Palmar and his Guinea Pig

As some of you know, my son Palmar has Autism. He is such an amazingly, wonderful human being - always so full of life and has so much to share with the world. I adore him with every fiber of my being.

Fortunately for our family, prior to having children, I educated myself at several Universities to work with special needs children and the elderly. I started my career with the elderly, but later switched to special needs children - specifically kids and teens with ASD.

When my husband and I were blessed with our first child, little did we know at the time that he would have Autism. I thank God everyday that I have my education and knowledge to work with him. I did have to take a few years off working with my clients, to work solely with him. Especially when it was imperative to teach him language - as he had a severe receptive and expressive speech delay. He has come such a long way from that little boy who had no form of communication!! Those not trained in the field (either professionally or through being a parent of a special needs child) have difficulty seeing Palmar's Autism when they first meet him. It takes a few visits before you realize - hey he ALWAYS talks about his Lego "products", Lego Indiana Jones and now Lego Star Wars. Note - his special interests do change, by seem to cycle over 6-8 month periods.

All this to say, when I uploaded these pics from my camera yesterday, of Palmar and his guinea pig Gisele I was in awe. They were taken after his first day at his new school. He was nervous and stressed, but as you can see from these pics, Gisele was able to bring him such joy. I have a series of pics of them playing on our front lawn together - including Gisele's great escape! But, since I've typed and typed, I'll simplify it to just these.

Thanks for reading thus far.

I hope Palmar made you smile today!

Jen

P.S. If you have any questions about Autism - feel free to ask :) It is by far one of my favourite topics!!