Parenting an Autistic Child: When a Birthday Couldn't Wait

Parenting an autistic child often means learning that time does not work the way you expect it to.

My birthday was January 20th. A few days later, the fixation started. Hyrum had been looking at pictures of mosasauruses, drawing them, asking to see them in books, completely absorbed in these massive prehistoric marine reptiles. At some point, he decided he wanted a toy mosasaurus. We said sure, we could get one for his birthday.

His birthday is in late March, nearly two months away. For a seven-year-old, that's an eternity. For an autistic seven-year-old with pathological demand avoidance, it became an impossible gap he couldn't cross.

Within days, he was stuck in a loop he couldn't break. He stopped going outside. He stopped stimming, the jumping, the patting himself on the back, the noises that help him regulate. He sat on the couch, paced to our bed, lay there deliberating, then back to the couch. He asked to watch train crashes on repeat, or videos of people burning dollhouses. He whined constantly. He melted down. He got short-tempered and aggressive with his brothers.

He was miserable, and we were running out of time before someone got hurt.

By Wednesday, we looked at each other and said, let's just do it.

We ordered the mosasaurus on Amazon, bought what we needed to make a cake, and resigned ourselves to celebrating his birthday two months early.

The toy arrived Friday. We stayed up until 11:30 that night baking a gluten-free cake and wrapping presents, then walked out to a sand pile by the river and buried everything while our kids slept.

Saturday morning, we threw him a birthday party that had nothing to do with his actual birthday.

Because sometimes, autism doesn't follow a normal calendar. And when it doesn't, you do what works.

Parenting an Autistic Child During a Fixation Loop

With pathological demand avoidance, you have to pick your battles carefully. Pathological demand avoidance, often called PDA, is a profile on the autism spectrum where everyday expectations can trigger intense anxiety and avoidance. You can read more about PDA through the National Autistic Society.

Any battle you choose, you're committing to hours of him trying to hurt you, break your things, or, if you prevent that, hurt himself. Most of the time, we just don't pick the battle. It's survival, not principle.

When anxiety spikes like that, the fixation is not about the toy anymore. It becomes about control, predictability, and relief. The CDC overview on autism spectrum disorder explains how anxiety and regulation challenges are often intertwined.

Eden was in St. George that week, visiting our aunt and her friends. It was a blessing. She and Hyrum generally get along, but when he's this dysregulated, they clash. So she missed the worst of it, the constant whining, the simmering aggression, the tension of waiting for the next meltdown.

By Wednesday, we knew we couldn't wait until late March. We didn't have weeks. We had days, maybe hours, before this tipped into something we couldn't manage. Parenting an autistic child sometimes means recognizing when waiting will only increase anxiety, not build resilience. So we made the call: order the mosasaurus, get what we needed for a cake, and just do the birthday party. Two months early.

The Decision

We ordered the mosasaurus on Amazon and hoped it would arrive quickly. It came Friday. That gave us one day to pull everything together.

Normally, we're in bed by 9:30. Our days are exhausting. Hyrum is up by 6 AM every morning, and Brittney needs that evening wind-down time to manage her own anxiety. She journals, meditates, tries to get herself calm enough to sleep. Our goal is kids in bed by 8 or 8:30, then an hour of quiet before we collapse.

Friday night, we stayed up until 11:30 baking a cake. We're pretty health-conscious. Gluten affects our kids' ability to regulate, so we use gluten-free flour, raw cane sugar, nothing with preservatives or artificial colors. Even then, we knew Saturday morning was going to be interesting. Flour and sugar for breakfast. We looked at each other and shrugged. There's only so much you can control.

While the cake cooled, we wrapped the presents, the mosasaurus and a few other dinosaur figurines we'd picked up. Then we walked out to a sand pile by the river behind our RV and buried them.

This has become Hyrum's understanding of how birthdays work. During our time in Crescent City, California, Brittney put together a pirate treasure map experience for the kids. Ever since, Hyrum's been convinced that the mailman buries the presents and you dig them up. It's concrete, it's literal, and it's non-negotiable. So we grabbed a flashlight, walked out into the dark, and dug holes in the sand while our kids slept inside.

We were exhausted. But there was also relief. Okay, we're almost out of this. Tomorrow morning, we dig up some presents, eat cake for breakfast, and hopefully break the loop.

The Strange Birthday

Saturday morning, bright and early, Hyrum's younger brother Emerson drew him a treasure map. They're only about 18 months apart, and Emerson was so excited to help. He drew the map, showed it to Hyrum, and they walked together down to the sand pile to dig.

Hyrum was thrilled. They found the buried presents, brought them back to the RV still covered in sand, and ripped them open right there on the floor. Sand everywhere. That's pretty normal for our life anyway. We live in the dirt, basically. We just vacuum it up later and move on.

Then we ate cake for breakfast. Gluten-free, no preservatives, but still cake. We tried to balance it out with some eggs, though we're not sure how much of the eggs anyone actually ate.

And it worked. Not immediately, but it worked. Hyrum had his mosasaurus. The loop broke.

The Days After

The transition out of the loop took a couple days. Hyrum was possessive about his new toys. He wanted to play with them in very specific ways, and any suggestion otherwise would trigger the beginning of a meltdown.

He filled a big bucket with water and mud and set it on the family room floor of the RV. It made a huge disaster. He did it again the next day. We couldn't stop him. Even suggesting he move it outside would escalate things fast, and we'd already spent our energy getting through the week. So we let it be.

He also takes two or three showers a day with his dinosaurs. Always has. He grabs all our towels, stops up the drain, fills the shower like a little tub, and plays. We don't keep a lot of towels with us, space is limited, so having him soak two or three at a time is frustrating. But it's just something we've learned to live with.

By Sunday, we set up a hose behind the RV near the big sand pile, rigging a little waterfall that fed into a lake he could play in. He wanted the water running full blast. We said no. Too much erosion, too much waste in the desert. That turned into a half-day meltdown. Eventually, he let us turn it on halfway. Sunday was rough.

But Monday, he was outside all day, happily playing in the sand and water with his mosasaurus. The kind of freedom he also found during our time in Scofield, Utah. Stimming again. Jumping, making noises, regulating.

By Monday, we were back.

Closing

We didn't plan to celebrate Hyrum's birthday in January. We didn't plan to stay up until 11:30 baking a cake or burying presents in the sand by flashlight. We didn't plan for cake at breakfast or mud buckets in the family room or a half-day meltdown over a garden hose.

But autism doesn't follow a normal calendar. Sometimes parenting an autistic child means letting go of the timeline you had in your head. Sometimes a birthday has to happen two months early because waiting isn't possible. Sometimes you do what works, even when it looks strange from the outside.

By Monday, Hyrum was back outside, playing in the sand with his mosasaurus, stimming and regulated and himself again. And we were relieved. Not because we'd done everything right, but because we'd made it through.

We are still learning what obedience looks like in a life that doesn't follow the usual timelines. Sometimes it means letting go of the calendar and listening to the child in front of us.

May there be a road.