Anthony is now consistently pulling every sheet and cover off his bed, sleeping nightly on a bare mattress with the bedding in a heap next to him. I have reverted to tucking in his top sheet and instead removed the plastic protective sheet, hoping that was the source of irritation. I am also waiting to put him to bed to allow his twice-daily medication, which supposedly has a calming effect, to take effect. Nothing works yet.

I dress him warmly enough to do without covers, I suppose, if he insists on that. I nevertheless find it unsettling to see him sleeping on an uncovered mattress. Additionally, I am guessing he must be at least a little cold, because I still hear him making noise when he should otherwise have gone to sleep.

A final concern I have regards the mattress itself. I suspect sleeping without covers damages the mattress to an extent, yet I don't know how long I will continue to put sheets back on each night if the effort is in vain.

*************

My wife makes various goodies to take to friends at this time of year. Anthony has become her nemesis in this regard (as though he weren't already). If we are not vigilant in keeping him out of our small kitchen, he mashes cookies under plastic wrap. Or he eats entire plates of them. Or, as is the case with iced sugar cookies, he scrapes off the tops to render them worthless as gifts. Even with us in or around the kitchen, Anthony looks to commit these atrocities with the single-minded obsessiveness he shows in other pursuits. As I write this, I have been forced to drag him away from the kitchen to our basement family room to try to keep him out of trouble.

I have mentioned Anthony's tendency to pull the covers off his bed, either before going to sleep or when he wakes up. He has begun to do that every night lately, so I thought that perhaps I could save myself some trouble by not tucking the sheet in or replacing the blankets. That seemed to work well enough the first night, but apparently he feels the need to pull something off. Yesterday I found both the bottom sheet and the plastic protective--against accidents--sheet underneath pulled off the bed. Both are of a fitted design, and the latter apparently didn't come up as easily as he hoped. We now have a plastic sheet that hugs only three of the four corners of the mattress.

Our two children other than Anthony had a second round of mandatory school testing today. My wife had taken Anthony with her the first time during the week when I wasn't available to watch him. As anticipated, that didn't turn out very well. Today's tests were to take a significant portion of the day, and I wanted to see if I could get more sleep, so I took my chances at home with Anthony.

I put him in his bedroom, broke up some puzzle pieces, and took apart the LEGO's he had painstakingly stacked together by color. Then I closed his door and went to lie down, hoping he would somehow be sufficiently occupied to stay in his room for an hour or so.

I was indeed able to rest for that long, but I did hear sounds that I couldn't quite identify coming from Anthony's room. I decided that the potential risk of whatever it was he might be doing would be worth the undisturbed time.

When I got up, I found that he had pulled out a box of videotapes rendered obsolete by the DVD format and had taken them all out, examining each one. Perhaps because I am used to Anthony regularly creating extra work for us, I felt relief when I learned that putting them all back was the extent of the price to be paid for the snooze.

More interestingly to me, though, was being reminded of Anthony as a toddler. Before we knew that he was autistic, he would sit on the floor, oblivious to us watching him, taking CD's out of a rotating rack. He would look at the front, look at the back, and place each on the floor. It is one of my favorite memories about him, probably because, as a baby, Anthony was as cute as any we have seen. I am of course certain that I have no bias in asserting that.

This is probably low on the list of items worth mentioning, but it is still a little out of the ordinary. Anthony broke a chair at the dinner table this evening. It wasn't the sturdiest chair to begin with, part of a set we had bought at a thrift store. He had worn it down over time through his periodic tantrums and sitting on it at odd angles. We noticed recently that the support structure seemed to be failing, so I wasn't surprised when it gave way tonight even though his behavior was nothing unusual--well, not unusual for him.

My wife bought a shrink-wrapped box of chocolates yesterday as a Christmas gift to send to her grandmother overseas. She put it on the counter, out of the way, intending to prepare it later for mailing. She was then busy doing something else when she heard noises that alerted her to potential trouble.

Anthony must have been hungry. The top tier of chocolates--fourteen pieces--was gone, and he had polished off two from the bottom as well. He did not display any ill effects that a normal person might after that kind of consumption, but he did become unusually violent later. It is difficult to determine if the overdose of sugar contributed to that, but it may be worth looking into. A friend with an autistic child tells us that her son is considerably better-behaved recently, without medication, after eliminating sugar from his diet.

Anthony has broken a couple of items in the house this week. First was the toilet seat or, more accurately, the hinge between the seat and the lid. The toilet seat itself can still be used--carefully--until we get another. The second casualty was a wall clock in the living room today. My wife did not see it happen, but heard the clock crashing to the floor. I imagine that we will find a cheap replacement easily enough. Honorable mention goes to a screen on one of the doors entering our house. He knocked it out before he came inside. I'm guessing we are lucky to not have raised the accompanying sliding glass pane into its normal position.

I intended to write about another relevant topic today, but have decided instead to write about my inability to sleep well, which is due at least in part to issues with Anthony. I have chosen to write it while I am far from an ideal state of rest, realizing that my writing may not be to whatever standard it might ordinarily be, but hopefully capturing the surreal nature that is lost when one reverts to a "normal" state.

I believe I can relate to a person who has been a victim of sleep-deprivation torture. I am not attempting to be facetious, and I do not mean to devalue the experiences of those who have actually suffered this as prisoners of war. I also otherwise clearly go about much of my existence with pleasant experiences and positive relationships with my wife and children--even Anthony, to an extent--that would not be associated with incarceration. However, I think I do deal with some of the same causes, if unintentional, and also some of the same effects.

I have not slept well for years. I don't know if I have gotten into that pattern directly because of Anthony, but it did begin at the same time that he started not sleeping for extended periods at night as a small child. I have had high blood pressure for years. I am overweight, although I am attempting to eat more healthily and exercise here and there, and am having some success trimming down. But, of more immediate concern to me (and probably related to the chronic issues) is that I feel like my health is deteriorating. I became sick a couple of months ago and, although the "sickness" is nominally gone, I have not returned to what had become an accepted level of health for me. That is worrisome, because even the previous level was characterized by being tired all the time.

I have been taking the sleeping medication Ambien, or a generic of it. But I still do not sleep a full night. I am going to try the "controlled release" version of it, even if insurance doesn't happen to cover much of the cost.

Yesterday morning, I had returned to sleep after about two hours awake in the middle of the night, and was sleeping deeply when Anthony woke me up. I am guessing that we did not feed him enough the previous night. Unfortunately for me (and my wife, who also was sleeping soundly), Anthony often is the most animated when he wakes up and needs to go to the bathroom or is hungry. Of course, telling him to go the bathroom does not get him to quiet down, and he will not go and feed himself, so attempts to lie in bed and wait him out do not work; eventually he wins and the deep sleep cycle is history.

I was trying to rest this afternoon as well. I had closed the bedroom door, abandoning family interactions for what I supposed would necessarily be a few hours. Just as I was sleeping soundly, again, Anthony began bothering my younger son's action figures. Naturally, my younger son wanted Anthony to stop. That upset him, and his loud reaction jolted me out of the sleep cycle.

My brain continues to be hazy, but I will not be able to go back to sleep for a while and, by that time, it will be late enough in the evening that I run into preparations for bedtime for everyone. I will have to try to ensure that all of us go to bed as quickly as is reasonably possible.

The most immediate of the immediate concerns--written that way intentionally--is that I have on occasion experienced pain in my head that I would describe as shooting from the center toward the top left side. It can be an intense, heartbeat-correlated pain. I don't know what a stroke is like, and I have not done any research to this point, but I am guessing that it would be a more severe version of what I sometimes feel. I can often tell that I am approaching the possibility for that to happen--not a stroke, but what I already experience--when I am not getting to sleep as quickly as I would like. Clearly, I need to alter my approach to getting sufficient rest, and that includes accounting for the "X-factor" that is Anthony.

We have a bottle of a red liquid in our shower. It might be shampoo, and we are using it as such. However, the bottle size matches that of many body washes we buy, and the consistency of this liquid seems a little different from what we are used to with shampoo. We may never know which it is unless we go to a store and look for an identical item, because Anthony opened the cabinet and peeled off labels on several products. We do have another bottle there that we are certain is a different brand of body wash despite any writing.

A significant focus of the meeting with Anthony's school staff was how to prevent him from pulling labels and stickers off anything in sight. I readily understood why that would be a concern after seeing how items, drawers, and cabinets were marked there. Anthony has been taking a medication prescribed to lower his level of obsessiveness, but it clearly either does not work or has yet to produce the intended effect. Anthony's teacher has created a small board with stickers for the express purpose of re-directing his energies. This nevertheless appears to be meeting with only limited success.

This fetish may sound like just a minor nuisance. However, we have other items around the house that are essentially useless because of Anthony. The ice/water dispenser on our refrigerator has a black panel with six red lights, for example, but what are they for? The remote controls for both an oscillating fan and our daughter's boom box (a birthday present) similarly have no markings, and we no longer have any idea how far to turn the dial to produce the desired temperature on our griddle.

Beyond his existing victims, what if Anthony starts to target cleaning solutions? What if our medicine cabinet, with some prescriptions, comes to his attention? Unlike dealing with a small child, he does have enough awareness--and height--to discover objects of interest virtually anywhere in the house. We won't make the mistake of attempting to use them without labels, so we may potentially be left with a lot of worthless stock that requires additional expense to replace. It may also be difficult to convince a pharmacy of the legitimate need to replace a prescription before it should have been used. We might ultimately invest in a locking cabinet in which to hide these things if it comes to that.

We met with Anthony's teacher and other school staff last night. Based on experiences of my wife (with another school previously) and a friend who also has an autistic son, I was prepared for a potentially uncomfortable exchange. Thankfully, it was not that way at all. The school principal, who had come to our house as soon as she heard about Anthony breaking the school bus window, was there and very involved. The teacher was positive and clearly looking for ways to improve the situation for both Anthony and those who deal with him. At the least, ideas were generated that perhaps would not have been otherwise.

One concern I had that ultimately is probably not an issue was the lack of hand-washing before consumption of food. The teacher would not have sanitized his hands last night before giving him a treat if I had not mentioned it, and the conversation on food-based rewards deepened my suspicions. To top it off, she said that Anthony is good about washing his own hands after using the toilet. I cringed inside when I heard that. Anthony "washing" his hands consists of him putting his hands in the water, putting some soap on them, and patting them together a bit as the water is running on them. He does not understand the "why" of washing, so he does not perform the "how". Nevertheless, we are probably lucky in that regard: Anthony simply does not get sick very often, and it isn't as though he himself has qualms about eating anything, anywhere, off of any surface. Perhaps it is not feasible to sanitize the children's hands each time a treat is given. If so, we will continue to hope that Anthony's anomalous physiology keeps him free of serious illness.

I also took Anthony to the bathroom at the school before the meeting. After seeing the toilet, I can only ask myself what the designers of a school for special-needs children were thinking. The toilet was attached to the wall without support on the floor. I am of course certain that the support is secure for regular use. However, I cannot imagine that the school will never have other incidents of children breaking toilets away from the wall in the future.

Regarding bodily functions, I realize now that my wife and I may be taking for granted Anthony's ability to use the toilet. It is true that we make significant efforts to ensure that he does not wet himself or do worse, and yet he still does occasionally. Nevertheless, the school staff we spoke with said they do have other children there who are Anthony's age, yet are still in diapers.

***

After I came home from work tonight, we ate dinner quickly and left for my daughter's school presentation. Anthony did not last long in the auditorium, and I believe I know why: when we returned, he promptly went to the toilet and plugged it again. Because of the hurried nature of the evening, I was looking forward to relaxing just a little bit before dealing with something like that.

I knew I needed to give him a bath, so I turned on the water, checked the temperature, and had him get in while I began attending to the toilet. When I saw that the water was the right level, I turned it off and again checked the temperature. He had apparently decided that the knob turned some to the left was not in the correct position, and returned it to vertical so that the water was now decidedly cool rather than nicely heated. Unplugging the toilet had turned out to be more work than I anticipated, so now not only did I still have a plugged toilet, but I needed to immediately deal with Anthony in the bath so that he would not get too cold. As I write this about the time we would normally be getting kids to bed, the toilet still is not ready for use.

The school district of which Anthony was a part split this year. As a result, Anthony is attending a new school with teachers and aides who are unfamiliar with him. After the recent incident with the school bus window, the relationship between them and my wife--I have yet to meet them--has become decidedly cooler as there has been what to us has seemed a heightened sensitivity to Anthony's actions. His previous teachers seemed to be prepared to deal with him, but my wife has lately had some of his behavior presented to her in a way as if to ask her what she can do about it.

Alas, Anthony is not helping us out; today's occurrence cannot be dismissed as something that he has done before.

When Anthony is upset and is told to use the bathroom, he sometimes bounces up and down on the toilet as he vocalizes his displeasure. He did that today at school. . . and did it with enough force to break the toilet away from the wall. Water all over the place. I don't think the design of our toilet here at home would have allowed that, but he has indeed broken a toilet seat on one of my parents' toilets previously. Gratefully, my parents are my parents; they did not charge us for the replacement!

Because of concerns about Anthony, we have been asked to meet with the school in a few days. I do not know if there is a possibility for the school to refuse to accept him. That likelihood would clearly present us with additional problems that we do not need.

Our hand soap refill bottle ran out a couple of days ago, followed by the dispenser in our bathroom. I exchanged that with the one at the kitchen sink, expecting it to last until we made a trip to the store.

Yesterday, I was baffled to find the replaced dispenser already empty, then realized when I went to the kitchen that it had been switched back. I surmised that one of our younger children had done it, but could not determine why, and swapped them yet again.

The true culprit was discovered this morning as my wife was trying to get Anthony out of the house to board the school bus. It turns out that he knows which dispenser "belongs" in a particular location, and hurriedly traded the two one more time while my wife waited at the door.

***

On another note, I saw Anthony's shirt sleeve with what appeared to be red stains on it this evening. Anthony regularly has stains of various types on his clothing from food in particular, but also from something he might have been doing at school, so I wasn't surprised. I finally noticed, however, that he was bleeding from his ear. More disconcerting is that the source was the cut that had received a stitch rather than the other scratches in his ear that had also bled. That suture ultimately will have been for nothing.

I took Anthony back to get his stitches removed yesterday. The nurses thanked me for keeping ointment on them. I wasn't aware of this beforehand, but not following that directive apparently causes a cut like that to scab over to the point that removing the sutures becomes an impossibility. We have also been told to put sunscreen on the cut any time he is outside, regardless of the weather, for a year to minimize scarring.

Anthony has a long history of hitting his head against walls and the like. I remember all of us (myself, my wife, and two small children at the time) trying to take a nap together. I had Anthony, who was perhaps four years old, lying next to me. I was lying on my side with an arm over him. Without warning, he rammed his head back, and hit me squarely in the nose. I have never been punched in the nose, but I can't imagine the pain being worse. I have since kept my distance on the occasions when I lie next to Anthony to try to get him to sleep.

He was a little younger than that when he routinely targeted a glass pane on a multimedia cabinet in our living room. Our repeated attempts to distract him were unsuccessful, and he eventually hit it hard enough that it broke. Perhaps because he was so young, the experience seemed to frighten him and he stopped for a time. A friend asked me if this latest incident will deter him for a while. Sadly, I don't think so. I sat with him in the back of our car while my wife drove to the hospital, and it is probably a good thing I did, because he did lean over several times to try to hit the window. We must now alter how we monitor him when he shows any sign of agitation if he is near glass.

My wife and I were on our way home after she picked me up from work yesterday afternoon, when we received a fairly frantic call from our 12-year-old daughter. She told us that Anthony was bleeding and upset. My wife could not immediately ascertain from her whether he was bleeding from his teeth or cheek.

Our daughter is mature beyond her years (usually!), and some of that is likely due to having a special-needs older brother. So, we have not had qualms about her meeting his school bus if it does arrive before we get home. We might have to reconsider that position if we have another incident like this.

The bus driver told her that Anthony was upset, and asked if she was all right taking him. She thought she would be OK doing so--she and her younger brother generally know how to handle themselves if he is angry--went on the bus a couple of steps to see him, and turned to get back off to wait for him to be released. She saw him hitting his head against a window, but did not pay that particular attention because we have all seen it before.

This time, however, she heard the window break, and spun around to see him running off the bus with blood streaming down his face. She ran into the house to call us and appropriately left him on the doorstep.

We returned a couple of minutes later. I went to Anthony while my wife spoke with the bus driver. His sweatshirt was rather drenched, and he appeared to have at least cut his ear in addition to having a sizable chunk taken out of his cheek.

I went to look at the side of the bus and saw the tempered glass fragments on the ground. The uniformity of the pieces gave me hope that, while his appearance was admittedly unsettling, he did not have fragments embedded in his skin.

The bus driver had called paramedics as soon as the incident occurred, and they also arrived within minutes of our return. One aspect of Anthony's level of autism is that he has a very low comprehension of speech. I am, almost without exception, unable to convince people of that initially, and the paramedics were no different in this regard. They attempted to tell him what they were doing and that it would not hurt, et cetera. I told them that I would need to hold and brace him to calm him while they worked on him.

The paramedics were very conscientious in their attempts to work on Anthony. They bandaged his head nicely, to the extent that it reminded me of a Civil War wounded soldier when they were through. However, one of them asked if he could cut away Anthony's sweatshirt. I suppose he assumed that, due to the extent of the blood on it, it was unsalvageable. So, I agreed. It turned out, though, that he simply wanted to cut way to expose Anthony's arm to measure his blood pressure. The sweatshirt was rather loose, and the sleeve could easily have been pushed up to accomplish that. It was a new sweatshirt. Oh well. It was indeed soaked. Anyway, Anthony spent parts of the remainder of the night trying to get his sleeve to feel like a sleeve again.

The paramedics offered to take Anthony in an ambulance to a hospital, but my wife and I did not think his injuries were that serious despite his appearance. We also naturally wanted to confirm with insurance where we could go and be covered.

We have a newer hospital nearby, and left our two younger children to go there after speaking to the insurance company. However, the attending physician in the urgent care center felt that Anthony would need to be sedated to check his ear, and referred us to another hospital because she said they did not have that capability.

I called my mother, and asked how her evening was looking. Knowing how things can be with Anthony, she hardly seemed fazed when I explained the situation and asked if she could come to stay with our kids since it had become likely that we would be gone for a while.

We arrived at the other hospital, and, as unfortunately seems to often be the case with emergency rooms, did not actually get to Anthony's main examination for three hours. The cafeteria food was pretty good while we were waiting, though. I shared with my wife a pear and Gorgonzola salad with strawberry vinaigrette dressing, and later went back for a grilled tuna with cheese on wheat bread. My wife burned her tongue on the soup that she was separately eating because neither of us knew when Anthony would be attended to, and she ate it quickly while it was still too hot.

When all was said and done, we were there for five hours, coming home about 11:30pm. Anthony ultimately did not require sedation (meaning we didn't have to go to the second hospital), as he was getting tired and I was able to hold his head and cover his eyes while he was stitched up. He does have cuts on his head as well. The doctors recommended a CT scan, and, although afraid of the costs rising before our eyes, we agreed that it needed to be done to look for glass (there was none, thankfully).

As the doctors had thought he would need to be sedated, he ate virtually nothing the entire evening. So, we gave him some of the food that my parents had bought for our other children when they came over. Because it was so far after our normal bedtimes, we forewent washing Anthony or changing his clothes--I changed the sweatshirt with the cut sleeve, but not his undershirt which also had blood on it--choosing instead to shower with him this morning. I tried washing off the inside of his ear but gave up when it became apparent that would simply produce more blood.

The cut on his cheek is close enough to his eye that we have to cut off most of one side of a bandage to put over the sutures. Then, of course, it is difficult to keep the bandage on. We have been instructed to keep "triple" ointment on the cut and his ear where he was stitched as well until they heal. Anthony has inner stitches and outer stitches on his cheek, and we have been told that the outer stitches are purposely the non-dissolving type so that he will not be easily able to pull them out. We are to go back to the hospital in precisely five days to have them removed. We are hoping we can do that without another emergency room insurance co-payment.

I am taking today off from work and staying home with Anthony. I will be surprised if I have not forgotten some post-worthy details from this incident as I attempt to be (relatively) brief in getting it all down, so I anticipate adding something later.

I went to buy some skewers yesterday. When I returned home with my purchase, my daughter asked what skewers are usually used for. The reason she asked that is because skewers are mostly used for something entirely separate from their main purpose in our household.

As with some other information I pass along about Anthony, this is not pleasant. If you have tired of reading about unpleasant issues, please stop reading now until the next post.

I have written about the infrequency of Anthony's bowel movements. Because he rarely goes more than once every five days or so, the output (with its compact nature) clogs the toilet. Unclogging in these cases often cannot be accomplished just with a plunger. I have resorted to using skewers to break up the matter in the toilet. It can take quite a while. My younger son saw me working at this last night after I bought the skewers and said he felt sorry for me. I thanked him for his sympathy.

I recently bought a set of electric hair clippers with attachments from a store known for its low-price (but also low-quality) merchandise. I wanted to try them on Anthony so that my wife would not always have to be the one to cut his hair. I know that, if worst comes to worst, Anthony will not complain about a bad haircut.

Well. . . the clippers died about ten minutes in to the haircut. What to do now? Try the scissors. How hard can it be? Oh--that cut was a lot closer to the scalp than I anticipated. Oh--that one was too. And. . . the next one was as well. Hmmm. Buzz cut it is.

Since the clippers were unavailable, I used the trimmer attachment on my electric razor to finish the task.

No, Anthony hasn't shown displeasure at his Buddhist monk look. That is one of the few positives about autism. I wasn't sure if he even noticed at first; he was still making his goofy faces in the mirror. Shortly thereafter, though, I saw him momentarily intrigued by the new sensation as he patted his head.

I am giving just the slightest consideration to sticking with this look. My wife and I have both separately been surprised, however, at seeing a stranger in the shadows of a newly-darkened room after the blinds have been closed yet again.

I am rather "run down" lately. I know different factors are involved, but a sizable one is dealing with Anthony every day. I recently mentioned many of his obsessions. I also generally have to feed or otherwise assist him to eat all of his dinner (or expect to be awakened at night because he is hungry). On top of that, I habitually deal with him going to the toilet a minimum of three times a day--upon awakening, after returning from school, and at bed time. A fourth precautionary trip is often added after dinner.

I also shower with him most evenings, and brush his teeth. Showering of course involves washing areas I really don't want to wash on an adult-sized person. Then I need to dry him off, including those same areas. I get (or my wife gets) out his clothes and ensures that he changes himself, morning and night. At bedtime, his bed sheet usually needs to be tucked in again because he pulls it out some time before he falls asleep, or in the morning when he wakes up. All told, I estimate that I easily spend at least 45 minutes to an hour of every day dealing with Anthony in some fashion.

The time spent doesn't tell the whole story, though. As I mentioned with the showering, most of dealing with Anthony is not pleasant. Most of what I need to do is negative, if only a little. But little negatives here and there add up.

My wife has offered to help me with Anthony, but I really don't want her to. I understand that it would be even less pleasant for her to deal with him in the bath; I would be even less happy dealing with an autistic child if the child were female. My wife worked for a short time as a Certified Nursing Assistant in a nursing home, where she had to tend to similar needs for older patients. Knowing this does not make me more willing to push Anthony on to her; she does enough for our family, including things that I might otherwise do, as it is.

When I was a child, I occasionally saw families with teenage children that were not normal--the ones with "something" wrong with them. I'm certain I still paid attention to such families well into my adult years as well. Everyone is interested, if only from a standpoint of curiosity. Sometimes it can be with a sense of sympathy for those with the unusual child.

My perception is now understandably different. My wife and I have become "other people" as in the phrase, "that only happens to other people". So I know that eyes will be on us when, for instance, Anthony and I come out of a public restroom stall after he has been making his random noises, or at least certainly when they see me washing his hands.

I don't look at the people looking at us, because I know that is just how it is, and I don't view it negatively. They are probably wondering the same things I wondered about others before we had Anthony. I frankly also still pay attention to families with special-needs children--perhaps more discreetly than many would--but I do so now from a fairly unique vantage point. If the child appears to be autistic, especially if he or she is younger than Anthony, and if the opportunity is there without being intrusive, I will let the parent know about my own child. Most people find comfort in meeting others in their situation.

Anthony has lately begun to take items lying on counter tops and put them into the garbage. That would be fine if the items were meant for the garbage.

I was to go out today to pick up Anthony's prescription refill and discovered that the medicine bottle could not be found. My wife suspected that Anthony had thrown it away and, after some searching, verified that to be the case. He combined this new obsession with the longstanding one of sticker removal, so that the bottle was useless for refill purposes. We located another prescription paper to take to the pharmacy.

Later this evening, I opened the garbage pail and saw a $20 bill lying on top of the pile! Anthony had opened an envelope intended for our daughter's birthday, removed the card, and evidently viewed the green paper with the numbers on it as superfluous.

Anthony doesn't have the ability to speak, and that might imply that he is mute. Certainly, he goes extended periods without a peep. However, he does have vocal chords, and often uses them precisely at the most inopportune moments. Despite a seeming lack of recognition for much of his environment, it is apparent that he knows he should not be making noise in certain situations, and he uses that awareness to force us to change our plans, particularly when those plans involve waiting in line or sitting in a group.

If I were to describe the variety of sounds he makes, I would establish a spectrum with Michael Jackson's falsetto "ee-ee-eeee" on one end and Chewbacca's guttural roars on the other. Anthony's vocalizations fall between those two extremes!

Speaking of making noise when I don't want him to, last night was yet another for me without full rest. I was finally sleeping soundly this morning when I was awakened by Anthony while he was in the bathroom, with the door to the bedroom open. My wife would normally shut the door to muffle the sound, but she happened to be downstairs and didn't hear him. Just one more reason to have a bigger house--I would put him as far away from us as possible.

Dealing with Anthony's obsessions is a daily, constant feature of our lives.

He dumps out water in a little flower vase that my wife has sitting on a ledge over the kitchen sink. If we don't notice it quickly enough each time, the life of the flowers is shortened considerably. In the most recent example of this, the flowers in question were a pretty wildflower we hadn't noticed growing in our garden before, and don't know when we will see again. I did leave another like it outside hoping it will go to seed to try to gather for cultivation.

Anthony locks any doors that are unlocked, so that if I go out of the house for a couple of minutes, I am surprised if I can come back in without yelling through the door for someone to open it up. He is usually loitering within hearing distance of the door, and at least understands enough to unlock it. We have learned to take keys with us if everyone is outside, however, because of his propensity to slip back inside and lock the door. We once spent twenty minutes determining how to get into the house when he had locked the doors and gone into another room.

I have mentioned before that he closes open windows or plays with the blinds. In the evenings during the summer, I try to open the windows and turn the blinds so as to bring cooler air from outside into the house. Anthony of course turns the blinds the opposite way.

Finally--well, this list never seems to be final with Anthony--he turns off outside lights that have been turned on. Naturally, he does this when I am outside trying to water plants before going to bed. I will go back to the door, shout to get it unlocked if need be, and then ask someone to turn on the lights for me so I don't have to remove my work boots. But last night, as soon as the lights were turned back on and I went out, they were off again.

Once in a while, I allow myself to snap. I say "allow", because the decision to do so is somewhat calculated. I have found that losing my temper with Anthony does little good and can even be counterproductive. Occasionally, though, I want to see if I can get his attention. So this time, I slapped him in the back of the head, dragged him over to the front door light switches, showed him the difference between "on" and "off", and said in quite certain terms that I wanted them left on.

I am guessing that I will be dealing with this again soon, however.

Anthony doesn't have a sense of what is and is not acceptable to eat--similar to an infant.  We are never surprised, for example, when he sees a piece of gum on a retail store floor and pops it in his mouth before we can stop him.  Our attempts to intervene regularly upset him, so we are to the point of reluctantly looking the other way.  

Today he was apparently still hungry and not satisfied with his second serving of dinner, so he helped himself to some rabbit pellets in our pet's cage.  My wife re-heated his food and added more salt plus a little cayenne pepper to renew his interest.  He promptly finished it.  

I have mentioned that I often shower with Anthony. I wash him first. A concern I have in that regard is that he occasionally sticks his foot out to put it in the shower stream when I am not tending to him. Since he doesn't do it frequently, I am always caught off guard when it happens, and have stepped on his foot a couple of times. I am worried that one of these times will result in a slip and fall. I may need to get a non-slip mat for the tub.

I went with my wife and children other than Anthony to an event this evening. Because we were going with some friends, and because the event required waiting in line and orderly behavior, my mother offered to stay at home with Anthony.

After the event was over, we headed back to our car and, as I always do in such instances, periodically looked to ensure that no one was straggling. I momentarily forgot that Anthony wasn't with us, and mentioned to my wife that it seemed strange for him to be absent. She agreed that it didn't seem quite right to not have him with us, despite the troubles he (very) often causes us outside. He's still a member of the family.

If we needed a reminder of the problems he presents, however, we received it when we returned home. My mother told us he had become upset and hit her in the head and face with his head.

Anthony likes to make faces at himself in the mirror. This is more comedic than it might otherwise be because of the novelty it apparently presents to him.  He also seemingly does not tire of doing it.  Anthony displays a lack of recognition for much of his environment, so I somewhat enjoy watching him do this as I wash his hands.  

My wife recently asked me to put our younger (seven-year-old) son in the shower with me because he needed a bath and it would "kill two birds with one stone".  I was in a hurry to finish and started washing him up.  In the midst of doing so, it dawned on me: "He can probably do this himself." I asked him if he could wash himself, to which he responded affirmatively.  I said I would just finish since I was trying to get done quickly, but I realized that I am so used to washing thirteen-year-old Anthony that it didn't immediately occur to me that his younger brother wouldn't require my help.

We have lately needed to increase the Abilify medication that Anthony has been taking. Since he started taking it, he has not bitten, or slammed his head into, anyone. I think he had also not put any holes into our drywall. However, he has lately shown more of a propensity toward violence again, and he did indeed put a couple of dents in the walls of our newly-finished basement family room. I wish I could put a couple of dents in his head for doing that! At least they are only dents rather than holes. My wife asked me, however, if I wanted to fix the dents right away. I do not. It took us several months to finish the room to a point that we could feel good about using it. I don't particularly want to do any more work on it for a while.

I dread this time of year because of pollen in the air. I could accurately say that about myself, but I can somewhat control my own allergies with prescription steroid sprays. Anthony has allergies too, it seems, and I am considering taking him to the doctor for this because the alternative is not appealing. Sometimes over-the-counter medication helps, and sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, we can spend a fair amount of time trying to wipe his nose because we cannot teach him to blow into the tissue. 

I recently went alone to see a movie that I subsequently wanted to see again at a theater with my wife, but the scale of the picture was such that I thought only an IMAX screen would do it justice. However, we found that the film's IMAX run would end before the weekend. That meant finding someone to watch Anthony mid-week on short notice, or taking the whole family and hoping we could somehow keep him quiet or be in a part of the theater where others would not easily hear him. Recent experiences with him at the theater have been generally disastrous.  

I didn't want to bother my mother, who is our main help when my wife and I go out on special occasions. We also knew we would be spending a substantial amount to take the whole family to an IMAX theater plus eat out to accommodate the show time, so we did not want to additionally spend for the special needs teacher that we sometimes ask. Thus, my wife gave Anthony a higher-than-normal dose of Risperdal to try to keep him quiet. We were also hoping that the three seats next to us at the end of the row would not be purchased. Others clearly had the same idea I did about the movie, though, as the theater was rather full with adults despite the mid-week showing.  

The situation appeared promising when we got there. Anthony was subdued, and the seats next to our allotment were vacant, so I had Anthony sit on the outside rather than between me and my wife. Just as the movie started, however, three people came in and sat down next to him--and they had food with them. My anxiety level shot up. Would Anthony reach over and try to grab an unsuspecting person's food? Since the movie had already started, I was loath to get up and have Anthony trade places with me. A few minutes passed with one eye on Anthony and the other on the movie. Finally I decided I couldn't take the chance that Anthony would go untempted for two more hours, so I had him get up but try to stay low. I did the same and switched seats with him.  

The rest of our time in the theater went uneventfully until the last twenty minutes of the movie, when the medication started to wear off. I spent that time trying to hold his arm and keep him quiet. He thankfully did not resist to the point that he caused a commotion. Nevertheless, this experience confirmed to me that movie outings with the entire family will of necessity continue to be kept to a minimum.  

I have this week off from work.  I went out today with my younger two children (who are currently "off track" from school) to run errands, and enjoyed being with them; I rarely get to do that.  I contrasted that later with the feelings I have toward Anthony when he got off the bus delivering special-needs children.
When he isn't around, I am in normal mode, so to speak.  As soon as I deal with him again, I go into alert status.  Normal children won't get off the bus and immediately hit themselves in the head to show some displeasure that I can't determine.  There is no threat of being told that they bit another child on the bus.  I have yet to see my other two children come home wearing different clothes than they wore when they left because they wet themselves during the day, nor have I seen them come home wearing diapers because their teachers could not get them to use the toilet and feared just such an accident.
My other children are generally pleasant.  If they aren't, I can discuss with them their concerns and help them find resolutions.  The positive effects of Anthony's Abilify medication have been short-lived.  Although he has yet to put a full hole into a wall again, or bite or head-bang his siblings or mother, he is certainly more unpleasant than otherwise.
I am grateful for my other two children.  I am glad to be their father.  I like being in the position to try to direct them to lead happy, productive lives.
I find it difficult to say that I am grateful for Anthony.  I imagine their are better people out there in the same situation who can indeed say they are grateful for their autistic children.  I know that I should love Anthony even though there is generally no positive feedback whatsoever, but I am not that good a person.  By and large, I think I do my best to tolerate him, but little more.
I am not certain that I can explain the reason for that.  I know that there is very certainly a disconnection between the feelings I had for him when he was first born and now, and it is very difficult to think about those previous feelings.
It did not matter to me whether our first child was going to be a boy or girl.  In fact, I was leaning toward hoping for a girl.  But when I found that we were going to have a boy, I started to think about how I wanted to help him along in life.  I looked with great anticipation toward fulfilling my role as a father.  I think that made it even more difficult than it otherwise might have been when he showed signs of autism.  It was as though I was being robbed of the relationship I was going to have with my son.
When Anthony was much younger, but well after his autism had manifested itself, we became acquainted with a lady who had a temperate demeanor belying her relative youth.  After some time, we learned that she and her husband had a son before the three daughters we knew them to have.  He had died after a short illness before his first birthday.  We were obviously very sorry to hear about this.  I have wondered from time to time, however, which is worse: losing a child to death early in life, or losing a child early in life to low-functioning autism and having the reminder of what might have been constantly with you.  I don't know.  My first thought would be the former, but I just don't know.
Death is very final in mortality.  Perhaps our friend would have chosen to have her child remain alive with autism so that at least she could see what he would look like growing up.  There is a positive to that, I suppose.  And I guess that, as long as the child is alive, there is always an infinitesimal hope that things can be better.  But we have the ever-present salt in our wounds with Anthony.  If I were pressed to respond whether I would be better off with Anthony as is or if he were no longer with us, I would have to admit that I can't see myself missing this version of him very much because of the negatives constantly associated with him.  That is a sobering assessment, but it is sadly true.

I often have trouble sleeping, and a recent night was particularly bad. So, I stayed home with Anthony on a Sunday while my wife and other two children were out. We have a small TV and an old VCR in Anthony's room into which he sometimes inserts tapes he likes. However, we had just been given one of those movies on DVD, meaning he could watch it in the living room, where he prefers to be. He hasn't figured out how to operate a DVD player--it's a little more difficult than shoving in a tape and seeing the machine turn on automatically--so I put the movie in and started it for him, then went to lie down.

After a while I heard him leave the living room to come to shut doors that were open. That didn't surprise me. Later, I heard him shutting doors downstairs as well, and that did surprise me somewhat, but I suppose it indicates the extent of this obsession. It is as though a warning light comes on in his head to locate open doors and close them at any cost. He can actually get quite agitated if we try to dissuade him from doing this, but closing doors alone is generally only a very minor nuisance. He sometimes goes beyond that by opening doors that are shut, turning the lights on, then closing the doors again. He will even open closed doors to go into rooms and close any blinds that are open. Those two actions eat at me because I prefer not to needlessly increase our utility bills. But, letting Anthony know that I am upset can sometimes have undesirable consequences. Quietly turning off the lights and re-opening blinds can keep him from putting new holes in the drywall. Speaking of which, we plan at some point to buy plywood to nail over the existing walls in his bedroom. It will be extra work and expense with texturing and painting, but it will give us peace of mind to not forever be concerned about dents and holes.

I'm sick of dealing with Anthony. Admittedly, the problem isn't just with him; there are other issues we as a family deal with as well that trouble me, but they can generally be traced to his autism.

Anthony today urinated twice on his bedroom floor and again smeared feces on his shirt after being left on the toilet a short time. Up until recently, I could leave him in the bathroom for extended periods--because it has often taken him a while to do what he needed--and go to check him later. That was a more efficient use of my time than staying there with him. I don't know if Miralax has cleaned him out and he will now be able to have bowel movements regularly like most people. I suspect that is not the case, but I have certainly been wrong about the effect it would have on him to this point; Anthony has gone these many years with nothing working very well. For the time being, anyway, I will take something to read and stay in the bathroom with him.



I was working on tax returns today and was pleased with the amount we would get back. We finally bought a house this last year, having been unable to for many years due to either indebtedness or lack of income to match housing prices where we lived in one of the more expensive regions of the country. We have been finishing a basement room and are looking for appropriate flooring. I thought that the amount of taxes to be returned to us would easily pay for the flooring and additionally allow us to do some other things necessary for the house, and, in fact, it would. However, we have been dipping into our meager savings to cover common medical expenses (mostly dental), and my wife suggested that it would be wise to replenish those savings for a small cushion first.

I am weary of not having enough money. The reason I write this is that our situation is likely not unusual for parents of autistic children. We, like many others for their children, did everything we could to provide Applied Behavioral Analysis therapy for Anthony when we learned that it could make a significant difference. We diverted all the money we could, even going into debt to pay for therapists (my wife learned the therapy techniques and did what she could as well). In the end, we ran out of resources, and Anthony was not progressing so much that we could justify continuing at our minimal rate. Later, as we were paying off debts, my firm sold its assets to another and released its employees. I got a new job in another state two months after my severance had expired--we lived with my parents after payments stopped--but our income did not exceed normal living expenses to the extent that we could keep up with debt repayment. After eight long years of trying, we were left with no alternative to bankruptcy.

That choice was anathema to us. We felt we should do everything in our power to avoid that, as indicated by the length of time we spent fighting it. In the end, however, we wondered if we should have pursued that course years earlier. Not doing so has put us significantly behind where we should be with savings for our other children's future education, and for our own retirement.

I was planning to write about a more pleasant observation regarding Anthony before anything negative occurred again, but I realized this evening that Miralax, the praises of which I have been singing, is the culprit behind the disagreeable episode yesterday.

After I wrote last night, Anthony again had a bowel movement and again soiled his fingers and shirt. That incident occurred once more this evening. As I wiped him after the toilet (I imagine by now it is not a surprise to anyone that he is unable to do it himself), I noticed more and softer matter there than is usually the case. That apparently bothers Anthony, and his reaction to it is to try to clean it off himself with his fingers. It would be great if he understood what the toilet paper was for. I guess I will have to decrease the frequency of the laxative, which may mean we are back to essentially where we were before with several days between movements.

I have been trying to regulate Anthony's toilet functions with Miralax, and am finding that it works. I am not sure that I will ever find just the right schedule to use--once a day, once every two days, once every day but at half dose, or perhaps something else entirely--but it is certainly an improvement over other measures we have taken. Perhaps because I don't have it quite right yet, though, Anthony sometimes has gas that smells as though he has diarrhea. That is of course a concern; he is not someone who will necessarily make it to the bathroom if things come too quickly.

Today was such a day when he had the particularly foul smell. Thus, when I had him go to the bathroom after returning from school today, I decided to keep him on the toilet for a while even though he urinated quickly, which is usually a sign that he doesn't need to have a bowel movement. I was eventually rewarded--that seems a funny choice of words, but I will take that reward--when he did have a bowel movement after about twenty minutes.

When I checked him, however, I found the front of the toilet seat with indications that he had touched and wiped some fecal matter. I examined his fingers and confirmed this to be the case. I also noticed stains on his shirt (which is not unusual, as he often wipes food on his clothing), and their smell verified that he had touched that as well. I removed his clothes and took them to the washer after running a bath for him.

We thankfully rarely deal with this particular issue. I was extremely upset the first time it happened, when Anthony was perhaps three years old. At that time, we were of course still fairly new to autistic matters, and so had not imagined something of this nature occurring. We were unable to toilet-train him until he was five years old, so he was still wearing diapers at this time. We were eating dinner, and I noticed Anthony had something that looked like chocolate on his finger tips, and, for a split-second, I thought about licking them to see what it was. I am forever grateful that I paid attention to the worst-case scenario in my head and chose to smell them instead.

We had been looking for a new bed for Anthony for quite a while. We were given the one he had by a family member, but it was of low quality and never meant as a long-term solution. I had felt badly about it for some time as I put him to bed each evening and watched it sag further under his increasing weight. It was impossible to determine if Anthony was bothered by it since he did not indicate displeasure, but that did not alleviate the nagging feeling that I was deficient as a parent for failure to address it.

We finally saved up a little money and just bought a decent bed set at a thrift store. A monetary Christmas gift from my parents went partially toward bedding, which entailed purple sheets and a Spider-Man/Venom comforter, both purchased on clearance. When we feel good about Anthony, we turn the Spider-Man side up. If not, Venom rules the night!

We made the bed for the first time and had Anthony get in it. I'm not sure if he liked it--he doesn't express satisfaction in a way that we can understand--but he did have a goofy laugh which at least indicates better spirits. That often seems to occur randomly, but we accepted it in this instance as at least being pleased with the novelty. Whether he cares or not, I am happy that he finally has acceptable accommodations.

Anthony likes to remove stickers. We have previously been required to pay a $5.00 fine on a public library book, because he removed the bar-code and we couldn't find it to re-attach. We have had another couple of close calls in that regard as well, so that we start to panic when we realize we have left a book on the dining table or kitchen counter. Taking him to the grocery store is an adventure as well, even if he is not otherwise causing a commotion. He tries to peel stickers off price signs, and can get very upset if we try to stop him; our task then is to try to divert him from noticing the stickers at all.

I had not considered this trait a couple of days ago when I painstakingly planted tomato, pepper, and eggplant seeds in a 72-pellet tray and marked them with taped paper. My wife saved me by pointing out that we should turn the tray the opposite way toward the wall so Anthony would not be tempted.


The next day, though, I wasn't as lucky with another of Anthony's obsessions. I was working again with some seeds, and thought I should go to start his bath water. Anthony sometimes hangs around us for as-yet undetermined reasons, and he was doing so in this instance. Instead of following me to the bathroom, however, he stayed in the kitchen. When I returned, I found that my asparagus seeds, which the seed package instructed to immerse in water for a day, had been poured into the sink. The dumping of containers with liquids is one fetish that I don't see very often, precisely because we seldom have open containers with liquids lying around, and so it had not occurred to me that the asparagus seeds might be victims (I did manage to retrieve most of them). I was far more upset a few weeks ago when he emptied a nearly-full gallon of vinegar I was using for cleaning.

I mentioned a couple of days ago that we have a routine to try to keep Anthony from wetting himself. I find that, on days with less structure, we may forget to have Anthony go to the bathroom at regular intervals, and sometimes we pay for it. Today was one of those days.

Anthony had been hanging around the kitchen as though he wanted something to eat. My wife was cooking, and I was cleaning our rabbit's litter box. As I finished, I noticed that the sock on Anthony's foot was wet. I thought I might have gotten some water on the floor in the bathroom after I rinsed out the litter box, and that he had stepped in it, but that would not account for the extent to which the sock was wet. I looked under his foot at the carpet, which was soaked. I looked at his dark-colored pants and could tell that they were wet also.

I took him back into the bathroom, had him stand in the tub and take off his clothes, ran the bath, and took his wet clothes to the laundry to wash. I also blotted the carpet, sprinkled baking soda to deodorize, and disinfected the bathroom floor.

I sometimes find with Anthony that I am in a no-win situation. My father had come to my house to help me in finishing the basement (or, more correctly, I help him). My wife had taken our other children out for a swimming lesson, leaving Anthony here. I discovered that he had a runny nose. With a normal child, this is a minor issue. With Anthony, it significantly impacts the way we approach things.

We have never been able to teach Anthony to blow his nose. Worse, he wipes his nose with his hand and smears the dripping matter on his face. He also does not understand the necessity of washing his hands. Finally, he touches things. Anything and everything is fair game. So, I did not want him to stay upstairs, particularly around the kitchen. But that meant deciding what to do with him as I assisted my father.

Anthony was in need of a bath. A-ha! A bath would keep him out of the way for a few minutes. Get him some nice warm water, let him relax for a while, come back and take care of him. . . .

Yes, he defecated in the tub again. I knew that was a possibility, but thought it a remote one because it was still morning and this has only happened in the evening previously. Then again, I can't say that I have put him in the bath in the morning and left him there for any length before today. And he didn't go a lot, but the amount doesn't really matter when it's in the water. I still have to remove the material, drain the water, clean Anthony and the tub, and disinfect. I may eventually learn my lesson.


On a lighter note, I was later painting the ceiling with a roller attached to a pole. This seemed to interest Anthony, and that is noteworthy because few activities do. I gave him the pole, showed him how to hold it, and held it up to the ceiling for him. He actually rolled it back and forth a few times. Then, apparently satisfied, he handed it back to me. I called my wife, who by this time had returned, and had him do it again so she too could see it.

I had Anthony go to the bathroom after I came home from work as part of the daily routine to try to keep him from wetting himself. As he removed his pants, I found that he was wearing a diaper under his underpants. It seems his "teachers"--I think there may be a more accurate designation for those who work with special-needs children--were concerned that he might have an accident at some point because he had not urinated in three trips to the toilet today.

I have written about Anthony's inability to have regular bowel movements, and that it sometimes affects his ability to urinate as well. He has gotten back to bowel movements at intervals of about five days, but that is again with stool softeners as we continue to use the medicine, Abilify, that has decreased his violent tendencies. I am starting to introduce another laxative, Miralax, to see if we can get better results. Several people we know, along with Anthony's pediatrician, have recommended it.

Anthony has started to adapt to the Abilify, however. We had heard this might be an issue. He is not nearly as docile as he was the first couple of weeks using it, although he is still a considerable way from frighteningly violent behavior. The doctor that prescribed this has recommended that we increase the dosage by half per day.

One of my greatest desires is to hear Anthony speak. What would he sound like? What would he say? What interests would he have, if he were normal?

Based, I suppose, on these wishes (and the probably-unfounded thinking that the proper connections in his brain could occur at any time), I sometimes have dreams wherein Anthony has the power of speech. These dreams usually follow a similar pattern: He says something to me, I respond, "Anthony! You can talk!" And he replies almost as a matter of fact, "Yes, I can talk," and the dream ends with me being happy.

I had one dream recently, however, that I think was influenced by having seen Awakenings, a movie with Robert de Niro and Robin Williams, many years ago. Perhaps indicating the degree to which that story has remained with me, in this dream I found that Anthony did not want to go to sleep. I asked him why, and he told me that he was afraid he wouldn't still be able to speak in the morning. I was rather concerned because of my newfound joy in seeing my son "back" after all these years, but I knew that going without sleep indefinitely was not realistic. I told him to go to sleep and we would see what happened.

In the morning, he had gone back into his autistic shell.

I have continued to give Anthony the maximum dose of stool softener each day. He finally had another bowel movement last night, five days after the previous one. We dealt with a related problem this morning, however, when Anthony soaked his bed rather than getting up to urinate. We have found that, as he becomes more constipated, he also has trouble urinating. To try to ameliorate both issues, we try to give him more water. Usually, if he doesn't go to the bathroom in the evening, we can still count on him to do so in the morning. I guess since he had a bowel movement last night, the extra water was too much for him. He still could have gone to the bathroom rather than staying on his bed. Fortunately, we are somewhat prepared for such cases, and keep a pad on his bed under his sheet. As a result, a small portion of the mattress was all that was affected this time.

I was telling a friend recently about Anthony not having a bowel movement. She alerted me to the existence of magnesium citrate as the laxative used to clean out the colon for surgery. I mentioned it to my father the next day after I had given a ten-ounce bottle to Anthony in the morning. He confirmed that it was used for colonoscopies, saying, "Oh, that stuff will give him the squirts!"

Well, Anthony drank it at 8:30 am Saturday. I was hoping for a quick resolution, but the packaging did say it could act any time within 30 minutes to six hours from consumption and, knowing the severity of the problem, I wasn't surprised when I didn't see any progress right away. I became concerned, however, when evening approached with no change. I did not want to deal with him getting up to go to the bathroom at 1am or, worse, NOT getting up. We have dealt with that extremely unpleasant development previously. Fortunately, he started acting suspiciously around 8:30pm, so I had him sit on the toilet. By 9pm, he had finally gone. Nevertheless, it wasn't the mad free-for-all that I had feared. I expected to see more the next day, but didn't. So, I gave him the maximum dose of a stool softener, a Dulcolax generic. Nothing the day after that. Same thing again with the stool softener. Finally, three days after having the first bowel movement from the magnesium citrate, he had another last night. Again, though, he is not putting out anything approaching what I would expect. I did give him the stool softener yet again last night before his bowel movement, and I'm hoping for better results. The worry for me is that I can't be sure when enough is enough. We have had a horrible "accident" in the past when I tried with laxatives to regulate his constipation, so the last thing I want is to overdo it again.

Until very recently, my wife and I had not found a medication that works to keep Anthony from getting rather violent in an instant. We are now using one called Abilify, though, and it seems to be working. We have even gone a couple of mornings with no outburst whatsoever when we get him out of bed to go to the bathroom and change his clothes.

However--and this could turn into a very large "however"--Anthony generally goes five or six days between bowel movements. Now, we are up to eleven days since the last one. The doctor did not mention constipation as a possible side effect, but the medication packaging does indeed have that on the list. I have given him stool softener a few times in this interval, with no effect. He also seems even less interested than usual in eating, which obviously doesn't help. Tonight, we made a concerted effort to give him a lot of water and as much food as he would eat. Nothing just yet.

I guess the draw to his old tune was too strong for Anthony. After I posted about Anthony having changed his melody on the electronic keyboard, I heard him playing his original song later that evening. He has turned the keyboard on several times since in the next two days, and has not deviated from that. I don't dare try to finish his tune for him again, though.

Anthony likes instruments that make noise. It can be an actual piano or a toy of some sort. Years ago, he had a Winnie the Pooh piano toy that played one of the various melodies from the cartoons when its keys were pushed. He did that over and over, to the point that my wife and I were glad when the batteries ran out. We had forgotten about that until fairly recently, when he started playing simple melodies on the electronic keyboard in our living room. He pushes each key individually, and actually created his own melody that he would play, with very little variation, at least once or twice a day. A few days ago, he started playing his little composition again. Knowing what was coming, I finished the tones vocally before he did on the keyboard. Illustrating that he does have some brain activity--and I don't mean to be facetious, but we unfortunately don't see much of it--he actually looked at me mid-melody after I did this, stopped playing, and turned the keyboard off. Maybe he didn't like me finishing his song! Evidence supporting that idea came subsequently when he actually changed the tune; we haven't heard the previous melody since, although the ending is still the same.

His interest in the keyboard reminded us of the Winnie the Pooh toy, which we no longer have. We are regularly looking for something that will interest him when he is in his own room as well, so we dug out a Blue's Clues toy that our youngest child outgrew a few years back. The player pushes a picture on a grid of items in Blue's house, and "Steve" gives the player clues. Anthony isn't interested in (or perhaps doesn't understand) the intent of the game, so we regularly hear, in rapid succession, "It's in the living room", "It doesn't talk", "You can put things in it", etc. Sometimes, he pushes the various pictures so quickly that we hear only snippets of each phrase. He eventually pushes the picture that was the object of the search, and "Steve" will say, "You did great! Let's play again," and the sounds begin anew. We wish we could adjust the volume.