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They say it takes 16 days to make a habit. Not so with kids with autism. Show them something once that they like, forget about every changing their minds.

For something that is good. But it seems to work more with the “habits” that probably aren’t so good. Like taking drinks to bed. I never let them do it as babies or toddlers. And I’m not sure on how it started but I think one of them was sick and wasn’t drinking much. I let him have some watered juice when they went to bed. When he was better, I tried to tell him no more juice to bed but that was met with cries, lots of cries and I gave in. Then the other son saw was the first son was getting and demanded it for himself. Now years later…

Ryan recently switched to drinking from a thermos. He only has one so I have to wash it every night. So Ryan no longer takes his drink to bed. Yay! So I am working on getting Andy to relinquish his. The ironic thing is that Andy doesn’t even drink the juice. Every morning he brings a full cup into the kitchen.

Sometimes Andy misplaces his cup and can’t find it. I won’t look for it especially close to bed time. Last night, he said he couldn’t play his DS (because he didn’t have his cup.) I told him he could but he was adamant. Tonight was the same thing and of course he gets upset. I am not sure why he feels the need to punish himself like that. But at the last minute, he found his cup and happily grabbed his DS.

I think I will try watering down his nighttime juice. Then I can work on him keeping his clothes on while at home.

Andy is pretty much laid back. Yes, he does get upset when things don’t work, but he does not melt down the way Ryan does. Then again, when Andy gets very upset, it takes longer to calm him down.

When we are waiting for the bus, Andy sits and waits. Ryan fidgets and annoys. They seem to balance each other out. Mostly.

Ryan is growing up. You can tell by how he handled the bus being 40 minutes late on Monday & today. He held it together on the bus but once we got inside, he broke down. On Monday, it took us about 20 minutes to calm down, today was only a few minutes and he was fine. I hope this progress continues. I also hope the bus driver can get her act together and not be so dang late!

But then Ryan can be really silly. Especially when I want to take his photo. We played hide and seek today. Basically, he kept trying to hide and I kept snapping away hoping to catch a good photo.

It made the wait for the bus go by faster but after 20 minutes, Ryan wanted me to drive him to school. Andy would prefer to wait for the bus but since he whining is not as loud as Ryan’s, he lost out and I drove them.

It’s said that children with autism lack imagination. I think that isn’t true. Sure, they tend to be more literal but I think there is imagination lurking inside them. They just don’t know how to let it come out in ways that we are used to and accept.

For years, I only saw Andy reproduce stories he read while playing with the Thomas trains. He could only use the character trains in the way that he saw them in the book or in the video. Lately, I have been seeing him use his stuffed animals to play the characters in his stories. True, he is still using stories he has read or heard, but he can imagine Nemo standing in for Arthur and Cat standing in for Buster.

The boys started school today. Ryan had wanted to take the bus but I convinced him to let me drive him. Not that I wanted to go out but I know the bus is usually late on the first day. Being late makes him made and I do what I can to avoid that. Too bad I couldn’t have known how late they would be after school. They are usually home by 4 pm. By 4:30, I was getting a little anxious and called transportation. They seemed unsympathetic and said that 30 to 45 minutes late was typical for the first 3 days. The boys have been riding the bus since 2001 and it’s never been like this. They finally got home at 4:40 pm and seemed OK.

Then again, Ryan was just holding it together until I got into the house. Poor guy, he hates feeling out of control. And to make matters worse, Faye is coming so there is no school tomorrow. He hates to miss school and doesn’t want to go back ever again.