He's Never Had Orange Shoes

  The other night, Max was hanging out in the kitchen with me while supper was cooking.
  He often helps, and i encourage it.

Juice Pitchers

  But this night, there were way too many dirty dishes to wash.  Two juice pitchers were in the drainer, ready to be filled.
  A few minutes before, i had taken them out of the drainer and set them on the counter.  It just happened that the one we use for powdered lemonade mix was on the right, ready to be filled first.
  i mixed the lemonade, dealt with supper, then Max came in.

First Mistake

  i asked Max if he wanted to help.
  Yes.
  Then i simply asked him to do what needed to be done next:  mix the orange juice from concentrate, to get the pitcher out of the way.
  Only after the pitcher was out of the way could i wash more dishes and have more room to cook.
  Max apparently did not want to do this, though i did not realize it at the time.  After all, he did mix the orange juice.  He did seem mildly agitated throughout the rest of preparations.

Fruit

  The meal included opening cans of fruit.
  i have a hard time reaching the cans, so i asked Max to get them.  Usually he doesn't mind getting either the pineapple, which he likes, or the peaches, which he doesn't eat.
  This night, he would only get the pineapple.
  When operating the can opener, the can dropped from the mechanism.
  Well, that happens.  It's a bit tricky, so i hold the can while the opener is working.

  But Max was having none of that.
  When it spilled, the pineapple juice went into the toaster.
  MyGuy finished putting peaches in a serving bowl (he doesn't eat peaches either), while i took a timeout for a moment.

After Dinner: Spilled Juice

  My brief timeout gave Max a chance to collect himself too.  Dinner was a bit tense, but overall went not too badly.
  After dinner, Max took his usual medication and went upstairs to prepare for bed, but he was soon back to get the towels out of the dryer before showering.
  i had continued washing dishes and was cleaning the unplugged toaster.
  We smiled at each other and i told him he has a beautiful smile.
  Then he set the towel basket down, walked right past me, took the orange juice out of the fridge, and threw the pitcher on the floor!
  Boom and i grabbed towels from that basket and firmly instructed Max to clean it up.

"No speech.  No orange shoes."

  With the juice cleaned, Max continued up the stairs for his shower.  MyGuy came down shortly and asked what orange shoes Max was talking about.
  Orange shoes?  He's never had orange shoes, even when he was small.
  And no speech?  Well, he doesn't like changing the day. He likes his new therapist just fine, thank you, now that she's no longer the NEW therapist, but he's ok with having speech therapy in general. i think he even likes it.

Or maybe he means. . . . 

  No speech = I don't have the speech to tell you what I mean?
  And orange shoes, well, that does sound somewhat like orange juice.
  i wrote a note for Max.  He saw the first draft when he came out from his shower, and we talked it over the next day. 
  Comprehension?  He seemed to understand, but i have no idea.
  The note was mostly like this:

"Is this about the orange juice?

  Are you upset that i asked you to mix orange juice that you don't drink?
  "This is a family.  We all do things like that.  
  "We needed lemonade. & orange juice.  The pitchers lined up so the lemonade was ready to make first.
"i won't be drinking it, but you will.  And you can make orange juice for other people and never drink it yourself, if you like.
  You were in the kitchen, waiting, i thought, to help.  We needed to mix the orange juice & get the pitcher out of the way before i could continue.
  "i could have asked you (and let you learn something) or made you, & supper, wait while i did it.
  "Now i need to wash 2 colanders, the orange juice pitcher, & the cereal box again before we can use them.
  Plus the sticky mess of wasted orange juice."

Talk

  We didn't make a really big deal about it.  The main things are, not to do it, and understand (him & us) what happened.
  MyGuy was with him when Max read my note.   MyGuy told him that, like naughty Thomas, Max had cause "confusion and delay."
  Again, we have no clue how much of this he understands.  And, between my handwriting and the imprecision of the first draft, the note may not have been too clear.
  Like everything else, he probably gets less than we hope, more than we think he might.
  But when  i remade orange juice the next day, he declined to mix it.