Things You Don't Have To Worry About But We Do

Mr F and Mr Bunches are 10. Each night, when they go to sleep, we close their bedroom door and latch it shut with a hook. Their windows in their room are duct-taped shut with about four rolls of tape each. We have a baby monitor in there so we can hear if they wake up and do anything.  Each of the doors that lead to the outside of our house have a chain with a padlock on it and the keys are hidden where it would be hard to reach them.

Other doors to other rooms are also closed with a hook-and-eye, placed as high up as they can be.

"Don't you think that's excessive?" people sometimes ask us, as we wait to see if we can get some help for the very expensive cost of putting bars over the windows, and try to save for a therapy dog that would help keep Mr F from wandering away so quickly. We pay $30 a month for a GPS bracelet he wears so that if does ever get away again the police can quickly track him. We give updated pictures every now and then to our local police department.

"Don't you think that's excessive?" people repeat.

Last Sunday an 8-year-old boy with autism, nonverbal and fascinated with water (the way Mr F is too) got up sometime after 2 a.m., piled two bean-bag chairs up and unlocked the door to get out. He was last seen 1 1/2 miles from his house on a security video. Police found his pajama bottoms (he was wearing Captain America PJs) but haven't found him yet.

When we go to visit someone, one of us, Sweetie or I, follows Mr F around wherever he goes; only one parent gets to socialize at a time.

"Oh sit down," people say. "It'll be fine."

On New Year's Eve a 5-year-old boy with autism wandered out of his aunt's house during a party. Police found him dead in a canal, his tablet 30 feet away. He left barefoot and without a coat, with temperatures in the 20s.