I had a conversation about moving with Stephen today. We aren’t moving, but unbeknownst to him, I had been contemplating it recently. As we were picking his sister up from her new school we passed an apartment complex that is two blocks from the school. I asked him, “How do you think it would be to live there?”

“Why? It kind of reminds me of our house, the way it looks.” he said. As we passed by the pool I commented that it had a pool, but he was unimpressed. He then began to argue that we needed to stay where we are because we needed the space and because he likes our house.

Never mind that we now spend over an hour in the car every afternoon from the time I pick him up from school until the time she is dismissed and we get home. Never mind that he loses out on time he could be doing his homework or other things he would like to do because we are sitting in a carpool line for thirty minutes waiting for her. His argument is that he has lived in our house almost all of his life and his sister has lived in this house all of her life and we don’t need to move.

Besides, he said, he doesn’t want to live in an apartment, he likes living in a house. I asked him what he is going to do when it is time for him to move into a dorm for college. He said he didn’t know or that maybe he would live at home.

There are times and days when I feel like we have come so far, and I know that we have. Then there are days when we have conversations like these that make me wonder what characteristics are intrinsically part of Stephen? What can be taught or conditioned away and what is just a part of him down to the core of his being? What is Asperger and what is the personality and nature of Stephen and where do the two separate and where do they become one? I have read a lot about personalities and Aspergers, but there is still so much I have to learn about what it all really means. I pray God will give me the wisdom to parent Stephen the way he needs to be guided and taught according to the plan God has for his life.

May my parenting prayer always be, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10