...10 (in days gone by)...

 In Days Gone By:
5.October.2018

It was a half day, today. I paced back and forth at the bottom of the driveway, waiting impatiently for my favorite person to reappear. At long last, the bus pulled up, discharging my boy and all his detritus. We made our way up the drive, narrowly avoiding a run-in with a 'take no prisoners' wasp.

(Sidenote-it can't be just me, right? We all know they get nasty at this time of year...feeling their mortality ticking out before the first cold snap?)

At any rate, safe and sound we made it in. Mail slipped from hand to coffee table to floor. Bookbag hit the ground with the solid thud that only freshman year can make.

We breezed through lunch prep, chattering about the school day. I located my notes from Back To School Night (questions, observations, snarks, etc...) and we bantered...the ball in my court, then his...this teacher's voice, that classrooms temperature...all the sensory pieces that make up the puzzle of successful engagement/successful education of a student on the autism spectrum.

Some time later, long after the conversation stalled and the lunch dishes had piled up in the sink, he walked by and (as he does) continued whatever conversation with me that he'd already begun in his head. I put down my book and frowned...concentrating on the string of words I'd heard but not absorbed. Process...analyze...catch up...okay...

He continued..."I've begun to notice how it effects things I didn't realize before. My autism, I mean. I just realized that I have this technological affinity that no one else seems to...when I was playing the game. I've had to switch to playing the multiplayer versions just to get away from the levels, because the way my brain works...all I have to do is look at the level and visually, I can process more than is there somehow. I can predict all the success rates. It's like my brain just maps out the whole thing right away. So it's boring."

We chatted a few moments longer as I tried to apply what he had just told me to another example (geometry homework and proofs!) before the earbuds went back in and he settled into the game on his computer.

And in the silence after his revelation, I sat and pondered how best to utilize this new piece of his puzzle...how best to take that information and apply it to creating more challenges for him.

I'm raising a boy who analyzes everything....processes everything....reacts to everything. A boy who takes in every new piece of information and applies it in a split-second....making adjustments faster than most of us blink.

Someone last night said "Oh, he looks so much like you. He definitely takes after you." And I, laughingly (and to her confusion!) said, "Thank you, but no. I take after him....or at least, I'm trying to!"

Guiding him means following where his footsteps are just about to go...forever trying to stay one step ahead.