Social stories are great. Just a few simple pictures and an explanation of what we are going to do really helps Michael to cope with what's coming up. It's especially useful with a major change coming like today, when we are going on the ferry to Brittany for a holiday. Hopefully all the effort I've put in will pay off and he'll not get too stressed with it all, because that's when his autistic traits become more obvious. Last time we went on holiday he spent the first few days trying to control everything around him, shut all the doors, turn on and off all the lights and rope off any area he considered out of bounds! On top of that these behaviours led to other holidaymakers not being particularly friendly to our children at times. This year we've gone for a quiet cottage in the middle of nowhere so if things get rough at least we'll have a refuge and we won't be upsetting everyone else!

I'm sure Elise will love it, especially as we'll have a big garden to play in as opposed to our postage stamp here in England. The way the weather is at the moment I expect we might end up quite muddy at some point!

Have a good two weeks whatever you get up to!