My Son, the Broken Record

My son has a new stim, and we call it "the broken record."  He will pick a word and repeat it over and over again for, sometimes, hours.  He's always done this to some extent, but we've been able to, in the past, repeat the word to him and he will then change thoughts.  But lately we can't break the pattern as easily.  Usually it's not too big of a deal.  He'll start repeating, for example, "Car, car, car, car, car," and we can get him his car and he'll stop or come up with another word.  The times that we are running into a problem is when he starts repeating a word, say, "Cashew, cashew, cashew, cashew" (actually pronounced "Hashew") and we do not have that particular thing in the house, like when he finished all of the cashews yesterday!  And if I say, "I hear that you want cashews, but we don't have any.  Would you like some peanuts?" it throws him into a major tantrum.  But when the tantrum is over, he picks right back up with, "Cashew, cashew, cashew, cashew."  Maybe mommy needs a "nap, nap, nap" and some "chocolate, chocolate, chocolate."  :)