One Gigantic Step Forward. . .

I don't know about the rest of you, but I think I finally hit rock bottom last week. I woke up one morning and my bank was in the middle of a squabble over its assets, the stock market was tanking faster than light speed and there was a scorpion in my bed.

No. . .I'm not referring to my husband

and

Yes. . .It bit me. . . several times.

I had no where to go but up.

I also had a family reunion to look forward to during the upcoming weekend, which required me to fly with both special needs children, one of whom has never flown before.

Long story short: They rededicated the Chapel at Franklin College in Indiana after my grandfather, who was president there back in the 50s.

I pulled out the rest of my thinning hair worrying about everything that could go wrong, since Nianya's law never fails me: If anything can go wrong in a special needs family, it will, at the worst possible moment.

Sure enough: My son had an asthma attack, then he suffered a massive nose bleed, brought on by the necessary nebulizer treatments and in-flight altitude changes and the pumpkin muffin I ate for dinner Sat. seriously disagreed with me.

SERIOUSLY!!!

Luckily, I stopped sweating the small stuff years ago and, to tell the truth, things turned out better than I could possibly have imagined.

The one thing I really stressed about was my autistic daughter's interview with the President of Franklin College, Dr. James G. Moseley, and, I have to say, I have never been more proud of her. I arranged for her to ask the president a few questions, so that she could prepare a presentation as credit for the school time, which she missed while we were traveling.

And, while my daughter has come along way, since we started social skills classes, she has never carried on a conversation with someone she just met, until now.

Since you can't hear her questions on the video, I will post them here:

1. How long have you been president of the college?

2. What do you like most about the college?

3. Do you have a soccer program?

4. Do you offer athletic scholarships?

She asked these questions without any difficulty and responded to the president's continuing conversation.

In an autistic child's world of 1 baby step forward and 3 big fat steps back, this is phenomenal. At least to me, her proud mother.

Nianya