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.

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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.