Tuesday

We have been having some good times here lately.  Not all great, but so much better than it has been going.  So of course I'm barely talking about it, ha!  I do feel like the wind has sort of been taken out of my blogging sails, with all this stupid crap at his school.  I am nervous about everything I say, but I'm trying to fight it.  Anthony seems to be doing well, he is working with Pam again, who he likes so much, and we are starting more OT and toilet training next week, so I am not going to complain.

I am eager and nervous and scared about toilet training.  He has been sitting on the potty and going, starting last week, which is amazing and promising.  The thing is whether or not we are going to be able to parlay that success into real success with training, but we'll just have to wait and see.  We are starting Intensive Toilet Training on Monday and we'll just have to see how it goes.  I only wish I weren't pregnant so I could be drinking a lot more, ha!

It's so weird, I can't even imagine it, not changing diapers for Anthony.  I know there are people who wear diapers their whole lives and I make no judgment on it, what can you do?  Some people's bladders and brains are more connected than others, big whoop.  But if it's a possibility for Anthony to do it, well, I'm excited about it.  I bought underwear for him today, cute boxer-briefs, and it was very exciting.  I am determined to not get my hopes up or get too far ahead of myself, so I'll just report the facts of the situation right now which is that we're starting training next week.  It's not going to be easy, he has to do a lot of sitting on the toilet and spend a lot of time in the bathroom, but ... who cares?  He'll have some of his favorite things in there, reinforcing things, and it's a bathroom, not an OUTHOUSE or something, so while it's not pleasant it's not the most miserable thing, either.

We all went to church again on Sunday and Anthony made it for about the first ten minutes and the last ten minutes, so ... not terrible.  I am hopeful we can stretch it out a little at both ends and do better.  The problem is, as usual, other people.  There's a lot of old people at our new church and I guess they are grumpy about the Big Hand of Death getting ready to snatch them, because there was some eye rolling and some general crappy feelings coming our way when Anthony was doing, well, nothing, just sitting backward in his seat, looking at them, etc.  We're going to try to sit up a little closer to the front where there are more families and try and blend a little better.

Today I went to pick him up at school and we went to get DQ after.  He likes an ice cream sandwich, so I got him one and got kids' cones for the girls.  We went home and they played in the driveway while I went to get the garbage cans and recycling bin from the end of the driveway.  We hung out there for a while and then I was trying to usher them back in, when Anthony went over to the basketball hoop, picked up the basketball and threw it toward the hoop.  !!!  What the hell?  I've never seen anything like it, Maria and Veronica were so happy - it has to be the most appropriate play he's ever done and we were all GOBSMACKED.  Then he came inside, like, no big whoop.  I guess the lesson there is that you can put the autism in the Hoosier but you can't take the Hoosier out of the autistic kid.  Or something.  Anyways, it was amazing.  Like Anthony.