Photo by Amy StorchTHE THRILLING CONCLUSION!

So, after getting all of your fabulous input and tips on creating a visual schedule, it ended up being way easier than I could have imagined. But only after I made it unnecessarily difficult. Because of course I did.

My first attempt used photos -- I snapped pictures of everything, from Noah's room to his closet to his breakfast to our car and on and on.

He took one look at my carefully organized row of photos on the wall and said, "That is NOT my schedule."

So I went back to the suggestion box and did what many of you suggested: I asked his teacher for help. Specifically, I asked where they got the clip-art they used for the school schedules. It's Boardmaker, by Mayer-Johnson, and it's fabulous, but costs well over $300. Not exactly priced for the mom who just wants to get through the day with a little less foot-stomping. (There is a 30-day free trial version, though, in case you'd like to try it out.) But no matter, by the next day she had a sheet of common routines printed out and waiting for us in Noah's cubby.

I cut them out, glued them onto some card stock, fitted them into some sturdy photo corners (just on the bottom so Noah can remove them himself), and then glued the corners to more card stock, arranged in a vertical row like Noah's schedule at school. I made a little pocket for the extra activities and put Noah's name on it. Voila.

This time, it met with Noah's approval. "My SCHEDULE!"

(Then he asked if "playing with my phone" was on his schedule. OMG I AM SO SICK OF THAT PHONE.)

Funnily enough, NOW Noah has no problem with photos being part of the schedule, since my collection of Boardmaker icons is extremely limited. He just needed MOST of the schedule to look like the one he was used to. So I cut the photos to fit into the photo corners, because I did not spend 45 WHOLE MINUTES lining up photo corners for NO GOOD REASON.