In July of 2007, for my birthday, we decided to go on a camping trip to Olney, IL to see the famed white squirrels. Mark and I had seen these once before, but Steve never had. We camped at Red Hills State Park. We were letting Mark do whatever camping chores he felt up to. This was our attempt at trying to treat him like a normal teenager (whatever that is!). One of the days, Steve was off fishing and Mark & I were supposed to be getting dinner ready. We weren’t expecting a lot of fish to show up, so Mark started to prepare a fire for hamburgers. He did a good job and got it going. I then sent him off to find his Dad. A little while later, I see Mark coming back to camp covered in muck up to his butt looking something like the…Mark had managed to walk into a bog. Considering that he was covered with stinking, rotting vegetation, he was remarkably calm and handling it quite well. Being the sensitive, caring mother that I am, I immediately reached for the camera to immortalize this Kodak moment.Between my taking a picture and laughing, Mark began to get a little perturbed at Mom and started to show normal teenage attitude, which is evident in this next photo:At this point, I figured I better help him out of this predicament or risk losing my “Mother of the Year” status. I didn’t want to send him to the showers in his condition, so we went to the water pump and at least got his boots off and feet somewhat clean. (I had envisioned mud all over the shower house floor) He also washed his hands so that he could carry clean clothes and towels. Then I sent him off to the showers. While he was in the shower, I had to call his DAN! doctor and tell her of this latest adventure. She laughed too, so I don’t feel too bad. The date on the photographs is 7-28-07 which was just four days before Dr. Edelson removed Mark’s autism diagnosis.

Epilog: Mark has refused to go camping with us ever again!