autism is a journey: Jackson Turns 11!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Jackson Turns 11!

Here are photos from his skating party:

All the kids had a great time and I'm so glad we decided to go ahead and have his party at the skating rink. He really had fun skating and now Callahan has decided that he's going to have his party at the skating rink too!

1 comment:

tylerbritney said...: I'm glad everyone had fun. Bet Cal can't wait for his turn!; October 20, 2008 at 3:42 PM

Post a Comment

from "Metaphor-the puzzle piece symbol"

Ever had one of those "ah-ha" moments? I'm driving down the road today, pondering Jackson's recent successes--boyscout camp and football camp. It occurred to me that each experience gave me back a piece of Jackson. [I'm not doing a very good job explaining this...] When we learned about Jackson's diagnosis, so many dreams were snuffed out. We no longer thought about our son becoming an athlete, a scholar, or even a friend. We thought in much smaller terms:"how many words does he have?""did he learn a new sign""is he reaching out to us?""that's playing pretend, isn't it?"Our perspective as parents permanently changed. It's like we had this complete picture of our child and autism fractured it--into a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.Each day little by little, we get pieces of the puzzle back. It'll never be complete, never the same as we expected, but there will be parts that will come together.Like when he participated in the school music program, enjoyed boyscout camp, rode the roller coaster and attended football camp. Bit by bit, we get pieces of what we expected back.Of course, the flip side of this is all the joys we gain from Jackson that we never expected in spite of the autism, but that's another post my friends....