Thank you to my friends and regular readers for your gracious response to the post on how our adoption didn’t go the way we hoped, but that is was still worth it. April was a month of grief and healing as we focused on time together as a family. Here’s what I learned …
Watching David this month brought to mind the quote from Winnie the Pooh, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” The bravest thing he did was ride a horse with his autism sibling support group! At first he told them he didn’t want to do it, but after he watched the other kids, he changed his mind and went for it. He’s also had a fun month being on the props crew for the show at our local family theatre. Proud of his hard work!
James had a big month too. We were letting him switch from undies to diapers when he got home from school, but this month we decided he could stay in undies all day. He’s doing great! Autism awareness month is a time of reflection for us on how far he’s come, and this month we were reminded not to underestimate him! (Earlier this month I wrote about a day in the life of James, who is 7 and has level 3 autism.)
We talked on my Facebook page about how parents today seem to read more books about raising children than our parents read about raising us! I learned a lot from The Opposite of Spoiled about how to talk about money and teach David about money. I also liked this post from Jen Wilkin answering the question, “Should I pay an allowance for chores?” We changed the way we approached David’s allowance this month.
I mostly edit non-fiction books geared toward Christian women, but this month I got to edit a YA fiction book and loved it! I did learn that I can get so wrapped up in the story, I forget to read like an editor. So I had to pause the editing, speed read for pleasure, and then go back to editing.
So many of my friends on Facebook and Instagram expressed how sad they were when the actor who played Gilbert in the Anne movies passed away. I had never read the Anne books, but was certainly convinced to give them a try when I realized how many of my favorite people love them. I downloaded the Audible version and am switching back and forth between reading and listening. I love it so far. Anne and my David are very similar, living in worlds of endless possibilities (David is an INFJ and that’s what they do best.)
You can read what even more people learned in April over at Emily’s site, Chatting at the Sky.
