All About Hope

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.
 ― Emily Dickinson

One of the common responses I get from strangers when I have to explain that they are autistic goes something along the lines of, "They must be smart then." 

Hmm...  

Nicholas is doing very well academically. He came home with a "Math" medal a few weeks back, to add to his "Art" medal. He rarely has a wrong answer on his weekly tests, both math and spelling.  He usually gets 100% on most of his work. His reading level is phenomenal, freakishly so. He is doing okay in that regard.

Elena is Pre-Kinder, so she doesn't get tests or even much homework yet, but today I found her quizzing herself on one of the Mandarin apps I downloaded for her. It was verbal recognition of numbers from 1 through 20. She had to listen and then chose the number she heard among seven choices. She got 32 out of 35 correct. I find that very interesting.

So, yes, I suppose they are.

 
Please don't think I am bragging. I'm not. We have had some rough days the past month or so,with some really rough episodes.  As I have posted, it's not always beautiful.  I just don't want to dwell on those more difficult issues at the moment.  In this moment, I just want to celebrate our victories, and inspire a little hope.

There will be plenty of hard moments to share yet to come.  We are a family living with autism, after all, which means we are very much a work-in-progress, and all about hope.

Hope is a waking dream.
 ― Aristotle