Moving...

We're moving. Yup, during the holidays, we are moving to a new home.

For parents of an autistic child this is about as appealing as standing naked on a step stool in front of a pan of hot, sizzling bacon. (Many of you just cringed, myself included)

My house is a nightmare of boxes, dust, sharp objects, swallow-able things, and controlled chaos. Of course, we have supplemented the madness by adding a bunch of new, exciting toys on Christmas day. Fortunately, this has diverted enough attention to allow my wife and I some time to box up the most dangerous items and clean up any interesting dust bunnies that were discovered behind bookcases.

The real challenge is keeping my daughter calm during all of this change.

So far, we have been mostly successful, but we have 3 more days until the move and then the transition to the new place.

Or strategy is this:

Pizza, movies, park, iPad, 'Hey, look Honey, you get to see how your bed was made', movies, iPad, walk, Wii Dance, secretly pack up 1/3 of her toys, tickle time, Daddy dances funny, park when movers arrive, party, iPad, 'We get to go on an adventure in a new house', Mommy and Daddy scrunched into her bed with her, movies, iPad.

The x-factor is my Son who is very adept at play-by-play. He can, from 3 rooms away, tell my daughter what his parents are doing despite our mad ninja skills. Of course, he's very excited about all of this change and can't wait to get to the new place, so we don't want to squash his positivity, but we need to find a way to keep him from setting my daughter off.

We are thinking duct tape and bungee cords, but I've heard that might chafe after a while...

Any suggestions?