Loud restaurant and head-butting

Thursday morning, we went to the zoo with some friends, then went out to lunch. We all decided to head to Johnny Rocketts, where we've never been before. As soon as Brady walked in, he got a terrified look on his face and covered his ears. One of his friends tried to hand him a pack of crayons and Brady kicked them out of his hands. We stayed for a few minutes to see if he could get used to it, but he couldn't. I felt so bad b/c he kept saying he wanted to eat there, but he just couldn't handle it. So we all walked to McD's.

Fast forward to today. We got a coupon for a free shake from the same restaurant, and I thought it might be good to try it out again when we weren't with a bunch of people and have had a calmer morning. He did great! He was scared at first, but knew a milkshake was in his future so we were able to distract him and he got used to it fairly quickly. I was so happy for him to conquer the loud restaurant!

I don't know if it was an after-effect of the loud restaurant (since he seemed to handle it so well), but he was constantly in and out of quiet time this afternoon. And he wanted to come to the store with me this afternoon to get some papers laminated (I'll leave what I'm doing with those to another post). Major issues just trying to get out the door. He just doesn't get it that there is limited time in a day. He kept going back to playing when I told him we needed to leave. Then I'd threaten to leave without him and he'd freak out. He finally got shoes on, then realized he had wanted some cherries for snack and started crying when I told him he'd have to find something he could eat in the car instead. I can't remember how I managed to get him out to the car, but I did, even though I knew it probably wouldn't be a pleasant shopping trip. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to do any of his "exercises" before heading out.

First stop - OfficeMax. He got a little upset that they wouldn't let him help laminate the papers, but I distracted him with some little card holders on the counter. Then we had to go find the velcro. He found crayons that he didn't want to give up. Once I wrestled those away, he started head-butting me as we walked down the aisle. It got worse as I tried to figure out what I needed to buy. When I squatted down to talk to him, he jumped up and his head went straight into my nose. OUCH!  We then had to stop at Babies R Us. He did alright in that he didn't start to head-butt again, but he had to touch every single thing he walked past and knocked lots of things down. At least he cleaned everything up without too much hassle.

I really need to stop trying to take this kid out in the afternoon, especially when we haven't done a very good job with the sensory diet for the day.