Happy, sad and all that stuff in between

Today was the last day of school here.  Reece, my oldest and most sensitive kid, came home crying.  Aidan couldn't care less.  Emma was a little melancholy about the fact that she is moving from her pre-school/kindergarten to the elementary school.  Otherwise she was fine.  I was fine until Emma started reciting the litany of things she would never do again.  She was saying she would never play in that gym again, never play on that playground again, never go to that library again, never eat lunch in that lunchroom again, etc.  It got me feeling a little weepy.  Our kids have been going to JELV for 5 years now.  My baby Emma was the last one to go.  Now she is going to be a big kid going to first grade at the elementary school.  I started reciting the litany of things I would never do again.  I would never get to walk her into that school and see the lines of little tiny people singing songs about colors as they walked to lunch.  I would never go hide Easter eggs for class.  I would never get another shaving cream painting, turkey made from a footprint, jar of reindeer food.  I would never get to see a whole class sit "criss cross applesauce" for story time on the story rug.  No more walking her to the bus and giving her a big hug, having her cling to my legs for a good 30 seconds.  Everyone is growing up...

The Bedtime Drive

Our son has autism.  Really severe, incapacitating, life-and-family-altering autism.  Something we have to do with him nearly every single night is take a bedtime drive.  This is required 99.99999% of the time.  If I were diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and told I had less than 12 hours to live... guess how I would be spending at least one of those hours?  You guessed it.  Failure to take a bedtime drive will directly result in fits of epic and catastrophic proportion.  So what do we do?  Bedtime drives, duh.  I took a picture of Aidan when we were in our driveway getting ready to come in from our drive.  I would like to share and explain a few key points of the photo.

First, I am sure you notice the pajamas.  These are a must because without them he would be naked.  No doubt about it.  I can't begin to count the amount of times this little houdini has managed to shed his shorts, shirt and underwear while we are driving around.  My personal favorite was the time the McDonald's drive-thru worker was giving me the hairy eyeball.  I turned around and realized the reason she was staring so much was due to the fact that my son was quite naked in his seat and flopping his little self around everywhere.  So, PJs are definitely a key part of this routine.

Under these pajamas is a GoodNites pull up.  He has to wear these because he tends to pee on himself.  Yes, he does know how to use the toilet, however many times he simply chooses not to do so.  Life is much easier and more sanitary if we just head the inevitable flood of urine off before it happens.  He happens to be at the largest size we can buy in kid sizes.  I choose not to think about what happens next.

You will notice the single shoe.  He is barefoot.  He hates wearing shoes.  However, he realizes that in order to go anywhere we must all wear shoes so in his mind he thinks bringing me a shoe=going on a ride.  Since he never planned on wearing them, one shoe is adequate.

Notice the strategic hand placement.  This is due to the fact that he is a boy.  It has nothing to do with autism.