New to parenting, and child is autistic and "acting out

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I agree with DW here ... i would suggest if it's possible to wait on moving at least untill he's able to digest all the other new things going on. Then take it very slow.

If i had it to do over again I would have started with trips that got longer and longer maybe bringing a lil bit of stuff each time and let mine get slowly used to the new place. If i'd had any idea of the fall out of moving i would have never done it!! ! lol

Everyone has given really good advice for you. I just wanted to add something in. I noticed in your posts you use odd sayings like "throw the kitchen sink" and "squireling something away" I wonder if this is something you do often? These saying confuse me. I have Asperger's and I see that you say your BF's son has Autism but still you may be confusing him sometimes with your words or wording. You need to be simple and literal when you speak. I have two with Asperger's and one with Autism. My Autie I try not to be too "wordy" with....simple questions and when she doesnt respond we use "uh oh" or "Mommy asked a question" to get her attention. Even though I have Asperger's I have used those types of silly sayings like the other day I told my son he needed to stay out of my hair and he said "Im not in your hair"...which was true! LOL
Just thought Id point that out .

i used to see this with mine as well. One day i said 'your pulling my leg' he said mommy why are you lying. Once was it's raining cats and dogs and he rain to the window to see them and then was mad because i'm a liar. I took the time to teach him what all these silly saying means

edited to add: coincidentally did you know that a lot of those saying actually do have a meaning.. like the raining cats and dogs goes back to the 19th century when the roofs were made of clay and straw. The cats and dogs would sleep up there because the'd get the heat from the house but when it would rain it got slippery and the cats and dogs would start falling....

It is amazing to see my son's capacity to learn all these sayings, though - I do have to explain most new ones, but he learns them almost instantly, and he's now got a HUGE mental catalog of them.

He's also learned to guess when someone is using an idiom even if he doesn't understand it - right now, you can see a slightly confused look on his face, but he doesn't respond otherwise. I usually quietly pull him aside and ask if he needs an explanation (and then there's yet another one in the catalog!)

Yes I know I am too florid and inexact in my language use, hehe. I try to say things simply and directly to C.

Instead of "throw the kitchen sink" I should have said "everything but the kitchen sink" which means something like "everything you can think of."

"Squirrel away" means to hide for safe-keeping, like a squirrel hiding a nut. Maybe with the added connotation of the person doing the hiding being a little nutty.

The housing market being what it is, we may not be able to sell the house.

I should have mentioned, another problem with this house is that our area gets much worse weather than town. We are further north and at a higher elevation; precipitation gets heavier and temperatures get colder. Trying to travel between here and C's mom, C's school, or my job can be difficult and dangerous during bad weather. For example, a normally 15 minute car ride became a 2 hour ordeal for C's mom trying to drive him to our house in a snowstorm.

(Why did C's dad move there in the first place, you might ask? A lot of family lives in this neighborhood, they settled here initially for job reasons. But we don't visit family *that* much, so logistically it makes sense to move south).

C. has been doing better lately. I've ordered a book on parenting and power struggles, see if it gives me any insights into not provoking bad behavior. I also ordered a Hoberman sphere to see if it's an acceptable bring-to-school toy.

Also wanted to mention that I think I might be a bit Aspie-ish, although never diagnosed. I was that weird kid in school that nobody liked, in fact I had zero friends at one point in junior high. I also remember having to consciously adopt social norms that didn't come naturally.

Having a different perspective on things, I try to apply this to C. as much as possible - get on his wavelength where other people might say "that's weird!" If he spins a random object and says it's a fan, I'll go along with it. Is a play dollhouse a real house? No, it's just pretend. So why not let him grab a hairbrush and pretend it's a drill.