More Aaron

He's counting down until his birthday - 14 days until he turns 14. I can't even wrap my brain around that. I mean Michael 18, Michele 15, and Evan 10 is one of those "Wow, time flew" kind of things but Aaron and 14 just doesn't seem right. He's still changing alot. He now says, stuff like "Hey, 'Chele, can you do this" or "Mom, what does this mean?". And he now uses pronouns correctly and refers to himself in first person. Supposedly autistic people don't understand pronouns and how to use them. He's always known exactly what he was doing, he just enjoyed the game. And he no longer calls himself Darren - he's Aaron now. And we no longer have other names either. (Sorry Stella!) I guess he thinks it's time he grew up and put away childish things. I kind of enjoyed the games and those things never bothered me like they seemed to other people - like the people when he was in school who wrote into his IEP that he would not write his name in a box 70% of the time. I tried to assure them that I did not think he'd write his name in a box his entire life and even if he did, he'd probably have bigger issues than that to deal with, but they were quite adamant about the apparently unwritten rule stating thou "shalt now write thy name in a box." And that was before he started calling himself Daaron and then Darren - probably in response to the boxed-name worriers - they'd have surely been bothered by that. So although he's putting away so many of the games he played - and that's how I've always seen them - as games that he played so that we'd join him in his world - he's interacting with us much more and in what the world would see as "normal" ways. It's is really neat to feel him so "present" with us. He still enjoys his alone time, but he seeks us out much more. It still amazes me how he's changing and so fast too.

He's not feeling well tonight. He said his lungs and his stomach hurt. (And odd combination.) He's also never been able to articulate how he felt if he was sick - we'd basically never know he was sick at all until he was very ill, and even then, he wouldn't tell us anything was wrong. We'd just have to figure out on our own - like when we knew he had strep throat because he was drooling profusely because he couldn't swallow and when he broke his arm and only told us it was "bent". If it hadn't been bent we'd have never known it was broken. Both required rushed trips to the emergency room. I'm not sure how to take it now that he can tell us he's feeling bad and how. I worry that he's really sick only because he's never told us before. But then I figure that's changed with everything else, so I'll just watch him I guess. I always hate for my kids to be sick anyway.

I will miss seeing everyone in FW as we'll not be there this weekend. Michele and I saw a Star Telegram in the DQ tonight. (We stopped in for Catfish Friday Night - woohoo.) We were tempted to jump in the car and head that way, but we'll stay and try to get some things done here. I might unpack a few boxes. Got to play plumber first - got a leak in a wall - that should be fun! We hoped to do some fun stuff to the house like paint or plant some flowers, but we probably won't even have time for the unfun stuff that needs doing the worst. Maybe we'll post pictures of Michele's room. It's getting really cute. She has a little more time than I do.