What she doesn't like.

Haley likes a lot of things.  When she was in grade school she had a homework assignment to cut pictures out of magazines and make a collage of things she likes and things she doesn't like.  This was basically homework for me.

I had no problem finding pictures of things that Haley likes.  I added pictures of animals, foods, toys and even the train engines she likes.  Finding something she didn't like was harder.  I thought and thought.  Really the only things I knew she didn't like weren't really things at all. 

Haley didn't like to swing or rock.  That was due to her vestibular system.  Big words that meant it really made her cranky if you tried to rock her or put her on a swing.  She had to swing as part of her therapy back then and I could barely handle it, she screamed and cried.  Awful.

She didn't like to be restrained.  Well really who does? but if she wanted to do something that she couldn't and I held her back she didn't like that.  I couldn't really cut a picture out of that to paste on to her homework.

She didn't like to have to take medicine so I cut out a picture of a bottle of Tylenol and put it on her collage.

Haley still likes most things, but I found out recently what she doesn't like.  Haley doesn't like pecans.

A long time ago I started giving her snacks in a small ramekin so that I knew how much she was having.  Also the whole idea of her running around the house with a bag of chips or something gave me hives.  She likes nuts.  I bought mixed nuts from Costco and she wanted to have some of them as an afternoon snack.  She brought me the container of nuts and the cup.  I dumped some nuts in the cup and gave them both back to her and then she put the container away and went off to have her snack.  Later on I walked into the kitchen and there is the cup on the counter with pecans in it.  All of the other nuts were gone, but the pecans were left.

A couple of days later when she was having a snack and watching her show I was sitting on the couch next to her reading a magazine and she reached over and tried to feed me a nut.  I realized what she was doing so I opened my mouth.  After a few chews I realized she had given me a pecan.  I guess she figured she didn't want it and I was close so she would pawn it off on me.

Haley still likes a lot of things and I can think of very few things she doesn't like.  She got over the rocking and swinging thing with therapy. She still doesn't like to be restrained.  She is even pretty good about taking medicine, but if I had to do that assignment again now I guess I could cut out a picture of pecans to put on her collage.