Leaning Saturday - our autism journey

The bags under my eyes were packed and should have taken themselves down to the coffee shop for some fuel. Instead, I pushed start on my coffeemaker and it couldn’t brew fast enough. Our party started at three. One of us was sleepy and the other was very sleepy but going back to bed was not an option. I told Owen last night when all he could think about was going to see his grandma that if he woke up at three he had to go back to bed without the screaming. Screaming started shortly after he woke up and then he started running through the house flipping the lights on and off because I told him he needed to go back to bed. He started the countdown of when he was going to Grandma’s house. I explained to him that he needed to be calm and that we had to be kind to each other. This was not what he wanted to hear at three in the morning but that’s all I could muster. I told him that if he didn’t stop screaming at me he wouldn’t go to grandma’s house. This came with mixed moments of screams and clarity. As the morning went on he heard the rain. It was Saturday and besides going to grandma’s house he also wanted mud, lots of mud. He was a bit cranky and very sleepy, and so was I. He said he wanted a campfire with his grandma but I told him the rain would most likely not let them have one. He started watching YouTube videos of people driving around the area so he could get his chain of videos together to get him from point A to point B to point C. It amazes me how he finds them and connects the turns to where he wants them to go, stopping and starting the next video to continue his journey. He kept asking me to take off my glasses but I’m not sure why because he then told me to put them right back on. We still had some time before we were leaving and he said, “We’ll leave here in an hour.” When we finally did leave he told me he lost his tooth in the car but it was still there. He’s ready for it to be gone. He had a great time with grandma and then I met them at the mud, I mean park. He had so much fun playing in it and he was covered.
When we go home we had a lot of mud to get off. He did great with my instructions to leave his clothes at the door. That can be hard for him since it’s not what he generally does. He was practicing blowing bubbles in the “pool tub.” He was talking about swimming on the way home. I told him we would have to go to the indoor pool. Even though he has gone to an indoor one I don’t think he was making the connection and said it was winter. I think it might be a good thing for us to do on his Christmas break. I think he will like it. I still can’t believe he likes mud. It really will be interesting to see if he likes snow. He has all the gear he just needs the snow. He was watching a Curious George Christmas video. Right before he started watching it he told me he wanted a “piggy bank with coins red yellow pink green blue.” He told me he wanted Santa to bring it to him. Then he started watching Curious George with a bicycle. I wondered what he would say next. I showed him a piggy bank and he started jumping up and down. He said, “The coins go in there.” I always remind Owen that he is amazing. I asked him if he knew what he was and he said, “amazing” and I told him that’s right. He went to bed requesting church and to go to dinner with “Night Santa.” Today was a rollercoaster but I hold onto the victories. Dream big and make those dreams come true. Smiles to all and donut daze!