Back to School

We had an extremely eventful summer... let's see... we became homeowners, we had a baby boy, and we became very active staff of a gluten-free business. Add that to the autism therapy things which are just part of our life and we forget that that takes energy, too, and it was all exhausting to say the least. We now live in a white palace, as I have dubbed it, (a tall white townhouse that I just love,) we have an almost three month-old who is totally mild mannered and super social, we just finished our second publication for the business, and we have a six year old with autism who said to me tonight, "Mom, I have too much speed for you!" (We were playing a racing game on the wii and I about died when he said that... too funny!)

(This is an image that our team created for the September publication. As serious design work, I'm pretty sure it is not so successful, but it seemed to fit its' purpose, and Eli thinks it is really fun!)

We also had a casualty over the summer... my parent's marriage of 32 years ended. My parents also have a son with autism, my teenage brother. I had always thought that having an autistic child upped your chances of divorce significantly. My own observations of other families while I was growing up seemed confirm this. A quick google search brought up several pages that said the same thing: We no longer think it is true that divorce is more likely for these couples. Apparently couples with young children are more at risk for divorce, same with the parents with autism in the family. However, depending on the severity of the autism, their risk may not go down when their child ages as other couple's would. It was so strange, but awesome at the same time to have that myth debunked for me. (I admit that I still do believe what I heard a dad of 3 ASD children say in a panel discussion concerning autism and marriage. "It will make you or break you." He and his wife stressed the need for constant communication.) Of course I would never ever think of my brother as the cause for this separation. His condition was only one of many stresses on the relationship. My brother has been handling change well and is enjoying the new school year.

My own son is in the first grade! I can't believe it. He is in a small group autism class. I am looking forward to doing volunteering and becoming familiar with how they run things and how they discipline and such. It is sweet how they think he is such a great reader and so responsible, but that also makes me concerned for how well he fits the class. Should they be surprised that he can read and that he is independent? I don't think so. I think they should expect that. We will see how the year unfolds. He seems to enjoy school and I have not noticed any regression in behaviors, so it is quite possible that we are in a good place. Here's to a brand new school year!