I had a hard day today. Throughout this journey, I have always waffled back and forth between "My child truly is very different from other children and there is no denying it." and "Yeah, there are some issues, but he's just quirky. Whatever."

Today was more of the latter.  Former? Latter? The one I said first. ;)

We had J's IEP transition planning meeting. Really, just a quick paper-signing event, honestly. But all the clinical talk never fails to send me to a bad mental place. Special education choices, what will happen if..." what does he need? what will he qualify for?

I have ALWAYS known my kids were different. Always. Always. Always. I also read a TON, and so I was VERY aware what we saw in our boys was probably in the realm of a spectrum disorder-type issue.  Geez, I'm even the one who brought it up to the pediatrician about B two years ago. I guess I just never thought I would really hear anyone ACTUALLY say the words, "Your child has autism." "It's autism." "This is something we see with autistic children." etc.

As much as I have accepted the idea of having kids on the spectrum and become such a proponent of early intervention, sometimes I want to just run away from it all and say, "You know what? This is too much. He's quirky. He's not so great with people all the time and he likes his routines. I can actually really appreciate all of that! Can we just call it quirky and accept it for what it is?" His smallish world is really very accepting of that!  We're all good with it.

I know that won't help anything though.  Even if the rest of the world were totally accepting of his quirks as we are,  he NEEDS to work on this. We NEED the help and the support so he can reach his potential both in school and in life.

 I just have these moments where it's so undeniably REAL and daunting and there are so many unknowns -- where I feel like it's ridiculously unfair that my kids even HAVE to conform to these social expectations.

I don't like not knowing what choices are right and how things will turn out. I THINK it will be okay,  maybe? I hope. I hope we make the right decisions....