On the whole, today hasn't been a bad day..as long as we stuck to the itinerary.
As parents/carers of children on the autistic spectrum will know, routine is vital. There is a need to how/what and when. T seems to feel this need when we have trips out more than his sister, D. D needs the routine of school - as does T - but it's the trips that he struggles with.
We have to determine what time we're travelling (the route if he's going with Hubbie to a football match), in which order we are going to shops, when and where we are having lunch and then when we're going home. There can't be any deviation from this, it's too much for him.
It was unfortunate therefore that the blooming Council have chosen to roadworks ALL the roads into town this week and what should have been a 20 minute journey, turned into a 45 minute journey. D was fine, playing on my phone; T not so. He had his DS but was very conscious of the time and was silently unhappy. This promoted a couple of passengers to have a bit of a "chat" about young people and mobiles/games/etc and I thought "we're all stuck on this bus, you'd be moaning far more if they were both wailing and moaning about being bored". I'm too polite for my own damn good at times.
Anyway...T wasn't pleased about the timetable delay, that and the fact we were going somewhere new for lunch. Having seen how a certain fast-food chain treats its potential staff, I'm not giving them anymore ££ so we went to a competitor. Said competitor had a quieter restaurant, both in location and customers and eventually/begrudging T agreed that the food was nicer, it was quieter and we didn't have to wait ages for a table, result! He even felt comfortable enough to go up and ask for a pudding himself and enjoyed it!
Part of our plans was also to look (not buy) at Skylanders. They both have an incentive that they can choose one each on Friday if they attempt to get on during half term, and so far it's working!
This evening has been about taking turns, playing "I Spy", D has a tendency to pick totally bizarre answers, some can be out of eyeshot completely (at school for example) but she is getting the phonetics right and it's wonderful that she will (but not always) wait her turn. She hasn't really got the hang of the fact that the winner has next go, whereas T is a stickler for that, so we've shared the turns. Nice though.
So, delays aside, it's been a good start to half term, as long as we've stuck to the itinerary. Please scroll down and have a listen to today's Music Monday, it's D's favourite song.
I hope everyone's had a good day. Comments/RTs/shares as ever welcomed, thanks for reading.
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