The kindness of strangers

Say what you want about Facebook and other social media, but for as much drama as they can cause, they can also bring a lot of good. I have had some first hand experience with this in the past 24 hours. All because of this little cup

Like many children with autism, J has his little "quirks" and there are certain things that have to be a certain way. He is definitely a creature of habit. One example of this is the cup in the picture above. Since we transitioned J off of his bottle just after he turned a year old, this is the ONLY cup he has ever drank milk from.  He is perfectly capable of drinking from an open cup and will do so with juice when he is at school. But NOT his milk. I have a cupboard full of sippy cups that we went through when initially trying to find a cup he would drink from and that we have tried to get him to drink milk from since. He has different cups that he will drink juice or water from. But if I put milk in them, the second he takes a sip and realizes what it is he will reject it. We tried a few months ago, with the help of his in-home therapist and teachers at school, to break him from only drinking milk from his cup. We tried the same cup with a different lid, different cups with this lid, etc. We also tried only offering him milk from an open cup and not giving him this one. All that these efforts just resulted in him not drinking milk for weeks. We finally raised the white flag and gave in. He has been very limited in his diet lately (a subject deserving of it's own post) so I don't want him to give up drinking his milk. So we went back to giving him his milk in his beloved cup.

Then... it went missing.  Cue panic

 Unfortunately this cup has been discontinued so I can't just run to the store to buy a new one. I have scoured the internet, searching Amazon, eBay, etc. without any luck. Yesterday I decided to post a picture of the cup on 2 Facebook pages that I have been a part of since before J was born. These are small pages with groups of woman with whom I have become close with and who have been a great source of support over the past 4 years. I posted the pic in hopes that one of them might have this cup knocking around. None of them did, but a few of them shared the pic along with a short story about why they were looking for it. From there it has taken on a life of it's own. The posts have been shared all over Facebook and seen by thousands of people! And people have responded! Last count there are 15-20 of these cups being sent to us from all over the country!  I am overwhelmed by the response and support - it warms my heart. Never underestimate the power of social media or the kindness of strangers!