"I like to keep things just vague enough to protect my children's privacy so I haven't named a place we've visited before. However, we had such an AMAZING and INCLUSIVE experience over the weekend that I feel like I'm doing you all a disservice if I don't tell you about it.

We went to a small business, Aquarium Pro, which is over an hour away from our home - and worth every single minute of that drive and then some! If you are autistic, or you have an autistic child you might know what it's like to become accustomed to visiting small shops and having the owner or employee stand over you the entire time, nagging about every little thing the child does. I hadn't really even noticed how frequent it is until our visit to Aquarium Pro. Let me tell you about it!

When The 3 Year Old got a bit rambunctious and started running, I braced for the "Hey he can't be doing that in here!" talk, as I quickly got his attention to offer an outside running break. But.. the talk didn't happen. They just trusted to me to manage it.

When he thought the bulk bins for the substrates were sensory bins and started putting his hands in them, I again braced myself for the "Hey he can't be playing in those" talk. Nope. Didn't happen. I told him "Hey I know these look like sensory bins, but they're actually for aquarium floors." And he left them alone. Nobody came to nag me about the thing I was already handling. Was I dreaming?

But the icing on the cake was that they knew we have a small tank, and were there for The Teenager to pick out her small fish. Yet when The 3 Year Old said "I want to see the big fish!" they totally gave him a tour, showing him all of the big fish in the store! They knew we COULDN'T buy the big fish, and did that anyway. They even let him climb up a little step stool to get a better look at the axolotls and a big fish.

I'm going to be 100% honest: I didn't realize how stressful other "inclusive spaces" make things. We've been kicked out of tax funded children's events over his autistic traits. I've been forced to carry him down a flight of stairs mid-meltdown because they wanted us out of a children's event so bad that they didn't care about the potential harm to either of us. Currently, we're under threat of him being made to leave if he takes his shoes off at library playgroup again - and there's nothing I can really do to stop him because sometimes shoes just become too much. I really hadn't even noticed how the unnecessary nagging at most places escalates problems from manageable to meltdown mode before this weekend (unnecessary because I'm always already addressing the concern before they start in on me). It gets really stressful sometimes, but we keep going out and trying because both kids want to - and both kids DESERVE to. But at Aquarium Pro, he hopped while happy flapping and counting by tens, and they just smiled. (We have taught him to try and look for an open space for hopping). He would start to run and we'd go out for a running break, and they just treated us like anybody else when we went back inside.

If you or somebody you know can make the drive to Centralia, WA for aquatic products - this place is worth the drive. This place isn't "inclusive" like most claim to be. This place really is inclusive. It's safe. The 3 Year Old didn't want to leave! Both kids are asking when we can go back This is the dream experience every child deserves when getting a new pet. We didn't feel tolerated, we felt valued. Do the chain stores give you that experience?

They do aquarium and pond maintenance, have a robust supply of fish, aquatic plants, and supplies, and my only regret was not realizing they exist sooner. I am not being incentivized by them - they don't even know my name. I'm just sharing because this is it guys - this is what life could be like every day for all of us if the world wasn't so full of ableism. If you can make it to their store - you too deserve this experience."