Another milestone was met yesterday and once again it caught me off guard. You would think by now that I’d see these milestones heading my way, and yet most of the time they end up tripping me up and leaving me with such surprise.

There I was sitting on the bleachers during the end of Mr. L’s swim practice, doing my good mom job of being ready to help transition my autistic kiddo, from swim practice to the locker rooms. When he gathered up his belongings, nodded to me and said, “See you on the other side” and headed to the showers by himself…. I was floored!

I was able to stammer out, “Ok, sounds good. I’ll see you on the other side” and I headed to the waiting area. First off, there wasn’t anything cryptic about what he said. He goes in through one door to the locker room, and then I would tell him to go out the other doorway to the entryway to the gym. But those words didn’t really make sense to him so, “Meet you on the other side” were the words that he understood.

Anyways, understanding how swim practice worked took some time, and then Mr. L needed the family restroom for the longest time because he needed help learning how to set the routine of showering and changing after practice. But once we got those skills in place, then my husband and I started introducing him to the men’s locker room and that took quite a bit of practice to learn the routine and the social etiquette that goes along with it.

But after months of practice, Mr. L can now confidently go to the men’s locker room after swim practice. But up until a week ago he still felt he needed me to be with him while he gathered up his chattel. Then he wanted me to walk him to the locker room hallway and verbally tell him that I would meet him, “On the other side”. After those steps, I would walk around to the chairs outside the other locker room door and wait until he reappeared, then we would head home.

I figured this would be our regular routine for quite a while. However, Mr. L has a habit of keeping me on my toes. Never a dull moment with that kid. So now I walk him to swim practice, sometimes stick around and sometimes I wait somewhere else, and now I wait for him in the waiting area without walking him through how to be a typical kid who has finished up swimming at a gym. Who knew….