Tuesday, November 24, 2015

What Are Those Square Things In My Freezer?!?!




Alex holding these mysterious colorful things!



It has been a while since I last wrote a blog about our son, Alex, who is deaf and autistic. So there has been some things that have happened in the last two years. So I decided to write something positive about our son. Alex was born deaf and diagnosed with autism at the age of 3. My husband, John, and I are both deaf, and so are other two older sons, Joe and James.

In September of this year, John and I found those square looking things, that Alex is holding in the picture above, in the freezer. For the life of us, we couldn't figure out what they were. They would disappear and reappear. Joe was away at college so he wouldn't have known what they were. We asked James, and he had no idea. That leaves Alex. Alex who is deaf and can only communicate his needs and wants by using sign language. We tried to ask but received no answer. This continued throughout the months of September and part of October.

When October rolled around, John and I had an IEP (Individualized Education Plan), meeting to attend at Alex's school. We had several people attend this meeting since this was Alex's first year at this new school. As we were talking about Alex and the issues he was having at school. It dawned on me to ask about those mysterious, little colorful, square things that we kept finding in the freezer!

I proceeded to ask his teacher if she knew what in the world those were? She laughed because she and the other staff were wondering where they disappeared to. She then explained that Alex takes one very cold cube and puts it under each of his armpits to help him calm down and relax. That those are reusable ice cubes (instead of using actual ice cubes and running out of those) that people normally would put in their drinks to keep cold.

Ahhhh, that made us laugh! What a great idea for Alex! Something as simple as reusable ice cubes can keep our son calm for a moment. We asked where we could buy these things? Alex's teacher said they come in a bag of 30 and that we could try either the Dollar Store or Bed, Bath and Beyond.

So, of course, John and I made a trip out to Bed, Bath and Beyond (we searched on the internet to make sure they had them in stock) and bought 3 bags of of reusable ice cubes for Alex! See pictures below. The cool part is they come in different colors and shapes too! Starting price is about $2.99 and up. Not bad at all to keep our son happy.

We hope you enjoyed this cute little story!