It’s been interesting this week, seeing how Pablo reacts to having his schedule all topsy turvy. Like most autistic children, he finds comfort in familiar routines, and it usually unsettles him a little when we deviate from what he is expecting. For instance, when I pick him and Mallory up from preschool, we head for home, and I stop at the Mailboxes at the end of the street to get our mail, and then we flip a u-turn and head for our house. If, for some reason, I don’t stop - like, it’s a holiday and we aren’t getting mail that day, or I can see that the mailman hasn’t made it to our box yet, he freaks OUT. As soon as I turn on our street and he realizes we aren’t stopping for the mail, he screams. I’m trying hard to break him of that for a few reasons. First of all, it’s ANNOYING! Second, I want him to be comforted by his routine, but I don’t want it to be a crutch for him. I don’t want him depending on it so much that he loses his mind when we have to make a change. So, I’ve been only stopping about every other day lately, and right as I turn the corner, I distract him by talking to him, telling him, “Pablo, we aren’t stopping for the mail today, we’re just going straight home. It’s okay!” and he usually is just fine.

This week, Paul’s dad went with me to drop off and pick up the kids, just for fun. The first day, I coulda smacked him, as he waved and hollered at Pablo from the van, while he was still playing on the playground with his class. So, naturally, as soon as Pablo saw Papa, he freaked out, and wanted to run to the van. We also tried to take advantage of the fact that there were two of us adults there, and I thought maybe Papa could drop off Pablo while I dropped off Mallory. Oh, no. Pablo would have none of that! He would only go where I went.

So, it’s been a fairly okay week. He’s had a couple of moments where he wigged out a little, because things weren’t as they should be, from his point of view. Most of the time, though, he did great! He adapted, he had a good time, and it was a lot of fun to have all the family here, getting to know him and the girls. (I’m going to be glad when they’re all gone, though. Shhh! Not that I don’t love ‘em, but…you know.)

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