Family

We had the planets align yet again and packed the entire family in the minivan and had a great time. Even though we could not find the back seat's middle seatbelt fo 15 minutes, we went to a family gathering at my brother John's house. We've had strokes of bad luck over the past few years (more like we had a stroke of good luck THIS time) in that SOMEONE has always been sick or not available or we were tired or dead or something or the other. In any event, we finally got our butts out of the house, and had a very positive impact on the gathering. It was really good to see we were missed (we hadn't ALL been to a family gathering since the diagnosis almost 4 years ago). It was REAL good to see my dad up from Texas, even though we did not have more than 10 minutes to talk. Linda and I were busy chasing Liv and Gracie around. Kinda the 'childproofing' syndrome from our younger child days, except this was 'autism' proofing. Gotta watch out for falling lamps being kicked over; HD flatscreens being stimmed and banged on; and very small and delicate objects being knocked over.

We realize how MUCH we let slide in our house at home. How we watch out for gum in our house, but if it gets on the rug or the table, it's not a big deal. Yea, Liv didn't have a piece of gum there. We fed her rather than letting her feed herself. It was a big thing to have her even there; we weren't going to press it by showing off her eating skills. My three other kids were just PERFECT. They didn't start fighting 'till we were in the driveway and the key was out of the ignition.

Thank you everyone for being so good, so caring, so understanding, so perfect. We have so many things going on it is very nice to remember we have a whole BATTALION on our side. Sometimes I forget...thanks...