I definately have a kid that fits the bill here; not severe enough for a diagnosis of autism I'm sure, not even severe enough for a "diagnosis" but it is definately something, which we just deal with.
Clothes must be cotton, tags immediately cut off, if she says "I dont' know, this just doesnt' FEEL right" then I might as well get rid of it then, she'll never wear it.
Cotton socks, no color change on the foot, because the excess threads involved with a color change bother her.
Her room is the cleanest room in the house most days.
Showers every day, at least once.
Only eats raw or cooked plain pasta, quesadillas (with specific kind of cheese), only one kind of yogurt and granola, toast, any fruit, carrot sticks, broccoli and cheese (yellow), only one kind of peanutbutter (fresh ground), one brand of crackers, cheese sticks (white only), plain white rice, plain cream cheese on a plain bagel, and well-cooked scrambled eggs, no pepper, only a little salt. That's it. That's all she'll eat 99.9% of the time. When we go on vacation, if we can't find or make these things, she'll just not eat.
I'm not big on forcing her to do anything she doesn't want to do when it comes to this stuff--what skin off my back is it to give her crackers and peanut butter and carrot sticks for supper? It's not like it takes half an hour to fix her something. We just take a cooler on trips with the food she likes, and we rarely eat out on vacation.
Every once in a while, she'll blow me away with something that she decides that she will like. There is this spicy-as-all-get-out lentil bean soup at a local restaurant that she craves. She loves chocolate soy milk occasionally (and then sometimes loathes it). She recently decided she loved dried cranberries, but now, as of two days ago, she cannot stand how they feel in her teeth, she said, so she isn't going to eat them anymore.
We just refer to her as a freak
!! We do! But we consider it a good thing. Considering my husband showers several times a day, and always carries a bag of socks and underwear with him (he cannot STAND to go more than a few hours without changing them...), I knew what I was infor when I decided to reproduce with him! We love her little quirks--the rest of us have our own, and we celebrate them, too. We figure it is not impinging upon her life right now, she appears happy, healthy, well-adjusted, and does well in school. We keep her away from situations that make her unhappy (large get together, loud and noisy places), or if we can't avoid them, we try to help her figure out a way to make them less unpleasant for her.
We figure we aren't medicating her, and she's gonna have to learn to live with this--she might as well use it to her advantage. She's a good cook (well, of certain things), she is so freakin organized she puts the rest of us to shame, and she has recently opened a "bank" for her older sister and her friends. SHe keeps all their money, and they have to ask her for it before they can spend it. Apparently this makes everyone happy--I guess, if nothing else, they are able to keep track of their money (she would NEVER lose it), and they dont' spend it as easily. Kind of funny, though.
If you dont' have a child like this, it is hard to imagine. When I just hear people talk about "she'll eat when she's hungry" or something like that, depending upon the situation, I either roll my eyes, or open my big fat mouth and demand to know why they are just so freaking disrespectful of kids because they are little. Sometimes it is just a matter of not having any experience with a child like that; sometimes it si a matter of not caring about what the kid thinks or needs, but what is easiest.
Having a kid like this has definatley made me a better person. I really try to view things from all angles now, from others' point of view. I'm also much more easy going than I used to be!
Lori
: ) and the cacophony that ensues when my parents visit (they're very loud people 
