At first, Lee hated baths because he got soap in his eyes when he was a toddler. Now that might not seem like such a big deal for most kids as they get over that pretty quickly. As you already know, Lee is not like most kids, and he never forgot that and assumed all baths would cause soap to get in his eyes. So giving Lee a bath was a little tricky. We had to drag him to the bathroom and Mom or Dad had to stay in there to make sure he would not try to escape. Since this was so exhausting, we only gave Lee a bath when he really needed it or he started to kill the flowers by just walking past them.

Then when he found out he could take a bath without getting his hair wet, it all changed. Now he was taking baths three times a day and staying in the tub forever!

Lee loved baths so much because he loved water. Most autistic kids love water. There is just something about the feel of it. This was fine with me until it was time for my bath. Sometimes I would get the water running and suddenly Lee

would pop his head in and hop in the tub with me as it was filling up. This was not so bad when I was six, but when I was thirteen, it got a little creepy on so many levels.

Then Lee started getting greedy. He decided he did not just want to share the bath water, he wanted the whole bath all to himself. He started kicking me out whenever he saw I was in the tub. He would come in and grab my hand and start pulling me to the door.

In spite of Lee’s dislike of people in the bathroom with him, he did not seem to mind using the bathroom when we were in there first.

He would come in and start peeing like a racehorse as if we were not even there. He would even turn off the lights as he left and would leave the door wide open, which was pretty annoying. I realize this is what locks are for. The trick is to remember to use them.

Lee also had a problem with flooding the bathroom.

He would fail to turn the water off, so we had to go in and turn it off for him, but even after we did that, he would turn it back on as soon as we left. If we came back in, he would turn it off then look really innocent as if to say,” what?’

Before we knew it, the tub would flood and pretty soon we’d get a leak from downstairs. I started to worry that some day the whole bathtub would come crashing down, but thankfully it never did.