Yesterday was Adam’s big day, when he moved in at St. Mary’s with Toby. We drove up to Alexandria on Sunday and fetched Toby for a short outing. Adam was so delighted to see his brother that he squealed with glee –- very loudly –- at Target and at the restaurant we took him to after we dropped Toby off at school. Adam and I had a long time together in the hotel swimming pool and at the doctor’s office Monday morning. I’m grateful that I was able to have some special time with him.

I’d been trying to prepare Adam for this transition for a couple of weeks, mostly by saying short phrases like, “Adam live with Toby,” but I don’t know whether he understood what I was saying. It turns out that the people at St. Mary’s were using social stories to prepare Toby for Adam’s arrival. For the first time ever, Toby was delighted to see Adam. However, I got the impression that Toby had made a mental leap from “Adam is coming” to “Adam is coming, so I get to go live at home now.”

We took Adam to the dorm around 12:30 yesterday. He tantrumed when he realized I wasn’t there (I pulled the car around to unload his toy box), but he calmed down somewhat by the time I left. However, I was told that it took six adults working with him for about an hour or so to get him calm enough to go into the classroom. After that, he did fine yesterday, and he was sleeping soundly when I called around 8:40 p.m.

I think Adam will see this as more of an adventure than Toby does. He has always enjoyed running around the place and jumping on other kids’ beds. Adam was getting bored with the same-old same-old here, and I was having trouble getting him into new things. I hope that being around other children –- especially Toby –- will give him good models for imitation. If that happens, this will be a great development. Still, it’s all very chancy.