One of my blessings.....

I am not sure if I have blogged about this before. But I am going to today. My son Kristopher has PDD which stands for Pervasive Developmental Disorder (or Delay). It's a long word for mild autism. If you met Kristopher, you probably ( like everyone else) would say, are you SURE?

Yes, I am sure. :) He's a sweet, charming, smart little boy who loves his twin brother and his baby sister. He is so lucky to have Johnny and Johnny so lucky to have Kris.

I never imagined I would have a child with a disability, but it has changed my life completely and definately for the better. I see the world very differently because of this and I am glad. He has taught me things that I would have never known. I knew very early on that something was not quite right. I could see it around 18 or 19 months. Evaluation after evaluation the professionals would say "oh it's a speech delay" and definately not autism. Well then what is it? No one could answer me. My pediatrician told me to stop comparing him to the neighbors kids. The truth was, I wasn't comparing him to anyone. But he did have a typically developing twin brother that I noticed was doing different things from Kris. For example, Kris couldn't string a two word sentence together, but he could recite AND HANDWRITE the alphabet on his magnadoodle at a little over 2 yrs old. Finally when he was 3 1/2 yrs old he was diagnosed by a developmental pediatrician. It wasn't really sad that day, although I did cry. But it felt like a relief that I wasn't crazy and we had an answer for it. Even though he had already started therapy. Good thing I went behind our regular ped's back and did it. And I do love our ped, and he means well. Just didn't really know anything about autism at the time. Today it is so well known, it's different. And my son is one of the reasons they give parents a checklist at their child's 18 month appt now. So I am glad for that as well.

The one thing that has always been a stumbling block for us with Kris is his school placement. His two years of preschool went pretty well. But from K to now (3rd grade) have been rocky roads. Kris needs more than a mainstream classroom because I feel that even though he could probably "fit in" he wouldn't really be learning anything. But all the contained (special ed) classrooms just haven't been a really good fit for him. Which brings me to the point of my post, we are most likely going to start homeschooling in the next month or so. I have been researching, thinking and praying about this for a long time. I feel like this is the best option for him, although I need a little more confidence in myself! So please pray for me!

I am glad I can share this road with you. And I hope that some fellow homeschoolers will read this and GIVE ME SOME DIRECTION! LOL! Anyway, thanks for reading if you got this far and wish us luck! :)

Oh and I had to include this picture of "typical" Kris! When he got lost riding his bike during our camping vacation this summer he taped the park map to his bike so that wouldn't happen again! I had no idea what he was doing when he came in the camper asking for tape, lol!