Ah-mazing

You know what's amazing?  Being part of a team.  I've learned more than ever these past few months how important it is to have a teammate.  Mr B and I make a good team.  He is on his a-game when I need a break.  I can step in and take over when he has had enough.  He is patient when I am at my wit's end.  I can interpret Lennon-ese when he can't understand the grunts and gestures and cadence of LJB's own language.  Teamwork is pretty amazing.

Mr B is a picture saboteur.  Every. single. picture.

We celebrated Mr B's birthday last Saturday with a date.  An honest-to-goodness-babysitter-dinner-and-a-movie date.  So what if we had to sneak our cheeseburgers into the theater in my purse to fit it all in our allotted babysitter budget for the month?  It still was a date.  We laughed and stole a few smooches in the theater and had birthday deep dish cookie pie for dessert.  It was a pretty amazing day, until the meltdown began.

These meltdowns are nothing you could ever imagine until you experience one.  I am daily amazed by my kiddo.  LJB is a pretty amazing little fella.  It is also pretty amazing how he can go from sweet, funny, little boy to full-fledged demon spawn in a matter of seconds.  I enjoy his other amazing attributes a little bit more : )

I've just realized that I have lots of pictures of LJB crying.  Not sure what this says about us.

We had an amazing therapy breakthrough this week.  LJB has learned that he can request and item (food, drink, toy) and we will give it to him.  Seems simple, right?  I'm not talking, "May I please have some more juice?" kind of request.  I mean the simple act of gesturing for an object or pointing at a picture to have his daily needs met.  Until now, when his cup was empty and he was thirsty, LJB would occasionally walk into the kitchen with his empty cup.  Sometimes, he would grab my hand and get me to follow him.  Most of the time however, he would just give up when he finally realized that there was nothing left in the cup and move on, or he would just start screaming without any indication for Mr B and I as to what he was crying about.  His new ability to request isn't full-proof.  We sometimes get the screaming with no known reason, but he has learned that a request is a powerful thing - and that's amazing.

Those baby blues are pretty amazing, too!

You know what else is amazing?  This same kid who couldn't request more juice can count to 10.  He recognizes shapes and letters and colors at 5-6 year old level.  This is the gift of autism.  It's also a way for us to glimpse at the future.  To know that he has a brain.  A powerful brain that thinks great thoughts.  A brain that can likely already outwit his mama.  I can't wait to see what ah-mazing things this little dude is going to do!