I repeat MUST be drowned in ketchup before the child will touch it!  I honest to God buy 7 lb jars of Heinz Ketchup that has a pump on it, because I go through that much!  I buy one about once a month, and that's if I can get it to last that long!

I will do anything on this earth to make Elijah happy.  Anything.  And before you jump to conclusions and think I haven't tried every single specialist that Nationwide Children's Hospital offers for children with eating issues to try and broaden his horizons, think again!  We see multiple clinics, multiple Dr's., and they all say the same thing.  Try to make his choices as healthy as possible, but at the same time...he has AUTISM and he will eat what he wants and nothing else.

You see, I have a hate/hate relationship with Autism.  I love nothing about it.  I do not love that my child is withdrawn, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and all the other overloaded words that come with it.  I H.A.T.E it.  I hate that it makes his life (and ours, quite frankly) difficult.  Even more so than it already was before the diagnosis.  I have been told that I have a very special, and unique child.  Elijah is not just Autistic, he is also deaf, and chromosomally enhanced with Down Syndrome.  Any one of those diagnosis' may not have been so bad.  Heck, maybe two would have been OK.  But all three?  They quite frankly SUCK.

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have heard "he is such a special, unique child." Or, "we're not sure WHAT to do for him...he is just so different."  Yep.  Thanks.

I knew, knew, knew that things weren't going to be easy when I had him over 6 years ago.  I knew that.  But then, 2 years ago, our hard, cold world came crashing to a crushing halt.

Autism.

So, in comes the title.  McDonald's.  The love of Elijah's life.  He would LIVE there if I would let him.  He is so happy when he sees the big Arch, and even happier when I pull in the parking lot.  Go ahead and say WHATEVER you want about my parenting.  I do not care.  My child is HAPPY when we are at McDonald's.  He is a different child while we are there.  Is it healthy?  No, not really.  But, I don't care.  I really don't.  It's like he melts into the child I wish he was all the time...every time we are there.  And guess what?  I try to take him a few times a week, just to see that smile...the smile that I rarely see at home.

And you know what else?  It breaks my heart that a restaurant makes him happier than I do.  It makes me cry thinking that a yellow M makes him so happy, and I can rarely get a smile.  His face when he sees it, it's priceless.  So, you know what?  Until he doesn't like it anymore...he will go there on a regular basis.  And not just because he doesn't like to eat any other foods, but because the smile is just something I can not live without.

E.