At the end of September 2003 Secure Care, a group home, out of Silver Spring, Maryland wanted to serve Alex for an alternative living situation. It did finally work out after so many meetings, agreeing to conditions I wanted have included, working with the KKI behavior plan, etc. After lots of hurting residents (for example: broken nose), stuff getting hurt and Alex having black eyes (for example: claiming that his light plastic fell into his eye why he jumped on the bed) he finally moved to his new residence at Secure Care in Wheaton, Maryland on March 15, 2004. That day still was unbelievable. The staff from Secure Care drove the van wildly, with Alex so hard that they tried to lose me following with the taxi, taking the wrong direction and taking chances of having a big accident. We got a little bit better relationship with them since that date. Maybe the communication is still kind of bad, which really bothers me very much, especially knowing that Alex is not able to talk for himself verbally and in writing, since his motor skills because of his autism does not permit it, but Alex understands English and German perfectly. That is the biggest problem for me to understand Why it is not possible to communicate right, on his behalf, between the system and the parents to secure anybody who serves our children, our children and us, the parents. Then we would all have a perfect match.

Alex will start at Grafton school in October 2004. We put a lot of hope into this. They will work together with the KKI behavior plan and hopefully the group home will do the same as well.

Ultimately we do want to move Alex back to California, his place of birth and childhood. We are looking for the perfect match, as much it is possible.

Finally, as I always tell Alex and he is smiling at it: Booger, nobody is perfect, everybody has some sort of a weakness. So do not feel bad, because you have a weakness. As I always reassure Alex: "Alex, Daddy loves you, you never have to worry about Daddy, I will always be there for you, as long God permits it."

Bernd Lichters