Shoes on the Floor

It’s the last week of summer. Technically, there’s next week. But my alone time with my son lasts through the end of this week (7/20 – 7/24). Soon, his Mom will come down and get him. School back in Indiana will start the first week of August. Then, summer 2026 will be a wrap.

It’s a funny thing how time works in a kid’s mind. All summer long I’ve been hounding him to put away his clothes. Pick up his toys. Throw away trash. And pick up his shoes. You’d think after two months of hounding that the message would sink in. But I walked by the shoe area just now and saw these in the middle of the floor – a fact notable only in that this is NOT where shoes belong. I reckon a couple of months is just a blink to a kid, no matter how we adults might think otherwise.

It’s true that my son really isn’t a kid anymore. My son is now a fully-fledged member of the teenagers’ cohort. His ASD diagnosis notwithstanding, I don’t think there are many teens lurking about who have mastered the art of picking up after themselves. He may not run the tidiest of ships, but if my nephews and friends’ kids are any metric, his general lack of comportment is hardly due to being on the autism spectrum.

Of course, not all of the summer has been like this. There have been the usual summer pitfalls that are absolutely attributable to the autism spectrum. His sleep has been dysregulated since he got to town. Also, they’re less frequent now, but the meltdowns seem to have gotten more intense. Yelling and screaming are usually the pièce de résistance of his outbursts. And then there are those moments late at night, long after he’s drifted off to sleep, where this Dad just feels like he’s flailing about and not entirely sure what to do to fix any of it.

But then there are the wins. My kid has read two chapter books this summer (the first two of The Olympians series). We took a trip to Colorado and deftly navigated the chaos and noise of the airports. He has gotten into a new video game in his own right (Ark: Survival Ascended). We’ve even graduated to adult shampoo/conditioner and grown-up toothpaste. When you add in that he’s never missed a meal, and learned how to use the air fryer to boot – well, it’s nearly enough to counter-balance the challenges.

The summer is surely drawing to a close. And it’s fair to say that things have been far from perfect. There’s still shoes on the floor. But I suspect that in a few weeks when the house is quiet and everything is tucked away in its proper place, I’ll miss those shoes on the floor and will see more of the wins from this summer than the challenges.