freewrite week 5 day 3

The other day someone called me a warrior mother.  It’s a fitting name for the trials my family has had to go through.  We found out in 08 that our son has Autism and ADHD.  He was two and a half and barely had five words he could speak.  Developmentally he was around 12-18 months old.  Ever since then we have fought a daily battle.  We had to mourn the loss of our child ever having a typical life.  As he gets older we still go through that mourning because he doesn’t hit milestones like the other kids in his class.  We are nothing but blessed that he is in the middle of the spectrum.  This means he still has a speech/language and social disorder but he is more functioning than someone lower on the spectrum.  In our battles we have had some amazing teachers who have guided him so well.  We had to fight to get him special education assistance.  They took away his IEP going into kindergarten and he just got it back half way into first grade.  What is so sad is they could have been helping him this whole time and he wouldn’t be as far behind in reading and writing.  Right now he reads at a level one and at the end of first grade they would like a typical child to be around an eighteen.  Needless to say I have been fighting for years just to get him back in the special education.  I know that there is no rest for the weary.  We will have years ahead of us fighting for his education and special needs.  He is right now totally oblivious to his differences.  We encourage him to be what he wants to be.  He has a big dream of becoming a police officer.  I would be nothing but the proudest parent if he overcame his differences to be something so great.