Have bus will travel

Dad reports:

I basically did not confront Tommy on anything today. I did not challenge him. When asked to do something if he chose to return to bed I ignored him. The end result was a relatively calm day and Tommy did finally bathe himself.

Toward the end of the day Tommy got a wild hair that if we weren’t going to take him to the mall for Gameboard’s half price sale then he was going to walk to the corner bus stop (1/3 of a mile or so) and ride the bus to the mall himself. I took some time with him and we printed bus schedules (he would use route 90B to get to the mall and 90A to get back) and I explained how the system works to him.

Sidebar: 2 years ago we tried to make it a part of his schooling to get him involved in riding city buses. It seems the social lesson opportunities should be huge and it will probably be his mode of transportation as he gets older. Our plan has been to start setting aside time to ride the bus with Tommy. It would also be good one on one time and bonding Tommy and the adults helping him.

After getting himself going the right direction so the trip to the mall only took 7 minutes instead of 2.5 hours Tommy determined that he would only have 15 minutes to shop. So he devised a plan to have his grandfather, Mom or myself pick him up from the mall. In the end his grandfather came to the house to get him for the evening and they may or may not have ended up at the mall.

Tommy almost appalled his grandfather to the point of not getting his over night visit. When his grandfather arrived Tommy was in the restroom doing some stinky business. There is a crude saying that I’m sure every has heard when referring to someone that thinks they are above everyone else. It goes: “So you think your s*&% don’t stink.” Apparently Tommy knows his stinks because the smell caused him to throw up. Now there could be more to this than one might immediately assume. A couple of weeks ago Tommy and I had an agrument about cleaning up the dog’s poop. Tommy says, “I can’t.” I say, “you won’t. Not you can’t.” and then point out that he has no problem in the bathroom with his own self and that there is no difference. This is the first time Tommy has every done such a thing so he could have suddenly remembered this argument and decided to perform a post-mortem proof or perhaps his nose has just become that sensitive. Asperger’s does bring on hypersensitivity to sounds, touch, smell and so forth.

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