So Jonah is 11 now and LOVES fishing with my dad. (My dad took this picture)
Jojo loves to go out on his boat and splash my dad and be “mischievous”.
We call him Mr. Cocopugs. (If you’ve read Skippy Jon Jones, you understand the reference.)
But I get nervous.
My Dad is a survivor. He had a health scare with pancreatitis back in 2018 and nearly died.
He’s had heart issues and blood pressure issues as well. I mean… he’s 74.
But fishing on a lake…
They are by themselves and if an emergent health scare were to happen, Jonah would not have the wherewithal to contact anyone for help, even though my dad has his phone and Jonah also has a phone.
It could really be a scary situation.
I’m trying to teach Jonah how to “text” or “call” using his phone, but he basically just sees it as an extension of his tablet—something to play games on when his tablet needs to charge, and the only time he uses “texting,” it’s to send 💩 emojis to his brother who is typically sitting right next to him.
It’s becoming a bigger, scarier world out there as I’m learning to let go as a parent. Jonah is going into middle school.
He does not have a 1 on 1 aide and will be responsible to get himself from the bus to class and from one class to another, and then back on the bus… all without me. I think he’s capable of it but I don’t know for sure.
Too many “what-ifs.”
What if he gets off at the wrong bus stop? What if he gets on the wrong bus? Or MISSES his bus?
I don’t think he would ask for help. And it might be hours before I can get ahold of the right people to figure it out.
That’s the thing about this “ausome” parenthood.
99% of the time, things are fine. Things go as planned. It’s just that ONE percent that you worry about. The “one time” out of one-hundred.
Like the “one time” Jonah decided to elope under a cast members rope at Disneyland.
Or the “one time” he tried to throw his car seat through the window when I was on the freeway.
Or the “one time” a stranger brought him back after he had kicked a plank out of our enclosed back yard when he was 3.
Jonah has come so far developmentally. And the parenting me of 7 years ago would KILL to have my “problems” today.
Jonah will actually go fishing on a boat. And he loves it. Jonah is excited to go to middle school. Jonah did SO WELL in school last year, his teacher called him a “model student.” 😲
So many victories.
I could not have anticipated all that when he was diagnosed with autism as a 3 year old.
But here we are.
It’s easy to acknowledge the developmental progress and celebrate it, but its so hard to give up ANY control when you have had to be hyper-vigilant for so many years.
I feel like I am just waiting for the proverbial “other shoe to drop” because in the past, it always has.
Maybe it never will. I hope it never will.
I feel like I could eventually get to a place where I could say “there’s a 99% chance it never will.”
“…it’s just that one percent, man.”
I don’t think I will ever fully stop worrying about that “one percent.”
#ausome