Autism’s To-Do List

You know what’s really exhausting about autism? The endless to-do list. This morning Jeff let me sleep in (we take turns with this on weekends). While I was dozing and listening to the sounds of my family waking up and starting an easygoing weekend day, Alex was shrieking and chattering.

Photo courtesy of kain.kalju (flickr.com)

Really have to get him to stop shouting, I thought. Maybe it’s that Elmo video he watches — Elmo is agitated about something (maybe that he’s eternally 3 years old? That he is covered in glaring red-orange synthetic fur? That everyone over the age of 6 loathes him?) — whenever he hears Elmo yell, he yells along with him. Right. Out it goes, I decided.

Immediately one task (get Alex to stop shouting and screaming) became two (hide or get rid of that Elmo tape) and then three (basement? closet? garbage?) and then four (work on getting Alex interested in some other, more mature form of entertainment: Arthur? Spongebob?) and then five (get up and brush teeth, because there’s no way I’m getting back to sleep now).

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We used to buy some kind of soapy bathtime paint thing for Alex (bath crayons, I think). He loved them, but they were a complete  pain to clean off the wall — kind of greasy-smeary. Someone on Autism Blogger posted about an Avon product that sounds awesome. Fun and easy to clean: they are in fact soapy body paints, meant to be used on the skin, but I don’t think there would be any harm if he painted with them. They are even on sale. Since Alex hasn’t had anything like this for years, I think it would keep him entertained for quite a while. (Confession: we let/force Alex to take rather long baths every evening because it gives us an hour or so of peace and quiet. At the end all we have to do is mop the (extremely) wet floor.