The goal is to stay ahead of the meltdown, always. But sometimes you don’t know if your anticipation of a behavior is going to add to the meltdown. Owen wanted to check for trains one more time, at the yellow house and the meltdown was happening before I could even drive away. I told him we would go today, hoping that the yellow train depot was the yellow house he was talking about. It was but he had a set agenda in mind. I let him tell me the way he wanted to go but two times around were not enough. He didn’t understand that we had an appointment to go to for our therapy. He knew we were going but the concept of time is so hard for him to understand. His screams got louder as I drove away. Everything feels even bigger right now. Schools out. No routine, no consistency, no schedule. He keeps wondering where he’s going to go what he is supposed to be doing, constantly repeating what he is going to be doing. My heart aches trying to explain this all to him. How can I. All he wants is his schedule back. He cries out for the bus to take him to school. It felt like an eternity for the screams that rippled through his whole body and then to mine. I tried to distract him, comfort him but the screams kept going. We had about ten minutes before we went into our appointment. I was able to calm him but it is still so draining, on both of us. But hey I now know that when he wants to check for trains at the yellow house he means the depot. Now if only I knew where the blue house was. And it’s hard to know if I should let him go to places that being such emotions but yet if I don’t he still asks to go. We got into the room at the doctor’s office and he wanted to dance with me. It was such a thrill for me. He’s never asked me to dance like this before. We danced, he jumped, he spun. When we got home he sang and danced more. He stood there singing, “skinamarinky dinky doo skinamarinky doo I love you I love you all thank you”. I loved that he said, “thank you”. It felt grand to me like he was thanking his audiences stead of just me. The twist and turns of our day kept me on my toes. Autism is as much about how I handle it as it is about Owen having it. Tomorrow is a brand new day. Let the troubles of today wash away and look for the miracles of tomorrow. Smiles to all and donut daze!
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