The hardest 15 seconds of my day happens over and over.  A dozen times.

Its hard, but I muscle through.

The hardest 15 seconds of my day is that 15 seconds after I tell Pookie to do something.  I tell him.  He hears me.  And for 15 seconds we wait.  I wait to see if he will do it.  He waits to see if I will repeat myself.  15 long seconds.

He is not a defiant boy.  He waits because he is processing the request.  He takes the information in and then acts.  Human  nature leads me to get impatient.  I usually want to repeat myself in the time it takes him to process the first request.  I do it without thinking.  I am working hard on changing that.

He likes it when I repeat myself because he likes to be prompted to do things.  Its an ASD thing.  If he thinks there is a prompt coming, he will wait for it.  We work hard on removing those prompts.  So, today I asked him to mail a letter for me.  I watched as he got his coat and shoes on.  I handed him the letter and told him to put it in the mailbox from the backside and then put the flag up.  Out the door he went.  I stood in the screen door watching as he meandered across the lawn, jumped over the water pipe and dragged the toes of his shoes on the sidewalk.  Inside my head, I was screaming “Don’t go in the street!  Put it from the back!  From the back!  There is a door on the back of the mailbox too!”   But I said nothing.  And he put the letter in the mail box, from the back, put up the flag and meandered back into the house.

15 long seconds, just like always.