We’re used to the Monster saying weird, random things out of the blue – it’s part of how his Autism presents.  A lot of the time, it’s a fill-in for another word – oftentimes, the word is “banana” or “Sesame Street” or the like.  And every so often, he says something new that we’re not quite understanding.

A few weeks ago, it was random earworms – an Ariana Grande song, then “Bills” by Lunchmoney Lewis – but today, he came into the media room while I was cooling off, saying something about “criss-cross.”

I’m a child of the 80’s, so the first thing that came to mind for me was Kris Kross, with the ‘cha-cha slide’ being a close second.  The wife informed me that it was probably something from gymnastics, since he was jumping while saying it, and they do that on the trampoline.  Okay, I can buy that, because gymnastics was on Thursday, and he rather likes it.

But then he started saying something about ‘funky’.  (Well, being the parent of a child with verbal issues, I worried more about it being a mis-heard profanity, until I was sure it wasn’t.)  The wife then suggested it was the cha-cha slide, which I pointed out I’d already thought… but how do you prove it?

With Youtube, of course.

So, I cranked the audio on the laptop and dialed up the song, and the Monster immediately brightened up.  All of a sudden, we were treated to an impromptu routine as he did the actual dance.  Now, he doesn’t necessarily get ‘left’ and ‘right’ correct, and he’s not following all the directions, but he actually went along with the song.  (That also doesn’t count for when we had to verbally nudge him, because of his issues attending – at one spot, he stopped dancing for no clear reason and just kind of tuned out, but… was easily brought back into it.)

I’m constantly surprised by the things that he picks up and stores in that head of his.  For the folks who keep thinking that he’s got low potential, these kinds of things are the ones that prove otherwise…

Yes, yes, I keep promising the Hersheypark review. I’ll be putting that out tomorrow, now that things are semi-calming down at the office and in my personal life to let me get to it.