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.