Makes you think...

Warning...This may make me cry, and it may make you cry... Especially if your a parent.

Sometimes you are going along in life and things seem to be getting you down, tough to handle. I know for me lately, I have had to handle my boss resigning, new management, BJ's grandpa dying, my car dying, switching daycare providers, BJ's transmission failing, the list keeps going. At times it just feels like nothing is going right. BJ keeps saying, I wish we had more money, I keep responding, no matter how much money we make we will always wish we had more. I wish I could afford the $300 per week daycare, I wish we could both drive newer cars, I wish we could think about moving into our forever home, or even know selling this one we will come out on top of our mortgage. Again, the list goes on.

But every once in awhile we are reminded that what we do have we need to be grateful for. Today was that day for me. I am off at a continuing education class Thursday and Friday about autism. Today we spent most of the day seeing what autism is like from the parents point of view. We looked at home videos of these kids as infants and how they are now, non-verbal, stiming, tantruming, persevering little kids. Autism is getting more frequently diagnosed, no one knows why, we only know that there is a genetic componite to it.

As I watched these parents all I could think of was, thank God, Elijah has developed typically up until this point. These parents spend more money on therapies, therapy tools such as swings clothing and toys, and schools up through 8th grade than many parents spend on college, traveling sports teams, and big wheels. I just keep thinking of the phrase, "when a child dies parents can bury their child and morn the passing. A parent with a child with autism has to morn the loss of their child while still having to help their child." At that moment I wanted to leave, drive the 45 min home, pick up Elijah and hug him. Tomorrow should be interesting.