Lynda's Favorite Toy 1975

When Lynda became my daughter on January 22, 1975 I knew very little about children with autism.  Actually no one knew very much about children with autism back then.  We were told the day before she came that she had some kind of seizures and was deaf.  The first day she was there we observed that she didn't play with toys.  She didn't want to be held.  She didn't make eye contact.  She liked to line things up.  When Lynda came to live with us, she was three years and four months old and weighed just 26 pounds. She stood 36 inches tall.  She wasn't potty trained and these were the pampers that she wore.  They were by the way the largest size that disposable diapers came in at the time (and for many years to come).  These purple boxes with the sweet baby's face were Lynda's favorite thing to play with.  I can remember my living room in Brewton with five or six of these boxes lined up perfectly with each face turned just like these.  Mine aren't spaced perfectly apart but hers were.  If she turned for a moment to do something else I would move a box a fraction of an inch and she would immediately recognize that her arrangement had been moved and would fix it.  If I turned a box around so the back was facing instead of the baby's face while she was in another room, she would walk straight to the offending box and rearrange it time after time.  Patiently and methodically.  She was just beginning my training in autism and the rituals that are a part of the life of a child with autism.  I was fascinated and as exhausting as it was to keep up with this ball of energy I was mesmerized by her.

Purple toddler pamper boxes.  They came in big boxes too.  The small ones like this were the best for lining up, though.  It's funny what makes a mother nostalgic.  Who would think it would be purple toddler pampers boxes from 1975?  I was happy that I could still find a picture of one online to be able to pull it from my mind's memory and place it on the blog for you to see.  One of my first memories of that little girl with the white blond hair and the bluest eyes I'd ever seen was her dressed in a gown or pajamas and playing with her pamper boxes until she finally fell asleep beside them.  Then we'd scoop her up and put her in the bed to sleep a few hours before she began the pampers project again the next day.  Pampers weren't the only thing she lined up but they were something she was familiar with from her other home and I think that's why they were so important when she came to her new forever home.  If you're wondering if she ever stacked them up like a tower.  The answer is no.  Always a line with the boxes side by side.




I found this picture of Lynda playing with a see and say toy.  In the background on the sofa you'll see her beloved pampers boxes.  I'm not sure whose house this was even taken in because our house in Brewton didn't have carpet on the floor.  Who knows but you can see in the picture that Lynda was having fun and in spite of that blond hair and blue eyes, she was tanned from playing outside.