Autism Journey Day 25-When Paige was three I remember trying to get her to play with toys. Before she lost skills she had play skills. Our entire living room was full of toys and she played with her siblings using the play kitchen and shopping cart as well as building with blocks. The only play she wanted to engage in was dumping and filling. At my parents’ house she had a container full of marbles and dice. She would dump it out in front of her and spread it around with her hands. She would put the pieces in one by one sometimes hitting the balls of her hands together between pieces. It was a sensory experience but not appropriate play. Somehow a couple of years later she began tearing paper-newspaper, greeting cards, photos, playing cards, toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, mail, checks, and cash. It was horrible. We had a layer of paper pieces everywhere. I was at the end of my rope. We had to hold toilet paper hostage. If anyone came over and needed to use the bathroom we had to hand them the roll. I was constantly sweeping. LeAnn had an amazing idea to begin to fix this problem. We bought a hard plastic baby pool and placed it in the kitchen. Paige could tear the appropriate paper only within that pool. If a piece came out of the pool then Paige had to pick it up. We would place paper in the pool. The only paper she could use was what was in the pool. If she needed more and I didn’t realize it, she would hold up paper items as a type of request. If I said no she accepted that. I would find more paper for her. She was learning not to tear every last piece of paper in our home. This was one of the times that I was sure people would be shocked if they could peek into our lives. How many people had a baby pool in their kitchen? The next thing that happened was a surprise. Paige chose her own replacement behavior. She became very interested in watching us complete Sudoku puzzles. Brad and I both still do these and she still loves to watch. We mix it up by skipping numbers and she tells us how to fill them in. When her love of Sudoku was established the paper tearing was over. I was so grateful for this even though none of us knew how it happened.