autism is a journey: Alex's Birthday

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Alex's Birthday

Saturday we celebrate Alex's birthday. Dan brought Jackson later, because we felt like being there too long would be stressful. Overall, we were so very pleased with how he did...he played outside (alongside) the little boys and seemed to really enjoy it.

He also had a great time going to the movies to watch Madagascar 2. He loved the first movie and we were hopeful he'd enjoy going to the theatre. It was a big success. Another example of getting back a little bit of what autism took away. There was a time that a theatre was just too overwhelming for him, too much stimulus. But not this weekend. He sat between Dan & I and just enjoyed the movie. Tonight, happiness is being able to go to the movies as a family!

1 comment:

tylerbritney said...: WTG Jax!!! IKWYM about being able to enjoy outings as a whole family :); November 9, 2008 at 4:13 PM

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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....