Intro

I am honestly not sure who will read this, but I am using this blog also as therapy.  

For those who do not know me, I have two sons with different forms of autism.  

Joe is almost 18 and fairly high functioning.  He just got his driver's license and talks incessantly, but there are curious lapses in his comprehension and he is literal to the nth degree!  He is a senior in high school and he is mainstreamed for a couple of classes and in a special ed class for the remainder.  He is the darling of the special ed programs because he is so high functioning, but he is just a little shy of being able to even make real friends.  He sees almost no need for calling, texting, e-mailing or even getting together with people outside of school.

Alan is 14 and a much bigger challenge.  He is sweet and affectionate at times, violent at others and completely self absorbed at others.  He loves to climb.  He has a smattering of words (mostly nouns), some echolalia and a lot of vocalizations!!

My husband and I are both engineers by degree but I have been a stay-at-home mom since Joe was born.  At times I have really wanted to go back to work, but someone has to be available after school and since my husband's job is much more demanding, that someone has been me.

I have several hobbies and they have been my sanity saver of late.  I also like to read, but have done very little of that lately.  I will however mention it when I read a great book or see a good movie.

The reason for the title of the blog is that at a recent family gathering we were discussing trees and I mentioned that we had a Bradford Pear tree that didn't bloom for about 10 years.  At one point and time, my hubby and I used to like to joke that we had the special needs kids, the special needs cat and the special needs tree.

(Note:  The original title of the blog was "Specializing in Special Needs" but I changed it to "Life with the Spectrum")