Summer's almost over

I haven't written much this summer. It's been a tough summer in some ways I won't get into, but not terrible. I do have to say (but I've said this before and not done it) that I will NEVER have a whole summer without camp/work plans for the kids again. It's way too long. I think everyone is ready for school.

Janey has mostly been happy lately. Not as much crying as some times in her life. The boys think she is talking more interactively. I am not sure, but maybe. Much of her talking is about what video she wants to watch, and where she wants to watch it, or telling us she wants an M&M or chocolate milk, and where she wants them. She loves being around the boys most of the time, and a few times lately when we were all just sitting around doing not much (which I do think we do more of as a family than almost any families out there) it just struck me that she really seemed just like one of the family, which of course she is, but before she always seemed first like a baby, then like a toddler, then like an autistic sensitive preschooler, and these few times she just seemed like one of us hanging out. That was a good feeling.

I have been thinking a lot about if she doesn't "get better". I still have hope somehow this whole autism thing is a big mistake, and some day she will just decide to talk more and learn easily, and then we will all laugh over how everything thought she was autistic. But it might not happen. And it will be okay. She will be who is she, and we will figure out what she likes to do, what makes her happy, what she can do. She will live with Tony and me, and the boys will hopefully help out and watch her sometimes so we are not totally landlocked, and that will be it. And I will be glad she is verbal and beautiful and can walk and is healthy. That's me at my most positive. I am not always thinking that way.