James was a very happy baby.

He he was very joyful and jubila He would giggle a lot.

You could always see the light in his eyes.

He crawled early and then it was step, step, run.

He would take a couple of steps, and then after that, he just kind of ran everywhere.

But he was not a pointer.

He didn't point at all during those early years.

But if he wanted something, he would guide our hands to the or to whatever it was he wanted or he needed.

Probably the earliest sign that is that we didn't always get yes or no answers from James.

James Watt recite the books we would read, but when we would Would you like eggs or would you like rice?

We would get a yes.

I before married men notice, I kind of are just doing a littl research.

I'm on the C and seeing signs an and I was like, This may be him and we'll see how it goes.

But that expressive language piece was the first sign that we saw that something was not exactly typical with James's development.

At three years old, when we put him in preschool that first day, they told me, Oh he can't transition to music cla That was the first step that we.

Okay, well, now it's not just sp is also something else.

We started Private O.T.

Therapy and we also started the And then by the time he reached kindergarten, and that is when we reached out for the community di and we received the community diagnosis of autism.

It wasn't a complete shock, but it still took time to absorb the diagnosis.

You learned something really qui is that you have to be his advocate.

You have to be able because a lo kids can exploit and they'll explain themselves.

You had to be the one to kind of pump them up and and be a voice for what you know you can do what you see day to d You kind of have to have that kind of whole conglomerate of th to to kind of help them.

And, you know, those practitione we went to did that the speech did that, the O.T., when he transitioned the behavio The amount of information, the e the input we got to help James as he went through these therapi I mean, it just opened up anothe I still remember my mother sayin Oh, don't worry, he'll grow out of it, out of som And at the time I listened to her, but I didn't really understand what I thought she meant, Oh, it'll just go away.

But she didn't say that.

But in my mind, I think it was all a lot to proc I feel that she meant he will grow and he has.

And we all have grown and nothing has stayed static.

He will grow.

We all will grow.