William

I know this may sound crazy or may be oversharing. I've been sitting here trying to figure out how to write this. It's good news but to you guys it might not mean much. Too me and my family it means more than a bag of gold.

As you know, William is austic. We work with him and he's improved much over the year. He's no longer in the special needs class. He's in a regular kindergarten class --that is if he's not calling people "monky butt." He can read some. I firmly believe he has a photographic memory. But he's still has social problems, such as organized games and mingling. He has a severe case of tunnelvision. That means he focuses on what he's doing, such as playing on the PC or even staring off into space and no matter how loud you call his name or how many times you call him, he doesn't respond. Not even to loud handclaps. We have to take his face in our hand and force him to look at us and talk to him until he responds.

It is sad at times. My sister doesn't deal well with it. I have a wealth of patience. I think that's why he and I have such a tight rapport.

One of the problems many austic children face is the concept of potty training. William can 'pee' in the potty but the other part... well you get what I mean... he learned to hold it in from when he was around 2 I think. We've been battling with him fighting the bowel movement urge. It's frustrating. We put him on the potty and tell him to use it. I won't go into the details of what we go through. It's not pleasant reading.

For the last year, we've been concerned that he won't ever learn. One lady at the Austism meetings my sister goes to, told her that her son didn't learn until he was in the 5th grade--that one day he went by himself. I feared that the kids at school would figure it out--when William had messy pants and would start to tease him

I heard Mom talking to him Saturday morning about using the potty. Ben was in hearing distance. A few minutes later I heard him telling William, " it don't hurt if it's little...it hurt if its big."

Sunday Lisa called all happy. "Guess what?" She said. "Willim used the potty. Three times yesterday and today he's done it 4 times. I couldn't find him yesterday afternoon and Ben said he was on the potty. I looked in my bathroom and William was standing by the toliet, saying "Look Mommy I poo pooed in the potty."

I cried with happiness. I'm tearing up now. He caught on to the concept and I can't help but wonder if maybe his Little Brother wasn't the reason.