Don't say I didn't warn you

I told you that it was the boys' turn today. It was a beautiful day and some of the shots turned out pretty good. My favorites of G are the first three of him, those are totally G. His personality just shines through.

You will notice that there are more shots of G than of J. The reason for this is because it is very difficult for me to catch J being J. This is where I wish I had the bigger camera with the telephoto lens because I have to really catch him off guard to get a candid and "true" picture of him. I know that this has much to do with his Autism.

I do love the shot of him jumping on his own. The expression on his face shows just how hard he is working at jumping. How much more difficult it is for him than most of the rest of us, because of his reduced gross motor skills. But I love the fact that he is more than willing to try and to jump (10 to 15 times!) for me in order to get a shot that I liked.

I also like the one where J is bent over and G is laughing. J is actually slapping G on the back at some joke that they were enjoying. That is typical J.

I love my boys.

I am officially the parent of a teenager!!!!

I can hardly believe it. My oldest boy turned 13 years old on Saturday. It's very strange to think that I am the mother of a teenager. I don't feel that old. I don't know if I have the coping skills to deal with the teenage psyche when I don't feel that much older than a teenager myself.

My son is a great kid. He was diagnosed with high functioning Autism when he was in 1st grade. We knew when he was born that something wasn't quite right but we had a really crappy doctor at the time and he told us not to worry... so we didn't. We just accepted J. for the little person that he was. When it came time for him to enter school, I again knew that something wasn't quite right, so we had him tested. At that time they said that he didn't have Autism but that he did have some developmental delays. So off to school he went where through some Occupational Therapy and gentle prodding from my mother we had him tested again....and this time the diagnosis came back as Autism.

Thankfully he is very high functioning and is very bright. His areas of struggle are in the social arena. We have been blessed to have had amazing teachers that have worked and loved J. throughout grade school. And not only the teachers have loved him but the students as well. The kids that have grown up with J. have been amazingly loving and supportive of him. I'm grateful that T. has been able to have a stable job that made it possible for us to stay in one place and not have to move J. from such a great environment.

Now that he is in Jr. High though I worry more about him. The school he goes to has many different grade schools that come to it so there are many more kids who don't know J. Who haven't grown up around him and know of his great sense of humor and his wonderful personality. And kids this age can be so ruthless. Today brought some concerns to the forefront because J. came home from school with some glue on the back of his shirt. He said that someone glued a Popsicle stick to his shirt in one of his classes. That makes me angry but I'm not sure what I can do about it. I'm going to email the teacher and ask that he kind of keep an eye out for this type of thing because I don't want this to escalate into something more. J. is very sensitive and I really, really worry about bullying or anything like that.

I feel very blessed to have been given the opportunity to be J.'s mother. Much of the time I feel very inadequate and not up to the task but I keep on going because, what else can I do? He has taught me so much about patience and love and forgiveness. He's probably taught me more than I've ever taught him.

I need to take him out and get some new pictures of him to go up on the wall. I just need to find the time!