Car Ride With My Aspie

Spending any significant time in a car with any child can be an experience. I just wanted to take a moment to share the experience that I had this morning.

I woke Kyle up at 6:30, earlier than normal, in order to get ready and meet the group he goes snowboarding with. The normal battles of getting ready in the morning were the same. He knew that we had to leave by 7:30. At 7:30 he started freaking out at me because we were supposed to be leaving. I was just finishing up a quick bite of breakfast before heading out the door. I reassured him that we would be leaving in "just a minute" which I literally felt would be accomplished. He didn't like that answer, and for the next minute, I spent reassuring him that everything was going to be okay.

We left at 7:31. My tank was almost out of gas, so we had to stop and get gas. Kyle loves the V8 drinks, so I gave him some money to run in and get a couple while I pumped the gas. He came back with V8 tomato juice. I am glad that he likes such a healthy thing. Now only if I could get him to like mint toothpaste!!!

We left the gas station with an hour and fifteen minutes left of our journey. We were driving along and then he started repeating things. He doesn't do this too often, but when he does he does it a lot. The first thing he repeated was "three thousand", followed by "you need to take care of yourself" in a singsong voice. All the time he was doing this, he was very happy and was rocking back and forth and side to side. There were about three other phrases he stuck on for awhile.

He also asked me what "curriculum" meant. I explained to him that what he is doing at school right now is his curriculum. Then he proceeded to tell me that he isn't doing anything in school right now. I asked him about math and reading, and he said he isn't doing that right now. I said he must be doing something in the seven hours that he is there. His exact words were, "I do when I am there, but I am not there now." He wasn't joking around, he was being dead serious. I had to smile to myself, it was kinda cute.