Without doubt, one of Aidan’s favourite things in the whole world is… BUBBLES!
From a young age he has been utterly captivated by them. He loves watching them take form on the wand, he is breathless with anticipation as they take flight, he is delighted by the way the breeze catches them and sends them in all directions, and he is dazzled by their kaleidoscopic beauty. He could watch bubbles all day long.
When he was a baby, we spent hours blowing bubbles just to see his gorgeous gummy smile, and hear the twinkle of his mellifluent baby giggle. As he got older, and began struggling with transitions from activity to activity, and eventually from place to place, we used them as a reliable distraction and bridge from the established, to the new.
We realised that when Aidan was brought to a new place – be it a friend or family member’s house, or some kind of park or venue, he needed to be eased-in. We began bringing a little “go-bag” of his most favourite toys and snacks with us wherever we went. When we arrived, we’d settle him into his new environment by spinning the wheels on his Hot Wheel cars, or popping a fidget toy, by offering him a special snack he didn’t usually get as a positive association, and by blowing bubbles. As his preferences for toys changed, we noticed that his love of bubbles never abated. To this day, he still loves them, and will prompt us to blow bubbles everywhere we go! To that end, I have home bubbles, car bubbles, purse bubbles and bath bubbles. Bubbles, bubbles, everywhere!
Aidan became so enamoured by rainbows, that he was fascinated by the sprinklers in the garden too. He would spend hours watching the spray catch the light and come alive with colourful shimmers and sparkles. And that in turn led to his second great love: water! Any kind of water play would hold his attention for literal hours. He was completely obsessed. It seemed to be the one element he was most comfortable with from a sensory point of view, and the most versatile by far. He loved cause and effect from early on, and would spent ages turning taps on and off, flushing toilets, and watching the bubbles slide down the drain after a bath. He would devote a whole afternoon to playing with the water side of his sensory table or splashing for hours in his red paddling pool. His favourite setup was when I filled the water almost to the brim, and dropped some metal teaspoons into either. He played all day with just that! He was in absolute seventh heaven!
When Aidan was first introduced to (the horror that is…) ‘The Teletubbies’, he became riveted by the “Bubbles” episode and watched Julia popping bubbles on repeat for about three months. That song, still comes and goes – and Aidan is three now! When this obsession kicked in, we decided to see if we could recreate the scene a little and we bought a bubble gun. You would have thought – as we had – that this would be the best toy ever for Aidan. Oh boy, were we wrong! While Aidan loved the bubble blizzard, he hated the sound the gun made. To the point, where if you picked the gun up, he would cover his ears with his hands and scream. Even though he’s now much more tolerant of sounds in general, you still have to judge his mood if you want to use a bubble gun.
Still trying to recreate the Teletubby bubble flurry, I tried out glycerin bubbles. These hover for a lot longer than regular bubbles do, and so can get carried by the wind for miles. They also don’t pop as easily or as quickly. Aidan definitely enjoyed these hugely, unless one landed on his skin. He seemed to be afraid of that happening and I couldn’t understand why. I allowed one to pop on my hand and realised that as a glycerin bubble pops, it causes a momentary sticky sensation on the skin. This was clearly not something Aidan enjoyed all that much, so we ultimately decided to stick with the original product because it was tried, tested and true!
I suspect that Aidan’s love for bubbles will stay with him for a long time! And for as long as they do, I will always be the mom who has them to hand to whip out on a sunny day in the garden, on a park through a shaded park, during a lovely long bath, in an interminable cashier’s queue, or when needing distractions to prevent Aidan from eloping from a doctor’s waiting room. I don’t know if all autistic kids enjoy them quite so much, but give them a try! They could become one of the great loves of your little one’s life!
