One Year Ago

 
Here's Anthony, one year ago today. He was probably back at school, or maybe he was still home sick. It was right around this time last year that he had his first ear infection. Now he's in a different school, he hasn't been so sick since, and he looks a lot older, right? He still looks like kind of a baby to me in this picture. Now he is so long an lean, he looks like a teenager. Probably next year I will look back and he'll seem young again.

His speech therapist at his old school writes to me every week and tells me what they've worked on. She is doing really well with him, she seems to like him a lot and he her. I think he lost a little bit being on vacation for so long from school. His ABA therapist told me yesterday that they are re-doing a lot of stuff for him that he was doing fine before. I think this summer we will maybe try to find a camp or something when he's off from school, to sort of keep him engaged.

I've subscribed to a lot of autism people on Twitter and it's so funny, but there are so many things I never think of, when it comes to Anthony having autism. One article I saw recently was about kids on the spectrum DRIVING and I couldn't believe it! Anthony, driving? I can't imagine it. I can't imagine him being toilet trained, let alone driving a car! Also, there are all these articles about states laws for seclusion and restraint and I ... well, I just never think about that. Here in town, recently, there was a teacher fired because she gave an autistic student of hers a candy bar that he was allergic to, in hopes that he wouldn't go on a field trip. Thank GOD, the kid wouldn't eat strange looking food (there's those ticks working FOR you!), so he didn't ingest the peanuts which could have KILLED him. I think they should have arrested her for attempted murder, but they didn't. When I think about this - about Anthony's future maybe involving driving, or being restrained, or someone trying to kill him - well, obviously it's too much. If he isn't meant to be mainstreamed, he'll just be homeschooled forever. I could not put him in that position. Can you imagine? There's a $7 Million limit on his insurance and I guess we'll use it all before I send him to a school where I'd have to worry about something like that happening to him.

This is ending on kind of a bummer right? Sorry! Here's a weather report, it's snowing like the dickens here and it took Mike like 90 minutes to get Anthony to school today. Mike is coming home so I don't have to take the girls to go get Anthony this afternoon, it's too wretched out. Wish me luck! The snow is pretty but it's like 20 degrees out, too cold to play in, in my opinion.