Just wanted to add this.

My husband wrote a blog about our experience yesterday as well. I really liked what he wrote about our general struggles with autism. I liked it so much I'm posting it here too.

"As a three-year old who has social and communicative delays, my son cannot always articulate his needs, and many times, he cannot get past something being done in the proper order, according to his 3-year old mind.  As his father, I have learned to deal with his autistic behavior and roll with his meltdowns and rituals.  Once he has something figured out in his head, nothing may deviate from it.  Otherwise, he experiences what my wife and I call a boxing match in his head.  Until he can work through the problem in that insanely wired head of his, the world as he knows it comes to an abrupt end.  I don’t expect anyone without an autistic child to understand.  A good example of our daily meltdowns would be going through doors.  He must open the door himself.  If it is too heavy to open, he freaks out.  If you try to help him, he freaks out.  If you try to open the door and walk through first, he freaks out.  Oftentimes, it is a meltdown waiting to happen.  The irony is that the only way to get him over it is to get him out doing it as much as possible.  You don’t lock a socially deficient child away; you get them out amongst people.  Even if they melt down, it is something you have to deal with in order to socialize them.  The same goes with doors, drink cups, forks, knives, getting into and out of a car seat, taking him to the park, eating dinner, going to sleep, waking up, brushing teeth, reading a story, changing a diaper, and on and on.  Everything is a ritual, and everything must be narrated ad nauseam or you risk a meltdown.  It is difficult.  It is especially difficult in a dynamic environment, where things are happening around you that you have no control over.  Interacting with other people, going to restaurants, and even walking through a parking lot brings around a lot of variables that we, as parents of autistic children, just cannot account for.  We are especially in tune with our children, but we aren’t perfect.  You surely aren’t perfect, so you can’t expect us to be… except we are more aware of our child’s surroundings than 90% of parents with “normal” children are.  Still, we cannot always be on guard 100% of the time."