We took the twins to a cousin's house for the first time, and in my opinion they did fantastic. Their father didn't think so, he was thoroughly frustrated with their behavior, but also, I think he was embarrassed.
He felt the twins were in unusual form, touching and getting into everything more than they do anywhere else. "They're never that bad anywhere else," he said.
I asked him to keep in mind they were in a brand new place, and he doesn't usually get to witness that first-time wonder that they have, at least he hasn't in quite a while, because we've started avoiding new places.
They just wanted to learn more about their environment, and there was a lot of stimuli they weren't used to being around. Just because they don't get acquainted with their surroundings in the same way as us, doesn't mean they were bad.
There was a dog, a very large, friendly dog - we don't go anywhere with large dogs, we barely go anywhere with small dogs. There were two cats. There were several adults trying to hold a conversation, the television was on, and there was also a boy, a very talkative, in-your-face kind of boy.
I think that boy made a lot of difference in the twins' dad's perspective on how they did, because it puts into perspective just how different our boys are from others their age.
Their cousin is about 7 months older than them, and they're all about the same size. However, seeing them side-by-side, it was obvious that my boys weren't nearly as developmentally age appropriate as their typically-developing cousin. He was interested in them, and tried to help keep them "out of trouble" by doing the same things I was doing - putting a hand on their chest and gently moving them away from the TV. He tried to engage them, only to be fully ignored by both of my boys.
They did their normal stuff, jumping and climbing and watching the television. Rio was put in just for them, as a way to help keep them a little calmer. They didn't want to sit still, but honestly, when do they ever do that?! We took their cups, because a drink usually helps calm them, too. I didn't feel like the iPad was a good choice, with the 4-year-old being reportedly aggressive, so we left that at home. (Compared to some of the things I read about what other ASD parents have to do just to leave the house, my boys are pretty darn easy!)
They, of course, wanted to touch the TV, and there was no taking their minds off of that, because it was a large TV and it was accessible to them. Our house and my mom's house (the two places they spend the most time outside of school) are set up to accommodate their obsessive need to touch/lick/knock over the television (seen those memes of clunker TVs? We have a decoy in our entertainment center for them).
Developmentally the twins are still at about 18-24 months, despite the fact that they'll be 4 in December. They still want to put everything they encounter in their mouths; they still want to touch and lick everything, and have no concept of consequences or boundaries.
Gage was fixated on his cousin's bicycle for a good portion of the evening - spinning the wheels and pedals, trying to lick and bite the handle bars - I can't say that I blame him, it was something pretty new to him, a bicycle. It was shiny and Cars-themed, just his style. And so he kept going back, over and over. No matter how many times I would ask him to stop, remove him, try to distract him and get his attention onto something else.
We were there for an hour - twice as long as I anticipated we would last! I was pretty much up and down the whole time, chasing the twins out of things they couldn't have and reminding them "The couch is not a trampoline." It's exhausting, keeping up with the boys outside of their normal environment, but getting people to our house to socialize is nigh on impossible.
Gamble did very well at returning to the carpet when asked, though; he did pretty well in general, actually. Neither of the boys were interested in the big, fluffy beautiful golden retriever, Memphis. Gamble didn't like the dog's breath in his face, or the tickle of his whiskers, so when I tried to put his hand on him, he shuddered, looked at me like I was nuts, and walked away...apparently we won't be getting a service dog any time soon.
But we made it an hour! That's pretty awesome for my boys, being in a new place for an entire hour without breaking anything or having a meltdown. But you could tell they were tired from the experience, and Gage was starting to get to the point where if I'd had to tell him no and sit him away from that bicycle one more time it was probably going to be a full-blown fighting, screaming meltdown - so I decided it was time to go.
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