I wake up in the morning to find that Bryce has crawled into our bed and is fast asleep. This has been something new, and probably began around summertime.

No matter how quiet I am as I tip-toe out of the room, Bryce is up and out of the bed before I can make it down the stairs. While he’s getting dressed for the day, I’m making Bryce’s favourite breakfast, which right now is Eggo pancakes.

While those are in the toaster I start to turn on the TV. It’s been broken for awhile and when you turn it on it turns itself off and on again repeatedly for a good 5-10 minutes before it actually turns on. It has become part of our routine of the day now if we plan to watch it at all during the day, to prevent having to ‘wait’ for it to turn on later.

Anyways, by the time Bryce is done getting dressed, and the pancakes pop out of the toaster, the TV is finally on and I set it to the Treehouse channel. Despite some of the craziest things I’ve ever seen on TV, it does host The Backyardigans, which continues to be Bryce’s favourite thing ever.

After breakfast the day unravels with the usual suspects in no particular order: drawing, blowing bubbles, watching a movie, and requesting KFC. No matter how the day starts, the next part always includes any of those parts.

If it’s drawing, Bryce will look for his magna doodle and bring it downstairs and curl up on the couch and start to draw. I love that he draws. I like to say that he gets that quality from me since I used to draw a lot.

If it’s blowing bubbles, well I really shouldn’t say if. The day always consists of wanting to blow bubbles, or buy more bubbles if we’re out. As you can imagine it is part of our lives everyday. It does make him smile and it’s not just our website gimmick. If we have solution, we’ll blow bubbles for a little bit, usually to allow the solution to last more than an afternoon of playing with it. If we don’t have solution, he’ll continuously ask for me to go “buy more solution”.

If it’s wanting to watch a movie, he’ll go upstairs and “pick a movie likes”. Right now he’s into Shark Tale.

And finally, Kentucky Fried Chicken. All day long, regardless if he just ate something, or is about to go to bed, he’ll ask for KFC. Now originally, when Bryce was just starting to communicate with us, and he was learning how to say things outside of parroting, one of his first things he said was KFC. It was when we were driving down the road and happen to pass by one. Out of no where he said “KFC”. This wasn’t an emotional experience as when he repeated after me and said “mommy”, but to say something on his own like that was amazing, we turned around and celebrated with KFC. I don’t know what implanted in his head to always request KFC now even if we’re no where near one, but it is definitely something we don’t reward with anymore.

Lunch and dinner pass, shortly followed by Bryce’s bedtime routine, ideally. It doesn’t always work out like that, but we try.

Now in-between all this is a day full of parroting, requesting, him showing me things he drew on his magna doodle, me emphasizing every conversation, and now we’ve just introduced some structured and scheduled activities with his Behavioural Consultant.

After he is asleep, the night is quiet. I start to replenish my energy for the next day. If it’s a weekend, the day may change a bit, but guaranteed, it’ll consist of drawing, blowing bubbles, watching a movie, and KFC.

Thanks for reading,
Tanaya