I received a message today saying that the Jiobit is ready to be shipped, our GPS tracker for the monkey.

As most of you know, our son is a runner. Whenever he can, he will make a run for it. If he’s scared, if he’s angry, even if he’s happy, he will try to make a run for it. I’ve written about some of our experiences, and others are too painful to write. We’ve been in dire situations where we felt we had lost our monkey, and those instances are too difficult to describe.

A friend sent me a video of a mom who had a terrifying experience with her son who has autism, escaping without her knowledge. And this Jiobit is a small comfort of her son’s safety. Along with locks and alarms, this tracker helps know where her son is at all times.

And then there was Sunday, cleaning day. My husband was cleaning out the garage as I was doing laundry. The monkey was going in and out of our house. He was in our backyard, playing with his doggies and on the trampoline. We made sure the gates were closed with a lock and I constantly went out to check up on him.

One of the times the doggies were barking. He was trying to climb over our rock wall towards the arroyo. He’s too little right now. He can’t get up that high. But he kept trying. He was stuck. He couldn’t get down the wall and the doggies were barking for me to go help him down the wall.

Then we saw that he moved an outside fireplace we have, which is very heavy, towards the wall. He was using it to step on it, and try to climb the wall. He’s so clever.

And this is terrifying.

We are going to brainstorm what our next move will be. But for now, he can only be outside if one of us are with him. Because experience has shown us that in a blink of an eye, this kiddo could escape and make a run for it.

He can’t grasp the concept of danger. He doesn’t understand why we don’t let him climb over. All of this just doesn’t click. And although we keep pushing these concepts, we keep teaching him and expressing to him how he is safer on this side, it seems it’s all in vain.

And we constantly read about stories where kids with autism are lost. The majority of these stories end terribly. And this is our constant fear.

So for now, we are adding an additional line of defense and getting this tracker. We will hook it up to his belt since he doesn’t know how to take it off on his own.

This autism journey sucks sometimes. The fear keeps me up at night. How much I wish things would be different. How much I wish my son’s cognitive skills would increase and he’d stop being oblivious to danger. How many nights I fight myself in wishing he could speak, he could be a typical boy, he could have friends, we could have conversations about his day, we could do regular things like movies and playing ball. 💔

But I constantly remind myself of the blessings that I have. My son is healthy and alive. And I hold on to my blessing because I know how many other parents would want the same, to have their children with them.

And for those parents who’s kids got lost, and their ending was terrible, I think of them. I constantly pray for them. For them to find healing in such an imperfect world. For them, I will hug my kids harder tonight. I will think of their kids and stop feeling sorry for myself. I will remember to count my blessings. Because it’s easy to compare myself to those that have more, to those that have what I don’t have. That’s the easy part.

But I do have a lot.

And I’m thankful. 💙