So I’ve been dealing with less sleep than usual because Elliott has decided that he wants or needs to hangout when he can’t sleep.

The last few nights, he knocks on my door and asks if he can hang out.

He’s been going through a lot and basically shut down for a long time. When he asks to hang out, that’s amazing in my world and the last thing I want to do is turn him away. At the same time, it’s well after midnight and I just can’t keep doing this.

I think he just needs the company because we don’t really talk about anything in particular. We just sit on my bed and play Xbox for a little while or watch a movie until my eyes can’t stay open and I convince him to try going to bed…

I’m telling you, nothing ever comes easy.

My hope is that maybe we can schedule hangout time towards the end of the week because he doesn’t have school on Fridays. If we’re up a little later, we don’t have to be up super early…

While the timing sucks, I’m so grateful that he’s coming back out of his shell a little. When Lizze left, he shut down and closed off to pretty much everyone. I was still able to talk to him but he was trying very hard not to trust anyone because he was afraid of getting hurt again.

This is one of the reasons that I’m very careful to always do what I say I’m going to do and ensure they know they can always rely on me. It’s exhausting but as parents, we do whatever our kids need. Autistic kids need that extra security.

We’ve come quite a ways in the last year or so, and I’m so proud of him.

I just need to work on the timing of his hangout requests. ☺