I had exactly 30 minutes to get into Kohls, over to the Customer Service desk to have a security tag removed from a bathing suit and back out to the van to make it to an appointment across town. Sounds easy enough.

Except, I had Josiah with me.

I almost didn’t go. Josiah doesn’t like getting out of the van, not even to come back into the house.  Why did I think he would be agreeable to racing through a department store? I have no idea.  It just seemed, in that moment, like a good plan.

I pulled up to the closest spot near the entrance, opened Josiah’s door and attempted to put his shoes on him. He pulled his feet away.  I grabbed his backpack.  He threw it down.  I tried to unbuckle his seat belt. He refused to budge.

Not exactly the scenario I had envisioned.

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Yesterday, Sesame Street introduced their newest muppet, Julia, a character with Autism. Drawing attention to similarities among all children, they’ve developed an app and online videos to explain what it’s like to have autism from the viewpoint of a child with autism.

Their new site, Sesame Street and Autism (see amazing in all children) encourages others to celebrate the uniqueness of each and every child.  http://autism.sesamestreet.org/  You can view or print social stories for every day tasks like teeth brushing, going to the store and trying new foods. http://autism.sesamestreet.org/daily-routine-cards/ Read more…

Josiah apparently has me fooled. I’ve been watching his ‘home bound’ teacher work with him at the hospital the past couple of days and this woman is a master. She is definitely calling the shots and he is responding.  She makes me look like a novice.

Josiah threw flashcards on the floor.  Quite a few of them.  He was instructed to pick them up, but of course he didn’t. Immediately, his teacher withdrew her attention from him.  She stopped talking, stepped back a few feet and refused to continue working with him until he picked up the cards.

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It only took a wheelchair, a gait belt (substituting as a seat belt) and a pack of fruit snacks to get this boy out in the sunshine yesterday. I set the timer on my phone to see how long he would make it.  22 minutes and 8 seconds.  Not bad.  Most of that time Josiah spent on the ground playing with his shiny purple beads. Some of that time he spent perched by the door, waiting and wanting to go back inside. None of that time was spent walking around or climbing the play structure or going down the slides.  But it’s progress.

I spent most of that time snapping pictures. It only took 65 attempts to capture a good one.