Anika’s Pick of the Week
Now look, I know I often talk about the complexities of looking after a child with autism, but there’s times when actually it’s either a good time or a good few days or something that makes you stop and think “Yes! THIS is what I have been wanting!”
So I want to talk about Johnathan today and some positives that have happened this weekend. And there have been quite a few. He is learning Japanese through Duolingo and yesterday was his 500th IN A ROW that he had completed! Both Kevin and I were stunned that he has kept going so long because it’s not an easy language to learn, but he really wants to do it. Now, when we hear Japanese on the tv or whatever, mostly he can tell you what it’s saying. Personally Japanese was never a language I have ever considered learning, but he’s been faithful and kept going even when things have got tough with it.
And what has warmed my heart so intensely is that he has now opened his OWN website and told me the reason he has done so is because he has seen what I do and the courage it took and thought he could do so himself. He has made 3 comics so far, but I know he is planning to do lots of other things, too. Personally I just don’t get the humour in them, but I know there will be others that do and trust that they can discover him.
Then, for the very first time yesterday, we witnessed something that Johnathan has never been able to control before. He was playing a game on the wii with us both and was deciding if we should play a different game and he wasted 10 minutes deciding on one that both Granny AND I disagreed with because we could see that it wouldn’t be something we enjoyed. I refused to play it, but Granny started and then told him she wasn’t enjoying it and instead of arguing and insisting she did, HE STOPPED THE GAME!
Last thing is his time with me today and in the end we played Uno and something else I can’t remember the name of. These were games we KNEW both of us would enjoy from a selection of them. And he took them back to his room when I asked.