It’s the end of the day and as usual I am lying in my bed with Liam beside me and we are watching something on Treehouse. As strange as this might sound, I have developed a liking for these shows because they represent my cuddle time with Liam. It is the one time of day that I can just rest with him beside me. Liam gets pretty upset if we have company over and I’m not able to lie down with him. Once or twice over the past few years, I’ve found Liam sleeping with his favorite pjs of mine spread out on the bed (he really likes this one pink top with hearts which I dislike but can’t bring myself to give away). He had waited for me to come to him, put on my pyjamas and lie down with him and I never got there. Talk about pulling at the old heart strings.

Lately, Liam’s behavior has veered towards the unpredictable. It’s coming to the end of summer and he is looking forward to school with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. He is fearful, not so much about starting school again but about the wait. Like a lot of kids with autism, the wait for some change to come about is very difficult, both on him and us. Tell this kid in the morning that we are having take-out pizza that evening, you had better make sure you aren’t spending the day with him because you will pay for your so called innocent remark. If Liam has a day off from school and is doing pretty well on that day, you may not get the constant requests for pizza until the afternoon. If you are successful at redirecting him and have lots of activities planned that day, the day may be salvaged but if you’ve had a day at home trying to keep him occupied and he’s not in the best frame of mind, you could have a child on your hands who, for 8 hours intermittently, has been following you around telling you its time for pizza.

This story on its surface is very cute and as I sit here and write about my life with this special little boy, I realize that I have been blessed beyond measure. However, I cannot make the mistake of trying to handle all of this stuff on my own because my life as mother and primary caretaker of this little one is a difficult one. Not owning up to that fact can lead me to foolishly believe I don’t need the Lord Jesus when in fact I need Him every second of every day. You see, I not only want to make it through my harrowing time with him, I want to actually be content in all my time with him and only the Lord can do that for me.