My Favorite Obsession.

January 15: Mini-Figure Parts., a photo by snicketyone on Flickr.

I'm through denying that Henry's autistic, although I'm still peeved at the doctor who laid it on me abruptly, in front of Henry himself, who thought Asperger's sounded frightening and like it might even be a terminal illness. (Trying to let this go.... trying....)
Anyway, autistic people sometimes get obsessed with things. It might be the Titanic, or Star Wars, or Harry Potter. They might want every book and product even vaguely related to their topic of choice. They might talk nonstop about their topic of choice. They might carry around a tattered catalog containing items related to their topic of choice. You might feel like you can't stand to hear one more word about the topic of choice, and right about that time, if you're lucky, your favorite autistic person will move on to a new topic of choice. *whew*
Henry's latest obsession is sorting and sorting and sorting the parts of his Lego mini-figures. He sorts the parts, makes thirty or so mini-figures, shows us how nice the mini-figure case looks, and then says, "Let's sort mini-figure parts!" and to my dismay, dumps the whole thing on the floor. I've sorted a lot of parts this winter, to Henry's precise specifications (grey and blue pants/legs can be in the same space, but tan short pants/legs must be separate from tan long pants/legs, and heaven forbid the "odd helmets" get mixed in with the" regular hats"....). I don't actually mind this activity; after all, it ends with neatness. It makes Henry happy. It makes me happy. And it is certainly preferable to his previous obsession: tree forts. He would take tools and cardboard boxes and wood and nails, and climb trees. He'd nail things up high in the branches, and then sit up there for a few moments. I did not enjoy coming outside to look for him and finding him perched inside a cardboard box, which was attached to a fifteen-foot high branch by two nails. This obsession was peaking about the time that my mom came out to watch him one day when I needed to take Maria to an appointment. Mom was sitting under a tree reading a book and supervising Henry's activity.... and he suddenly plummeted out of the tree branch high above her head, his body falling straight down in front of her and landing on the ground with a loud thump. Somehow the crash of hundreds of mini-figure parts hitting the ground doesn't seem so bad compared to that.