Aren’t our lives all like this.  My yesterday totally got off course when J. had a surprise after school activity for his play scenery production group – something he so loves because he gets to paint – and a light snowstorm meant horrific traffic.  Instead of doing about 15 other overdue work things, I sat in over 2 hours of traffic.  It meant I was the job coach of the day at the bakery job.

Such a gift that was!  He still need support, but less – !  the programming we’ve painstakingly worked for the past year or more  -encouraging greater independence in scraping cruddy cake pans of their crumbs, then greasing them – is working!  He’s improved his ability to don an apron and gloves and best of all, he’s using words to ask for help – not as many words as I’d like but heck, he’s talking! He’s more able to visually identify still-dirty pans that need further scraping than before.  And while the job coach still has to make sure his visual inspection and accuracy remain strong at both scraping and greasing, he’s better than 8 months ago when I last was there.

Thank you Boston traffic.  I’m so glad you helped me focus on what was most important today – and let me be part of the incremental growth through autism.