My "SUN" did shine!

I got my sun...in the form of my son! It was such a nice afternoon and the sun actually did peek out from behind the clouds now and again. I feel very energized at the moment. Kaeden and I left for town after Jari was picked up for a play-date with his friend. Kaeden needed to get his banking business taken care of so we went to Fortis first. He got his gym bag and gift certificate which was exciting enough, but his pride and joy came in the form of his transparent green bank card! Sharing that moment with him and watching his eyes twinkle with delight was all I needed to feel like life is worth living. We spent the afternoon shopping for a few new clothes Kaed needed and then sat at a cafe having a drink. Kaeden was very quiet and in his own world the entire time we were at the cafe and all attempts at conversation failed so I just sat back and enjoyed people watching...that's when a couple kids from Kaeden's bus decided to sit with us and talk. Now, this is where I have mixed emotions. All I can say is that I am glad Erwin and I are Kaeden's parents and that Kaeden is my son. He may have his moments and his autism may cause a lot of downtimes in our lives, but he's a good kid and I hope that as he enters puberty and matures, that the value system we have set forth kicks in. These two boys that sat with us most obviously do not have the home life that Kaeden does. They are both also developmentally handicapped and I know that plays a part in how they act, yet there was more to it and I felt a bit sorry that they were running wild in the streets without some supervision. One boy threw paper on the sidewalk and I called him over and told him that's not what we do with paper and asked him to please pick it up and put it in the trash. He did. The other boy was telling me a story about how he has been accused by another of doing drugs and raping a girl and that Kaeden needs to keep away from him. My thought was that I hope Kaeden keeps away from all of them. Unfortunately, Kaeden has very poor judgement in the friends department, and considers anyone that gives him any form of attention a friend, even when it is someone he meets on the street. As I said, I can only pray that what we have taught him, through our own actions and words, he has taken to heart and stored somewhere in the back of his mind. And though I may not be a perfect role-model, I hope that I have provided him with direction in his life and he has learned what it means to be a good person.

Anyway, the day was a success. As we walked home from town, he started joking about all the HUGE houses we were passing and how when he grows up he's going to have one of those. When I asked him if he thought he could keep it clean he told me with a huge smile on his face "That's why I'm going to have a wife." When I told him to look around his own home now and see what a wife does he told me I needed to make a schedule for cleaning it up so that on Wednesdays and Fridays I needed to make it really clean. When I told him today was Wednesday, he told me we better start running home so I could get my chores done...hahaha...all this with this mischievous grin on his face. Sometimes he is so darn "normal" and those are the times I am truly free and filled with a great sense of peace. My son amazes me and I am so proud of him. To live in this world while he has to make so many adjustments to fit in and be accepted, while fixing his brain to work like ours instead of how he naturally is, I don't know anyone with more courage or strength than him. He is someone to look up to, to strive to be like, and yet, I hope that he feels the same about me...he is my son, indeed my sun!