Last month we took the boys to a mountain called Vall de Núria. The plan was simple on paper. Ride the Blue Train up the valley, which is the only way to get there. Ride the cable car over the pine trees. Sleep in a wooden cabin on the French side. And make memories in our Road trip.

Simple on paper. Never simple in practice.

The train ride that made Guille light up

We parked the car and waited for the Blue Train. We started from the very first stop, because Adri and Guille wanted to see the whole climb and I was not about to deny him a single meter of track. So Luis and I planned a trip that included their interests.

The whole way up, Guille could not stop smiling. The Blue Train reminded him of Eric, the blue train from one of his favorite shows, Titipo. Imagine being six years old and seeing one of your characters alive in front of you for the first time. The look on his face is one of those things that I will keep in my heart for the rest of my life. And specially if the words: “Blue Train Eric” came out of his tiny little mouth. Music to our ears.

Adri sat quietly, watching the mountains come up to meet us. He is twelve. He does not light up the way Guille does, but he feels things just as deeply. He wanted the whole ride. Every bend. Every meter. He got what he came for. They both did.

Almost an hour of train, going up. I sat with Luis, watching their faces, remembering why we do this.

At the top

The Valley is breathtaking, so much nature, families, a lake. We decided to explore it all. I had packed sandwiches, just in case the food up there was not something the boys would eat. I did not know what was going to be available, and I would rather carry a backpack full of Ham, Boiled eggs and Sandwiches than find myself with two hungry boys on a mountain (and a mom too). We ate the sandwiches.

The cable car took us even higher. We rode up with it, and decided to walk back down. Once we were up there, the four of us just stopped. We took deep breaths. We watched a family of marmots in the grass.

Going down the mountain, we saw horses along the way. It was one of those family moments that lands quietly. Nothing dramatic. Just all of us, together, in the middle of a mountain we had never seen before, taking it in.

Alert, even on a good day

I want to tell you the truth about what else was happening in my body while I was on that mountain.

I was on alert the entire time. Guille has a tendency to just start running when he feels free. The mountain was steep. The path back down had sudden drops. I did not take my eyes off him for more than a few seconds at a time. I could feel the vigilance in my shoulders. We took turns holding his hand.

That is autism parenting. The good days are good. The alert does NOT switch off.

I think most moms carry some version of this. For autism moms, it is turned up a level. Even in the most beautiful moment, there is a part of me that is scanning. Measuring the distance between my body and his. Planning what I would do if he started running toward the edge.

I write this not to make the moment sound heavy. The moment was beautiful. I write this because if you are an autism mom reading this, I want you to know that your constant scanning is not an overreaction. It is love. It is your love doing exactly what it was built to do.

The first night went sideways

The day before going to the mountain, we stayed the first night in a Sky Lodge in France. A wooden cabin tucked into the trees. We arrived after school on a friday, which meant we got there at the end of a long week. Travel day, school day, mountain day, all on top of each other.

The cabin was fully made of wood, with ski paintings on the walls because people come here to ski in the winter. The whole look of it, combined with the long day, combined with an unfamiliar space, was too much for Guille.

He had a meltdown.

I am going to tell you what that looked like, because I think it matters.

A few years ago, this meltdown would have been something else entirely. It would have been louder, longer, more frightening to all of us. Highly considering going back home. He is six now, and he is learning. The meltdown that night was shorter. He hit stuff a couple of times, though honestly it felt more like pressure than hitting, if that makes sense. He threw a couple of things into the air. Thirty minutes.

Thirty minutes used to be the beginning. Now thirty minutes is sometimes the whole thing.

I notice this. I let myself be proud of him for it, even in the middle of it.

What we did

Luis and I sat with him. We did not reach for the phone, even though we both know the phone is regulating for him. Here is why. We lost a tablet in the summer when he threw it into the air during a hard moment, and I was not going to lose another one. So we trusted him and gave him space with the things we knew he liked, nothing he could break.

We stayed close to him but giving him space. We did not fix. We did not rush. We did not ask him to stop. We just stayed.

Here is the thing nobody told me before I became an autism mom. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do for your child is to not do anything at all. To stay in the room. To not look at your phone. To not reach for a bottle of water or a snack or a solution. To just be a steady body in the space with them.

And then, almost like a switch flipped, he smiled. He got up. He started going up and down the cabin stairs, laughing. We did a video for keepsakes. He wanted me to watch him. I watched him. I think I smiled with my whole chest. That night he slept it the top floor of the cabin happy and safe, alongside his brother.

The rest of the trip was lovely. Trains, cable cars, pine trees, a mountain town.

What it taught us

A lot of what we have learned over years of traveling with the boys got us to this trip. The confidence to go. The confidence to prepare. The confidence to try somewhere new. The willingness to accept that one night can go sideways and the next day can be everything you came for.

That is what our new book, Autism: Our Travel Adventure, is built from. Every tool, every strategy, every social story is something we have actually used in a hard moment. The book is us handing families everything we had to learn on our own, because I remember being the mom who did not know where to start, and I would really used a book like this when my Adri was a toddler.

Here is what I would say to any autism mom about to travel with her child:

  • Pack safe foods. Breakfast and dinner. You will thank yourself.
  • Build social stories for the parts you know will be hardest.
  • Prepare for the first night to be the hardest. The whole travel day lands on kids at once.
  • Stay. Do not fix. Do not rush. Just stay with them.
  • Keep the regulating tool safe. If your child throws things in hard moments, do not hand them something you cannot afford to replace.
  • Thirty minutes of hard can turn into days of beautiful. I have seen it over and over.

Vall de Núria was worth it. Guille rode his Blue Train, and his face lit up every time Eric came back around a bend. Adri watched the mountains pass through the cable car window and said almost nothing, which from him is a kind of yes. We ate sandwiches on a mountaintop with a family of marmots in the grass. And were luck to find pizza in the canteen. We came home with photos I will keep for years, and with a story I needed to tell.

Traveling with autistic kids is not easier because you prepared. It is possible because you prepared.

That is the difference the book is here to make. Autism: Our Travel Adventure launches October 27. If this trip could happen with planning, yours can too.
Keep Posted for updates.

Learn more about the book here: https://lovingpiecesbooks.com/autism-our-travel-adventure/