If you had asked me, before Austen was born, if nearly every detail of my life was fixed in routine, I would have said no, and I would have thought that was quite true. After all, I had free will and all that. If I felt like picking up a doughnut on the way to work today, then, damn it, I could do that. I could drive all kinds of alternate routes to the grocery store. I could drink from the pink glass and not the blue one. I could get away for the weekend or even pick up and fly to another country.

But the fact is, most days I didn't do that. And I never noticed it until Austen pointed it out. I wouldn't notice I'd always served Austen his baby oatmeal in the orange bowl until I put it in the blue bowl and he refused to eat it. I wouldn't notice I'd always driven the same road to the grocery store until I had to stop along the way at the post office or the gas station and Austen would howl with confusion and outrage. I wouldn't notice that always sorted the mail by the mailbox and muttered "junk, junk, junk..." under my breath until Austen started saying "junk" whenever we went to get the mail. There were a thousand habits I didn't notice until I broke course and found that, for Austen, my habits had become compulsions. They were part of The Way Things Must Be.

A few days ago, Austen was playing with Mark while I arranged a playdate for Janie. "Ok, bye. Great, thank you. See you then," I said as I hung up. "No!" Austen shouted, "You said it wrong!"

"What?"

"You said the wrong thing on the phone!"

I struggled to remember what it was I said and realized I'd said something after "bye."

"Oh, did I say something after I said bye?" I asked.

"Yes!" said Austen, "What's wrong with you?!"

"I just don't always think about the rules when I'm talking, buddy. That's the way my mind works. And that's ok. I like being a little flexible, and the other person knew what I meant."

"No, it's not ok. What's wrong with you?!"

"I'm different?"

"No," Austen was getting increasingly upset, and I could tell he didn't want to let go of this question, "What's wrong with you?!"

"I'm crazy!" I said with a smile.

"No, you're not! What's wrong with you?!"

And suddenly, something clicked. I broke a routine, but this question was part of a routine too. It wasn't the exact same question -- it certainly wasn't the same tone of voice -- but I could hear myself asking Austen, "Hey, what's wrong, buddy?" And I knew the answer. Because Austen has an extremely limited diet and is extremely particular about how his food is served, it can be a struggle to get him to eat enough.  He also has difficulty recognizing his hunger (although we can always recognize it based on his behavior), and he can go long periods of time without realizing he needs to eat.  So, when he's at his most anxious and upset, as he was now, the solution has nearly always to ignore whatever he was upset about and feed him.  We also diligently point out to him that his anxiety and frustration are hunger signals, hoping that this will help him recognize his body's cues.

"I guess I must be hungry, buddy," I ventured.

"Ok," he said, "I guess so."  And returned, immediately and peacefully, to his game.

My husband and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised.  Interesting.  In Austen's view, I had done something wrong, so there must be something wrong with me that caused me to misbehave that way, and what he (and we) had linked to misbehavior in his mind was hunger.  I know of other kids who have threatened to put their (seemingly) misbehaving parents into time-out, but only Austen would think to feed us.  I was thankful that he didn't follow me into the kitchen to make sure I got a snack, because I'd just eaten lunch, and frankly, I was stuffed, both with food and food for thought.

As I write this, I have a cup of tea beside me, and I am trying to get myself to drink it.  I'm not hesitating because I don't like tea or because I think it will be unpleasant.  I'm hesitating because I'm trying to drink it out of a Pyrex measuring cup, which feels... Uncomfortable.  Weird.  Challenging.

You see, my mugs were all dirty and I had forgotten to start the dishwasher.  Now sure, I could have hand washed a mug, but why not use the more readily available measuring cup?  It has a handle.  It can hold hot liquids.  It's no heavier or more unwieldy than some of my beloved oversized mugs.  But I recoiled a bit at the thought.  Was it sanitary? I wondered.  Um, yes.  It's been through the same dishwasher as the mugs I usually drink tea from, and I use it to make lots of food that I safely and happily eat.  Would the tea taste ok?  Why wouldn't it; the measuring cup is just glass, and I drink out of glasses all the time.  But still, it just seemed... Wrong.

Of course, my son Austen is very familiar with this sensation.  Austen (as those of you who visit regularly may know) is autistic and has to eat his yogurt with a plastic spoon.  It can't be silverware, because those spoons are heavier and will (if left in the yogurt container) sometimes tip the carton.  Disaster!  But even among plastic spoons, not all spoons are created equal.  Austen's plastic spoons must be clear plastic, and not just any clear plastic; they must be the kind I buy (in bulk) from our local grocery.

This has been frustrating.  I've carried a lingering resentment over it.  After all, I once forgot to pack a spoon in his lunch, and the school called.  Austen completely refused to eat lunch without that damn spoon.  The school has plastic spoons of course, but they are white, not clear.  He insisted on a clear spoon.  So, the teachers looked through their own lunches and his classmates lunches for one to trade, but their clear spoons weren't the same brand as our clear spoons.  Their clear spoons had little swirls on the handles, making them totally different.  And because he couldn't eat his yogurt, he couldn't eat anything.  He was stuck on yogurt and couldn't get past that to the rest of lunch.

So, I ended up driving a package of spoons over to school, muttering to myself the whole time, "A spoon's a spoon, damn it!  Why does it have to be this spoon?  There are a hundred spoons at school.  There are even clear plastic spoons at school.  For crying out loud you don't even need a spoon.  You could drink it.  Or lick it off your fingers!  Why do you have to eat the yogurt with this particular type of spoon?!"

But I know why.  Autistic engineer and author Temple Grandin explained it in her recent interview on NPR when she said, "If I say to you, 'Think about a church steeple,' I only see specific ones and I can tell you exactly where they're at. And I was shocked to find out that most of the people see a generalized sort of vague, generalized, generic steeple. For me there's no generalized one. There's only lots of different specific ones."  There is no Platonic ideal of a spoon in Austen's mind, there are only specific spoons.

And I can say that's crazy and troublesome and that I just don't get why it makes eating yogurt at school impossible some days.  I can say that, that is, until I sit here unable to drink out of a clearly very mug-like object, complete with a handle and an ability to hold hot liquids simply because it doesn't fit my idea of what one ought to drink tea from.

My husband Mark, I have to admit it, hates fish. And people fish evangelize him all the time. I used to too, in my pre-vegetarian days, when a trip to the aquarium would make me hungry. The problem, you see, is never that people were different and have different needs and tastes; the problem is that Mark has never had "good" fish. "You've never tried really fresh fish. You haven't tried this fish; it's not a fishy fish. You haven't tasted fish the way I make it. You haven't been eating fish the right way. Try this. You'll like it." But he hasn't. Fish just doesn't work for everybody, but there are lots of other things in the world to eat. In my family, there's no one path to good food.

I've had the same experience with religion. I had bad experiences with Christianity growing up; it's just not a good fit for me. And I've had people evangelize me over the years: "You've never tried my church. It's not like your church. You haven't been to the right kind of church. You don't really understand what Christianity is about. You haven't been approaching it the right way. Try this. You'll like it." But I haven't. Fortunately, there are a lot of other belief sets and practices in the world (from Hinduism to atheism) that allow people to connect to something beyond themselves, and to practice many universally beautiful principles, in a way that does work for them. In my experience, there's no one path to the good and the divine.

And I've been thinking of this recently, as I've encountered a few situations where I want to (or have) 12 Step evangelized. When a book says Al-Anon is bunk as it repackages powerlessness as powerfulness, or when an article says that addicts need to look into the origins of their addiction and claims that it's psychotherapy and not 12 Step that does that, I start saying all of those same things: "You don't get it. You're not approaching it the right way. If you really understood the concepts, you'd see that what you're talking about is already included in 12 Step. Give it a chance. You'll see it does have what you want and need."

But 12 Step doesn't work for everyone, not even me or my husband. It's been a part of our toolkit, but we've used it in conjunction with other therapies and spiritual practices. My husband can recognize that fish has lots of excellent nutrients, but that they just aren't presented in a way that is most palatable to him. I can recognize that Christianity incorporates the principles I hold most dear, yet they aren't presented in a way that works for me. And while I can see that 12 Step has great tools, they aren't presented in a way or in language that works for everyone. Nothing does. There's no one path to recovery. Fortunately, there are lots of different foods and religions and recovery programs that give us all those same basic nutrients — whether they support our physical, spiritual or mental health — in a way that works for each of us as individuals. And for that, I am grateful.

Last week, I asked you all to join the Just for Today Challenge with me, where we would all change one thing about our lives for just one day. I'll share what I did, and if you did something yourself, either share about it in the comments or (if you wrote a post about it) enter the URL for the post in Mister Linky below to add a link to your blog.  (This is my first attempt to incorporate Mister Linky, so I'm hoping everything will go smoothly.  Just in case, I'd encourage you to leave a comment too, at least this time.  I'm going to try to make this an ongoing thing, so hopefully I'll work out the kinks as I go.)

As many of you know, I've instituted a day of rest and spirituality for myself every Wednesday, and each Wednesday I'm thinking of focusing on one change I'd like to make.  This week the big challenge was cutting out sugar.  Now some of you might think, "It's not hard to go just one day without sugary treats!"  Well, good for you, apparently you're not addicted to them.  For me, it was hard: really, really, crushingly hard to go the entire day without sugar (and because I only take my caffeine in soda form, caffeine as well).

Actually, that's not entirely true.  I got up in the morning and said, "No, no. No chocolate PopTart for you today!  We're having a bagel instead."  And that wasn't so bad.  Then I ate lunch and I wanted a Coke with it, but I settled for water.  And I wanted some Halloween candy for dessert and my hand was reaching for the bowl, but I pulled it back and said, "I can go just one day without a mini Snickers!"

But then the kids came home from school, and I felt like I was drowning in "Mama, I want..." and "Mama, I need..." and "Mama, where is..." and "Mama, can I [insert insane and dangerous request here]..." and "Mama, Daddy said I could..." and "But he started it" and "No, she started it" and "No, he did!"  I wanted one of those freaking Halloween candies so bad I was ready to tear my hair out.  And I wanted to wash it down with a can of Coke.  So I stopped taking things one day at a time and took them one minute at a time for the few hours until Mark got home from work.  Once Mark was home, I had dinner, went off to my meditation group and came home to the kids asleep.  And I thought about that pumpkin pie in the fridge, but I didn't need it.

So, I learned that I really use sugar and caffeine to handle the stress of juggling the kids' needs and demands, of setting limits and enforcing rules, of just the plain sensory overload of two kids focusing their attention on me.  And I learned that one day without sugar was hard, but it also acted like a reset button: the next day, I didn't crave sugar as much and while I let myself indulge again, I ate (and drank) less of it than at any time in the last few months.  I've also noticed that my sugar intake has gradually increased over the course of the week, creeping not quite back up, but closer, to where it had been before.

Still, it's comforting to know that my one day a week of change could be a way of hitting reset on a lot of things in my life, and I'm looking forward to testing the theory with some other behaviors.  And I want to know how your one day worked for you!  What did you add to your life or give up?  What did it feel like and what did you learn?  Post a link and/or leave a comment.  And feel free to pick a day and a behavior yourself and join in next Tuesday too.  If you participated this week, you can keep it up with the same thing this week or choose something new.  It's up to you.

Mr. Linky:

There's a picture of me somewhere, when my son was a few months old, sitting at the computer and uploading pictures of him to share. I got lots of advice to sleep when the baby slept. I was told by plenty of people that those early sleepless days of parenthood are temporary, that things settle down eventually and I would sleep again. When that shift happened, I would have time for those things I ought to put off in favor of sleep now. That all made sense to me, yet I look at that picture and think about how isolated I felt and how desperately I wanted to do something that wasn't caring for an infant or sleeping, in spite of my utter, mind-numbing exhaustion. I was shocked at how completely my life, and even my body, was not my own anymore and I was determined to wrench some part of my time back to me, even at the cost of much needed rest.

I can't always see what self-care looks like. Was it good self care to push through sleep deprivation to do something that was fun for me and helped me reach out of my isolation to connect with loved ones? Or was it bad self care to add to the exhaustion that exacerbated my postpartum depression and contributed to near daily migraines?

It's something I struggle with to this day. I've had a tough week, full of difficult situations and painful emotions. And I've had to ask myself: is it good self care to skip exercise and meditation in favor of sleep or to skip sleep in favor of exercise and meditation? It's certainly not good self care to down several sugary, caffeinated Cokes and handfuls of cookies in order to stay awake. But it's also not good self care to snap at my kids and my husband because I haven't been able to carve out a quiet moment to myself to connect with my higher power and unwind.

The best I can do is feel my way through, because while I don't always know what self care looks like, I do know what it feels like, and I know, based on how I feel now, that whatever I have been doing, hasn't been quite the kind of self care I need right now.

I was looking through Austen's school papers this week and found an exercise he had done describing what things would be like if he ruled the world. He had filled in blanks to complete several sentences, one of which read: "If I ruled the world, there would be no..." And before I read his answer, I thought about the kinds of things I'd want to do away with if I ruled the world: war, disease, abuse, famine... All the things a nice, neurotypical adult abhors.

Then I read Austen's answer: the answer of an autistic eight-year-old boy who hates to eat, who hates new tastes and textures in his mouth, who is a confirmed neophobe and resistant eater. Yes, next to "If I ruled the world, there would be no..." Austen had neatly printed the word "food."

I love him very much, but given my own strong anti-famine stance, I don't think I'll be voting for him for world ruler anytime soon.