Day 18: The Fourth Sunday in Advent...Joy!!!!

Fourth Sunday in Advent is extra special to me because ...

It's for joy/love! (I keep getting different google answers....I give up).


My third child was baptised on the fourth Sunday in Advent.  I went to high school with the priest and all but told him he had to do it.

That day my baby's older sister couldn't go in a large crowd and wasn't with us around the font.

I say it over and over again...she hated crowds. I did anything and everything I could do to get her to handle a crowd. It wasn't always pretty-there were times it was embarrassing.


It's hard when you are the mom of the child on the spectrum.  It's quite a responsbility and undertaking.  You have to have a very thick skin. You have to have an incredible amount of patience and endurance.  You have to put a lot of intense effort into it and you won't see results overnight.  And again, everyone will be looking at you.  Well, they won't be looking as much as you feel like they will be looking, but you will see people look up every now and then. 

As the Mom, you just don't want to go anywhere. "No, we won't do story time at the library, she can't handle it.  I think  we will skip that birthday party, she can't handle it."  I didn't go to church for a year because she couldn't handle it.

Therapists and educators told me to try again, with different techniques. Slowly but surely, after three years of going to the same church and services, she can now sit with me and sing in front of the parish, just like all the other children.  I had to be willing to take a few embarrassing moments to get us to today.

Awkward...embarrassing..judgmental....these are just a few words you hear when you first start your autism journey, I think..  Or maybe anytime during your autism journey, they pop up.

I was listening to the Nativity story for the 37th time today during the Children's Pageant, and I actually thought of Joseph.

He found out his fiancee was six months pregnant by....someone else.  He was going to privately end it, but was told in a dream to raise the child as his own.  He did it.  He probably got an eyebrow raise or two, I'm not sure.  Every now and then even though Luke doesn't say it, I bet it got awkward.   Despite the circumstances, he took on the role he was given, that was pretty awesome.

Three years ago on the fourth Sunday of Advent I welcomed my third child into the house of the Lord and he is on the spectrum as well as his older sister. 

No angels came to me and told me it was going to happen, but it did, and I can handle it.

How do I know I can?

BECAUSE......Today his sister stood up with her peers and sang in the Angel Choir after she screamed and cried three years ago to not have anything to do with a crowd. 

What a day for joy/love!