Friday, February 15, 2008

The Beginning of Being Grateful Every Day

This month, in an attempt to get going on blogging again, I am joining a bunch of moms in posting a bit about gratitude every single day.

I decided that since the focus of this blog has been my son Elijah and his autism recovery and development over time, that the focus of my gratitude will be about Eli and his life and programs, etc.

So, for today, I am grateful to have Eli home from School today. I now look forward to the days he stays home for 2 reasons: 1, I get to sleep a little later!! and 2, I really enjoy being with my son now.

In the past, it has been a struggle to manage my little guy. He used to escape from the house, he used to do so many things that made me a hyper vigilant mother. He was just very disruptive. I am positive that for him it was sheer frustration and natural curiosity that made him the way he was. But today, Eli is a more settled fellow who likes to be around us and play with us. He used to avoid my company, now he seeks it out. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that one small thing.

It's all about the small things with Elijah. The small developmental advances, the small additions of new speech to his vocabulary, the small steps. In special needs parlance, we call them inchstones because each little one makes a big difference to us parents who are trying so very hard to help our children grow up.

Between Eli, his RDI program and his school program, we have had so many wonderful inchstones in such a short time. I celebrate them every time. I am so happy to have been given the privilege of being Eli's Mom.

2 comments:

lemonsong said...

Some people don't get how joyful kids with autism can be. How truly, purely, joyful. I'm so glad you decided to focus on this. (((meg)))

joy said...

it's really fascinating reading how RDI is helping so much...now i've got to do some research and learn more about what it is and why it's helping!

and eli must love that shirt! :D