Some of my longer time readers may remember what was going on in my family’s life last year around Passover. Avi had become so unstable, that we moved him to a partial hospital program which then transferred him to an inpatient facility called Summit Oaks. Avi was an inpatient there for almost a month, which included all of Passover. It was a very hard month for us because not only was our son in crisis, but our family was split apart for what is perhaps the most family based Jewish holiday. You can go back and read some of my posts from March and April of last year. This year I can report that things are much better. Avi is in a better place than he was and we are learning as a family how to cope with his autism and navigate that long and winding road that is our life.
One of the biggest problems we are now facing is that since Avi have been out of Schechter for two years, his Jewish education is next to nothing. He is very aware of this, and will sometimes say things like “I am not Jewish” or “I hate Jewish things.” Of course two minutes later he may talk about things he likes about being Jewish. I have been looking into some computer programs that we can use to try to work on his Hebrew. I would like to get him reading Hebrew well by next Passover. Avi also likes doing art projects so I am hoping to do a couple of Passover art projects with him that he can display at the seders.
So all in all, things are getting better all the time. I had not updated about Avi in a long time and I wanted to let people know how things are going. Next week I plan to post about our Passover plans, including some great recipes! Stay tuned!
As a treat, here is a photo of the three kids. We actually got them all to stand together for a photo at the photo studio we have been using. The photographer could only snap two photos, so thank God one was good!
Enjoy!
