No Use Stringing Him Along

So here's something quirky about my son that has, I assume, nothing at all to do with Down syndrome: the kid LOVES string. I first noticed it when I got out a set of wooden beads for stringing; Pacey dutifully strung beads while I was sitting with him, but the minute I left him to his own devices he disappeared with just the string. I thought it was maybe a fluke until I noticed that the set was missing both its strings (we've since been given another set, and both of those strings are gone too). Pacey loves to trail these strings around the house behind him, curl them up inside things, and frankly I am not sure what else. I just know that he frequently requests his string.

If one of the strings is not available, he'll make one. We received a bunch of Mardi Gras bead necklaces at a festival recently and he broke apart all of them to make strings he refers to as his necklaces or simply his beads. They have accompanied him to the park, into his speech sessions, and into his backpack to wait for him to finish school. It's kind of funny to watch Brighton because she sees how much he is into these strings and naturally thinks she wants HER FAIR SHARE of them. But she doesn't exactly know what it is she's supposed to be doing with them.

Anyway, the hard thing is that he really likes to wrap the strings around things and the other day I found him with the string to a helium balloon wrapped around his neck. It wasn't wrapped too tightly but it certainly could have been and it gave me rather a fright to see him like that. The balloon and all strings are slowly being removed from the premises and I can't really explain to Pacey why I am taking them away. I've told him countless times that we don't wrap things around our necks but he doesn't seem to remember. Obviously I can't take any chances but it's upsetting to see him so upset.

The other thing? He's not going to let go of this easily. I walked into the entryway just now to find this:

Two shoes, laces nowhere in sight. Resourceful kid...