Tonight we completed our 27th Green Eggs & Ham party! This was a tradition that was started by his elementary school teacher Pam Thompson. If she only knew then, that this would be instilled in him so deep that he would be doing this at the age of 31. I am sure no elementary school teacher would expect their students to be practicing anything such as this into their adult years. However, as it is with many people with autism, we get so caught up in routines that our lives demand repetition. As many of you know, Tommy loves to celebrate every holiday, birthday and anniversary he knows about. Quite frankly, he just loves to celebrate life! When we pulled Tommy from public school and started homeschooling him, we had no idea that we would be expected to carry on the traditions and routines that Mrs. Thompson started. We have hosted green eggs & ham parties whatever season of life we were in. We have hosted them for homeschool groups, private schools & church. Truth be told, the boy hates scrambled eggs, but by golly he is going to eat him some green eggs and ham come St. Patrick’s Day! The other part of this routine is that Tommy reads Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs & Ham book to his audience. While in the beginning his reading was quite slow and choppy, he has improved drastically over the years. It is a joy to know how far he has come in his reading as well as so many other things in life. Tonight, as I sat there and marveled at his own personal introduction to his reading, I was reminded of how much he has grown. He used to be this distant, unsociable, no eye contact kind of guy. But now, a fun loving, engaging, persistent, ambitious, energetic entrepreneur with some big dreams! Always a kid at heart! Despite his drastic improvement in his reading fluency, I couldn’t help but think that this book gets longer and longer every time I listen to him read it! After you have heard it as many times as we have it just seems that the cat in the hat finds more and more ways he doesn’t like green eggs and ham!! Just makes me wonder how many more green eggs & ham parties I will celebrate in my lifetime! It may make the Guinness World Records book!
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