What a wonderful day!  I’m not quite sure if we could have ordered a more beautiful, crisp fall day in Seattle.  There were so many people there.  More than I had expected.  So well organized, so many amazing speakers and events. And we had a beautiful walk through UW campus, which took me back about 18 years…  Thank you all who joined us today.  What a truly uplifting experience.  I am so thoroughly touched by everyone’s presence in Team O today.  You know who you are, thank you. Also, for all of our monetary and emotional supporters, we are so blown away from your amazing support.  It was so special to have my parents there today, decked out in their Team O orange t-shirt.  So special to have them with us on this journey and celebrating who we are. I just want them to promise to not cross montlake in traffic again.  That was a scary sight!

I was thinking of my biggest take aways today. I think that the overwhelming amount of love and support from our family and friends would be number one! After that was the amount of the variety of people who autism affects. Every kind of family. Yet, there seemed to be a huge familiar sense to their families to ours. Don’t know how to put that into words. There were quite a few kids on the other end of the autism spectrum, but not as many as there were kids like O who were high functioning.  My God, I still can’t believe how many kids there were like O there.  Wow. So many similar behaviors exhibited in those kids.  They all had a similar look to him. A kinda sweet, yet kinda vacated, yet kinda overstimulated look. Kinda like they are viewing the world through different colored glasses than we all are. I kinda get it now, more than I did when I woke up this morning, that’s for sure. I noticed the kids, but I couldn’t make connections yet. Not quite ready for that. One step at a time. I saw a couple of the moms and I saw the look on their faces, just like mine…a look of’ ‘is your whole like capitivated, enticed, and turned upside down by this thing we call autism?’ After I saw that same look, I couldn’t look any of them in the eye. It was too painful. Maybe this will be a good measure of my progress.  By next year at this time, I’ll be at a different space with this all.  I’m definitely on the right path and have such an amazing support system. We are so truly blessed.

One event that I look forward to participating in is this one:

http://www.tessera.org/conference.html

It seems like a very good conference for families living with autism.  Many different subjects matters are addressed.  I’m really interested in the whole functional medicine side of this. I am curious to learn more about this from our doctor.  Also, Krista’s dad, Jim, who joined us today, has an amazing amount of knowledge on the subject.  I’m so excited to explore this. I always know that when you have faith in something and believe in it, it has more power.  I believe! I’m ready to learn!

I was so proud of O today.  He was a bit mesmerized by all of us wearing Team O shirts with his image and name on them. He was kinda a mini celebrity. It was sweet to see E running around in the middle of the UW practice field, with his cute blue cast on. Julian did a great job of being a trooper. Probably missing a soccer game and having to wake up early to go on a walk for his brother was a super priority for him.  It was really sweet last night that he and his buddies wore Team O Tshirts to their CYO dance. I like how the girls were asking, ‘what’s Team  O?’ They were clearly thinking that the t-shirts were cool.  Julian casually responded, ‘Oh, that’s my brother’.  Super cool.