Jonathan grew up so much in the past 12 months. At 15 years, he is now 5'9" and 180lbs. I feel like a tiny person next to him. He is not quite as tall as his dad yet, but hopefully he will grow a couple more inches.
Jonathan finished 9th grade with excellent
grades. He matured quite a bit this school year and became very responsible with his
academic work and grades. He wants to go to a good college and he knows that his High School Grade Point Average is key. So he worked really hard this first year. He was able to get into more advanced courses next
year as he got “A”s in many clases. And he is advancing in math by taking
Algebra II in the summer so he can take Pre-calculus in 10th grade.
He really got into music this year. He is taking private
violin classes and went to James Madison University during Spring Break for a
3-day strings camp.
He made good friends while at school and he also has a
girlfriend. She is a sweetheart and they look great together. She is teaching
him a lot about relationships and he is adjusting well.
Jonathan and I now openly talk about all kinds of topics.
When it comes to autism, we talk about what he has improved and what areas he still needs to work on. He has improved so much that it is hard to tell how
severe his autism was. He still has sensory issues when it comes to light, sounds, and touch. He asked me not to force
him to go to the movies anymore. He does not like being in a dark room full of
strangers watching a very loud movie. So I agreed. He will go when he wants to. He still has issues with
certain foods as well. And he is working hard on his empathy. He knows that
he sometimes does not have enough. With regards to his attention, he takes
medication to help him focus. The issue is not so much the lack of focus but
the amount of information around him. He has trouble filtering out noises that
are not necessary. And that distracts him or overwhelms him. But he is better at self-advocating.
He also enjoys jokes and sarcasm (sometimes
too much). And although sometimes his comments might seem inappropriate to his
sister (teenagers will always be teenagers), he rarely makes "out of place" comments. He is very polite and very sweet.
He is very smart. During parent-teacher conference, I got a lot of feedback from his teachers about how smart he is. And many even commented that not only is he smart, but he does not take lecture lightly. If something does not make sense, he will challenge the professor. That is a great quality to have nowadays :)
He still loves video games and listening to music. And although he is doing really well with abstract literature at school, he loves to read factual books. He loves to go to the theater, he loves orchestras. He enjoys museums as long as he understands what is in display. Abstract paintings are not his thing :)
We are going to have a hectic summer. I will update the blog after the summer is over.
