Max the Grad- a name he gave himself

I feel like I have so much to blog about right now and I debated over lumping it all into one, but worried it would be way too long so I'll just post a couple different ones! 

I have to go back to my nephews graduation first. Many of you will think, it's just a high school graduation, what's the big deal? Well I guess the difference is, you have to know Max (I'll try to make this concise). Max will be 20 in July! 20- I can hardly believe it. He was adopted from the Liberty Godparent Home in VA and we got him 24 days after he was born. Around 4 or 5 we noticed something different about Max and he began to be evaluated for ADD, ADHD, autism etc. etc. Long story short he has never fit into any one category. The closest diagnosis is Aspergers syndrome. 

(below is Max with cousin Lauren and sister Gabby) 

Max has never been withdrawn or unsocial. He is very sensitive and loving. He's mentally much younger than he appears and is immature. The thing that saddens me the most is that Max is fully aware of his differences, fully aware of how he "should" be, aware of the things he "should" be interested in, aware of the things he likes but knows he "shouldn't" like. He sometimes asks his parents why God made him different than other kids his age, why God chose him to be "special." This breaks my heart. When he was younger he would get obsessed with certain things and for weeks, months or years that's all his mind would focus on. One time it was train tracks and the light, once it was the goose plane from the movie Fly Away Home, for a while it was the spinning wheel in a Disney movie, and for the longest time it was mermaids. I'll admit this got pretty annoying. He was constantly drawing them or pretending or something that had to do with mermaids. It's like he has a hard time differing between fantasy and reality. 

As he's gotten older and he's learned the things he "should" do he's begun to act as he know he should. He watches other boys his age and imitates what he sees. It must be frustrating for him to watch them and not understand everything. 

Anyway, there is so much more I could say about him. At his high school he's the first to play a mainstream sport. He couldn't play football so he helped as manager, then he ran cross country and played lacrosse (a club sport) this year. He didn't used to be very coordinated, but he's really come a long way! And twice he was nominated for homecoming! He doesn't drive and will most likely always live at home (now he's got his own little apartment) but I'm so proud of him. It's tough for him and there is so much he doesn't understand, so much that frustrates him for not understanding, but he's doing well. When he walked across the stage, you could tell by the look on his face that he felt he'd done something completely amazing!! And I loved seeing that!

(I HATE that these are blurry but oh well!)  

(Max with his mom and dad -my brother and sister-in-law)