I have come across a time of year that I dread with my two younger sons (both autistic)--the time when school portraits are returned for parents to see.  (!!!)  This year I have dealt with two problems.  One of them is that my eight year old didn't get his pictures back yet because his aides didn't get his money out of his backpack like they are supposed to, and of course because of his autism he is unable to remind anyone it is in there.   So his pics did not come home today, but my five year old's did.  My hubby and I have learned that the company the school uses takes multiple pics of the kids in case one of them is lousy.  Well apparently they can't tell good from bad because we got two sets of pics of him--one of them is the right size package but he is not looking at the camera, and since is not really sitting still, so a portion of his forehead isn't even in the picture.  (The 8x10 of that is REALLY hard to look at!)  They also send another package of just two 3x5 pics and four wallets, but in that one he is sitting nice, looking at the camera, there is just no smile of him.   Since it is a portrait company I unfortunately can't post the pics so you can see what I am talking about, but I hope my description is enough for everyone to understand why I am so irritated.  
Last year I had the problem with my eight year old not getting retakes done like we wanted --because his aides 
didn't look in his backpack to see they were there for the company --so they knew what we wanted to get, because again he can't tell anyone what he is supposed to have done.  I had to drive him to another school in the area that happened to be using the same company as well so he could get the retakes.  
For anyone that is wondering why I didn't leave a note, well I did, and I keep a notebook in my sons' backpacks so I can do that everyday if I need to.  They don't always read it.  (!!!!!)
Of course I come across people that marvel at how I handle the boys.  Well, when it comes right down to it, the things that make life so hard to deal with really have nothing to do with them.  It is not their fault that some people
 are idiots.    It makes me think of that one old song with the line "I've got clowns to the left of me, jokers to the 
right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you"
OK, I feel better now.  Good night everybody!

Last week Thursday, a story made Wisconsin's news about a missing autistic boy from a town about three hours away from my home.    His mother said he was playing in the family's basement Thursday, and when they went to check on him a short time later, he was gone.  There was a river about 400 yards from the family's home.    They found his body on Tuesday  morning floating in a pond less than 1/4 mile from their home.   I prayed that it wouldn't end like this for the family, but once I heard how close they lived to water, I had a bad feeling.   A fascination with water seems all too common for autistic people, and when that is coupled with the fact that they seem to have no concept of danger....drownings among autistic children are unfortunately not unusual.   I say that I can relate, not only because my sons are autistic, but two summers ago my middle autistic son had problems with wandering away from home.  We don't have water near our home, but we have hundreds of acres of woods behind our home.    He had a fascination with the trees, and would wander.    My dog Spunky would follow him every time, and Spunky seemed to sense Mark's disability.    Our house is near an intersection, and the trails in the woods would end at this intersection a half mile away from our house.  The first time Mark wandered off I remembered the trails ended there, and so I decided to drive to that end point to try and find him, and sure enough there he was.     We had fencing put up then, and his in-home therapists worked with him to help him understand that he cannot go places without an adult, and thankfully he hasn't wandered since then.  
I remember the fear I felt when Mark wandered off, that is why I feel I could relate to the story about this drowning too well.    People who do not know much about autism, and think that it is simply a case of "you need to do a better job of watching  your kids" have no idea what life with these children involves!! 

Ok, sorry to start off by venting frustration everyone in my previous entry!  I learned about this site through an e-group posting through the Autism Society of Wisconsin.  Someone there had shared the news of that family in a San Diego restaurant, where the autistic child was treated so badly.  I have three boys, and all are on the autism spectrum: my oldest has Asperger's, and my two other ones have classic autism.  May 2007 will mark five years since autism became a part of my household life.